I’m new to the discussion but have been reading with interest. Where do we get the idea that Adam’s and Eve’s “rebellion” forever placed a sin stain on humanity that separates mankind from God? I know that New Testament writers depict the idea that all human beings are born “into sin” and that if left in that state our souls will go to Hell when they die. But where did that idea come from?

RD, I think you are asking about the doctrine of original sin. As it is understood today, of course, there is a long history of interpretation and almost unquestioned assumption of original sin. The Western Church and the Eastern Church don’t, however, frame things in identical ways. The West, as a result of Augustine, has framed it in stronger terms, including not only original sin but also inherited guilt. While the East has spoken more in terms of a proclivity or inclination to sin in all humans.
When it comes down to it, most of it derives from Romans 5:12-21, where Paul sees two lines: Adam, who gave us sin and death, and Christ, who gives us righteousness and life.

Scot,
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it very much. So there is not an expressed notion in the Old Testament of people going to Hell who don’t live righteously? This is an entirely New Testament idea?
-RD

RD, an afterlife, yes. The notion of “hell” seems to have developed over time, at least as it is understood today, and it would be very hard to show that the OT sense of “sheol” is saying the same thing as the NT concept of hell.

Scot,
I really appreciate this summary. I’ve been trying for a while, ever since reading A Generous Orthodoxy and even more with The Secret Message of Jesus to understand Brian’s antipathy toward evangelicalism. I believe he raises some valid questions and his “above the line” approach to discussing some of the dilemmas in evangelicalism can be useful, but I am mystified by some of the critiques he levels. Your post helps me to sort out where he is coming from. I’ve always had the sense that he was burned by some of the fundamentalism coming from his Brethren background but you helped connect that to his present writing.
More importantly, you’ve done it in a most irenic way. Thank you for keeping the dialogue on civil terms.

Your comments in this post piqued my interest a bit with this comment: “His theology is shaped by liberation themes, and one finds compatible theologians in Rauschenbusch, Sobrino, Donovan, Boff and in some ways David Bosch”
I just read Bosch’s “Transforming Mission” in my D.Min work and wondered if you could say more about where he fits with Rauschenbusch, et al.? I didn’t really pick up a lot of liberation theology or social gospel there….just curious.

edit-
Your comments in this post piqued my interest a bit with this comment: “His theology is shaped by liberation themes, and one finds compatible theologians in Rauschenbusch, Sobrino, Donovan, Boff and in some ways David Bosch”
I just read Bosch’s “Transforming Mission” in my D.Min work and wondered if you could say more about where Bosch fits with Rauschenbusch, et al.? I didn’t really pick up a lot of liberation theology or social gospel there….just curious.

Unfortunately, Scot, I think you are right, and it’s unfortunate at many levels. I hope that all things emerging/emergent are not painted with that brush, and more importantly I sincerely hope that this doesn’t give too many folks a reason to give up on the idea that the gospel of I Cor. 15 and Romans can be (faithfully) integrated with the gospel of the kingdom in the gospels and Acts, as the evangelical Church and the world through it still has much to benefit from that integration.
This post states why I stated in earlier threads that Brian moves the conversation (of evangelicalism improving its gospel understandings) backward, and that I won’t recommend his book. Evangelicals are now going to have a very hard time hearing him at all, other than to associate his ideas with danger (which is deserved), even the good ones. It’s just unfortunate all the way around.

Scot,
Again, thanks for the input. So when Adam and Eve sinned God didn’t condemn them to Hell? I have to ask, then, if the idea of Hell as it is understood today in the church kind of “evolved” as a conceptual notion, then how do we even know it truly is a valid part of any kind of narrative? Does Paul ever discuss the idea of non-believers going to Hell when they die?
-RD

Thank you for these posts, Scot. This is a pre-coffee comment but it seems to me that what you have said in the first paragraph is at the heart of the matter. In my mind anyhoo. The various conventional Soul-Sort narratives and ‘plan for salvation’-stories are only small pieces of the whole when it comes to gospel. It has been reduced to this which perverts the whole. Reduced to something that will fit on the back of a bulletin. Many of those outside of the church believe this caricature to be the real deal. Both my grandfathers were Baptist pastors. I have grown up with this view of the gospel…whether intentionally or not. I am grateful for my heritage but I am still trying work out the fuller story, my place in it, and how to live it out and share it. Brian’s narrative, as framed (I have not read the book. Going on what I’ve read here), is a caricature but so are these ‘plans for salvation’ when the whole of the gospel is reduced to them.

