Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

The question Brian is trying to answer in this chapter is this: “Can we find a way to address human sexuality?” That’s the question of the chapter he has proposed. The real question floating through all of Brian’s rhetorical BS is this: “Is homosexual behavior normative in the Scriptures and part of the way God intended things to be at creation?”

This is an important chapter for me because I sit on the board of directors of a local LGBT/Christian bridging organization and have gay friends. I share this because what I am about to say in this post is not from an outsider who is disconnected from the issue, but one who has relationships with the community. Through my own relationships and pastoral experience I have come to approach the issue of homosexuality with a two-fold recognition: the Church must recognize both the reality and revelation; she must sit in the tension of the real life stories of those who have (and still are) waded through same-sex attraction for themselves and what God has revealed through the Holy Scriptures regarding His original intent for humanity.

In my experience, when that tension is broken, sides form at both polarities, resulting in disaster. Conservatives try and deny the reality of a whole community of stories and hold tightly to revelation. Liberals hold so tightly to reality that they neglect and outright reject what God has revealed to humanity through the Holy Scriptures regarding sexual practice and behavior in general, and homosexuality in particular. Brian falls into the later trap. While agree with his condemnation of how the more conservative Church has handled and treated the gay community—actually I would say that handling has been downright disastrous— Brian’s own position results in a disastrous handling of such an important contemporary issue.

For all of my effort at trying to take Brian and his work seriously, this chapter did it for me. Brian is one of those individuals who is able to say a whole heckofalot without saying anything at all or even addressing the real issue. He is at his best in this chapter. Instead of actually dealing with the Text, which explicitly condemns homosexual practice in several areas, he attempts to divert attention by constructing false, nonsensical arguments.

From the start he breaks out the Straw Man “fundasexuality.” Here Brian dismisses the genuine position that homosexual practice is not the way God intended things to be by reducing the conservative position to “a reactive, combative brand of religious fundamentalism that preoccupies itself with sexuality.” The term applies “to the organizing, angry, dominating fundamentalism that declares war on those who differ. Fundasexualityu is rooted not in faith, but in an orientation of fear. Its proponents fear new ideas, people who are different, criticism or rejection from their own community, and God’s violent wrath on them if they don’t fully conform to and enforce the teachings and interpretations of their popular teachers and other authority figures. It is a kind of heterophobia, the fear of people who are different.” (175)

So instead of actually dealing with the idea that homosexual practice is not the way God intended things to be, Brian over inflates the position of conservatives and reduces them to a gross caricature. Convenient but inexcusable.

Next, Brian breaks out his “Greco-Roman six-line narrative” false construct to attack the Platonic dualism of…wait for it…male and female! “Whatever we humans are, we aren’t simply metaphysical male or female souls riding around as passengers in male or female vehicles.” (176) What?! Whatever you think of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2, it is clear God created the Human in male and female forms. These are not false human, societal constructs imposed on others. God created the Human in this way to reflect His own Image and Likeness, as male and female. To Brian, however, male and female are not timeless and perfect in essence, but instead can change and evolve over time.

At this point I am positively creeped out…but I move on. He next attacks the conservative reading of the Text by insisting episodes like the Copernicus/Galileo debate make such discussions on homosexuality null and void. If the Church got astronomy so wrong, then they can certainly get sexuality wrong, too. Just as we “were pressured to label the observation of retrograde motion as a deceptive appearance—not a reality,” so too has the Church pressured the world to label the experiences of gay people a deceptive appearance, “because the reality demanded by the dominant paradigm is that they are rebellious and dangerous sinners, a twisted abomination, a deceptive moral aberrance.” (177)

Again, Brian skirts the issue of whether homosexual practice is not the way God intended things to be. He continues this skirting even in addressing the violent God image. Apparently those of us who take God’s entire self-disclosure seriously “claim that God chooses one tribe and rejects or considers inferior other classes or types of people simply for being who they are—whether they’re Gentiles, Jews, women, nonwhites, non-Christians, or gays.” (178) What Brian does here is fascinating: 1) He falsely labels our view of God as overly exclusionary, which is simply ridiculous—God welcomes all people, but on His terms not ours; 2) He changes the category of homosexuality from a moral, ethical act of rebellion against God to an ontological category of being. No where, however, does the Holy Scripture treat those who practice homosexuality as an identity of being as Gentiles or women. The category “gay” to use Brian’s own language is an ethical violation, an act of moral rebellion. It is disobedience to the way God intended things to be.

Jesus Himself makes this clear. While there are no explicit passages condemning this conduct by Jesus, implicit references do exist. In Mark 7:21-23 Jesus explains that whatever defiles a person comes from their heart, and then lists sexual immoralities (in the greek PORNEIA), adulteries, licentiousness, etc…No first century Jew could have spoken of PORNEIA without having in mind the list of forbidden sexual offenses of Lev. 18 and 20, including incest, bestiality, AND homosexual practice. Furthermore, Jesus appealed frequently to Male-Female complementarity for marriage and sexual union. In Mark 10 when talking about divorce he appeals to the Torah, to Gen 1:27 and 2:24. In Mark’s view Jesus accepted the model for marriage and sexual union presented in Gen 1-2, understanding that it was ordained by God from the beginning of Creation. He shows no awareness of any other marital or sexual pattern ordained by God or part of creation.

Brian insists differently, claiming that “Jesus’ treatment of the marginalized and stigmatized requires us to question the conventional approach. We have many examples of Jesus crossing boundaries to include outcasts and sinners and not a single example of Jesus crossing his arms and refusing to do so.” (179) While this is true to some extent, the ministry of Jesus to be that of both love AND righteousness. While Jesus’ love for the marginalized moved him to go seek the lost and poor and blind, he also insisted on internal transformation with the intent of bring them to a higher ethical standard. Especially regarding incidents of sexual conduct recorded in the Gospels, Jesus accepts in love while truthfully confronting the sinner to change by sinning no more.

Brian ends this chapter with two Red Herrings: he attempts to divert attention from our beginning question—”Is homosexual behavior normative in the Scriptures and part of the way God intended things to be at creation?”—through the Ethiopian eunuch’s conversion in Acts 8 and the sexually sinful practices of heterosexuals.

First, Brian attempts to claim the Ethiopian eunuch’s conversion episode changes the paradigm regarding homosexuality, ushering in a new acceptance of the “sexually other.” “The sign of the Kingdom of God that began with Jesus—a place at the table for outcasts and outsiders—continues in the era of the Acts of the Apostles. The poor are accepted, and the sick. Samaritans are accepted, and Gentiles, including Africans, and here, even the ‘sexually other,’ those considered ‘defective’ who will never have a place in traditional religion or in the traditional culture based on ‘traditional family.’” (183)

The problem here is that Brian attempts to simply re-categorize homosexual behavior as a state of being. The revelation we have from God in the Text, however, consistently marks it as ethically morally rebellious behavior that violates God’s original creative intent. Here Brian is simply wrong at the categorical sense, but even worse in the biblical. Here he twists the meaning of Scripture to serve his agenda of normalizing homosexual practice, holding so tightly to the reality of homosexuality and flagrantly disregarding the revelation of God.

Brian ends the chapter by diverting attention to the question he refuses to answer—”Is homosexual behavior normative in the Scriptures and part of the way God intended things to be at creation?”—to heterosexual behavior. “What we have called traditional marriage—one virgin man and one virgin woman coming together and remaining sole sexual partners for life—isn’t working as it’s supposed to for heterosexuals.” (186) Brian points to premarital sex as the norm for Christians and non-Christians, divorce rates inside and outside the Church, contraceptives, internet pornography, cultural images of bodily perfection, catholic priest abuse scandals, and evangelical abstinence pledge violations as evidence “sexually unrestrained hedonism” among heterosexuals. (187-189)

While I completely agree with the sexual problems our culture faces in general, Brian spends nearly 5 pages addressing issues which have nothing to do with the chapters main premise that insists “we must pursue a practical, down-to-earth theology and an honest, fully embodied spirituality that speaks truthfully and openly about our sexuality, in all its straight and gay complexity.” (189) For Brian, being gay is the reality, regardless of the revelation of God which says otherwise. According to the Holy Scripture, gay practice is just that, ethical moral behavior that violates God’s creation. This is the clear case in Romans 1, which actually links homosexual behavior to idolatry and condemns it as a violation of God’s creation. God does not lift up homosexual practice as another alternative to heterosexual union. God insists that it is disobedient, rebellious practice that is far outside the way He intended things to be at creation.

We began with this question at the beginning, one which we’ve carried through this chapter: “Is homosexual behavior normative in the Scriptures and part of the way God intended things to be at creation?” A better question might be this: If the event of rebellion (aka The Fall) had not occurred would homosexuality be part of our reality? From God’s divine self-disclosure there is no way you can answer that in the positive. Now because Brian believes that the Fall is actually an evolution, he would answer yes. But for those who hold to the historic Christian understanding of God’s Story—Creation, Rebellion, Rescue, Re-creation—there is no way one can see male-male and female-female sexual relations in the creation narrative.

In the end, Brian says “a new kind of Christianity must move beyond this impasse and begin to construct not just a more humane sexual ethic in particular, but a more honest and robust Christian anthropology in general.” (190) No, the Church must reorient Herself around Christ who is rescuing us from our moral rebellion and restoring us to the way we were originally intended to be at the beginning of creation, regardless of the issue. Brian is attempting  to construct human sexual ethics and anthropology outside the creative intent of the Creator. May we instead take serious the ministry of reconciliation we’ve been given by God Himself, who is making His appeal to the world to be reconciled to Himself, including every manner in which our sexuality violates God’s original intent.

Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

After setting down his alternative theological foundation, Brian launches into an exploration of “be-ology”—what it means to be as a Christian and human. (160) A natural first question after such a jarring experience with the first 5 questions is this: “What do we do about the Church?” Or more specifically: What is the Church?

Interestingly, up until this point Brian has not used the word church. I found this incredibly odd and disconcerting in a book that is supposedly exploring a new kind of Christianity. Odd that he would not use the very word Jesus Himself used to describe the group of people who are his followers, i.e. Christians; disturbing that his new theology and faith is not specifically for the Church. For someone who describes himself as “a lifelong churchgoer and a veteran pastor,” I wondered why in 160 pages (and beyond this chapter) he never utters the word. I think the reason becomes clear when we explore the answers Brian provides to his question.

He begins this section, and rightly so, describing the fear and antipathy modern culture has toward the church. The sentiments he describes reflect one which someone exclaimed in a conversation I describe in my book I had with a fellow Starbucks barista: “The church is fucked up!”¹ As Brian describes the current crisis, “When enough church leaders wake up and smell the Ben-Gay, when they realize that their faith communities are shrinking and wrinkling and stiffening, they start to ask the church questions very urgently: What are we going to do about the church?” (162)

He says that we should stop worrying about what forms the church takes (thanks you!) and start seeing “ourselves as servants of one grander mission, apostles of one greater message, seekers on one ultimate quest…What would that one mission, message, and quest be? Around what one grand endeavor can we rally? What one great danger do people need to be saved from and, more positively, what one great purpose do they need to be saved for?” (164)

In other words: Why does the church exist? According to Brian, “to form Christlike people, people of Christlike love…the formation of Christlike people of love naturally becomes the grand unifying preoccupation and mission of our churches.” (164, 165)

At one level this seems fine, but does the church in any way exist to save people as the earliest church themselves existed? Yes. According to Brian, the church exists to save people “from the great danger of wasting their lives, becoming something less than and other than they were intended to be, gaining the world but losing their soul.” (emphasis mine. 164)

In answering question 6, then, the Church must totally rethink the Her core mission and identify that mission along these terms. (165) That mission, then, is “forming people of Christlike love” (171) and “save them from…wasting their lives” (164)

That’s it folks.

It’s funny, because I thought the Church was a community of redeemed and rescued people sent on mission to reconcile the world to God through Christ.

