Having now read McLaren’s book I can see why it’s controversial in evangelical circles. It’s thought-provoking, forcing the reader to reconsider assumptions about the relationship between the gospel and the world. I think he makes a good case for his position. Rather than interacting specifically with Andrew’s review, I’ll try to summarize (at some length, alas) my own response to the book.
McLaren says that God "wants us to pursue virtue, collaboration, peace, and mutual care for one another." He basis this "framing story" on the life and teachings of Jesus as recorded the Gospels. I agree with McLaren’s summary of Jesus’ central teaching. Jesus called people to a life of radical other-centeredness. The Kingdom of God isn’t populated by those who inherit a particular ethnicity, nor even by those who confess Jesus as Lord, but by those who do God’s will by acting with as much concern for others as for themselves. Jesus acknowledges that not everyone is going to subscribe to this other-centered way of living, which means that those who do are liable to suffer poverty and exploitation at the hands of those who don’t. But Jesus assures them that will be vindicated: first, as individuals they will receive everlasting life; second, God will eventually cleanse the world of those who live for self-gratification at the expense of others’ well-being. Throughout his ministry Jesus performs numerous miracles and healings, thereby demonstrating God’s power to fulfill these eschatological promises.
Why should someone subscribe to Jesus’ framing story? Is it to gain life everlasting, or to help bring about an equitable and just society? Jesus emphasized both: in the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5-7 he invoked the eschatological rewards; in the Sermon on the Plain of Luke 6 he envisioned a radical leveling of the socio-economic hierarchy in the here and now. It seems that Jesus was trying to provoke radical social change through radical individual change, a revolution that builds momentum one person at a time. Citizenship in this “kingdom of God” is secured not by birthright or armed revolt or ritualized worship or law, but by personal life commitment to the framing story.
Jesus said that it’s hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom: it’s because the rich have more to lose. We who live lives of privilege in affluent surroundings tend to regard ourselves as not significantly better or worse off than our neighbors. For us, the Protestant ethic of hard work and frugality is enough to establish a pretty high level of prosperity. It doesn’t take long to make the usual inference: poor people don’t work hard enough and spend too much; i.e., they aren’t Christian enough. But the "Jesus ethic" isn’t based on hard work — "my yoke is easy and my burden is light," said Jesus. And instead of hoarding up treasures on earth, Jesus tells his followers to give it all away. In the Jesus ethic it’s the prosperous who aren’t Christian enough.
McLaren directs his plea to affluent Western subscribers to the Protestant ethic, and especially to American Christians. He wants to convert them from the Protestant ethic to the Jesus ethic. And he’s also focusing on the here-and-now societal transformation of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain rather than on participation in a utopian society "in the sweet by and by." If enough people adopt the Jesus ethic, McLaren says that "our society will take a radically different direction, and our world will become a very different place." It seems to me that McLaren wants to revitalize Jesus’ core message of other-centered living without acknowledging the suffering it entails or invoking the eschatological guarantee that assures its eventual efficacy. According to McLaren, if enough people subscribe to Jesus’ core message of other-centeredness, society will gradually be transformed from within on a global scale.
I don’t think McLaren’s position in this book is inimical to the supernatural eschatology of the Gospel, nor does he deny Jesus’ resurrection or the afterlife. It’s just that he wants to emphasize the here-and-now call to selflessness that’s central to Jesus’ message. What’s the likely impact on the reader of downplaying the eschatological hope? If I was really convinced that someday I will be eternally resurrected into a society populated entirely by people who put their love for one another first, I might be willing to risk living the sort of radically other-oriented life Jesus talked about. Alternatively, the hope of the resurrection might make me less diligent about trying to embody Jesus’ framing context in this life. When that eschatological hope recedes until the here and now is all that counts, I’m more prone to hedge my bets. On the other hand, I’m also more inclined to seek systemic changes in contemporary society rather than waiting for the New Jerusalem to drop down out of the sky. However, I wouldn’t go to extraordinary lengths to make big systemic changes happen that would threaten my own relatively privileged position in the system. So I’d say the net impact of McLaren’s here-and-now emphasis is mixed.