I think Scot accurately describes a real phenomenon (the post-conversion rhetoric regarding discarded beliefs), but I don’t see any other way it could happen. The only alternative I’ve seen is a sort of condescension as towards something outgrown, which I’m not sure is much better. Fighting against something at least requires a certain amount of respect, that mere dismissal does not.

As far as books go, Bosch’s Transforming Mission has helped to me to begin to see a bigger gospel as much as anything anyone else has put out.

“Brian’s antipathy toward evangelicalism”
I don’t think McLaren would describe himself this way. There is certainly critique, but it is the critique of an insider, not an enemy. I share this critique, and this posture (critique from within).
Not to beat a dead horse…
Scot, you continue to use the term ‘caricature’ for what Brian is offering. I don’t think that is exactly fair. To use the RC example you bring up. Certainly it would not be a caricature to critique Catholics as bound in tradition, worshipping Mary, and superstitious. While it is true that these things are not the official teachings of the RC Church, and the gospel is most definitely present, the reality is, a significant portion of the RC Church is living in what you are calling ‘caricature.’ To critique what is common RC practice (even if it is not endorsed by the official RC structure) is not caricature.
A platitude from the business world states: “your system is perfectly designed to yield your present outcome.”
The critique that McLaren is putting forth may not be endorsed by the people in your circles; you might even make a case that it is not endorsed by the ‘leaders’ of Western Evangelicalism (although I think it is exactly what the neo-calvinists are stating and there are some influential leaders amongst that crowd), but it is most certainly the reality for a significant portion of the Western Evangelical church.
The distinction you are making is valid, what McLaren is critiquing is not the ‘best’ of evangelical theology, but it is close to the center of evangelical theology, and for McLaren to critique what is common practice is not caricature.

Steve (13),
But that’s the thing, Brian’s theological conclusions make it impossible for Brian to critique evangelicalism “from within” it. Or better, it will now be very very rare that an evangelical, having perceived Brian’s universalist leanings, is going to receive him as an evangelical, or even an orthodox Christian. For all intents and purposes, Brian has left the building (of evangelicalism), even if that’s where he grew up.

Steve S,
A Greco-Roman Theos – Zeus destroyer is what most Christians believe? It isn’t a caricature?
Let’s put in – for a start – the Easter narrative and the way this is taught in most evangelical churches. This is a love and victory narrative.

Scot — good post — but like Corey (#7), I’m a bit perturbed by the reference to Bosch. I’m working on a theology credential in “Missional Theology” now. Bosch is clearly a key source for the “Missional Theology” movement — references to Bosch appear frequently in, for example, Darrell Guder and John Franke. And I think liberation theology is a source that can be helpfully, though carefully, drawn upon by missional theologians. I almost feel, Scot, like you’re reacting against missional theology itself.
And, I’m not really sure the “conversion narrative” analysis moves things forward very much. I think it’s fair to say that everyone who is convinced that missional theology is a real, significant way of approaching things at some point has experienced a “conversion” away from other ways of thinking. Some come to the “missional” perspective “out of” liberalism, but a great many come to it out of evangelical-fundamentalism. True, converts often caricature their former milieu — at least immature, recent converts do that. OTOH, the “conversion” usually happens for substantive reasons, not only psychological reasons. You can’t caricature Chick Tract theology — it caricatures itself.
There really are some serious deficiencies, IMHO, in the evangelical-fundamental theology of the past 100 years or so. The questions in Brian’s book are entirely fair questions. I think the problems with his answers are not as much about liberation theology as they are about process theology. Or, better stated: the problem is a blending of liberation theology with process thought. Here, start to get away the Triune God who judges and saves in Christ.

