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A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey

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A New Kind of Christian: Thoughts on Brian McClaren's Book

Brian McClaren has written a new and fascinating book entitled A New Kind of Christian. I have a deep affinity with what Brian has both attempted and accomplished here. Brian has stood upon the ramparts, seen the battle around him and is pointing to a new way of being Christian in the 21st century. He is motivated by nothing but love for Christ and his kingdom. He understands that the old wineskins have burst, and that the long-suffering Spirit of God is now pointing out a new way forward. Yet, for all of that - Brian's work is not all of one piece. It is both a thoughtful investigation of evangelicalism's failure to recognize the transition from Modernism to Post-modernism, and also an unsatisfying solution to the problems posed by that shift.

From the very beginning of the book, Brian's observations are unassailable. Post-modernism is a new era - one that has dawned with force in Western culture. Christians aboard the cultural ship of state today watch wide-eyed as the moral machinery of their worldview is getting heaved overboard - piece by piece. They find themselves on a cruise they never imagined. Brian argues effectively that the comprehensiveness of this change is frightening. And yet, like any new era, although the transition is filled with painful changes, it is also filled with unimagined opportunities.

To best make his point, Brian casts his views in the form of a fictional narrative (the lingua franca of Post-modernism!). The protagonist of the narrative is a wizened person of color, appropriately named Neo. Neo is a "new kind of Christian", stuffed full of fresh insights in how to navigate the waters of Post-modernism. In the seminal central chapters of the book, Brian has Neo lay out his central argument to a hypothetical campus Christian audience. It is an argument from history. The sum of the argument is this: just as the transition from medieval Catholicism to the Reformation created a new kind of Christian, so now in the shift from Modernism to Post Modernism we need A New Kind of Christian.

So far so good.

But if we tease apart the analogy, how far can it go? It is the aptness of Brian's analogy that is at issue here. The very real question we must ask ourselves is whether Brian is flushing out the doctrinal baby with the cultural bathwater.

Underlying Brian's argument is an unspoken assumption, namely, that every new major epoch in history is not merely evolutionary - it is revolutionary. Each new era creates by necessity a new paradigm, and that paradigm sweeps away the preceding era. Hence, he argues that just as the Reformation and scientific Modernism swept away medievalism in the 1500's , now Post-modernism is sweeping away Modernism - along with its quaint tools of analysis and logic.

After all, nothing is quite as dated as yesterday's insights. Right?

But wait a second.

Is it really true that ALL the constructs that Modernism affirms must be superceded? When Jesus said, "I am the way the truth and the life", we can be confident that his statement was both timeless and transcultural. It was not intended to be shelved when the next intellectual purge rolled through history. Jesus' truth claims, both relational and logical, made it past the shift from Pre-modernism to Modernism, at least among orthodox Modernists in the church. Likewise, when Jesus said, "I tell you that not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." - He meant it. The truth of this statement is not diminished because once upon a time Christian Modernists believed it. For Brian, then, there seems to be a curious inconsistency of indebtedness to the prior era. If the content of a former era speaks to spiritual formation, it seems, Brian adopts it. If it uses analysis and logic, he drops it. Even an Hegelian view of history grants to any new era (the synthesis) more indebtedness to its prior era (thesis) than Brian does.

We are left with an unsatisfied feeling after closing the book. We want to celebrate Brian's brilliant observations and teach them to a sleeping Modernist church - but we feel we cannot - at least not in their original form.

Why?

In sum, two problems dog Brian's view of history. First, there is a naïve optimism apparent here. Historical progression, does not necessarily lead to progress. A synthesis (even an Hegelian one!) may lead downward rather than upward. Consequently, we can't agree with Brian's inference that Postmodernism is necessarily better than Modernism because it has superceded it. Postmodernism, we would argue, is doubtless a better way to live - but just as certainly - it is a poorer way to think.

Second, liberal theologies throughout history have spent their energies dichotomizing truth. That is, they separate spiritual truth from the world of verification and analysis. The well-intentioned thinking behind this, is that this kind of surgery is necessary. It saves both the text and faith itself from methods neither was designed to withstand. The end result is that two realms of truth are created. Spiritual truth dwells in the realm of the unverifiable, while physical truth lies in the realm of verification. For those that adopt this dichotomy, matters of faith live and breathe only in the heart - and there they stay. Years ago, Francis Schaeffer called this "upper story" versus "lower story" thinking. And this, unwittingly is where we are lead by Brian's treatment of history. After reading A New Kind of Christian, we are left with the impression that the spiritual truths of Scripture and the factual/logical statements of Scripture are not woven seamlessly into a single cloth.