Does not Paul explicitly explain the mission of the Church in 2 Cor. 5:11-21 when he explains the God gave “us” the community of believers the “mission of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them”? Are we not Christ’s ambassadors who have been committed the message of reconciliation: “Be reconciled to God”? Is not God making His appeal through the Church to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ? And is not the basis of that reconciliation that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”?

While I am with Brian at one level, that the mission of individual church communities is to form Christlike people. Christlike formation, however, is part of sanctification! In other words, forming Christlike people who follow the way of love happens only after that have been made new through individual “transformation moments.” What is that transformation moment? When a person choses to be “in Christ” (that incredibly key, distinctive theological rallying point for Paul throughout his letters) and the old person goes a ways and the new person begins.

For Paul humans are born “in Adam” and live out of the flesh, their sinful nature (Rom 5:12-20). They are alienated from God and His enemies and by nature people of His wrath (Col 1:21; Eph. 2:3). But “in Christ” Paul also makes clear that this condition is a past condition. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” (Col. 1:21) “Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.”

These and other pieces of the Holy Scripture make plain that there was an old condition and a new condition; a moment when someone is not a believer/follower and when someone is. Even more important there is a time when someone is not reconciled to God and a moment when a person is through Christ. To put it in more exclusionary terms: a person is part of God’s community or they are not, part of the Church or not. Brian cannot voice this, however.

All of this is incredibly important to Brian’s definition and mission of the Church, which misses a vital, necessary piece: faith in Christ. The church is NOT simply a group of people who act like Christ and follow the way of love (though this is an important, vital part of having a real, genuine faith in Christ) and saved from wasting their lives. This is the Kiwanis, a great group of people who’s current motto is “serving the children of the world.” Service and love is not distinctive to the Church nor to Jesus. You could say the same thing for the PeaceCorp, though such Imperial comparisons might draw a lightning bolt or two from Brian.

No, the Church is the community of people who have been rescued from death through the forgiveness of their sins by faithing in the final sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, who by His own blood entered the Most Holy Place once and for all, thus obtaining eternal rescue and life for those who faith in Him. Consequently, those who are saved and believe in Jesus act as the continuing presence of Christ to spread His Kingdom Reign on earth.

That’s the Church, Brian McLaren.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 2: “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich and mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions— it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

The word “us” is used 4 times along side with/in Christ 4 times. Paul is speaking to the Church, the redeemed and the rescued and the reconciled in Christ. This is the message and banner of the Church: BE RECONCILED TO GOD IN CHRIST!

This is the very message of the earliest of the Church in Acts. They didn’t preach “live like Jesus” but “believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16) In the face of Jewish persecution and Roman imprisonment they didn’t proclaim “don’t waste your life” but “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” (Acts 2) God raised Jesus from the dead, and the forgiveness of sins and freedom from sins in Christ was the consistent message of the Church, stemming from Her mission to go into all the world and make disciples of Jesus Christ. (Acts 13 and Matthew 28).

In reality, Brian’s church is not church at all, but a social club devoid of any power because it is disconnected from Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah.

This Holy Friday I am reminded how important it is for the Church to boldly, confidently shout from roof-top to roof-tops that Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again! Through the Church God is dispensing His grace and forgiveness and reconciliation and rescue from sin and death, because it is through Jesus Christ and Him alone that all of this is accomplished. The power for forgiveness and reconciliation and life transformation and individual rescue from evil, sin and death is through death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, both of which are mysteriously missing from the mission and message of Brian’s church.

1. the (un)offensive gospel of Jesus, 37.

Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

Brian’s shift in perspective on the gospel happened during a lunch conversation with a “well-known evangelical theologian” who challenged Brian’s assumptions regarding the gospel by asking the question “What we the gospel according to Jesus?” The theologian replied, “For Jesus, the gospel was very clear: The Kingdom of God is at hand.” He later urged Brian to read Paul in light of Jesus, instead of the other way around. (138)

Before this moment, Brian approached the gospel in a typical evangelical manner, one with which I am all to familiar. As he puts it, “I had always assumed the ‘kingdom of God’ meant ‘kingdom of heaven,’ which meant ‘going to heaven after you die,’ which required believing the message of Paul’s Letter of the Romans, which I understood to teach a theory of atonement called ‘penal substitution,’ which was the basis for a formula for forgiveness of original sin called ‘justification by grace through faith.’” (138)

Instead, “[an] increasing number of us, when freed from the constraints of the six-line Greco Roman narrative and the associated constitutional reading of the Bible, gain courage to speak what has become joyfully clear to us in this fresh reading of the gospels: Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion to replace first Judaism and then all other religions, whether by pen, the pulpit, the sword, or the apocalypse…Instead, he came to announce a new Kingdom, a new way of life, a new way of peace that carried good news to all people of every religion.” (139)

On the point about Jesus coming to inaugurate God’s Kingdom presence, Brian is correct: Repent for “the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near,” is the opening salvo that launched the teaching ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. “The term ‘Kingdom of God/Heaven’ signified God’s sovereign, dynamic and eschatological rule,”¹ both now and in a future epoch. Throughout three years of preaching, the message Jesus bore was eschatological in orientation; Jesus both established and anticipated the Kingdom of God. Through debates, discourses, and parables, this Nazarene teacher testified to the dawning eschatological reign of God and anticipated the eschatological “age to come” where that reign would be exhaustive and permanent.

I. Howard Marshall affirms that the Gospel writers regarded the Kingdom of Heaven as being central to the teachings of Jesus.² Through these teachings, Jesus declared that the Kingdom would come in the future, yet was also present in someway. Jesus never relegated God’s Kingdom reign simply to the future but instead explicitly announced its presence, while expecting its future; the Kingdom is present and future.³ This “already and not yet” descriptor is now a common place of scholarship, being described as “realized” and “future” eschatology.⁴

For Jesus—as well as the other disciples. including Paul—the euangelian, “good news,” gospel was intimately linked to the concept of the Kingdom of God/Heaven⁵. In fact, I much more prefer the term Reign of God, because the Greek basillea can be rendered Kingdom or Reign. What Jesus makes clear, and what Paul further develops, is that through Jesus Christ God’s sovereign, dynamic and eschatological rule was breaking into earth’s reality. It was happening “at hand,” in that moment, in our moments. The term Kingdom or Reign of God referred primarily to the sovereign activity of God as ruler and king, and only secondarily to the ream over which God ruled.⁶

David Flusser, in his book The Sage from Galilee, presents a convincing case that Jesus absolutely believed the Kingdom had come and was amongst the world. In fact, this idea would have been a fixture of rabbinical Judaism. “There should be no doubt that both for rabbinical Judaism and for Jesus the Kingdom of Heaven is a present reality.”⁷ Jesus’ main task was to be the center of a movement which realized God’s Kingdom reign among mankind, right now in this present age.⁸ “Consequently, when we talk about the [Kingdom of Heaven] we are talking about something that is actually happening here and now.”⁹ God’s Kingdom, the exercise of His kingship, and the manifestation of His sovereignty has dawn near.¹⁰ While its entire consummation awaits His return, Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven during his lifetime.¹¹ The parables themselves make this clear, beginning with an emphasis on the presence of the Kingdom and its explosive growth.

So in as much as he seeks to shift the gospel to center around God’s inbreaking rule through the Kingdom of Heaven, Brian is OK. The problem is when he divorces that kingdom and rule from Jesus Christ and Him alone. He audaciously asserts that Jesus came to announce a kingdom to all people of every religion, a kingdom that has “room for many religious traditions within it.” (139) While seemingly out of the ordinary, Brian is being incredibly consistent with his re-imagined Christian faith, on that is no longer about Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah, but simply about God, a generic pan-deity that is in no way wholly rooted in Jesus Christ. As Brian recentered the gospel around the Kingdom—a task I actually applaud at that level—he fails to root that Kingdom in Jesus Christ and exalt him as the catalyst for the Kingdom in the first place.

For Brian, the Kingdom is “about God’s will being done on earth as in heave for all people…God’s faithful solidarity with all humanity in our suffering, oppression, and evil…God’s compassion and call to be reconciled with God and with one another—before death…a summons to rethink everything and enter a life of retraining as disciples or learners of a new way of life, citizens of a new kingdom.” (139) Elsewhere he writes that Paul himself “preaches the Kingdom of God,” that Paul still carried “the same gospel message he received from Jesus Christ in a vision, the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Whether in person or by letter, he calls people everywhere to be reconciled in the Kingdom of God—reconciled to God by grace through faith, reconciled within themselves, reconciled with others whatever their class, ethnic, cultural, or religious background…This is the gospel of Jesus Christ and of his servant/apostle Paul: the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news. Be reconciled.” (157)

While I agree with all of this on the surface, here is my problem: Brian has successfully divorced the Kingdom of God from Jesus Christ! The reconciliation of which Paul proclaims happens ONLY though Jesus Christ. No one else. We are not simply called to “be reconciled.” Every person is called to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Paul explicitly teaches this in 2 Cor. 5. Romans 8 makes clear that there is no more condemnation for those who are “in Christ.” The righteousness that we all require, the righteousness of God displayed in his reign and kingdom, is given through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe in Him. (Rom. 3)

No Brian, the Kingdom does NOT make room for all faiths, because all other faiths outside of faith in Jesus Christ are false. The Holy Scriptures make clear that God’s Kingdom was inaugurated through Jesus Christ and is available to all because of His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Peter himself makes this plain in Acts 2 when he roots the eschatological expectations of the Hebrew people in Jesus Christ, declaring that all who call on His name will be saved. Peter does not say, “Repent and believe in the Kingdom of God.” Not at all! He implores his fellow Jews to “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” (Acts 2) In fact, he proclaims that, “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” (Acts 2) He is the one in whom salvation is found, “for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4)

As I have maintained in my assessment all along, for Brian it’s not really all about Jesus Christ, it’s about God, a pluralized God that accommodates to all faiths and religious systems. Not only is this incredibly clear in this section as he never roots the Kingdom in Christ alone, it is also clear in his horrible exegesis of the book of Romans. On the one hand, Brian’s methodology throughout this book is pitiful and nonsensical, because he rarely quotes primary sources to establish his claims, leading to absurd conclusions, like claiming the primary audience were fellow Jews (Most modern scholarship is unified in agreement that most of the audience are Gentiles, in addition to some Jewish converts)¹² On the other hand, his conclusions are reckless, dangerous to the Christian faith, and devastating to the gospel itself.

His conclusions are crystalized in his continued pluralization of God and Christianity itself in his analysis of Romans 3 and 5. First, Brian argues that Paul is announcing a new way forward for all: the way of faith. (148) This is mystifying because Paul actually maintains the exact opposite: faith has ALWAYS been the means through which one is made right with God! This is the entire point of chapter 4 and the example of Abraham. Ethnicity, food laws, and nationalism in no way bring salvation. Faith does and always has from the beginning. Brian seems to think otherwise because he writes, “Paul now points both Jews and Gentiles toward the way out: not a new doctrine, not a new religion, and not trying harder at the old religion either, but faith. Religious laws and practices are inherently exclusive; you’re either circumcised or not, and either you keep kosher or you don’t. But faith—having reverent confidence or dependence on God—is an option available to everyone.” (emphasis mine. 148)

But faith in what? Or better whom? This is where Brian’s color’s shine: God. For Brian Faith is the point. And actually faith in God, as a generic pan-deity. Brian completely ignores the clear teachings of Romans 3 which root that faith in Jesus Christ. Brian completely refuses to exclusivity embrace Jesus as Lord and Messiah. Furthermore, Brian implies that all of our at least the religious systems of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are, in the end, actually unified under Jesus Abraham. After butchering Romans 3, he bludgeons Romans 5. (I realize these words are dramatic, but they are appropriate for the manner in which Brian handles the Text)

Without giving any sources, Brian clams that Paul, in his discussion on Adam, implies “Our diverse religious systems…have many points of departure that separate us, but if we follow any path back to its source to the genesis of our common humanity, we come to the creation story of Adam, where we are united. After unifying us in the story of our common ancestor Adam, Paul presents Jesus as a new Adam, a second Adam, the last Adam…Adam brought death and condemnation to all humanity; Jesus now brings life and justification to all humanity. So we’re all part o the story of the original Adam, and now, of the new Adam, Jesus.”