Though McLaren frequently invokes revolutionary rhetoric, what he proposes is a relatively cautious liberalization of an affluent society, requiring relatively minor adjustments in lifestyle — sort of a “Scandinavianization” of America. So, for example, he calls for reducing the discrepancy in compensation between corporate chief executives and ordinary workers, suggesting that maybe a 50-to-1 ratio might be a workable limit. He talks about a global minimum wage, but then says that it must be adjusted to the local standard of living. He encourages that people buy products only from companies that pay a living wage to their workers, but he doesn’t acknowledge that making this sort of buying decision is a way of easing one’s conscience that’s available only to those who can afford to pay the extra price. He doesn’t acknowledge that most Westerners’ high-paying jobs contribute to the unsustainable and inequitable Western consumer lifestyle that he regards as a suicide machine. He observes that the 400 highest-income people in the USA could give away enough money to save 8 million lives a year and still live on an average of $100 million apiece. However, he doesn’t say whether he’s prepared to advocate that these high-income people be required by law to make the necessary contributions — it seems that he expects them one by one to realize what they ought to do and do it voluntarily. He speaks only about equalizing income discrepancy and providing debt relief to poor nations, but he never discusses redistribution of wealth. He talks about providing low-interest small loans to third-world entrepreneurs but he never explores the pros and cons of poor countries perhaps nationalizing the means of production owned by multinational corporations. He condemns foreign policy based on military strength, proposing that if enough voters express their dissatisfaction then things will begin to change — a position which seemingly ignores the possibility that the American military might actually lose to foreign powers.
McLaren wants to change the world one person at a time. It’s seemingly more important that people have the right motives than that they do the right thing. And since McLaren supports Jesus’ essentially conservative position that the poor and dispossessed not demand justice and equity from the rich and powerful, it’s up to the rich and powerful to set the rate and scope of change. In short, McLaren offers a Christianity of this world that intentionally preserves the individual freedom of the haves to act on the basis of individual conscience. The have-nots either have to wait patiently for things to get better, or take things into their own hands and be accused by McLaren of violating Jesus’ social ethos.
Why might Christians object to McLaren’t proposals? For one thing, he contends that human society can be changed if enough people adopt Jesus’ framing story as their own. This optimistic stance seems to deny Jesus’ own acknowledgement that the kingdom of God is inimical to the kingdom of this world. However, there doesn’t seem to be any intrinsic limit to the size and scope of the kingdom of God in this world: “the more the merrier” would seem to characterize the missionary zeal of Jesus and his disciples. Besides, a little leaven leavens the whole lump – even if a minority of the population were to adopt the framing story, they would likely have a significant cumulative effect on society at large.
Though he doesn’t come right out and say so, McLaren implies that anyone who adopts Jesus’ framing story of pursuing virtue, collaboration, peace, and mutual care for one another can contribute to establishing the kingdom of God even without professing those beliefs usually regarded as essential to being a Christian. In our world the kingdom of God never manifests itself in its pure form, even among professing Christians. Besides, I suspect most Christians would agree that even an unbeliever can at times put the other person’s interests ahead of his or her own. And as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
“You will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father, who is in heaven.”
Re: another response to the book
Entering a discussion about a book without having read it might seem like an exercise in futility, and in danger of missing the wider issues which the book raises. So I’m wanting both to register my recognition of those wider issues, as far as I have understood them, whilst also trying to confine myself to requests for clarification from John’s post, and discussion of the issues as seen from his reading of the book.
Point 1.
John notes:
"McLaren says that God "wants us to pursue virtue, collaboration, peace, and mutual care for one another." He basis this "framing story" on the life and teachings of Jesus as recorded the Gospels. I agree with McLaren’s summary of Jesus’ central teaching. Jesus called people to a life of radical other-centeredness."
Is the pursuit of "virtue, collaboration, peace, and mutual care for one another" a "framing story", or is it a set of ethics? A framing story might lead to the adoption of a set of ethics, but ethics are not the same as a "framing story", I would have thought. I wonder whether there needs to be more attention given to the substance of this "framing story"?
Point 2.