Let's look at two examples. We waste our time, according to Brian, if we argue against evolution. Second, we worry too much, Brian says, about using the (apparently anachronistic) tools of logic and analysis. Yet, is this split between the "Modernist" tools of logic and analysis (which, incidentally, predate Modernism) and the "spiritual" truths of Scripture really necessary? The Jesus of Scripture is both the one who wept over Jerusalem and outgunned the Pharisees in brilliant logical argumentation. The One who called all men to come to Him, is also the One who made logically exclusive truth statements 25 times in the gospel of John alone. He is the One who is both above all things (transcendent) and yet by Him all things hold together (immanent). The Jesus of Scripture, then is multifaceted. He is both perfectly and completely relational and also the Lord of all rational truth, including logic and analysis. For this reason, He can speak to both the relational Post-Modern and the analytical Modern.

Our challenge is to learn to do the same.

I have a lot of respect for Brian and this book is a rare gift. I fear that some won't hear the essential message because they'll get bogged down criticizing some of the details. I walked away from it disturbed and refreshed - disturbed because Brian challenged me to a deeper understanding of faithfulness; refreshed because he takes the first steps toward clearing a path for those willing to set aside preconceived notions about what it means to be a Christian. Pastor Dan and his mentor Neo address some of the key issues concerning how we can be faithful followers of Jesus in a world that has largely rejected institution-propped faith as out of touch with both current reality and the original message of Jesus. This book made me rethink my own journey both as a disciple and a pastor trying to navigate new terrrain. Aspects of this book are guaranteed to distress Bible worshippers, denominational loyalists, and institutional addicts. With a firm but loving challenge, McLaren dares 20th Century evangelicalism to pack up and move out of the house of its introverted individualistic salvation and onto the front porch of a 21st Century faith where it can once again be engulfed in the fresh air of a world where God is at work and people are hungry for authentic faith.

Bryan McLaren, who I'm certain is no stranger to being misunderstood, takes a great risk in "A New Kind Of Christian." He risks finding himself on the wrong side of the Christian establishment.

McLaren's attempt is to open the door of understanding that if we as the Church are going to gain an audience with younger generations (and older post-modern thinkers, as McLaren would point out), we better stop pretending to have all the answers and start being open to some questions. McLaren's premise is that we're not just talking about adding candles to existing services, we're talking about changing the way we think about the Church. McLaren doesn't advocate an addition to or subtration from the gospel. He doesn't advocate a "touchy feely" faith with no moral imperatives at all. What he asks for is an admission that we may not have cornered the market on truth and that there still may be some mystery in this ancient faith.

McLaren asks that we realize that we're fallen people in need of a savior, and that we start following Jesus and making room for others to do so as well. It's not a liberal/conservative duality any more.

McLaren is a well-spoken advocate for an emerging generation that otherwise may not ever find their way into the Church. If you radically disagree with everything McLaren says, look in your church on Sunday or Wednesday and see how many people between the age of 18 & 35(ish) are there that didn't grow up in the church.

If your experience is that Christianity is often to stale and rigid, or if you're dissatisfied with what you've found in your traditional Christian practice, this book is for you. It was a freeing perspective for me, and it helped me find my way back to Christ.

If you are growing restless with the hang-ups and idiosyncracies of conservative evangelicalism this book is for you. If you find that you are still as committed to the person of Jesus Christ as ever, but have a really hard time swallowing half the things his followers claim you'll find hope in this story. If you are wondering whether there is a third option besides close-minded conservative and wishy-washy liberal you'll find the answer here.