At this point in the reading I almost put the book down and walked away. Brian’s assertion that all of our religious systems are somehow united in Adam is far from any sound, sane, serious biblical exegesis. I wrote elsewhere on Romans 5:12-21 and will summarize those thoughts here:

Interestingly, the phrase from Romans 5 that is of interest “through one man” is the first time it appears in biblical literature. In classical literature, this idea that someone suffers something because of another (for instance, “I have suffered injustices by a single wicked person…”)((Dinarchus In Demosthenem, 49:4; see also Hippocrates Epistulae)) does appear, but Paul now uses it in accordance with Adam.¹³ Like much of these intertestamental examples, Paul believes that death came as a result of Adam’s sin and now our nature is affected in the way Adam was.

Clearly during the time of Paul, there are signs influential Jewish literature and the 1st century Jewish tradition viewed Adam as a “head” of humanity and that humanity participates in the sin of Adam, enduring the same consequences: death. Paul’s notions in Romans 5:18 that Adam’s trespass results in the condemnation for all people and in v. 19 that all are made sinners through his disobedience are not entirely unique and mirror the same Jewish perspective of his day.

Regardless, though, our Christian understanding of human nature and sin flows from Jesus Christ’s and Paul’s teachings. The historical background must only enhance our understanding of the two without dictating it. Romans 5:18, 19 in particular make clear that “in Adam” we are condemned (vs. “in Christ” we receive justification and life); “in Adam” we are made sinners (vs. “in Christ” we are made righteous).

Adam acts as humanity’s representative not in a religious sense, but a rebellious one. And in the broader context which must include 5:1-11, Paul is explaining how BELIEVERS now have peace and hope with God, because of their faith in Christ blood, death, and life. This is not a passage universalism, which Brian attempts to argue. It is clear that those who “reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” are “those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness.” (Rom. 5) In other words, those who “declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,” (Rom. 10) those who are “saved” and “in Christ” (Rom 10 and And in regards to the seemingly universalistic “all” in v. 18 Jewett reveals:

In the context of Romans the concern is not so much whether salvation is universal in a theoretical sense…but whether all believers stand within its scope. This verse strong suggests that Adamic damnation has been overturned by Christ’s righteous act and that the scope of righteousness in Christ includes all believers without exception, both now and at the parousia.¹⁴

In the end, Brian continues his journey away from Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah toward a pluralized, pan-deity God. Like his friend Samir Selmanovic, Brian clearly describes the kingdom of God in terms that are utterly disconnected from Jesus Christ alone. Further, he has also joined with Samir by selecting the feature of the kingdom of God as a revelatory ground of “divine immanence,” instead of Jesus Christ alone. Selmanovic affirms this devastating indictment by claiming the Kingdom is not exclusively limited to Jesus Christ:

Many Christians believe that the Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke about is inseparable from knowing the person of Jesus. If so, the question begs to be asked: Is the Kingdom of God present in all of life, among all people, throughout history, or is the Kingdom of God limited to the historical person of Jesus and thus absent from most of life, most people, and most history? The answer to this question depends greatly on whether Christians are willing to make their religion take a backseat to something larger than itself. (It’s Really All About God. 76-77)

Like Samir, Brian believes that God is reveal to the world outside of Jesus Christ and that the gospel itself is more than Jesus. In closing this question, Brian claims that “Paul is a ‘Jesus and the Kingdom of God’ guy from first to last.” Here Brian is preaching the Kingdom of God along side Jesus, rather than Jesus Christ alone. Brian, you are wrong to do this; there is a massive difference between the Kingdom of God and Jesus vs. the Kingdom of God through Jesus.

Karl Barth makes it clear such people as Brian are “oblivious of the fact that [divine] immanence both as a whole and in its parts has Christian truth and reality only in so far as it is founded in Jesus Christ and summed up in Him, so that if, as a whole and in its parts, it is affirmed, preached and believed as a centre in itself and alongside Christ, the Church will inevitably be led back into heathendom and its worship of the elements.” (CD II,1:319). More importantly, he goes on to say that God’s Kingdom is not known at all apart from Jesus Christ, and doing otherwise establishes a Christian heresy. As he warns, “Christian heresies spring from the fact that man does not take seriously the known ground of divine immanence in Jesus Christ, so that from its revelation, instead of apprehending Jesus Christ and the totality in Him, he arbitrarily selects this or that feature and sets it up as a subordinate centre: perhaps the idea of creation…or even the kingdom of God.” (CD II,1:319)

Paul was not about Jesus and the Kingdom of God, but Jesus Christ and Him alone who inaugurated God’s reign through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is clear from his words in Philippians 3:10-11:

I want to know Christ—yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection of the dead.

This was the prayer and cry of Paul the apostle: Jesus Christ and the forgiveness, salvation, and resurrection provided through Him. Why is this also not the prayer and cry of Brian, too? At this point, it is clear they are not. How sad, indeed.

1. Caragounis, “Eschatology,” Dictionary on Jesus and the Gospels, 417.
2. I. Howard Marshall, Jesus the Saviour. Studies in New Testament Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 213.
3. McKnight, “Gospel of Matthew,” Dictionary on Jesus and the Gospels, 535.
4. Allison, “Eschatology,” Dictionary on Jesus and the Gospels, 206.
5. Matthew favors Kingdom of Heaven language, while Luke/Mark favor Kingdom of God
6. Marshall, Jesus the Saviour, 231.
7. Flusser, Sage from Galilee, 87.
8. Flusser, Sage from Galilee, 88.
9. Marshall, Jesus the Saviour, 231.
10. James Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 408.
11. Craig Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 297.
12. Jewett, Romans, 70.
13. Jewett, Romans, 373
14. Jewett, Romans, 385.

Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

It is becoming clear that for Brian, the Christian faith should not really be about Jesus Christ, but God. As one commenter said: “it really does look like [Brian] is trying to move away from a Christocentric understanding of God towards a more open/inclusive concept…When Brian speaks of ‘God,’ he isn’t speaking about the Triune God of the Bible, but some generic pan-deity. Its the least common denominator of God.”

Unfortunately, Nathan is dead on.

For Brian the biblical narrative does not climax in the redemption of humanity through Jesus Christ alone; the Text itself does not pivot around the revelation of God exclusively in Jesus Christ; the Bible does not actually reveal God to the world, but merely human conversations about their understanding of God; and Jesus Himself is not God, but is simply “the highest, deepest, and most mature view of the character of God.”

At this point, just three questions in, Brian’s theology is no where near orthodox, no where near Christian. This becomes increasingly clear when we examine his understanding of Jesus Himself. In the Jesus question, Brian asks: Who is Jesus and why is He important?

Brian begins by characterizing—or rather caricaturing—the Jesus of conservative evangelicals. He quotes one of his most “loyal and dedicated critics,” Mark Driscoll—though I really do not understand why he leaves him unnamed and unsourced. After arguing, and rightly so, that “many different saviors can be smuggled in under the name ‘Jesus’” he quotes Driscoll’s characterization, which apparently is built on the Greco-Roman six-line narrative, a constitutional reading of the Bible, and an interpretation of God based on these two sources (120):

In Revelation, Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.

On this point Brian and I agree: this characterization of Jesus is just stupid.

While this question is almost like watching Jim Carey’s and Jeff Daniels’ characters in the movie Dumb and Dumber—like the movie, by the end you have a hard time deciding who is dumber; in the end both portrayals of Jesus are unsatisfying and unpalatable—I do grant Brian’s points that we are guilty of “letting Jesus be re-imaged according to contemporary tastes” (121). Unfortunately, although he cites the white Supremacist Jesus, the prosperity-gospel get-rich-quick Jesus, colonial Jesus, male-chauvinist Jesus, and homophobic Jesus, Brian’s own biases blind him to the ways in which he and his like make Jesus in his image, such as: the Oprah Winfrie Jesus, Depok Choprah Jesus, Al Gore Jesus, and Sojo Jesus.

I would also argue that the view espoused by Driscoll is in no way mainstream and is used, yet again, by Brian as a rhetorical Straw Man. He pulls such an extreme example in order to attempt to gain easy trust from his readers that the “other sides” view of Jesus really is utterly detestable and unbelievable. This simply is not the case, however. While I am certainly no Driscoll apologist, Driscoll is being his typical over-the-top, polemical self. For Brian to trumpet his view as representative of all conservative evangelicalism is pitifully weak.

In order to refute said Straw Man, Brian launches into an explaination of the text from which he claims such a view of Jesus comes: Revelation 19:11-16. It reads as follows:

Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Over against the Driscoll and other conservative evangelical types, McLaren interprets the passage as follows (bear in mind, however, that Brian continues to remain consistent with his pet rule: “thou shalt not cite any authoritative primary or secondary sources other than my own!”) (124-124):

this image of Jesus as a conqueror reassures believers that the peaceful Jesus who entered Jerusalem on a donkey that day wasn’t actually weak and defeated; he was in fact every bit as powerful as a Caesar on a steed. His message of forgiveness and reconciliation—conveyed as a sword out of his mouth (not in his hand, as my loyal critic asserted–quite an important detail)—will in the end prove far more powerful than Caesar’s handheld sword and spears. And the blood on his robe—that’s not the blood of his enemies. It’s his own blood, because the battle hasn’t even begun yet, and Revelation has already shown us Jesus “as the lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered” (5:6). And it may also recall the blood of the peaceful martyrs (6:9-11), since in attacking them, violent forces were also attacking Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who taught them the way of peace.

In fact, rather than being violent, “Revelation actually tells us, that the humble man of peace is Lord. It confesses, in the midst of persecution and martyrdom, that the poor unarmed Galilean riding on the donkey, hailed by the poor and hopeful, is the one to trust. It invites us to pledge allegiance to the one who rules by his own example of service and suffering rather than by making examples of others.” And in response to the suffering servant’s name, “every knee will gladly bow.” (emphasis mine. 126)

While all of this sounds lovely and convincing, there is one slight problem: he is simply wrong; Brian is no exegete and he twists the text to conform to his agenda.

If Driscoll portrays Jesus as another incarnation of The Rock, McLaren portrays him as Ghandi, perfectly peaceful without a care for judgment. In so denying judgment (a theme which we will address in more detail in chapters 9 and 9), he twists and contorts the Revelation passage to mean everything else but a portrait of Judge Jesus.