@ T 14
But that’s because the contemporary evangelical church often confuses their doctrines with Orthodoxy. If Brian is out of evangelicalism, it’s because he’s been pushed out (or assumed out), not that he’s walked out.
As an example, you mention universalism as something that will cause most evangelicals to write him off. We had a pretty massive discussion not too long ago on here examining whether or not universalism put you outside of the tent of evangelicalism or orthodoxy. I think the case was strongly presented that even if you don’t personally hold to universalism, there is precedent and support from Scripture that allows it to be considered orthodox.

dopderbeck-
I wouldn’t say I was perturbed by the reference just intrigued, as I don’t think “Transforming Mission” was liberation-ist. It was, and is, for me a seminal work for understanding our missional context and its trinitarian roots.
Where are you doing your work in Missional theology?

@ Corey — Biblical Seminary. Mostly taking online classes, should be getting a “Certificate” in Missional Theology this year. Someday maybe I’ll go back and do this a bit more full-time. A great place, with great people.

Richard,
I’m certainly willing to admit that evangelicalism is a subset of orthodox Christianity, and that more folks will differ on the orthodoxy of Christians with universalist leanings. Unfortunately, it’s not just his universalist leanings that will alienate Brian from the vast bulk of evangelicals. This very book is an attempt, as Scot has outlined, to cast as invalid central themes of evangelicalism’s gospel and narrative of the faith. I more than sympathize with Brian’s fundy background and childhood. I resonate with many of his critiques and questions and personal history. I think evangelicalism needs growth and change, esp. as it applies to how we deal with everything Jesus did and said prior to the crucifixion. But it’s not really fair to say anyone is “pushing” Brian out of evangelicalism. He’s going where he believes the important issues of life are leading him, and he is fully aware he’s going outside of evangelicalism as he goes.

I note that those still affirming McLaren are ignoring what Scot defines as the heart of the matter: the biblical narrative (the 6LN) received by evangelicalism is fiercely soteriological in nature. Of course, McLaren will praise, revere and give Jesus a place in his NKofC, but it is not the Jesus who ever separates sheep from goats or sits as Judge of all. As long as Jesus is simply a peer to Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandella, Brian and his followers will be satisfied. McLaren’s narrative fiercely sociological with not a drop of Jesus’ blood in it.

@ Corey (#18) – also want to comment on your reference to trinitarian roots — yes! That to me is one of the key issues with Brian’s current work. Is it Trinitarian, or is it process thought? IMHO, in terms of critique, that’s where the emphasis should be, rather than on “universalism” per se. I don’t think scripture supports the idea of universal salvation, but I do think there are orthodox trinitarian Christian theologians who credibly hold out the hope of universal salvation — indeed, that is a common move in post Vatican II Catholic theology and in Eastern Orthodox theology. But the “hope of universal salvation” is very different than “universalism” when “universalism” is tied to a non-trinitarian view of God (ala the 18th Century Unitarians, or modern process theologians).

Thank you, Scot. As I worked my way through Brian’s book I kept thinking: (1) Brian is using a caricature or extreme fundamentalist ideas as typical for a conventional approach — the “straw man” argument. (2) He then proceeds to set up a false dichotomy between his caricature of conventional thinking and the “new kind of Christianity” he espouses, completing ignoring the whole gamut of orthodox views in between. Thank you for bringing clarity to the issues.

dopderbeck,
I’m not pushing against missional theology at all.
Anti-rhetoric is a common observation in converts, and not just young immature ones.
Question for you: Do you think Brian’s theology here is a development of Bosch, with Bosch, against Bosch?