"A New Kind of Christian" is the first steps of author/pastor/conference speaker Brian McLaren at spelling out exactly how the postmodern revolution might substantially alter what it means to be a devoted Christ follower. Previous books both by this author and by other well known spokespeople for postmodern Christianity have really focused primarily on ministry issues and broad cultural trends. These books have dealt mainly with the question of how to minister to a postmodern culture as an outsider who is not fully immersed in it, but they have rarely asked what postmodernism looks like from the inside. In other words, what does it look like for a conservative evangelical Christian to "lose his faith" in conservative evangelicalism and undergo a personal postmodern transformation, while at the same time attempting to hold on to the core of their faith in Christ? Can it be done?

One thing I greatly appreciated about this book, and something that sets it apart from the vast majority of other books on postmodern Christianity, is that it goes beyond the trite formula "postmodernism changes the methods but not the message of Christianity". While there is a sense in which this is true (i.e. there is a core of Christian doctrine that must be preserved in order to maintain a semblance of Christian identity - probably not much more complex than the Apostles Creed), in another sense it is far to simplistic. The fact is that postmodernism will change the message as well as the methods if we are taking it seriously as a genuine worldview with valuable insights for our understanding of our faith. To put it another way, Christian theology has been developing and maturing for nearly 2000 years (despite the claims of some denominations that the perfect set of doctrines were laid down in 1530 or 1646 or 1833 or whenever), and there is no reason to think that it should stop now. As I said, there is a core that should never change, but on the other hand many doctrines currently held as sacrosanct are really artifacts of the modern era and its particular obsessions. McLaren uses "A New Kind of Christian" as a kind of case study to see how and why a postmodern evangelical might begin to question these so-called "essentials".

Some of the hang-ups that McLaren's protagonists, Pastor Dan and Neo, begin to explore include:
- How we read and understand scripture (can we stop worshiping the Bible and start worshiping the God that the Bible reveals? Could it be that the question of inerrancy really misses the whole point of scripture?)
- What the nature of sin is (can we get past the idea of absolute morals to see that right and wrong may be relative to how the principles of love and justice are applied to particular circumstances?)
- How we relate to other religions (can we stop trying telling people what's wrong with their beliefs and just start telling them what's so right about Jesus?)
- How we interact with cultures, including our own (is it possible for Christ to redeem and even reveal himself in cultures other than white American suburban culture? Is it possible that different is not always wrong?)
- Whether we can learn from Christian spiritual traditions other than our own (is liturgy always ritualism, can a postmodern faith embrace ancient expressions of worship, can a Baptist worship with an Episcopalian?)
- The nature of salvation (is the process of salvation much more mysterious and involved than simply praying a prayer to "accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour"? Could it be that God is just as concerned about redeeming the whole of creation as he is about getting individual butts into heaven? And also, perhaps it's not our job to determine who goes to heaven and who goes to hell?).

Be forewarned, if you are contented conservative evangelical you may not like this book. You may be rocked by the fact that despite how radical and "liberal" McLaren's suggestions are, they all seemed to be grounded in a genuine desire to be more faithful to the God of the Bible rather than merely a weak attempt to accomodate postmodern culture. If you are a liberal you may not like this book since no matter how many questions he raises McLaren never wavers on his commitment to the historical core of orthodox Christian belief. However, if you've been longing for a picture of how to be a committed follower of Christ without all the baggage of modern conservative Christianity, you will find hope here.

Having heard a lot about Brian McLaren it was good to be able to actually read his stuff... I was pleasantly surprised.

I agree with his diagnosis of the "modern church", although I think it reflects his own cultural experiences in America. He doesn't clearly distinguish between 'fundamentalists' (those who hold to the truth but disengage with culture) and 'evangelicals' (those who hold to truth but try to reconcile it with culture). This failure to distinguish leads him to smear everyone with the mistakes of some.

My experience of the church in America has led me to similar conclusions. There are some parts that are more thoughtful, but they are not the majority. Too much is nationalistic, proud, franchised and fraternal. [Note the shreaks of outrage and vitriol poured out by some reviewers listed here!]

The other most valuable thing about McLaren's book is his positive attitude to post-modernism. Too many critiques come from an attitude of being threatened by it and trying to tear it down. This is a waste of time, since it is like trying to stop the wind. Rather, we need to know how to set the sails to ride this breeze, just as we have those winds of change in the past.