In this passage we have “the most expanded description of Christ’s defeat and judgment of the ungodly forces at the end of history.”¹ The defeat of the beast, the false prophets, and their followers (who are all the ungodly) is portrayed in the climax verses in 17-21. Christ’s word of truth imaged in the sword coming out of his mouth is His weapon of judgment² Christ rides in on a while horse in promise of judging “the wicked in order to vindicate his name and his followers, and he will be ‘faithful and true’ in fulfilling his promise.”³ His eyes are “a flame of fire,” evoking His role as divine judge as is clear from 14-21 and 2:18-23.⁴ “In Ch 2. the point was that Jesus as ‘Son of Man’ always knows the spiritual condition of the ungodly who claim to be members of the covenant community, which results in their judgment…The link with the same phrase in chs. 1-2 suggests the apostate are among those judged in the present scene.”⁵ The symbolic meaning of the “unknown name” is that while Christ has not yet thoroughly revealed his promise of salvation and judgment, when he comes to carry out his vindication of his followers all His character of grace and justice will be revealed; “only his people will experience the full revelation of his grace, whereas his opponents will experience the full expression of his justice.”⁶

The final expression of his judgment is the image of Jesus’ “robe dipped in blood.” Contrary to Brian’s assertions that this blood is his or his followers who’ve been martyred, it is the blood of his enemies and those he has judged. Here John is clearly referencing Is. 63:1-3: “…your garments are red, like those of one treading the winepress…I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothes.” John is affirming “Isaiah’s prophecy of God as a warrior and identifies Christ as that divine warrior. In Isaiah the warrior judges to achieve ‘vengeance’ and ‘redemption’ on behalf of his people…the stained garments symbolize God’s attributes of justice, which he will exercise in the coming judgment.”⁷ Here in the Revelation passage in vs. 11-16, the blood symbolizes attributes that Christ Himself will exercise judgement over the wicked; it is through the judgment that they are exercised and demonstrated. In the Apocalypse “blood” can refer to the suffering of the judged or to judgment itself, the most decisive use is in 14:18-20, where “blood” is used with winepress metaphors and clearly refers to the judgment of unbelievers.⁸

I realize this was a data-dump of sorts, but the information was given to expose the lie that Brian insists Jesus will not come as judge. At the end of chapter 14 he says, “In response to the crucified one’s name—not Caesar’s or any other violent human’s—every knee will gladly bow. (emphasis mine. 126). Gladly? If only that were true! Brian falsely inserts this word in order to give the appearance that in the end all will be saved, that Jesus will not judge because everyone will gleefully bow before Jesus Christ as King and Lord. As Peter T. O’Brien states, however⁹:

It ought not to be assumed that the bending of the knee by all will be glad acknowledgement of Jesus’ lordship. Since the following words of 10c, which explain the meaning of ‘every knee’, include both good and evil beings who acknowledge Jesus’ rule rather than voluntarily confess or praise him, one ought to understand the bowing of the knee as an act of submission to one whose power they cannot resist.

Phil 2:10-11 come from Is. 45:23-24, which is also quoted in Rom. 14:11, a passage that endorses the idea that ‘we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.’¹⁰ The context of Is. 45 precisely fits the notion that all beings and powers (righteous and wicked) will bow before Jesus Christ’s authority in submission, rather than all finding salvation in the end in that bowing, which Brian suggests is the case. The verses are christological, not eschatological.¹¹

It is clear that Brian (along with many others within the emerging church conversation) cannot handle the idea of judgment, let alone a Judging Jesus. I agree that Jesus Christ did not come “merely to ‘save souls from hell’…he came to launch a new Genesis, to lead a new Exodus, and to announce, embody, and inaugurate a new kingdom of as the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6).” (135) This is not the full story, however. While Brian tries to assert the “day of the Lord” will bring liberation for the oppressed and accountability for the oppressors (135), it’s far more (and really different) than that.

“The Day of the Lord” is “the time of the decisive visitation of Yahweh, when he intervenes to punish the wicked, deliver and exalt the faithful remnant who worship him, and establish his own rule. Both judgment and salvation are especially prominent aspects.”¹² In the NT it is identified with the return of Jesus Christ who, as the Creeds assert, “comes to judge the living and the dead.” Because Jesus Christ is Lord and Messiah, and is Himself YHWH, He is the one who will intervene “to punish the wicked, deliver and exalt the faithful remnant who worship him, and establish his own rule.”

Brian cannot say this, however. He refuses. On the one hand, “Jesus serves as the Word-made-flesh revelation of God’s character,” which means He Himself is not God/YHWH. (128) (Which, again, serves his agenda to pluralize God and minimize Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah) On the other hand, “So many are like my loyal ciritic; they have so utterly bought into the six-line, black-and-white, soul-sorting heaven-or-hell Greco-Roman narrative that it has become the precritical lens through which they see everything…” (136) Part of that so-called “six-line narrative” is the reality of judgment, the reality that Jesus Christ will come as judge. While the good news of Jesus does include “a new Genesis, a new Exodus, and a new Kingdom come,” there is also separation and judgment.

But Brian, if Jesus and the gospel bring salvation to everyone who believes (Rm. 1:16), from what are people saved and what about the people who do not believe. Does not Jesus Himself explicitly explain what He Himself will do with those who stand in defiant opposition to Him and His Kingdom?

In my book, (un)offensive gospel of Jesus, I wrote about the tension of telling a better, more compelling Story that explores how Jesus and His gospel are inherently, good, and reassuring, while also being honest about “That Other Place.” Here is a portion of what I wrote:

While I think the prospect of a universal re-creation is possible, I find it hard to reconcile that idea with all the different teachings of Jesus which show a separation of people who choose belief from those who choose unbelief. Jesus Himself seems to insist that there is a separation between those who choose to entrust their stories and lives to Jesus in total commitment and those who hold onto the Way of Self while actively vandalizing shalom and rebelling against God and His Rhythm of Life.

I asked my friend Andy about his own struggle with judgment and hell. Like many of us, myself included, he has struggled with the idea that people will be judged and punished forever because of sin. The idea the some will receive eternal heavenly bliss, while others sit in hell has been a struggle for Andy. Recently, though, he’s begun to understand why judgment seems to make sense. “For the longest time both judgment and hell made me shudder, leading to a rejection of their existence. But in doing that I rejected the reality of our world. The reality is that there are consequences to our rebellion, which I think is hell. Now it makes sense that there is a hell and judgment because of that reality.”

In trying to tell a more compelling Story, Brian completely neglects and ignores the reality of judgment, which in the end decimates the gospel and changes it completely. We will explore how he does this in more detail with the next question: the gospel question.

1. Beale, Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 948.
2. Beale, Revelation, 949.
3. Beale, Revelation, 950.
4. Beale, Revelation, 951.
5. Beale, Revelation, 951.
6. Beale, Revelation, 956.
7. Beale, Revelation, 957.
8. Beale, Revelation, 959.
9. O’Brien, Philippeans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 243.
10. O’Brien, Philippeans, 243.
11. O’Brien, Philippeans, 243.
12. “The Day of the Lord,” Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), 324.

Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

So far, Brian believes both the Bible and its Story is really all about God, rather than Jesus Christ. When we come to the question of God and why is he so violent, Brian continues to fail to root God in Jesus Christ, but rather a generalized version: “the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus.” He continues perpetrating the false construct Theos over against the Hebrew God Elohim in declaring that “nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures do I find anything as horrible as Theos.” While Brian doesn’t want to excuse or defend the divine smiting, genocidal conquest, and global flooding of Elohim in the Hebrew Scriptures, those crimes are far less serious than those of the false rhetorical construct Brian calls Theos. (98-99)

While Brian’s understanding of God mirrors the evolving conception found in process theology, he goes one step further by declaring, “our ancestor’s images and understanding of God continually changed, evolved, and matured over the centuries. God, it seemed, kept initiating this evolution.” (99) Here Brian creates a quarterback sneak around the thorny prospect of God Himself evolving and instead postulates that our ancestor’s images evolved. His innovation is built upon a conception of Biblical authority in which God Himself is not directly speaking, but rather biblical writers conversing about God. In fact, Brian lists 5 specific lines of evolution supposedly found in the biblical writer’s understanding of God, all without giving any primary or secondary sourcing (100-102):

1. There is a maturing in their understanding of God’s uniqueness, moving from seeing God as one/our God among many to only one God for all.
2. There is an important shift in understanding God’s ethics, moving from seeing God as primarily concerned with religious and ceremonial fidelity to one who is passionate about social justice.
3. We see a pattern of growth in understanding God’s universality, conceiving God as tribal and only favoring “us” to viewing God as creating and loving all people, choosing one group not at the exclusion of others but for their benefit.
4. Next the biblical writers evolved in their understanding of God’s agency, moving from viewing God as distant and absent to hyperpresent.
5. Finally, the biblical writers matured in their regards to God’s character, creating images of God that range from “violent, retaliatory, given to favoritism, and careless of human life” to “loving justice, kindness, reconciliation, and peace.” According to Brian, “over time, the image of God that predominates is gentle rather than cruel, compassionate rather than violent, fair to all rather than biased toward some, forgiving rather than retaliatory.

For Brian, the biblical writers “matured” in their understanding of God. Those who would challenge this unsupported view, however, are written off as fundamentalists who “find it difficult to acknowledge this kind of progression in understanding across the centuries.” (102) As such, the God of the fundamentalists is: a competitive warrior, superficially exacting, exclusive, deterministic, and ultimately violent, “eventually destined to explode with unquenchable rage, condemnation, punishment, torture, and vengeance if you push him too far.” (102) While I role my eyes at yet ANOTHER gross caricature and straw man, I’ve come to expect such over-the-top, intellectually hollow language from Brian. But we continue…

Again, without giving any scriptural proof of his arguments, Brian asserts, “Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestor’s best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God.” By viewing the Text as a community library through which humans converse about their understanding of God—rather than the vehicle through which God Himself reveals Himself to humanity—Brian is able to attempt to get away with arguing we learn from its evolutionary process. And since we are conversational partners with the Bible—rather than relying upon the author’s originally intended words and arguments, which the historical understanding of biblical hermeneutics has assumed for generations prior to postmodernism—”we might even “participate in [that evolutionary process].” (103)

In fact, “we have no reason to believe that the process has stopped unfolding, even at this very moment as I write, as you read, and we have ever reason to believe that even now we are in a stage of understanding that is a step above where we used to be, but a step below where we could venture next.” (105) While he gives zero biblical support for this assertion, it make sense in light of his view of the Holy Scripture. Again, for Brian the Bible is not God’s self-disclosure of Himself to us, it is our written “record of a series of trade-ups, people courageously letting go of their state-of-the art understanding of God, when an even better understanding begins to emerge.” (111) Again, for Brian the Bible is not God’s self-revelation, it is purely a record of humans evolution in their understanding of God. In his own words: “the Bible is an ongoing conversation about the character of God,” rather than the revelation of God Himself. This is diametrically opposed from how the Church has viewed the revelation of God for centuries. This is simply not Christian.

From here, Brian’s innovations get far worse. Because Brian cannot handle the Holy Scriptures witness of God that is judgmental, exclusive, holy AND forgiving, universal, and gracious/loving he suggests there is a trajectory within Bible that evolves its portrait of God. “For us as Christians (suggesting he does not mean for the world/everyone)” we can discern God’s character in a mature way from the vantage point of the end of the story as seen in the light of the story of Jesus. (114)

The problem with this perspective, however (which we’ll explore in greater detail in question 3), is that for Brian Jesus Himself is not God, but only like God, “bringing us to a new evolutionary level in our understanding of God.” In Jesus we do not find God or see God, we merely “experience” Him. He quotes a Quaker scholar, Elton Trueblood, and insists his insight is the “best single reason to be identified as a believer in Jesus:” (114)

“The historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.” Brian goes on to say, “[this insight] is an unspeakably precious gift that can be offered to people of all faiths. The character of Jesus…provides humanity with a unique and indispensable guide for tracing the development of maturing images and concepts of God across human history and culture. [The character of Jesus] is the North Star…to all people, whatever their religious background. The images of God that most resemble Jesus, whether they originate in the Bible or elsewhere, are the more mature and complete images…(114)

It is clear at this point that Brian believes that Jesus is neither ontologically God nor that God is wholly and utterly revealed exclusively in Jesus Christ. If he believes it he in no way shape or form says it, which is a devastating refusal indeed. Both McLaren and Trueblood are wrong: historic orthodoxy says Jesus is God and God is Jesus. Jesus is not simply a gift to all faiths to help them better understand the character and image of God. Jesus Christ is the single Lord and Messiah that utterly desolates any and all faiths; anyone who submits to an alternative faith is called to deny it and bow before Jesus Christ as God, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus doesn’t simply give us “the highest, deepest, and most mature view of the character of the living God.” Jesus is God, words which Brian cannot bring himself to mouth. What a travesty, indeed!

One of the most telling signs of Brian’s intellectual and biblical dishonesty is the way in which he quotes two passages of Scripture then leaves out key sections. First, look at what he does with Col. 1:15-20:

He quotes the first portion “The Son is the image of the invisible God” but then leave leaves out an incredibly key description of Jesus Christ, which I find unbelievable:

“the first born over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities: all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning and the first born from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.”

