Q | Conversations on Being a Heretic from Q Ideas on Vimeo.
Brian McLaren's new book 'A New kind of Christianity' has caused quite a stir.After writing several other books including his 'New Kind of Christian' trilogy we find in this new book a more systematic approach to his beliefs. To use the word 'beliefs' however is really a misnomer as McLaren does not really tell you exactly what he believes but rather dances round each of the fundamental Christian doctrines (the Bible, God,Jesus, Salvation etc)in each chapter of his book leaving you in the end more confused than before!This is because he lives in a 'postmodern' bubble in which nothing can be an absolute or dogmatic and no one can truly understand him unless they join him in it.
The evangelical Church comes in for a particularly hard time, being blamed for all that has been wrong with the church. The solution is of course to see things the way he does and if you do, you will become a new kind of Christian much better than the one before.Sadly it will not be really a biblical Christian having written off many of the core beliefs that have been held by faithful Christian believers for 2000 years.
Anyway, this interview should give you a flavour of what he stands for,or rather what he doesn't stand for!We know what Jesus,Paul and all the other New Testament writers believed on major issues. What they taught was clear and unambiguous, there was no waffle- they wrote and spoke with authority. Brian McLaren comes across as a charming man but sadly by not being clear in his teaching he undermines the Bible of whose truth alone shows us the way of salvation. A full critique of 'A New Kind of Christian' by Scot McKnight can be found at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/march/3.59.html AK
Today on my day off I finally had a chance to watch the video and listen very carefully to what McLaren is saying. He says a lot of true things, but still he doesn't speak the truth.
ReplyDeleteI hear a lot of technical jargon that comes from the stupid things they teach in seminaries (as you know, I call these places 'cemeteries') like "narrative" and "paradigm" flying around in this interview, but not a whole lot of biblical vocabulary, and when biblical words come up they're carefully stepped over or around.
Heresy, by Orthodox definition, is a deviation from Orthodoxy which ultimately results in self-destruction. It's for this reason that we do not fight it. We let it fizzle out on its own, as it invariably does. McLaren may not be so much a heretic as he is ineffectual. Though he says true things, he is afraid to handle the truth, because he knows that it's a sword, and he is afraid to cut.
This is the problem with a whole generation of seminary-trained Christo-Geeks, even including those trained in Orthodox seminaries (not with all, but with some). It's difficult nowadays to find an evangelical church that has not been confused and its gospel message defused by speculations and vain talking the likes of which we hear in this interview.
I am an evangelical who has had to return to historic Greek Orthodoxy to find a solid, biblical and consistent, undeviating base on which to build my spiritual life and fortify my personal witness. I would have preferred to just be an old time bible believing Anglican or Presbyterian, but that option was not open to me.
If I were not affiliated with the Orthodox Church, no doubt I would now be an unchurchable street preacher and missionary, and if I ever come to Belfast, that's just what I might be, unless I find where you "go to meeting" is still locked firmly into biblical faith and practice, the "narrative" as McLaren calls it.
McLaren uses terms like "generous orthodoxy" when he doesn't even know what "orthodoxy" really means. As a title of a church, it means that the people there don't argue about doctrine but simply believe and put into practice to the best of their ability what the early church laid down for us. As a word applied to individuals, I take it to mean someone who knows the Lord Jesus Christ and is known by Him, who confesses himself a sinner and Jesus his Lord and Savior. Once that is established, everything flows towards the New Jerusalem, and to "salvation," whatever that means.
My sorrow is that the majority, it seems, of modern church leaders, does not take the bible seriously, does not believe what Luther so briefly and accurately said, "He who is not ceaselessly busy with the Word of God must become corrupt."
How corrupt? Well, to find out, just watch this video again.