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61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Observations...Not So Great Historical Analysis, October 13, 2004
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.
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103 of 120 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not for the faint of heart!, April 21, 2001
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.
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30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What does a postmodern Christian look like?, December 1, 2002
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.
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