He ends with 18-20, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Why oh why, Brian, would you leave out one of the key sections from one of the single greatest hymns to Christ? Do you realize that by leaving out this section you implicitly deny that Jesus Christ is the first born over all creation, that He Himself is the Creator of everything in the universe, and that as God he is head over only the Church? To this question there is only one answer: Why yes! It fits perfectly with his agenda to universalize God and divorce Him from Jesus Christ. If, as Paul writes here in Colossians, Jesus Christ is the exclusive Lord over all, then Allah is not. If Jesus Christ is exclusive Lord and Messiah, then he looses the Jewish vote, because then YHWH is also Jesus, which they deny.

Contrary to Brian’s innovations, the God presented in the entire Holy Scriptures is the same God, unevolved in both Being and human understanding. While I am as uncomfortable at times with God’s revelation in the Hebrew text as the next guy, including Brian, I am forced to wrestle with that revelation. More importantly I am forced to wrestle with the God revealed through that revelation.

You cannot simply dismiss the exclusive and “violent” (in Brian’s words) characteristics of God as unevolved human understanding. It’s there. He’s there, in the tension of the exclusion and inclusion, judgment and forgiveness, holiness and love. The God of the Bible is God Himself. Not human understanding, but God revealed to humanity, ultimately in and through Jesus Christ. Jesus is not simply an evolved understand of God. He is God. Unfortunately for Brian and his readers, he does not believe this is the case. Rather, Jesus simply reveals the character of God, which we will explore next in question 4, the Jesus question.

Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

After insisting that a new kind of Christianity demands a new reading of the biblical narrative, Brian McLaren argues for a new approach to the Bible, because as he argues, “we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess with the Bible.” (68). We are in trouble in three main ways:

1. Scientific—”Fundamentalism again and again paints itself into a corner by requiring that the Bible be treated as a divinely dictated science textbook providing us true information in all areas of life, including when and how the earth was created, what the shape of the earth is, what revolves around what in space, and so on…This approach has set up Christians on the wrong side of truth again and again, from Galileo’s time, to Darwin’s, to our own.” (68)
2. Ethical—”The Bible, when taken as an ethical rule book, offer us no clear categories for many of our most significant and vexing socioethical quandaries. We find no explicit mention, for example, of abortion…human rights…sexual orientation…global climate change…genetic engineering (among others). If we must steer our ship by wrestling biblical passages to bear on these issues in a simple “though shalt not,” way we will find ourselves stuck precisely where we are stuck now, and largely paralyzed in solving major life-and-death-of-the-planet issues and largely obsesses with narrow hot-button feuds that feuds…” (69)
3. Peace—”Many of us are afraid that the Bible is becoming a box cutter or a suitcase bomb in the hands of too many preachers, pastors, priests, and others. When careless preachers use the Bible as a club or sword to dominate or wound, they discredit the Bible in a way that no skeptic can.” He uses the the examples of pastors pulling verses to justify the preemptive strike against Iraq, declares you could “probably turn on a Christian radio broadcast today and hear a preacher deny human rights to Palestinians on…’biblical grounds,’” and trots out the example of “how the Bible was used by the defenders of slavery in contrast with the promoters of abolition” in Western Europe in general and American in particular.” (69-70)

In light of this “triplet of troubles” “we must find new approaches to our sacred texts (Interestingly, he doesn’t particularly identify the Holy Scriptures here, but generalizes it to, perhaps, include other “sacred texts,” like the Koran?)…” (70) In the end, “this habitual, conventional way of reading and interpreting the Bible that allowed slavery, anti-semetism, apartheid, chauvinism, environmental plundering, prejudice against gay people, and other injustices to be legitimized and defended for so long…we still use the Bible in the same way to defend any number of other things that have not yet been fully discredited, but soon may be.” (76)

And what exactly is “this habitual, conventional way of reading and interpreting the Bible”? Reading the Bible as a legal constitution. This constitutional approach, used “especially in conservative settings,” is defined as: “looking for precedents in past cases of interpretation, sometimes favoring older interpretations as precedents;” arguing “framers’ intent” (or author’s intent in biblical hermeneutics terminology); approaching the biblical text “as if it were an annotated code.” (78-79)

Instead, we need to see the Bible as it actually is: “a portable library of poems, prophets, histories, fables and parables, letters, sage sayings, quarrels, and so on…it’s the library of a culture and community—the culture and community of people who trace their history back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The biblical library is a carefully selected group of documents of paramount importance for people who want to understand and belong to the community of people who seek God and, in particular, the God of Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and Jesus.” (emphasis mine. 79, 81)

At this point, I want to ask Brian these questions:

1. Is the Holy Scripture authoritative for defining how we are to relate to God and others?
2. Is the Holy Scripture God’s Textual act of Divine self-disclosure?
3. Are there other texts through which God reveals Himself?
4. Is the Holy Scripture Christocentric? Meaning: Does not the whole of the Holy Scripture center exclusively on Jesus Christ, rather than simply “the God of Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and Jesus.”

Let’s see how Brian answers these questions:

“The biblical library has a unique role in the life of the community of faith, resourcing, challenging, and guiding the community of faith in ways that no other texts can. It is uniquely valuable to teach, reprove, correct, train, and equip us for love and good works, as the apostle Paul says. It provides a kind of encouragement that is central and unique to the community of Christian faith.” (emphasis mine. 83)

He then goes on to acknowledge that Plato, Muhammed, and the Buddah “all say interesting and brilliant and inspiring things,” and he can “learn a lot from their words,” as much as from Clement, Luther, Calvin, Borg and Crossan. “But to say that God inspired the Bible is to say that, for the community of people who seek to be part of the tradition of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, Moses, Ruth, David, Amos, John, Mary, and Jesus, the Bible has a unique and unparalleled role that none of these other voices can claim.” (83)

OK, Brian, but why does it simply have a unique role? And why does it have a central and unique role only for the Christian faith? Why isn’t the Holy Scripture the sole textual authority for the entire world?

Brian cannot (bring himself to) say that the Bible is inspired by God and is the sole textual point of God’s divine self-disclosure, only that it has “a unique and unparalleled role.” He also cannot say the Bible is for the entire world, but only for the “community of Christian faith.” Somehow, God “breaths life into the Bible, and through it into the ‘community of faith’ and its members, and into my soul,” without even explaining what this even means. While it sounds nice, it makes no sense. How does God do this? What is he “breathing?” Is He Himself even saying anything? This leads to a more important, fundamental question: Is God Himself revealed through the Bible itself?

Unfortunately, according to Brian, no. “This inspired library preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed.” (83) The Living God then is not reveal through the Holy Scripture, but simply the “ongoing vigorous conversation” and “vital civl argument.” He says this very thing when he argues against reading the Bible in away that says “God’s message is supposed to be found in the plain words of the biblical text:”

“revelation occurs not in the words and statements of individuals, but in the conversation among individuals and God. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities of people who share the same essential questions across generations. Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements.” (91-92)

Pay attention to what Brian has said here: McLaren believes revelation is about human conversation about God, rather than God Himself revealing Himself to humanity. He says that in the Hebrew Scriptures “we have so many voices, and voices of different kinds…in the Christian Scriptures we have several gospels…and we have many other voices as well.” In an effort to push this conversational framing of the Text, he uses the Book of Job as a rhetorical device, wondering aloud, “Could Job be a fractal of the whole Bible, then: many voices arguing, debating, stating, and counterstating, asking and answering?” He goes on to say, “Could it be that God’s Word intends not to give us easy answers and shortcuts to confidence and authority, but rather to reduce us, again and again, to a posture of wonder, humility, rebuke, and smallness in the face of the unknown?” (93)

While the Holy Scripture certainly does not give easy answers and does leave us in speechless wonder, Brian completely dismisses how the Church has views God’s revelation for centuries: God is not unknown and has deliberately disclosed Himself to humanity; God Himself is deliberately speaking to us through the Text. The Bible is not simply a conversation among many different voices, but one Voice speaking to us in a variety of ways. I do agree with Brian that the Bible is unlike any other book: it is a very diverse body of genres and voices through which God is speaking. Far from being simply a “record of a vibrant conversation, and a stimulus to ongoing conversation,” however, it contains the voice of God itself as He has chosen to speak to us about Himself.

Though it will become far more apparent in the next question—at which point Brian blatantly says that “the Bible is an ongoing conversation about the character of God“—let’s be clear: from the looks of it, according to Brian the Bible neither contains the real voice of God, but rather the voices of individuals speaking about God, nor is it a real, single authority for understanding God properly, since it is merely an evolving conversation about Him in which varying people give varying perspectives.

The greatest travesty of Brian’s perspective is this line on page 81:

It’s the library of a culture and community—the culture and community of people who trace their history back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The biblical library is a carefully selected group of documents of paramount importance for people who want to understand and belong to the community of people who seek God and, in particular, the God of Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and Jesus.

Here Brian reduces the Christian faith to one among three who, “trace their history back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Furthermore, somehow Brian reduces the Church simply to a pluralistic “community of people who seek God, in particular, the God of Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and Jesus.” The problem with his logic is that for Brian the Bible is really all about God, not Jesus Christ.

Like the biblical narrative itself, which he fails to exclusively root in Jesus Christ, Brian refuses to root the Bible’s self-disclosure of God in Him, too. According to Brian, the “community of people who seek God” in the Bible apparently are not seeking it in Jesus Christ alone, but rather simply the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This allows Brian to include Jews and Muslims in his “community of people” tent of those seeking God.

Unfortunately for Brian, the Christian faith has insisted for generations that the God found in the biblical text is not simply “the God of Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and Jesus.” The God found in the Bible is Jesus; Jesus Christ is the God of the Holy Scripture around whom the Text itself pivots. And unless someone acknowledges this, they really are not seeking after the one true God.

The one true God has supremely revealed Himself in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, neither the knowledge nor revelation of God can be divorced from the knowledge and revelation of Jesus Christ. Indeed knowledge of Jesus Christ is the ultimate, only access to the knowledge and revelation of God. Why doesn’t Brian acknowledge this? Why does he divorce the authority of the Text and revelation of God found in it from Jesus Christ Himself? Why does he not simply say, “The Bible reveals God, in the person of Jesus Christ”?

So far, it is apparent that for Brian the Story and Revelation of God is not really about Jesus Christ, but about a generic, vanilla World-Spirit god. This will become far more apparent when Brian discusses God Himself in question 3, The God Question. Using the question, “Is God violent?” McLaren reveals his belief that the Bible progressively reveals an evolved understanding of God, rather than God Himself. This view ultimately cashes out in the person of Jesus, who is simply an evolved likeness and revelation of the character of God, rather than God Himself.

Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

Brian’s first whipping boy is what he terms the “Greco-Roman six-line narrative.” Many of us are familiar with it’s story:

In Brian’s words, “To be a Christian has required one to believe that the Bible presents one very specific story line, a story line by which we assess all of history, all of human experience, all of our own experience.” (33) His quest for a new kind of Christianity begins by questioning this story line. How does he do this? By claiming that “it’s the shape of the Greek philosophical narrative that Plato taught!” (37)

In two conversations with two separate friends, “a suspicion began to grow in [him]” and he began to “realize it was also the social and political narrative of the Roman Empire.” According to Brian, the historical understanding of God’s Story of Rescue in terms of Creation, Rebellion, Rescue, Re-Creation (or Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation as it’s also known; this is my own re-framing) is Platonic.