People who subscribe to an "other-centred way of living", and seriously try to live it out, are often those who have most encountered the greatest difficulties over their ability to be people who are "other-centred". "And those who fain would serve thee best, are conscious most of wrong within", as the hymn writer put it. I don’t know if McLaren addresses this sort of issue in his book, but for there to be "other-centredness", Christians, and especially the great divines who, one would have thought, were best equipped to be such people, have found that there needs to be some radical surgery on the insistent "me-centredness’ of the human psyche. It’s not just a case of signing up to a programme for social change and engaging in experimental lifetyles, or even, by contrast, adopting the withdrawn life of the ascetic.
It’s arguable that evangelical Christianity has emphasised this personal surgery at the expense of an accompanying change of lifestyle and social/economic agenda; it would be a mistake to emphasise a social justice agenda at the expense of accompanying changes to the person - which Jesus also (some might say primarily) came to bring. The ability of the disciples to be citizens of the kingdom, and the personal process they went through so that their characters matched their calling, illustrates the kind of surgery required.
Point 3.
John speaks of McLaren’s desire for us to be committed to a "framing story" which Jesus came to bring (whatever that framing story might actually have been), but John questions whether a commitment to the author of the "framing story" is also a prerequisite - at least, as far as McLaren is concerned:
"Though he doesn’t come right out and say so, McLaren implies that anyone who adopts Jesus’ framing story of pursuing virtue, collaboration, peace, and mutual care for one another can contribute to establishing the kingdom of God even without professing those beliefs usually regarded as essential to being a Christian."
Indeed the implication is that one does not necessarily need to know about the author, before being committed to his story. It’s possible that Jesus’s conception of the "kingdom of heaven" might be practised by those who were unconscious of the Jesus who came to inaugurate it, (just as the despised Samaritan practised the ‘true’ principles of Judaism, and therefore was ‘the true Jew’); however this moves us into territory which is, I think, in danger of missing the point.
In the end, assuming a more or less traditional view of the gospels and eschatology (which cannot be taken for granted on this website), the "kingdom of heaven" was a Jewish concept, it was framed in unique historical circumstances, it had not been seen on earth before Jesus came to introduce it, and Jesus introduced it in way which did not fulfil the expectations of most Jews (though it reflected the vision of the prophets for what that kingdom would look like when it came). Whilst allowing for the Spirit’s universal activity, it is hard to imagine this "kingdom" being adequately subscribed to by subjects who knew nothing of its background and where the "king" was not consciously recognised.
I hope that none of this seems like "sweating the small stuff". I’m just interested in the discussion.
Re: another response to the book
Peter,
Good questions. I’ll respond in part by elaborating more fully on McLaren’s position, but I’ll also toss in my two cents’ worth.
That’s my fault — the ethic I cited is part of a larger story. McLaren says that "our societies are unified, integrated, motivated, and guided by the framing stories we tell ourselves as groups." He goes on at some length to contrast the "conventional" framing story of the gospel, which is concerned primarily with individual repentance, salvation, and deliverance from the doomed earth, with the "emerging" story, which deals more with transforming the human collective situation. McLaren summarizes the emerging gospel thusly:
You can see that this framing story is explicitly theistic and Christian. However, it seems more important to McLaren that people believe the collective story and live their lives in pursuit of societal transformation than that they follow the "conventional" formula for achieving individual salvation.
McLaren contends that, in the context of first-century Israel, this collective version of the Christian framing story makes more sense than the traditional Christian story of individual repentance and salvation. The Roman Empire was organized to assure ever-increasing material prosperity for those who already occupied privileged positions in the societal hierarchy, achieved through continual expansion and overwhelming military might. First-century Israel was an occupied territory of the Roman Empire, but earlier in its history Israel had been the invading power, subduing the Canaanite tribes through military force in order to occupy the land of plenty. Many of Jesus’ contemporaries wanted to re-establish the kingdom of Israel via military revolt against Rome; Jesus instead proposed the "kingdom of God" as a society based on cooperation, equality, and peace. The contrast between the two types of societal framing stories makes sense whenever society is dominated by materialism, inequality and violence — which is true of most of the world most of the time.