Scot,
I would agree with your assessment that this is Brian reacting against his upbringing as a result of conversion. I think he’s alluded to as much elsewhere. While this might explain the approach he has taken, my question is how does this invalidate the work and critique he is doing/holding up? Afterall, that great protestant Saint Luther did the same things in his debates with RC.
What I keep hearing (and correct me if I’m wrong) is that Brian is caricaturing and creating a straw man and that is where his argument falls apart before it begins. You’ve maintained that no theologian worth his or her salt would be caught dead presenting things the way Brian has presented them and few on here have disagreed with you in that regard. I don’t even think Brian would/does, as he said ANKOC.
But I have yet to hear you even come close to acknowledging that this “soul-sort” narrative with Theos is being popularly caught, if not explicitly taught. And if Jesus is mentioned in it, he is only mentioned in terms of his blood sacrifice and how he’s coming back for blood when we all get to heaven. It’s tacking his name onto something without bringing his character into the picture. Just like the “tweeting the gospel” fad exemplified recently.
In this discussion, when people have brought up large-scale examples and smaller anecdotes, your assessment of the evidence is, “you weren’t really taught that.” You end your post with a plea for those of us that are sympathetic to Brian’s presentation of the narrative be gentle with those who still believe in it. I haven’t seen many Brian’s defenders (for lack of a better phrase) on here calling people unChristian and heretical. It’s been quite the opposite.
Can I end mine with a plea that you acknowledge that the problem Brian sees is massive and widespread and real, even if you don’t agree with the angle he has taken on it? Can you lead the way in acknowledging that this “soul-sort” Theos narrative has been implicitly taught to a good number of people inside and outside the church.

#22 dopderbeck
Would you please define universalism more for me?
Thanks
Dave

@ 21 John Frye
I don’t think any of us are missing the “fiercely soteriological” nature of what Jesus did. I do think we disagree with the popular notion of that soteriology that limits it (or most of it) to heaven and the afterlife. And no, I don’t think you, Scot or many others on here see it that way. But it is out there.
And I think Brian acknowledges the blood of Jesus but I doubt he would affirm that it was to satisfy the Father’s need for blood so that he could forgive. Would Brian affirm the atonement and resurrection, definitely. Would he affirm the penal-substitutionary atonement of Anselm, Calvin, and Luther? Probably not, but since it wasn’t articulated in its present understanding until 1100, I think we can safely move that understanding of the atonement out of the realm of core doctrines. Atonement, at the core definitely. PSA, not necessarily.

I wonder how much of this comes from both a lack of ecclesiology (lack of any teaching for submission to church authority) and lack of creedal orthodoxy (lack of any teaching for submission to core orthodoxy) as has developed in Protestantism.
If my faith parents and my parents parents and so on, all the way through 100s of years of Christianity not only regularly divorced from their church communities but were traditionally encouraged to do so in pursuit of whatever truth they at the time deemed “the most important truth,” then why is anyone surprised by “anti-old” conversion narratives or failure to hold to core teaching?
As a matter of fact, and I know I continue to harp on this, how can protestantism negatively critique what McLaren is doing without bringing like criticism on its whole self? Is the older generation that holds to the “old conversion” the only one “right” in it’s position on Truth? What about the generation before it that disagreed with the later’s “anti-old” conversion narrative and so on and so on? Didn’t Luther himself have multiple cycles of this with his faith walk? He first railed against political RCC hierarchy and abused doctrine. Later, he reacted against the reformed Swiss, and even later against the Jewish people he so convincingly thought able to hear the Gospel. As a result, he died a bitter and rude man.
I just don’t see how in the logic sphere of Protestantism one can find such fault with the anti-old conversion stance. I do however believe that in using Brian’s own logic base to highlight where he contradicts even himself, one can in fact highlight fault. I think you’ve done about as well a job as anyone in accomplishing this.
I so love Brian’s heart and spirit in his walk, though.
DJ|AMDG

Re: the process theology question
I always understood process theology as saying that God is evolving and growing along with the rest of creation. Is that inaccurate?
I hear Brian stating that our understandings/perceptions of God have been evolving/changing/growing as God as revealed more of himself to us. i.e. Abraham and Moses and their contemporaries didn’t have as clear a view of God as Paul or Peter or John. Isn’t that different from process theology?