According to Brian, this narrative framing mirrors the story line of Platonism: we start with a “Platonic Ideal,” which is a perfect Platonic paradise; from there we fall into darkness, which mirrors Plato’s famous parable, the Cave of Illusion; now our being has been transformed and the Greek blood-god Theos is furious because his perfect world is “spoiled and now decaying;” salvation occurs when the god of this Greco-Roman version of the biblical story finds a way to forgive this fallen, pathetic, detestable creation through justification, atonement, and redemption; those who are forgiven/saved are returned to an “eternal state in which they will be safe forever;” those who are not “are banished to hell-the Greek Hades” and the tainted universe is destroyed. (41-44)

On the one hand Brian’s explanation is barely coherent and fraught with inconsistencies (He also brings in Aristotle and links him to Plato to explain this Greco-Roman narrative. I’m pretty sure that Aristotle would take issue with being so tightly bound to Plato as an extension rather than a replacement!) On the other hand, from the start you are required to agree with this framing, a framing Brian supports with ZERO scholarship and ZERO supporting voices. In fact, another blogger more familiar with the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle insists Brian’s reading of Plato is naive and just plain bad. “McLaren does nobody any favors (especially those of us who love teaching Plato) by inventing a syncretic thought-system that simply does not exist in classical texts.” His imposition of Plato onto the historic orthodox telling God’s Story of Rescue is at best inventive nonsense and worst a bald-face lie. Furthermore, not only is his foundational argument inventive and disingenuous, it is so innovative that he could find no one to support his conclusions! From an argumentative standpoint, it’s not looking too good for Brian. The foundational argument on which the rest of the book hinges (Creation, Rebellion, Rescue, Re-Creation is not the true shape of the biblical narrative [35]) is indefensible.

Brian ends his explanation of the “Greco-Roman six-line narrative” by claiming, “This is—more or less, and put baldly—the “good news” taught by much of the Western Christian religion…Its true defenders will quarrel with various details here or there, because their version, no doubt, tries to avoid being this starkly dismal.” (44) He claims “this version…keeps popping up in church history.” I’d really like to know where, Brian? I want everyone to see what he has done here: Brian has created a gross, unfair, patently false caricature of both the Story and the God behind the Story. Theos IS NOT REAL. It is a rhetorical device designed to get you to say, “Yeah, that’s a disgusting way to tell the Story. I don’t want to serve that God!” The Straw Man Brian constructs here finds no representation within evangelicalism by neither scholars nor practitioners. Romans Road, 4 Spiritual Laws, Evangelism Explosion, (models which I myself take great issue with) and the Kyperian narrative itself are not this gross caricature.

Instead, what we find is one consistent Story that God has been telling from the beginning:

First, Creation is never presented biblically or theologically as a “perfect state.” It was “good” and the way God intended it to be, which in no way discounts forward motion and progress. In fact, we understand that from the beginning God was taking Creation “somewhere” into the future, where he would ultimately make his dwelling on earth. Furthermore, Rick Warren is biblically and theologically WRONG to suggest that “life on earth is a temporary assignment” and simply “dress rehearsal before the end.”¹ The world really is our home; we are earthlings.

Second, “the Fall,” or as I like to frame it Rebellion, is NOT an ontological change in being as Brian and others wrongly suggest, but an ethical shift. We understand the Story to maintain that we are still Images of God (we do not share the sentiments of the 16th century Lutheran, Matthias Flacius, who argued our sin changes us into an Image of Satan!), but we are ethically morally rebellious. The shift is ethical, not ontological, but with ontological consequences: death and disease (and perhaps others at the DNA level); the change is in our will, not being, with massive “being” repercussions. In the words of Cornelius Plantinga, we and the whole of creation are “not the way it’s supposed it be.” How on earth could you argue otherwise?

But as the Story maintains, we are not without hope. Rescue came when the One True God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. The Father sent the Son to live as a human was intended to live when Adam did not through his sinless life, provide the final sacrifice by entering into the Most Holy place by his own blood as a substitute offering in death, and defeat the dark, evil powers through his triumphal bodily resurrection where he has ascended to the right hand of the Father.

Through Jesus Christ and the church (who is the continuing presence of Christ on earth), by the Holy Spirit, God is progressively re-creating the world to the way he originally intended it to be at the beginning. This Story is not Platonic. It is Scripture. Brian tells a very different story, however.

According to Brian, Scene 1 opens with God telling Adam and Eve that they are free with one exception: “If they eat one specific tree, on the day they eat they will die. Notice, the text does not say they will be condemned to hell, be ‘spiritually separated from God,’ be pronounced ‘fallen’ or ‘condemned,’ or be tainted with something called ‘original sin’ that will be passed to their children. There is only one consequence: they will die…not eventually die, but on the day they eat.” (49-50)

Notice what Brian does here: 1) he rejects the historic doctrine of original sin, which places him outside the historic Rule of Faith on this point; 2) he completely misrepresents and misinterprets the text in order to call into question the foundation of the “Greco-Roman six-line narrative,” which rests on the presupposition that human nature is ethically morally rebellious.

Either Brian is ignorant or patently lying when he says the text says ON THAT DAY THEY WOULD DIE. Mainstream commentators agree that the narrative “is concerned not with immediate execution but with ultimate death.”² Robert Alter—Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkley—in his masterful translation of The Five Books of Moses translates 2:17 thus: “But from the tree of knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat , for on the day you eat from it, you are doomed to die.”³. Alter makes it clear that the verbal construction is consistent with other patterns in the Bible used for issuing of death sentences for the future. Brian’s explanation of Genesis 2 is just plain false.

In scene 2, Adam and Eve abuse their freedom and eat of the one forbidden tree in Genesis 3. According to Brian, this is not a Fall in the orthodox sense, it is a “classic coming-of-age story,” (51) in which “God pushes them out of the nest.” Rather than a fall, it is “the first stage of ascent as human beings progress from the life of hunter-gatherers to the life of agriculturalists and beyond.” Instead of punishing them, God “makes clothes for them, mercifully shielding them from their shame at being naked in one another’s presence.” (50)

Rather than being a Christian reading, Brian is actually making a purely Kantian reading of Genesis 3. Similarly to Brian who paints Gen. 3 in a good light, Kant praises Adam for his willingness to make his own moral judgements, rather than blindly follow the instructions of another, even from God⁴ In “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” Kant makes clear the Gen. 3 account is, “transition from an uncultured, merely animal condition to the state of humanity, from bondage to instinct to rational control—in a word, from tutelage of nature to state of freedom.”⁵. Though Brian doesn’t celebrate their rebellion against God, it is clear it is not an episode of mourning. Instead he absolutely mirrors J. Baker’s declaration: “What happens there is not a ‘Fall,’ but an awakening.”⁶ In fact, Brian doesn’t even frame this and other acts of rebellion as “against God.”

What Brian does not explain here, is that both Adam and Eve aspired to be “as gods,” which was the temptation from the Serpent in the garden to begin with. The ability to “become as gods, knowing good and evil,” was “as lusts to the eyes.”⁷ The narrative is not about fruit, it’s about power; the story isn’t about a tree, it’s about autonomy, self rule. The promise of the Serpent was “unlimited privileges, unheard-of-acquisitions and gifts⁸ Ultimately, though, they lost “unsullied fellowship with God.”⁹ God is not a mother birdie sending Mama Eve and Papa Adam off to better adventures outside the “nest” of the Garden. No, this is expulsion! They aren’t gently “pushed” out of the Garden; they are thrown out! “Sin separates from God. Intimacy with God is replaced with alienation from God.” This is not the story told by Brian, however.

“Since Adam was the only human being who could have resisted temptation, his failure implies that humanity cannot keep covenant with God…humanity at its best rebels in the prefect environment.”¹⁰ And rather than celebrating this rebellion, the narrative makes it clear this is a bad thing. A very bad thing indeed. Shame, naked, afraid, expulsion are all terms given to heighten the sense of rupture. Something has ‘happened’ to humanity in Adam’s and Eve’s desire to “become as gods,” not least of which are physical death and separation from God. Romans 5 picks up this theme, a conversation I have already had here. Romans 5:18, 19 in particular make clear that “in Adam” we are condemned (vs. “in Christ” we receive justification and life); “in Adam” we are made sinners (vs. “in Christ” we are made righteous).

As I wrote elsewhere, “Ethically we are morally rebellious because of the ethical violation of Adam: disobeying God; ontologically we receive the consequences for Adam’s disobedience and our sinful nature: condemnation and death. Theologically this cashes out as “original sin,” though the “total depravity” variation is not completely necessary. You can hold a lighter view of depravity (i.e. semi-Augustinian or even semi-Pelagian) and still hold to the orthodox view of original sin. You cannot deny original sin, however, and still be orthodox. That doesn’t make sense with Paul and that’s simply not Christian.”

Next, scenes 3-4 represent the struggles between two forms of life outside the garden: Abel’s simpler/nomadic herder life (which seems more acceptable to God because perhaps nomadic life is not as morally compromised as settled farm life [whatever that means...]) and Cain’s agriculturalist life as a settled farmer, which leads to murder. (51) According to Brian, this represents a descent from primal innocence as much as it represents an ascent.

In scenes 5-6, humanity is distanced from both garden and farm and now congregate in cities. Humanity has become “urbanized,” which fosters systemic injustices. God responds by destroying the earth, because He refuses to let evil go unpunished. He uses Noah in an act of surprising mercy and later repents for destroying the earth. Post-flood, humanity continues its paradoxical ascent-descent by building a massive tower and becoming “empire builders.” Apparently all of this human ingenuity and technological advancement is itself a bad thing, rather than the ethical manner in which said humans use that technology to try and do what Mama Eve and Papa Adam had tried at the beginning: “to become as gods.”

After 11 chapters “this repeated pattern of human stupidity and divine fidelity opens into something new: God calls Abraham and Sarah and imbues them with a new identity as the father and mother of a nation who will be blessed in order to bring blessing to all nations.” (53) First, I would argue that “human stupidity” and “divine fidelity” are misnomers: it isn’t human “stupidity” it’s about individual human sin and rebellion against God in an attempt to “become as gods;” Second, while the Genesis narrative and, more broadly, the Israelites story does revolved around chapter 12 with the calling of Abraham, it seems as though Brian is attempting to pivot God’s entire story around Abraham in order to reduce the Christian faith to be one among three options of reaching God. As I previously mentioned, Brian sits on the Board of Directors for a nonprofit called Abrahamic Alliance, an organization that “exists to unite faithful Jews, Christians, and Muslims who are deeply committed to loving the God of our father Abraham,” “where children of Abraham…enjoy peaceful coexistence and mutual appreciation of our faith is deepened by meaningful encounters with one another…” This association is incredibly key.

This is important for this entire blog post series because I maintain for Brian it really isn’t about Jesus Christ, it’s about God, which is very different than the biblical narrative and historic Rule of Faith. Amazingly, Brian’s retelling of the biblical narrative is Christless. Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah is missing. He exclaims, “you cannot serve two masters, Theos and Elohim, the god of the Greco-Roman philosophers and Caesars and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…” (65) On the one hand, his Theos rhetorical device is patently false and intentionally misleading. On the other hand, the god of Muslims is not the same as the One True God incarnated in Jesus Christ. I would even suggest that unless Jews serve Yahshua Mashiach (Jesus Christ) as Lord and Messiah they aren’t really worshiping the same God, because the Holy Scriptures equate Jesus Christ with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will assert Karl Barth, yet again: “God is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is God…We cannot be sufficiently eager to insist, nor can it be sufficiently emphasized in the Church and through the Church in the world, that we know God in Jesus Christ alone, and that in Jesus Christ we know the one God.”

In the end, for Brian “if we were looking for some kind of short hand for this narrative…we would refer to the peaceable kingdom of God, the marriage of God and creation, the family of God, or the embodiment of God…the story of the peace-making kingdom ignites our faith with a sacred vision of the future, a vision of hope, a vision of love.” (64-65) While I agree with Brian that God is establishing His Kingdom here on earth now, He will also do so with the future. In pushing his new approach, the peacable-kingdom, this narrative “becomes the desired future toward which the people of God orient themselves, the constellation they set course and sail by, the dream or goal or vision or imagination they pursue.” (63) Unfortunately for Brian’s story, Jesus Christ is not the catalyst for this Kingdom, Jesus Christ is not it’s center, and the “people of God” are not distinguished as the Church of Jesus Christ. (in fact, the word “church” appears only in one chapter…which I find odd and disturbing.) Because for Brian, it’s really all about god, not Jesus Christ.