McLaren doesn’t address this issue, but Jesus doesn’t either really — he issues the prophetic call and expects people to respond. Acquiring the ability to respond is more a Pauline concern, which he resolves primarily by invoking the supernatural impetus of the indwelling Holy Spirit. However, maybe self-absorption is as much a result of destructive societal forces as it is an innate human tendency. Even the self-centered individual keeps an eye on the other person as a source of comparison and competition. This was presumably Eve’s problem: the forbidden fruit appealed to her self-indulgent appetites because it would make her more like someone she admired; namely, Yahweh. Maybe the Serpent was a carrier of this sort of comparative social orientation and he "infected" Eve with it. In our culture the controllers of the marketplace actively stimulate consumerism throughout society, and "keeping up with the Joneses" (American idiom?) is a powerful motivation to keep everyone spending money and earning profits for the corporate stockholders. Social stratification between rich and poor isn’t just a consequence of self-centeredness: it’s more desirable to attain higher status relative to others. Likewise with military might: there’s an undeniable sadistic satisfaction to be attained by subjugating others. So self-indulgence is as much a consequence as a cause of particular kinds of societal arrangements. Perhaps if the kind of peaceful and voluntary egalitarian society could actually be established, its members would be infected with the kind of collective ethos that’s needed to perpetuate the system. As I said, though, McLaren doesn’t engage in this sort of speculation.
It’s also possible that only those who have already been moved by the Spirit’s prompting will be attracted to Jesus’ framing story. Is it necessary for a person consciously to understand the mechanism or the doctrine in order for the Spirit to work in his or her life? Probably everyone has encountered the framing story of materialism, hierarchy and power that fueled the Roman Empire. Within every society there may be some people who can envision a different story and who start trying to live inside that story. Maybe the Spirit moves by different means in different sociohistorical contexts. Again, McLaren only touches the outer edges of this sort of speculation.
Re: another response to the book
Thanks for your clarification John - though I’m now not sure how much of your clarification is McLaren or your own interpretation.
The long extract you quote from McLaren describes a global programme of change which McLaren believes Jesus came to bring. It also encompasses personal transformation.
It’s my view that Jesus’s message was in part historical, in that it came as an offer of an alternative way of being Israel which would not lead to destruction in the 1st century. But more significantly, in my view, the message was for all time - as a way that Jesus intended Israel to be beyond its 1st century national and geographical destruction, up to and including today. Brevard Childs (Introduction to the New Testament) argues that the form and structure of the gospels are designed to provide an application to contexts and times beyond Israel and the 1st century (if you are looking for a counter argument to the new historicists).
It also seems clear to me that while the message was universal, it would not achieve global transformation this side of a return of Jesus to the earth in person. The issue then would be: how much did Jesus envisage could be achieved this side of his return, and to what extent should Jesus’s programme apply to the public world beyond the immediate community of the people of God?
To the first part of the question, I would say: much more, probably, than we have tended to believe, but not as much as some optimists would hope for (using the NT itself as the guide on the subject). To the second part of the question - I would say it is part of the church’s prophetic task to speak to the issues of the day, politics and government especially. But in doing so, it should be careful that it is not simply reflecting cultural or national prejudice and privilege. It should be a prophetic message which has allowed itself to be critiqued before it extends its critique to others.
Jesus’s programme of reform called people to himself before it called people to a community and a way of life, and this to me is the heart of the issue. That this had profound personal consequences in the lives of those whom he called or encountered can be proved from every page of the gospels. In this sense, he was much more than a Josephus calling those in a Jewish uprising to ‘repent and believe’ in him. The person of Josephus was of little significance in itself. The person of Jesus was (and is) hugely significant.
Jesus was not a collectivist - that argument (setting the collective against the personal) seems to me to be either a way of avoiding the personal consequences of encounter with him, or implying that the full story of the gospels, continuing into Acts and the letters, has been incompletely absorbed. Yet Jesus was, on the other hand, modelling the basis of a new community for the people of God, which was not founded on principles of nationalism, power, and privilege.