I do disagree with McLaren's medication for the illness prescribed. I agree we need to re-engage with the Scripture to address the issues we presently face. A deeper study of the Kingdom of God proves fruitful (see N.T. Wright's stuff). I don't know if I anyone I have heard or read has defined the gospel as "salvation from hell"... at least not in the last several decades. I hope that is an example of hyperbole for McLaren. Salvation has always been understood as a past, present and future experience... and if we teach anything less we are less than biblical.

My fear is that too much of the emerging church adjustments depend on a "churched culture" - prevalent in many areas of America, but not in Australia.

Finally, I fear some emerging church people interpret this journey away from modernism as justifying the rejection of systematic Christian doctrines. McLaren himself (through his characters) defends the value of systematic theology... but ascribes it to the modernist church. What needs to be added is that we should value each of the contributions of those who have gone before us as we struggle with the issues relevant to our own time. [e.g. noone in the church struggles with Jesus divinity-humanity, once a major source of conflict within the church; now the struggle is over such things as the role of women in ministry and how to deal with sexuality issues].

Reformation and revival are the two most cherished enterprises every aspiring leader aims at when setting forth his or her vision. Those who desire to merely maintain the status quo only amount to managers who, in the end, are satisfied if nothing changes for the worse. Brian McLaren wants nothing to do with the latter and everything do with the former when he calls ordinary Christians to become "new kinds of Christians" by engaging the emerging postmodern culture we find ourselves in.

A New Kind of Christian (from now on Christian) has been one of the most popular books delineating the new postmodern church culture. It has also been a catalyst for the emergent church that inspires its parishioners to abandon their failed traditionalism and reform worship, evangelism, discipleship, leadership, and theology.

The best parts of the book are the pictures of friendship McLaren creates where spiritual connections are made between two sojourning souls: Reverend Dan Poole and science teacher/former pastor Dr. Oliver who takes the rather banal nickname, "Neo."

Christian is a very creative and well-written apology of emergent values. It takes ordinary people stuck in a wasteland of stale Christianity and revives them through a sometimes agonizing, but necessary paradigm shift.

However, the problem with the book is that it portrays this spiritual metamorphosis through the rejection of one worldview in favor for another. Basically, if you want to become a "new kind of Christian" you have to throw off your modern way of thinking and become postmodern.

McLaren's character Dan Poole is a worn out pastor who is tired from the constant criticism of his church members, the church politics, and the fighting he has to endure for every little change. The story begins with his doubts about his ministry, even his faith, and he seeks counsel from a local high school teacher, Neo, on how to get into teaching. As it turns out, Neo was once a pastor who left the ministry because he went through the very same experience Dan is going through. Neo befriends Dan and immediately diagnosis the problem. He simplistically tells Dan that he has a modern faith in a postmodern world, and pushes Dan to think differently about his social context.

Although many of his conclusions are completely overdrawn, McLaren is correct in saying the way we read the Bible is colored by our environment. However, he awkwardly states that modernism isn't necessarily evil and postmodernism, good; however, little of the book supports this. The rest of the book is biased towards postmodernism being the saving grace that will resurrect a dying faith.

Every major doctrinal problem that has perplexed Christians for the last 100 years is read through this type of "modern = bad/change for better = Christian faith + postmodern view" paradigm. You will have many more times of confusion than clarity when reading this, otherwise creative and well-written book.

Using the device of a conversation between a pastor struggling in his beliefs and a former-pastor-now-science-teacher who has embraced a postmodern viewpoint, McLaren argues that Christians should abandon traditions that he believes result from modern culture. He goes on to advocate reforming Christianity to comply with what he believes is the emerging postmodern worldview.

I believe the book is useful for pointing out ways that today's church mirrors today's society, but I believe that it falls short in its analysis and prescription. I agree with McLaren that people have historically confused tradition with abiding truth. According to the book of Genesis, God started dealing with this problem early in human history. Beginning with Abraham, Genesis shows God separating His people from the nations around them and trying to give them a unique culture and identity. This effort to distinguish between God's way and the ways of contemporary cultures - characterized by idol worship and civil government - continues throughout the Old Testament. This theme is also in the New Testament. New Testament writings show first Jesus and then His apostles warning Christians against confusing the traditions of man and the philosophies of the day with the precepts of God. McLaren does us a favor by explaining that this confusion continues, but then he commits a serious error -- he seeks to perpetuate the problem by advocating postmodern Christianity, which simply substitutes postmodern philosophies for modern philosophies. McLaren does not explain how this solves the age old problem of confusing tradition with abiding truth.