Now that we’ve explored how Brian tells God’s Story of Rescue, Wednesday we will explore how Brian views the Holy Scriptures. Stay tuned.

1. Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life, 36, 47.
2. Oswalt, Genesis 1-17, 172.
3. Alter, Five Books of Moses, 21.
4. Oswald, Genesis, 211.
5. Kant, Kant on History, 60
6. J. Baker, “The Myth of Man’s ‘Fall’—A Reappraisal,” ExpTime 92 (1980/1981) 235-37, p. 236.
7. Alter, Five Books of Moses, 24.
8. Oswald, Genesis, 208.
9. Oswald, Genesis, 208.
10. Waltke, Genesis, 100.

Post Series
0: Intro
1: Narrative Question
2: Authority Question
3: God Question
4: Jesus Question
5: Gospel Question
Theological Foundation Recap
6: Church Question
7: Sex Question
8: Future Question
9: Pluralism Question
10: What-Do-We-Do-Now Question
11: Final Thoughts

This is my second attempt at writing the intro to my introduction to the series on Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity. My first was heavy on the snicker and snark with little sensitivity to the man behind the curtain. I’ve struggled with how to introduce this series because of how much I’ve struggled with the book. Yes, I’ve struggled with the ideas and theology and writing itself. For me it’s more than that:

I don’t get it.

I don’t understand what happened. How did Brian get from THERE <——-to——-> HERE? The Brian of ANKofXianity doesn’t seem like the same guy who launched this whole Emergent journey nearly a decade ago. The man behind this book just doesn’t seem like the guy I encountered in his first-ever book, The Church on the Other Side, the man who was as generous in his orthodoxy as he was genuinely appreciative toward orthodoxy itself, and the wandering, yet tethered, theo-explorer I found in his mythic characters Neo or Pastor Dan.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t know Brian McLaren. I’ve had a few encounters and conversations with him, like at some sessions at the National Pastors Conference a year ago. But I also attended his church for half a year and was involved in a social justice project he helped coordinate while in Washington D.C. Here’s the thing: I leapt into his church and into this social activism because I trusted Brian and his voice. While wading through my own spiritual deconstruction process five years ago, I gravitated to the only person I knew who was asking the questions I was asking, but seemed tethered to the “pieces” that still mattered to the Christian faith. I respected him for his prophetic voice and when people bleated and bellowed on and on about his so-called “heresy,” I defended. I went to the mat with my boss in ministry, skeptical friends, and mortified parents.

So when I ask, “what happened?” I ask the question as one who was, to some extent, personally invested. Sure I man-crushed on the guy a bit to hard, but I sought his wisdom and insight and church community to help me navigate the terra nova at the intersection of postmodernity and Christian spirituality. I saw in Brian a desire to peal away the crap the USAmerican Church attached to Jesus and the Cross, while not cashing in the farm completely.

That, however, has changed.

While I know I have shifted in my own spiritual/theological journey, it is clear Brian has progressively shifted, too. I highly doubt Brian would have guessed 28 years ago at the beginning of his pastoral Christian ministry that he would push a new kind of Christianity that scantily reflects the Holy Scriptures and subverts the historical Rule of Faith that believes Jesus Christ is exclusively Lord and Messiah. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case.

Though Brian wonders aloud “How did a mild-manner guy like me get into so much trouble” (2) and insists he “never planned to become a ‘controversial religious leader,’” (3) he is the one to blame. He is the one who has shifted and engaged in this current theological endeavor. This theological enterprise is not accidentally garnering unwarranted criticism because there is nothing accidental about Brian’s theological endeavor: Brian’s book is a bold, intentional rhetorical tour de force that strikes at the very heart of the historic Christian faith, parodying the faith that both the Communion of Saints and the Spirit of God has given the 21st Century Church;  his work pushes a version of Christianity that falls far outside the witness of the Holy Scriptures to Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Savior.

I realize these are bold, strong claims, ones I will exegetically and theologically unpack over the course of the next month in 10 posts that address the 10 questions Brian himself believes “have a special power to stimulate the conversations we (Christians? People of faith?) need to have.” (18) Many of us are tired of people being hoodwinked by the “different” theology being pushed and the hoodwinkers getting a pass. That’s why I want to seriously engage McLaren’s theological offering.

Before then, however, here are 10 observations I have over 200 pages into the book:

1. His portrayal of conservative evangelicalism is a gross caricature and unworthy of any serious thinker. He deliberately exaggerates and distorts the theology and exegesis of those with whom he disagrees in order to create an easy rhetorical jab called a Straw Man. As you probably know, a Straw Man is a logical fallacy that intentionally misrepresents an opponents position in order to easily strike it down in order to give the illusion that said opponent is defeated. Such rhetorical devices litter this book, making it an unworthy conversational partner.
2. Brian makes grand, sweeping claims with skimpy-to-no scholarly support. Perhaps this is why he insists over and over and over again that he had no formal seminary training? This is one of the most frustrating aspects of a book that asks us to take it seriously. For instance, his Greco-Roman narrative claims came to him not through research and scholarly reading, but through two conversations with two separate friends. (37)
3. Brian’s interaction with the Holy Scriptures has no exegetical methodology. Instead he simply asks the reader to take his word for it. For example, his exegesis of John 14:6 is so innovative that he could find no commentary support for it. His presupposition re: the audience of The Book of Romans is just flat out wrong; the consensus among commentators is that Paul wrote the letter to converted Gentile Christians, not Jews.
4. While Brian claims otherwise, the new version of Christianity he pushes bears little to no resemblance to historic Christian orthodoxy, especially Nicene Christianity. In fact, he claims the creeds were mandated by the emperor to promote unity in the church and bring about imperial control. (12) Furthermore, by shoving Christian orthodoxy into his “Christian religion” rhetorical device, he is able to transcend the Christian faith entirely with a generalized “Kingdom of God” motif.
5. His portrayal of the Biblical narrative is Christless, centering squarely on Abraham and the Kingdom of God (which fits nicely with his view of the Abrahamic faiths as encapsulated in the nonprofit http://www.abrahamicalliance.org/ on which he sits as Board member).
6. His view of Jesus Christ in no way affirms that He is God. Instead Brian reduces Him to a revelation of the “character of God.” Jesus is no more than a model citizen.
7. His view of the Holy Scripture is not divine revelation, but purely human conversations in which people simple talk about their understanding of God and progressively, courageously “trade-up’ (his words not mine) their understanding of God for even better images. Brian follows Pete Rollins’ suggestion that our understanding of God is not actually the knowledge of God, but simply our understanding of God, begging several questions: Does God present Himself to us in the Text? Is He even saying anything to us in it? Can we really possess the knowledge of God? These questions seem to have a negative answer, though it isn’t clear.
8. He rarely uses Jesus’ messianic designation (Christ), which reflects his refusal to acknowledge Jesus Christ as exclusive Lord and Messiah. (So far he uses “Jesus” 204 times, “Jesus Christ” 3 time, and “Christ” 11 times.)
9. He consistently preemptively belittles those who will push against his innovative, new Christianity through gross ad hominems by reducing us to “gatekeepers” (103) anxious and paranoid (212-213), “religious thought police” (85), brainwashers (48), and people who are vulnerable to repeating yesterday’s atrocities in the future (including anti-Semitism, genocide, and witch burning) (85), among many others charges.
10. While Brian feigns theological innocence by merely offering a “new way of believing,” rather than a new set of beliefs (18), make no mistake about it: Brian is absolutely, unambiguously offering new beliefs. Though he may insist he is merely offering questions to inspire new conversations in the interest of a new quest, (18) he knows exactly what he is doing. He is disingenuous when he insists he is merely offering responses to his questions, rather than answers.

In the end, Brian’s McLarenism faith isn’t really about Jesus Christ, but about a vanilla, generalized World-Spirit god that has visited all other religions outside the Christian faith. Like his good buddy, Samir Selmanovic, Brian believes that Jesus and the reconciliation God offers to the world is not found only in the Christian faith (or “religion” as he puts it). In Selmonvic’s book (a book Brian endorsed), Samir says, “We do believe that God is best defined by the historical revelation in Jesus Christ, but to believe that God is limited to it would be an attempt to manage God. If one holds that Christ is confined to Christianity, one has chosen a god that is not sovereign.” (It’s Really All About God, 129) Brian agrees.

In fact, it is clear his entire theological endeavor is a concerted effort to “pluralize” reconciliation to God and His Kingdom by divorcing it from Jesus Christ entirely, rather than insisting that reconciliation to both comes through Jesus Christ alone. While Brian uses the “Christian religion” as a rhetorical device to argue against “theo-containment,” the One True God described in the Holy Scriptures is exclusively revealed in the very human, very divine Jesus Christ. It’s really NOT all about God. It’s really all about Jesus Christ.

As Karl Barth reminds us, “Any deviation, any attempt to evade Jesus Christ in favour of another supposed revelation of God, or any denial of the fulness of God’s presence in Him, will precipitate us into darkness and confusion.”(CD II,1:319) There is little evidence Brian believes that the fulness of God’s presence is exclusively in Jesus Christ, that salvation and rescue and reconciliation is found in no other name under heaven besides His.

After Jesus, there is nothing left. And after Brian’s new kind of Christianity, neither is Jesus Christ.

Post Series
1. Introduction
2. Pagitt and Pelagius On Human Nature
3. Pagitt and Pelagius On Sin
4. Interlude on Sin
5. Pagitt and Pelagius On Salvation
6. Pagitt and Pelagius On Discipleship and Judgment
7. Conclusion
8. (Final Thoughts)

Three weeks and 8 posts later, we’ve reached the end of the “Pagitt and Pelagius” series, an indepth look at Pagitt’s A Christianity Worth Believingand the writings of Pelagius. As I said in my preface: “I’ve heard it said around the ‘sphere that my goal is to unfairly ‘attach a thorough Pelagianism to Pagitt and others.’ I have done nothing of the sort. I walked into this examination wondering if Pagitt’s and Pelagius‘ writings mirrored each other. For years people have labeled him a Pelagian, so I wanted to see if it was true. This series will report and analyze what I found.”

I still stand by that.

My goal was to put the theological teachings of Doug Pagitt and Pelagius of Britania side-by-side in order to see if this modern theologian mirrors the ancient one. People have accused Doug of being a Pelagian and I wanted to see if that was true. So I wanted to bring an academic lens using an academic method to Pagitt’s writings in order to shed light on these accusations. Using my methdology we’ve looked at their views on human nature, sin, salvation, discipleship, and judgment. We’ve seen how they are similar and different.

The area in which they differ the most is the severity of sin and judgment. Pelagius had a very strong view of sinning after baptism, which was the point of forgiveness, salvation, and regeneration. This strong view led to a very strong view of judgment, in that those who fail in this Christian endeavor receive the punishment of hell. For him, every human is in control of their will to such an absolute extent that when they sin after salvation/baptism, having their sins washed away, it is really bad. So bad that “the punishment of hell is promised to all of us who do not live in righteousness.” Pagitt doesn’t follow Pelagius in this regard, however, because he has a low view of sin and a non-existent view of judgment.

The areas in which they are the most similar are in their views on human nature and sin, the areas that caused the most heartburn in the 5th century. Like Pelagius, Pagitt believes that we exist in the state as we were intended at the beginning of creation. Both believe that our wills are still intact and that we are capable, through our own gumption and ingenuity, to be in sync with God, to live as we were intended to live. Ethically we are not morally rebellious. We do not have a sin nature passed to us from by our natural head, Adam. Instead, we are “inherently godly” and “filled with the spark of God.” For both, we are inherently good.