Richard, well, I won’t acknowledge Brian’s caricature as conventional. But let me put it this way:
1. There is the conventional biblical narrative, and I really don’t think many differ on how we get from Adam to Christ and to the consummation as a biblical narrative. Brian’s use of the six elements (yes, but he needs more grace, love, Christ, Church, Spirit, Pentecost, etc) are accurate; his framing of that narrative, though, confuses a number of things. His G-R Narrative is not the narrative (skip to 4 below).
2. Then there is the gospel, and I think there’s much confusion — oddly enough — on this one, and I’m writing about it and don’t want to spill my beans here, but it is not the same as…
3. The plan of salvation, which is basically found for evangelicals in the 4SL etc. Which is used for #4…
Now here’s something I’ve not said here but it really matters to me…
4. The preferred means of persuasion. Evangelicalism has developed, since the American revivals (at least) a preferred means of persuading people to believe by going for the jugular: hell. In attempting to persuade people to believe and in attempting to show people the significance, many (and old fashioned Catholics and Orthodox do the same) ramp up the implications by pushing hell hard. Brian is reading the narrative through the lens of how some persuade.

Great comments Scot,
I have sensed for some time Brian is reacting to his past. Rather than see it positively as a stepping stone in his spiritual journey he sees it negatively as a monstrous evil that needs to be eradicated. Sometimes I want to tell people on the theological right or left that they need to exorcize the demon of legion (the multitude of charicatures and straw men they erect).
In the end, Brian is going to have to do a lot more deconstucting than just Hell or Evangelicalism to get rid of the violent God. I still remember a preacher when I was a teenager who gave a whole sermon on all the people God killed in the Bible. Quite schocking when one thinks about it. Violence may get subverted and destroyed in the end but it certainly is something that is employed throughout the Scriptures whether we like it or not.

Scot,
I’m reading Webber’s Ancient Future Worship and your point 4 (in comment 30) struck me and reminded me of his central definition of “worship.” I think Webber would say that if that’s how we commonly pursuade–by pushing hell hard–then that’s how we’ve commonly told/enacted the story of God.

I contend that if the primary message is pushing hell, then the soteriology is the narrative by definition.
The “We believe” statement i posted the other day from beaverdam baptist church is not merely a soteriological statement, it is their narative….
Scot, you have me questioning my motivations…and that is good.
Dave

Hi Scot,
I respect your scholarship and hard work developing your theories of anti-rhetoric and post-conversion psychological states that shape how the converted speak about the past.
Could you help me out by describing your own anti-rhetoric and explaining how your own conversion(s) may be coming into play here? In other words, how is your resistance to Brian’s ideas an example of anti-rhetoric and also a foil for your own ideas you would like to put forward?
Thanks,
Dave H.

Part of the wedge issue is that from a biblical perspective salvation is more than something that happens to me, something more than the experience of individuals. In our modern drive toward autonomous individualism, some traditions within Protestantism have reduced salvation to what happens to the individual. We can see this when a “Plan of Salvation” is mentioned that tells individuals the X steps they need to follow to be saved. Such plans are read off of (reductions of) the biblical narrative.
McLaren, along with others, are reacting against that reduction by, from what I can tell (since I don’t have the book, I have to go by Scot’s reports), doing a different reduction.

Richard @25,
If McClaren’s problem is not really with how the “soul-sort” narrative is taught by the best voices but rather with how it is received at the popular level, as you seem to suggest, then why do we need a “New Kind” of Christianity? Why not just a better implementation of the evangelical narrative, as it regularly taught by the best voices, so as to ensure a better understanding at the popular level?
But is not the reason he attempts to bring a “New Kind” of Christianity that he disagrees with the “old kind” of evangelicalism as it is best taught as well as how it is “popularly” perceived? And inasmuch as he critiques it under the “popular” reception, not under how it has been best taught, is he not thereby caricaturing it?

