Brian McLaren Danger/ Review of "A Generous Orthodoxy"

I've been researching the "Emergent Church" for about a month. The biggest figure in this movement is Brian McLaren, and his teaching is unbiblical and dangerous. But before I start on McLaren, let me say that lack of definition and central agreement is a hallmark of the emerging church and so everything by that name cannot necessarily be lumped together. Some people may mean something different and might not be straying from the Bible. To some, "emergent" just means being more relevant to culture. If you want a quick understanding of McLaren’s error, read his paper submitted to an evangelism roundtable at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College and the strong response of Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton. I read his book, "A Generous Orthodoxy," and it makes me want to hurl.

The best lies are mixed with truth. The more truth mixed in, the more effective the lie. In his book, McLaren spends most of his time criticizing the current state of the church, and almost all of his criticisms are insightful and need to be heard. I spent 85% of my reading time nodding my head, because his criticism was apt. This is what hooks most people; most of the praise I hear for McLaren lauds his assessment of the current state and blithely opens itself to his remedies. What sickens me is the ungodly solutions he proposes which basically are to compromise conservative theology with liberal, labeling propositional truth claims as "modern" instead of biblical.

Like the definition of the emergent church, postmodernism is a hard thing to nail down, but I think I have some insights. McLaren vigorously refutes the idea that postmodernism denies absolute truth. If you read his letter to Colson and A Generous Orthodoxy, you will see that McLaren believes the postmodern myth that although there may be absolute truth, we can't claim that we know it absolutely. He writes (p. 286) , “In Christian theology, this anti-emergent thinking is expressed in systematic theologies that claim (overtly, covertly, or unconsciously) to have final orthodoxy nailed down, freeze-dried, and shrink-wrapped forever.” Jesus said, however, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." To deny the believer's supernatural enlightening and knowledge of the truth denies one of the fundamental aspects of the New Covenant. The writer of Hebrews 10:16 quotes Jeremiah 31:33, "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord." If he were to remain consistent with his claims, McLaren would certainly take issue with the "modernism" of the analytical, dichotomistic thinking that the apostle John displays when he wrote, "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth." We are not subject to the same sea of doubt that the postmodern philosophers allow to bully them into hopelessness about accurately communicating truth across cultures using human language, because we have the Holy Spirit, God Himself, who gives us the knowledge. If God is for us, who can be against us? Yes, we as Christians claim boldly to have exactly what the world thinks laughable and ridiculous; we know and communicate through the power of the Spirit the eternal and absolute (but not exhaustive) truth about who God is and who we are. Thank God, He has given us the answer.

There are too many troubling errors in McLaren's teaching to report here, but the most glaring of them is probably this, from p.260 of A Generous Orthodoxy: "I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts." This is in direct contradiction to 1 Corinthians 6:14-18, "...what communion has light with darkness?"

Ok, now for the bottom line. The church has problems that stem from following human solutions and guidance instead of seeking the supernatural experience of God's power, guided by every jot and letter of His Word. McLaren's academic, futile, and dangerous errors are more of the same and will not yield lasting good fruit. You want to be relevant to the post-modern culture? You have to see Him and know Him. If you've fallen into relying on five-point methods and your own human actions, including prayer and Bible study, then repent. Prayer alone changes nothing, but when God hears prayer, He intervenes to save us and reveal Himself. Bible study without a heart that cries to understand God experientially as a father, lover, and friend will yield nothing but religiosity, futility of thought, and pride, just like it did for the Pharisees. Transitioning from modern to postmodern in order to be more palatable to the world is a just another junky human idea contrary to Romans 12.