Paul was not bringing anything different from the Jesus of the gospels, except that he had the obvious advantage of viewing the entire picture of Jesus’s life and actions in a way that the gospels do not (in that they only lead up to Jesus’s death and immediate resurrection appearances). Paul’s ethical teaching follows the gospels very closely - in way that suggests that he was personally familiar with the gospels as we have them.
Somehow, it seems that all these issues are mixed up in McLaren’s book, but possibly not very helpfully distinguished or theologically thought through. At which point, I suppose, it would be a good idea to read the book. Can anyone lend me a copy?
Re: another response to the book
No doubt I’m filtering McLaren’s story through my own blurry lens, overemphasizing some points while ignoring others. As with just about every book I can think of, the reader is best advised to go to the primary source before reading what somebody else says about it. McLaren too is a commentator: his primary sources are the synoptic gospels. Given the brevity of those texts it’s probably impossible to extract Jesus’ framing story without embedding it in a larger frame — the Old Testament, the Epistles, first century Israel, first century Rome, subsequent church history, contemporary global culture, the reader’s individual life history, etc. Is McLaren violating the evidence presented in the Biblical record in order to buttress his own story? Perhaps, but you’d be better off reading his book through your own distorting lens than through mine.
Peter, I think that based on your most recent comment you would find yourself in general agreement with McLaren while still disagreeing on certain key points. So, McLaren contends that Jesus was speaking specifically to first century Israelites, but that his message was meant to be applied universally. He doesn’t, however, filter that message through Israel. Every human society can find parallels to Israel’s experiences. Every individual faces the kinds of options represented by imperial Rome, the Pharisaic legalists, the priestly Sadducees, the revolutionary Zealots. The way to which John the Baptist and Jesus pointed always seems to be the unmarked and less-traveled path.
I don’t think you disagree fundamentally with McLaren here. McLaren too wants to convert people to Jesus’ framing story one individual at a time. McLaren explores the reasons why Jesus calls individuals, counterbalancing the traditional Christian emphasis on individual salvation with the more collective agenda. So, for example, here’ a familiar passage from the fourth gospel:
Most evangelicals can recite the first half of that quote by heart, but many don’t remember the second half. In these two sentences Jesus balances individual with societal concerns, eternity with here-and-now circumstances. The traditional framing story emphasizes individual eternal salvation — John 3:16 without 3:17. In his book McLaren counterbalances this lopsided view of Jesus’ mission by emphasizing the social aspect of the gospel.
Was God being overly optimistic in hoping that the world would be saved through Jesus? Maybe. If Jesus believed that God intended for the world to be saved through himself, did he find it difficult to restrict his attention to the lost sheep of Israel rather than outscoping his mission to embrace the Gentiles? It would seem so, based on the various stories where Jesus responded to personal pleas from Gentiles. McLaren goes so far as to claim that, based on the geographical setting as described by Mark (7:31), the feeding of the four thousand occurred while Jesus was preaching to an audience of Gentiles. In any event, Jesus’ efforts to save the world weren’t limited to his incarnate ministry:
The reason individuals need to be transformed isn’t only that they’re sinfully selfish; they’re also inextricably embedded in societal framing stories to such an extent that they don’t even realize it. To drift from one collective framing story to another without arriving at a personal existential moment of truth is to be a reed that blows in the wind (or whatever metaphor you prefer). But I suspect you’d agree that certain cultural framing stories create the illusion of individual freedom in order to manipulate the masses, with freedom of choice being restricted to the offerings on display in the marketplace or on the ballot. The Holy Spirit may lift the individual out of his societal embeddedness in order to make a truly free choice. But the church is also the body of Christ, presenting a collective context within which the individual can experience firsthand God’s intended societal transformation of the world.
Jesus acknowledged that those who lived their lives according to his ethos would suffer impoverishment, exploitation and persecution. Presumably this suffering wouldn’t be inflicted by those who through individual transformation had entered into Jesus’ framing story of societal transformation. Rather, Jesus’ followers would suffer at the hands of those who hadn’t entered in, whether they be Jews, Gentiles, or Romans. Presumably Jesus’ followers would be subjected to suffering at outsiders’ hands only by acting toward their enemies in the same way they acted toward their fellow-citizens in the kingdom of God — with love and open-handedness. Jesus extended himself not to those Jews who already lived the story he was preaching, but to the "lost sheep" of Israel. It seems to me that that’s part of the testimony: Jesus and his followers associated not with the Jewish insiders but with the sinners. And, as it turned out, some who thought they were in were out, and vice versa.