Then why do we sin? We sin because of bad examples, systems, patterns, and habits. Because we are inherently godly, on our own we are capable of living in sync with God. The problem comes when the bad systems and patterns of this world impinge upon our will, causing us to “create disharmony with God and one another.” We are not the problem. Everything and everyone around us is. Our salvation, then, comes not from a sacrifice who does something with the evil, sin, and rebellion around us and in us, but instead from a better example. Both Pelagius and Pagitt need Jesus only as a moral example, because their view of human nature and sin require simply this. We do not need a new nature, because our original one is still intact. We do not need to be re-created, because we are still as we were intended at creation. All that is needed is the best example possible, the best “map and guide to what true partnership with God looks like.” Salvation comes, then, when people “follow Jesus as Joshua into the promised land of freedom and release,” because he is the new pattern of harmony for humanity by showing us what full integration with God looks like and fulfilling what people are meant to do and be.

In short, Pagitt mirrors Pelagius’ theology in regards to human nature, sin, and salvation.

Pagitt believes otherwise, however. In several comments, he has insisted: “I am not a Pelagian.” While he also insists that he has “spent no time with the teachings and thinking of Pelagius,” (and I don’t disregard these words) he has in no way explained why this is not the case, why he is not Pelagian. Put a different way, Doug has not articulated how his theology is different from Pelagius and why he does not mirror his views on human nature, sin, and salvation.

In fact, he has not tried to answer the questions I’ve posed in response to his views. While some have suggested I have used “a bunch of ‘gotcha’ Bible verse at the end that show why all the labels (of Pelagianism, Universalism, and Liberalism) are evil,” I have merely tried to bring this discussion back to the Text. I have disagreements with Doug’s theology on theological grounds, but more so on Scriptural grounds, which is why I’ve asked Him to explain why the Holy Scripture seems to conflict with his theology. These are legitimate questions that Doug has yet to answer:

Regarding Human Nature
•What do you do with Romans 5:12-19, especially verse 12?
•What do you do with 2 Corinthians 5:20? “So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old creature has passed away; see a new one has been created.”

Regarding Sin
•If something outside of us causes us to sin, why then are we in need of a new heart, according to Ezekiel 36:24-27?
•If Jesus Christ thought that what defiled a person comes “out of the heart” why don’t you? (See Matthew 15:1-20 for a refresher course.)

Regarding Salvation
•Why is Jesus even necessary to begin with? Furthermore, why was it necessary for Christ to die on the Cross?
•What do you do with the entire Book of Hebrews—let alone the animal sacrificial system of Leviticus—which explicitly argues that Jesus Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice on our behalf, by His own blood, in order to offer for all time one sacrifice for sins?

Regarding Judgment
•It is obvious you are a universalist and do not believe in a literal judgment, a separation of good and bad. What do you do with Jesus Christ’s teachings on the subject, 25% of which make-up his teachings, especially his parables?
•In light of your rejection of a real, literal judgment, what do you do with Jesus’ parables of the Nets in Matthew 13 and Wedding Banquet in Matthew 22? Both have an EXPLICIT eschatological orientation and teach about a time of judgment, where the righteous and wicked will be 1) separated and 2) punishment.

These are not “gottcha” questions, but serious questions that deserve serious answers. While Doug did say, “Jeremy, I would be glad to show how 2 Corinthians and all of Romans makes the points I am making” he has yet to do so. I don’t understand why he cannot provide more context to his own theology by dialoguing through these questions, questions which have sat at the heart of historic Christian orthodoxy for centuries.

At this point, I don’t see how Doug’s theology is different or distinguishable from Pelagius. Although, Doug, if you would still like to explain why you are not a Pelagian and how you differ from his views on human nature, sin, and salvation or how I’ve mischaracterized you if this is the case, I am all ears.

Post Series
1. Introduction
2. Pagitt and Pelagius On Human Nature
3. Pagitt and Pelagius On Sin
4. Pagitt and Pelagius On Salvation
5. Pagitt and Pelagius On Discipleship and Judgment
6. Conclusion
7. (Final Thoughts)

CONCLUSION

According to Pagitt’s own published work, it is clear he reflects much, if not most, of Pelagius’ theology. Pagitt is a Pelagian. From human nature to sin, human will to grace, and salvation to judgment, much of Pagitt’s theology mirrors Pelagius’. While Pagitt may want to believe differently, he simply believes otherly. Historically, this “other theology” was previously addressed by another theologian: Augustine. Though the theological controversy between the two was rancorous and dramatic, Augustine and others already dealt with the “other theology” of Pelagius (and Pagitt) through numerous writings and councils in the 5th century. Back then, what was the response of Augustine to Pelagius and how might Augustine respond to Pagitt if he were alive today? This series will conclude with some final personal comments, this post is meant to present Augustine’s response to Pelagius’ theology of human nature, sin, grace, and salvation as means by which we may also critique Pagitt.

First, regarding human nature, Augustine acknowledges that at first it was uncorrupt and without sin; at Creation, Adam was faultless. He argues, “But that nature of man in which every one is born from Adam, now wants the Physician, because it is not sound.”¹ While Pelagius says all people are born sound, Augustine responds by saying that now, post-Fall, the nature of all people is corrupted. “Let us not suppose, then, that human nature cannot be corrupted by sin, but rather, believing, from the inspired Scriptures, that it is corrupted by sin.”² Foundational to Pelagius’ theology was the notion that we are good and untainted, and out of that untainted nature we on our own are capable of not sinning. Pelagius “maintained that our human nature actually posseses an inseparable capacity of not at all sinning.”³

In arguing against this inner capacity, Augustine offers a line from the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”⁴ Augustine wonders, “If they already have capacity, why do they pray? Or, what is the evil which they pray to be delivered from?”⁵ In other words, why should a person pray to be delivered from evil if he, through his own capacity, can deliver himself and not sin? He goes on to say, “Behold what damage the disobedience of the will has inflicted on man’s nature! Let him be permitted to pray that he may be healed! [The nature] is wounded, hurt, damaged, destroyed. It is a true confession of its weakness, not a false defense of its capacity, that it stands in need of. It requires the grace of God.”⁶ In response to Pelagius’ belief that human nature is not corrupt and is capable on its own not to sin, Augustine replies that human nature must be delivered from evil because it must be healed. That healing comes not from self-will, but from the grace of God.

What disturbed Augustine and others most was Pelagius’ view of grace. They objected most that Pelagius did not maintain that it is purely by the grace of God that a man is able to be without sin.⁷ Pelagius and his followers argued that the grace of God is the nature in which we were created, which enables us to act righteously.⁸ According to them, the grace of God is not dispensed through Christ, but through Creation; we are able to sin not because of Christ, but because of our human nature, which is in fact the grace of God. Augustine counters, “This, however, is not the grace which the apostle commends to us through the faith of Jesus Christ. For it is certain that we possess this nature in common with ungodly men and unbelievers; whereas the grace which comes through the faith of Jesus Christ belongs only to them to whom the faith itself appertains.”⁹ While Pelagius equated grace with the God’s creation of a good inner nature, Augustine said the grace of God to which the Scriptures attest comes through faith in Christ. Grace is not from Creation, but from Christ alone.

Augustine was also concerned that Pelagius maintained no other opinion than that the grace of God is given according to our merit. In response, Augustine declares, “God’s grace is not given according to our merit…it is given not only where there are no good, but even where there are many evil merits preceding.”¹⁰ While Pelagius maintains that humans can choose to do good deeds out of an inner, naturally good capacity—and thus are rewarded by God because of those good deeds—Augustine insists that no man ought to attribute those good deeds to himself, but to God.((Augustine. “On Grace and Free Will,” 449.)) Furthermore, while Pelagius believes that a man is justified from and forgiven of sins by Christ only at the event of baptism, Augustine believes that the grace of God is with him even into the future to cover sins not yet committed. “It is necessary for a man that he should be not only justified when unrighteous by the grace of God…but that, even after he has become justified by faith, grace should accompany him on his way, and he should lean upon it, lest he fall.”¹¹ Augustine’s view sharply contrasts with Pelagius who insists that the example of Christ is what “empowers” people to choose the righteous life after baptism. Instead of the grace of God empowering people to choose to live in Christ, people’s good inner nature allows them to choose integration with God. Augustine counters, “Man, even when most fully justified, is unable to lead a holy life, if he be not divinely assisted by the eternal light of righteousness.”¹²

Finally, Augustine addressed the ultimate results of Pelagius’ theology: salvation. Augustine responded by saying Pelagius’ view of human nature “causes the grace of Christ to be ‘made of none effect,’ since it is pretended that human nature is sufficient for its own holiness and justification.”¹³ In reality, neither the cross of Christ nor the grace of God is necessary if humans, through their own inner nature, can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Augustine counters Pelagius’ faith in human nature by saying, “if the righteousness came from nature, then Christ is dead in vain.”((Augustine. “On Grace and Free Will,” 454.)) If the grace of God came through nature and out of our own inner capacity we can attain to right living, rather than through faith in Christ, then Christ’s death was in vain. Augustine maintained that the same faith which restored the saints of old now restores us: “that is to say, faith ‘in the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,’—faith in His blood, faith in His cross, faith in His death and resurrection.”¹⁴ While Pelagius believes a person is justified, saved, and forgiven when a person comes in faith to Christ through baptism, he does not believe that faith alone is sufficient for salvation. Instead, faith and deeds ultimately bring and secure eternal life into the future. Augustine wishes Pelagius would meditate on Acts 4:12, which says, “There is no other name under heaven given by which we must be saved,” “and that [Pelagius] would not so uphold the possibility of human nature, as to believe that man can be saved by free will without the Name!”¹⁵

In many ways, the same conclusions arrived at by Augustine of Pelagius could be applied to Pagitt. Because Pagitt clearly mirrors a substantial amount of Pelagius’ theology on humanity, sin, and salvation, one could imagine similar criticism from Augustine of Pagitt. Augustine might tell Pagitt that we do not have the light of God within us still, but rather are broken and tainted because of sin. In response to Pagitt’s newborn analogy, Augustine would maintain that we are born sinners and are in need of healing from birth. Furthermore, Augustine might insist that the systems, hurts, and patterns of this world are not to blame for living lives of disintegration, rather we sin because we are naturally sinful; examples, habits, and ignorance do not lead us into sin, our nature does. Salvifically, Augustine would probably declare that the event of the cross, with all of its suffering, bloodshed, and death, is of the utmost importance because of the real, tangible expression and dispensation of grace it bore for the world. We need Christ, not simply for His example and pattern, but for the grace and salvation He brings us through the event of the cross. Christ is not simply our map, guide, and new example, He is our Savior and Redeemer. Augustine would maintain that we can live integrated lives with God by obeying Him only because of the grace He gives us through faith in Jesus Christ alone, not because Jesus’ example is better than the rest.

As quoted from Olson in the beginning, the story of Christian theology is about the historical reflection on the nature of salvation. Likewise, an examination of Pagitt, Pelagius, and Augustine is not simply an exercise in parsing theological positions on the nature of humanity and original sin, it’s about the gospel of Jesus Christ. According to this examination, Pagitt’s Christianity is not a different, more hopeful faith, it is an other form of faith that both the Communion of Saints and Spirit of God have deemed foreign to the Holy Scriptures, Rule of Faith, and gospel of Jesus Christ.

One question remains, however: How will the contemporary Grand Rapids Communion deem this other faith?

1. Augustine. “On Nature and Grace” from A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Volume 5. Edited by Phillip Schaff. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 122.
2. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 128
3. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 141
4. Matt. 6:13
5. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 142
6. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 142
7. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 139.
8. Augustine. “On Grace and Free Will,” from A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Volume 5. Edited by Phillip Schaff. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 454.
9. Augustine. “On Grace and Free Will,” 454.
10. Augustine. “On Grace and Free Will,” 449.
11. Augustine. “On Grace and Free Will,” 449.
12. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 129.
13. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace, 141.
14. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 139.
15. Augustine, “On Nature and Grace,” 137.