Richard (#27),
By mentioning Jesus’ blood I was not intending to imply any of the theories of atonement. But I sense that McLaren has landed in a purely Example understanding of Jesus’ death on the Cross. Jesus died only to show us the way to respond to power. I am stumped at how the word “atonement” even applies to McLaren’s idiosyncratic narrative.

Scot,
I agree regarding the distinction between the plan of salvation and the narrative but I don’t think many people make that distinction.
As I read through your points, I can’t help but wondering if the main issues here have been semantic thus far.
1) Brian uses conventional to mean “popular” and “loudest” and you use conventional to mean “orthodox, theologically precise and historic”
2) You laid out a distinction between “narrative” and “gospel” that most do not make but some of us make quite naturally because of our training
3) I like your distinction that his G-R Narrative is not the narrative but is it fair to say that some have made it the narrative? I’m thinking of those in the tradition of Anselm that make PSA to be THE theory of atonement. I shift we see around 1100 that coincides neatly with the first Crusades (as a contemporary but not as a cause).
In regards to my plea, I’m not so much concerned with you saying that ANKOC accurately portrays the conventional narrative. I acknowledge that you’re using that term very differently from Brian. I am more interested in the notion that that 6LN with the picture of Theos is a very influential, loud, and popular model that has done a lot of damage to individuals even as it has given others an assurance of where they’re going when they die. Was it how I first got involved in Grand Narrative of Christ, yes. Am I thankful for that much yes. But I also readily acknowledge that the syncretism of G-R thought with Christianity has caused a lot of damage over the years and kept many from Jesus.
I’m also thankful for Amway because that was the organization that got my parents re-involved in church and faith but it doesn’t mean I’ll endorse it unequivocally (or much at all).

Scot (#24) — I’m not a Bosch expert. But in general, my big concern about Brian’s current book vis-a-vis missional theology is that “mission” springs from God’s salvation, which springs from God’s character as the Triune God, revealed in the incarnate, crucified and risen Jesus Christ. This does, and must, involve a “sorting,” because the crucified and risen Christ is the judge of sin and his resurrection is the victory over sin. Any “salvation” worth having must involve judgment. When I see movement away from the Triune God and towards the process god, and movement away from any concept at all of judgment, that seems to me a move away from “missional” theology, at least as I’d want to construe it.
DRT (#26) — I would define “universalism” to mean the doctrine that all are inevitably accepted by God. I would contrast this with the “hope of universal salvation,” which is at best a “hope,” not a “doctrine,” and which still involves judgment, atonement, and human response. Richard John Neuhas’ book “Death on a Friday Afternoon” explores Catholic versions of this hope; the book “Christ the Conqueror of Hell” that Scot reviewed here on JC explores Eastern Orthodox versions of it; it is also a feature of Karl Barth’s view of election. I’m not sure everyone would agree with this distinction, but it seems useful and important to me. And as I’ve said, although I hope everyone will be saved, I don’t believe scripture, reason or experience support that as any kind of firm hope — some will persist in rejecting God and will not be saved.

Scot–You are amazing. I wish I had half your intellect and work ethic! Thanks for such an insightful analysis. You are more than fair. If Brian was really fair, he would quit stating that he loves the Bible and would say he only loves part of it. He would also tell his readers in advance which chunks of scripture they need to take their scissors to. There are so many passages he will not even quote, because they so obviously refute his doctrine. Regarding soul-sort, I ‘love’ the soul-sort parables Jesus tells in, say, Matthew 13–”Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
And here also in 13, on the wheat and the tares (‘weeds’ here)–”Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
This is the Jesus that Brian says we should filter all our theology through. It is the same Jesus who gave John the final revelation of similar horrific soul-sorting when He returns. It is amazing how many books you can sell if your readers are willing to snip out precious portions (they are all precious) of Jesus’ and the other NT writers’ words!