Re: Another response to McLaren's Everything Must Change
Back to McLaren. On pp. 78-80 of Everything Must Change he contrasts the "conventional" view of the gospel with the "emerging" view:
Conventional View: God created the world as perfect, but because our primal ancestors, Adam and Eve, did not maintain the absolute perfection demanded by God, God has irrevocably determined that the entire universe and all it contains will be destroyed, and the souls of all human beings — except for those specifically exempted, will be forever punished for their imperfection in hell. Since everyone is doomed to hell, Jesus seeks to answer one or both of these questions: How can individuals be saved from eternal punishment in hell and instead go to heaven after they die? How can God help individuals be happy and successful until then? Jesus says, in essence, "If you want to be among those specifically qualified to escape being forever punished for your sins in hell, you must repent of your individual sins and believe that my Father punished me on the cross so he won’t have to punish you in hell. Only if you believe this will you go to heaven when the earth is destroyed and everyone else is banished to hell." This is the good news. Jesus came to solve the problem of "original sin," meaning that he helps qualified individuals not to be sent to hell for their sin or imperfection. In a sense, Jesus saves these people from God, or more specifically, from the righteous wrath of God, which sinful humans deserve because they have not perfectly fulfilled God’s just expectations, expressed in God’s moral laws. This escape from punishment is not they earn or achieve, but rather a free gift they receive as an expression of God’s grace and love. Those who receive it enjoy a personal relationship with God and seek to serve and obey God, which produces a happier life on earth and more rewards in heaven.
Emerging View: God created the world as good, but human beings — as individuals, and as groups — have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil and injustice. God wants to save humanity and heal it of its injustice, but humanity is hopelessly lost and confused. Left to themselves, human beings will spiral downward in sickness and evil. Since the human race is in such desperate trouble, Jesus seeks to answer this question: What must be done about the mess we’re in? The "mess" refers both to the general human condition and to its specific outworking among his contemporaries living under domination by the Roman Empire and who were confused and conflicted as to what they should do to be liberated. Jesus says, in essence, "I have been sent by God with this good news — that God loves humanity, even in its lostness and sin. God graciously invites everyone and anyone to turn from his or her current path and follow a new way. Trust me and become my disciple, and you will be transformed, and you will participate in the transformation of the world, which is possible, beginning right now." This is the good news. Jesus came to become the savior of the world, meaning he came to save the earth and all it contains from its ongoing destruction because of human evil. Through his life and teaching, through his suffering, death, and resurrection, he inserted into human history a seed of grace, truth, and hope that can never be defeated. This seed will, against all opposition and odds, prevail over the evil and injustice of humanity and lead to the world’s ongoing transformation and liberation from evil and injustice. As part of his transforming community, they experience liberation from the fear of death and condemnation. This is not something they earn or achieve, but rather a free gift they receive as an expression of God’s grace and love.
Which version do you like better: a, b, both a and b, neither a nor b?
Re: Another response to McLaren's Everything Must Change
John - why vote when one view (the view we are supposed to reject) presents such a cartoon-like caricature as “the conventional view”? Of course nobody is going to say they prefer (a) to (b). The argument is undermined if what is said to be “conventional” is so misrepresented.
If (b) represents McLaren’s view, then it’s only very partially true. It omits the transcendent nature of God’s kingdom - which spans heaven and earth, this life and the life to come, present and future. In that sense, words like “lostness”, “sin” and “destruction” need much more qualification, and “the mess we’re in” is a trite way of diagnosing the problem.
Theological argument can be done much more seriously than this - and if the extracts you have given are from McLaren’s book, it is confirming me in my view that McLaren is a poor theologian.
Re: Another response to McLaren's Everything Must Change
"Theological argument can be done much more seriously than this"
I suppose that’s why McLaren talks about "conversation" rather than "argument." Sheesh, what a grouch!