Another McLaren Post

I know this blog is supposed to be about evangelism - this is related. There's just so much wrong with Brian McLaren's teaching, and he's such a central figure in the emergent church movement that it merits refutation. I posted the following as a comment to an entry on 'one mo blog.'...


In my finding out about the emergent church, it seems that it is necessarily postmodern in philosophy and that Brian McLaren is the main spokesperson. Just want to state my assumptions here. There is something very wrong with blurring the lines of truth and deciding to take your cues from something other than the Lord Himself, chiefly and authoritatively through Scripture. Postmoderism is in direct conflict with the Word of God. The postmodernism I am attacking here is the one that it seems (from reading A.G.O. and his open letter to Chuck Colson) McLaren has been carried away with. It affirms that there is absolute truth but is extremely skeptical of anyone's claim to know that truth. But the Holy Spirit reveals the truth to us in spite of any linguistic, cultural, demonic, perspectivistic, or emotional barriers in our lives. This is absolutely clear from reading, in context, 1 John 2:20-21, Heb. 8:8-11, Jeremiah 31:31-34, John 8:32, Matthew 15:1-9, and the fact that God has commanded us to teach His commandments across cultures using human language.

McLaren's humility is false. A lot of his charm comes from his constant statements of self-skepticism, which are only evidence that his teaching is not anointed by God but rather by academia. Did Jesus, or any of the prophets, or any of the apostles, or the early church leaders demonstrate their humility by prefacing their declarations of truth (which in some cases subsequently sealed their fate as martyrs) with comments like "some of what I'm saying is wrong, I just don't know which part it is."? That is not humility at all, because humility means having an accurate (not deprecated) view of oneself and of God. An accurate view will cause one to fall on His face in speechless awe at the wonder of God and yet have the boldness to enter His presence through confidence in the work of the cross and inequivocally declare the truth to the lost of the world who so desparately need it instead of this double-speak. Why is McLaren publishing books if by his own confession he is writing partly in error? Because he thinks that good ideas are the best you can get, that you can't really, finally understand the truth and then subsequently communicate it without introducing error. This is why he refuses to acknowledge the authority of the Bible:

"That oft quoted passage in second Timothy doesn't say, All Scripture is inspired by God and is authoritative, it says that Scripture is inspired and useful - useful to teach, rebuke, correct, instruct us to live justly, and equip us for our mission as the people of God. That's a very different job description than we moderns want to give it. We want it to be God's encyclopedia, God's rule book, God's scientific text, God's easy-steps instruction book, God's little book of morals for all occasions. The only people in Jesus' day who would have had anything close to these expectations of the Bible would have been the Scribes and Pharisees. Right?"(p.52, The Story We Find Ourselves In)

McLaren voices many insightful criticisms of the church, but don't let agreement with his criticisms draw you into agreement with his propositions. The thing that really makes me angry is that He doesn't point to Jesus Himself as the solution to the church's problems, but rather to the worldly shift from modernity to postmodernity. I want to shout when I read McLaren's stuff, "Look at Jesus! Gaze on His beauty and let Him supernaturally touch you! Seek His face until He fills your heart with fiery passionate love for Him!" My heart is groaning with love for our Lord Jesus and absolute hatred for the lies of postmodernity concerning the truth.