Wow, yes and wow again Scot! I so resonate with your observations here, especially re. the anti-rhetoric of McLaren and his most ardent followers. The comparison to the attitude of an evangelical former Catholic to Catholicism, is spot on.
Rather than grappling with evangelicalism as one of evangelicalism’s better representatives would describe it, again and again they speak only of evangelicalism in its worst forms, and rather than calling evangelicalism to move out of those shallow waters and be its best and highest self, they use those most shallow and stunted forms of evangelicalism-on-the-ground (or as viewed exclusively through its flaws) to describe it in toto, and as reason for rejecting it and justifying their own reactionary move away from it. “The heresies men do leave are hated most.”
Your plea at the end of the post is much-needed. We would all do better if we spoke of those we disagreed with in ways that they themselves would acknowledge did justice to what they believed and why. Nobody wants to be caricatured and turned into a two dimensional foil for someone else’s agenda. We can’t even have dialogue if one side won’t speak of the other’s views in ways that the holders of those views would own as their own.

Richard (#38)
“1) Brian uses conventional to mean “popular” and “loudest” and you use conventional to mean “orthodox, theologically precise and historic”"
So the “popular” and “loudest” application of this narrative is found nowhere in teaching, books or scholarship? How can you describe it, then, as “popular” or “loud”? Is Rick Warren unpopular? Is John Piper soft?
The only evidence we have that McLaren’s narrative evokes the loudest and most popular sects of Christianity is that many who have become disillusioned with the church would characterize their experience as he describes. So we essentially have to embrace the idea that the church teaches, in secret, that which finds no resonance in anything on the record.
And yet, Christian books sell millions of copies. Seminaries are full of students. Don’t these people find it odd that everything they are taught when cameras and scribes are not present contradicts everything that is taught when they are present?
If there is such a widespread, secret teaching of Zeus-God theology, isn’t the answer simply to call Christian leaders to teach as they write. Shouldn’t we call Rick Warren to cancel his secret church meetings where he preaches an entirely different gospel?
That, to me, would be a far more compelling call for a new kind of Christianity.

If our ‘best voices’ or ‘better representatives’ have been telling the story in such a way that even a large portion of those at the ground level are understanding it in anyway like Brian communicates then are they really our ‘best voices’? Is it not the point of our ‘better voices’ even speaking at all so that we all come into and live out of the Gospel story? If this is how it is being understood then we should be rethinking the way we tell it. How I communicate atonement to my children is different than how I talk to my wife about it. I only have a GED but completely understand that I am able to use different metaphors with my MDiv friends than I can or should with my immigrant neighbors. If the words we use are signposts pointing beyond themselves and people are consistently going the wrong direction we can kid ourselves and say its bad soil but maybe we are simply pointing in the wrong direction.

dopderbeck @ 39,
Any Christian narrative must include judgment. But must judgment preclude universalism? We’re moving somewhat far afield, and I must again caveat my remarks by saying I haven’t read Brian’s latest book, but I don’t think, based on books 2 and 3 of the New Kind of Christian series, that lack of judgment/atonement/etc are a concern. Nor do I think Brian has moved to any kind of purely example theory of the atonement, as John Frye seems to believe.
Please, everyone, let’s not start accusing people of not believing something they haven’t said recently.
I tend to agree that this post isn’t really moving the conversation forward. Armchair theories on why people are *really* saying something aren’t very helpful, even when accurate.