In addition to disagreeing with McLaren's conclusion, I take issue with his device. He presents his postmodern advocate, the former-pastor-now-science-teacher, as a brilliant philosopher in whose presence others are awed. Reminiscent of contemporary advertising techniques, McLaren then uses the aura of the advocate to market the postmodern view. People in the book embrace the hero's ideas because they embrace the hero's image and provide no substantive debate on his views. McLaren gives no voice to people who might disagree. He simply dismisses them through the use of labels, such as conservatives, evangelicals, and televangelists with bad hair.

If McLaren believes his views have merit and can compete in what some call the marketplace of ideas, then I would prefer that he present his basic suppositions, logic, and conclusions so that they can be compared with other ideas. It might be that McLaren would reject my last statement as being overly modern because it presupposes that analysis is useful for understanding truth. My reply would be that analysis transcends and predates the modern worldview, having its roots in Genesis 1, which introduces cause and effect and laws of science.

Wow, what a book. A fictional tale of a pastor facing burnout amidst questions about his effectiveness. He makes friends with his daughter's high school science teacher and informs him that he's planning on quitting the ministry and taking up teaching. The high school teacher helps the pastor understand that we are at a critical turning point in history, similar to the turning point that marked the modern world from the medieval world, similar to the turning point that marked the medieval world from the classical world. We stand at the brink of the postmodern world -- and everything around us is changing. The pastor and the high school teacher embark on a spiritual journey together, one that turns out to be transformative for both of them.

The book thus invites the reader into an imaginary conversation that reflects real conversations that are taking place around the country and across the globe. Something is changing, something is different . . . as Galadriel says in a voice-over at the beginning of the theatrical version of The Fellowship of the Ring, "The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air." This book invites the reader to consider the fact that we stand at a major crossroads in our collective history . . . and we have a role to play.

This is the first book in a trilogy; the next two are The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of A New Kind of Christian (which is mainly about retelling the biblical story in ways that connect with the postmodern world) and The Last Word and the Word After That: A Tale of Faith, Doubt, and a New Kind of Christianity (which is mainly a deconstruction and reconstruction of hell). In my opinion, A New Kind of Christian is the best of the three. Also, don't miss McLaren's book The Church on the Other Side, which articulates the shifting tectonic plates in more detail.

In spite of the fact that Mclaren and others keep saying that the Emergent Church can't be categorized, they have spent ample amounts of their own time trying to do just that in the books they write.

The book stakes out a lot of positions on various doctrines and goes into a lot of detail about what Mclaren thinks a new Christian should look like (hint, they will look a lot like Mclaren, if his book is any indicator).

Instead of trying to boil down the plethora of ideas dealt with in this book, I thought I would just give one insight into the direction it takes.

At first I thought Mclaren's point about evolution was simply that a real Christian can believe it. But it quickly becomes evident that Mclaren thinks real Christians SHOULD believe it. The way it is presented in the book makes his point clear. If you are adamant that evolution is not factual, you are no different than the medieval churchmen who would not accept that the Earth was not the center of the universe. This should help you understand the nature of Mclearen's philosophy and book.

The book draws you in by identifying the reader with symptoms - why isn't church working? why is Christian radio less appealing? why am I dry inside? etc.

It then leads you to a conversation with Neo, the shining authority, and pastor Dan, the neophite sponge.

I found the beginning theory of postmodernism overgeneralized, but enjoyed it when they began to deal with practical issues and how one may look at things in a different way.

I would have enjoyed the book more if it was, as advertised, more of a give-and-take exchange between two thoughtful people. Instead, I grew weary of Neo as the "postmodern answer man" and the pastor who often reveiled a predisposition to agree with him.

I think it is worth a read if you are on a quest upon the question as to why the church seems to have the right answers but is losing the debate in many circles. How do we break out of our Evangelical ghettos and be Christians on planet earth?

Nevertheless, the thoughts in the book come across as reactionary movement (postmodernism = progressive = good, modernism = closeminded Evangelicals = bad) similar to many that has come before throughout the history of the church. In twenty years, this "cutting edge" perspective will be old hat and replace by something new.