I think the conversion anti-rhetoric is an excellent lens for understanding this. Here is analogy that comes to my mind.
I can?t say I had the best relationship with my dad growing up. As a young guy, I think too much of my life was framed by being contra-Dad. I?m hardly unique. To some degree it is a natural process of maturity. But at some point it occurred to me that by being contra-Dad I was in essence still being completely defined by my father. As I got older I developed a greater appreciation for both his virtues and his flaws. My identity could both include and exclude things I saw in my Dad. My identity became grounded in something more expansive to the point that coherence with or against Dad became inconsequential.
Much of the Emergent conversations, where McLaren is strongly embraced, give me a strong sense of metaphorically being with a young-adult fixated on being contra-Dad ? or in this case contra-Evangelical. There is much exploration of other theological perspectives but it is all funneled into an Evangelical versus contra-Evangelical binary fixation. It is a parochial sub-cultural ghettoized conversation. But it is a sub-culture that seems oblivious to the reality that it is indeed a sub-culture.
Many of the things that the McLarenites seem to embrace are virtually identical to what Mainline Christians (Episcopal, Methodist, ELCA, PCUSA, etc.) have been embracing from years. (Which also explains why McLaren finds such a welcoming audience in Mainline seminaries.) I?ve been a Mainliner for nearly thirty years. There are problems with what my tribe has embraced. I try to bring those issues into an Emergent conversation, which is fine until I raise a view that might seem to comport well with what Evangelicals believe. At that point I?ve revealed that I?m just an unevolved Evangelical ? I?m not sufficiently contra-Evangelical.
And as we see, even in the comments in this series, anyone who challenges the orthodoxy that McLaren’s (and his followers’) experience of Evangelicalism is defining for not only Evangelicalism, but for all of Western Christianity, is treated dismissively or with antagonism. It is not enough to contend that their issues are of significance. In near megalomaniacal fervor, they must be embraced as the defining theological issue of our time.
I?m very much interested in exploring and discerning where God may be leading the church but I?m thoroughly convinced that the answer is not in being Evangelical or being Mainline. Nor is it being contra-Evangelical or contra-Mainline. At some point our discerning powers have to grow-up and transcend this type of framing.

Michael @ 45,
Good points, but I’d question the idea that emerging church ideas are simply a rehash of the mainline. At it’s best, it’s an effort to heal the divide between both worlds, and find a better third way forward. It may be failing at that (though not from where I’m sitting), but that’s the goal.

It seems to me that whatever version of the soul-sort narrative one might hold that the idea of Hell is a critical component in the narrative. Scot made the following comment earlier regarding the scriptural development of Hell: “The notion of “hell” seems to have developed over time, at least as it is understood today, and it would be very hard to show that the OT sense of “sheol” is saying the same thing as the NT concept of hell.”
Again, I have to ask if the idea of Hell as it is understood today in the church kind of “evolved” as a conceptual notion, then how do we even know it truly is a valid part of ANY kind of narrative? Does Paul ever discuss the idea of non-believers going to Hell when they die? Were Adam and Eve condemned to Hell for their transgressions?
-RD

I like today?s tone of conversation.
BTW, all of the following is IMHO (does that get me off the hook?)
It seems to me that there is still a big difference in motivation. Some of us can analyze the theology and the motivations for someone in an academic way and be totally correct, and yet utterly useless. I think that is what is going on here.
I see a problem in conservative evangelical circles that is not merely an academic or theological exercise. It is one thing to allege that someone believes ?incorrectly?, but when that belief creates a worldview that is incompatible with the basic tenants of cooperative life on this planet then caricatures and such are in order.
I attended a bible study where they were discussing 1 John 2 (others probably did that this week too if they have the same book). The leader of the bible study presented the view that either you are in the light (with Jesus) or you are not in the light (without Jesus). Then, later in that chapter, you are to love your ?Christian? brothers. That combination of beliefs leads to many of the problems that we see in the world today. It can be used to justify genocide, colonialism, pollution, being rude etc.
I believe what Brian is pointing towards is something that allows us to get beyond such a view of the world. One way to attack that view of the world is by attacking to soul sort part. If you take away the dichotomy of either being with or against Jesus, then it is hard to justify taking over the middle east because they will be damned anyway.
I believe there is more at stake in this whole conversation than a simple academic exercise. It is not the mainline liberals who are hating the Muslims. It is not the enlightened evangelicals who are polluting other parts of our world then feeling it is their sacred calling to do it. It is the conservative evangelicals using a soul sort view of the world who are doing it in an unhealthy way. There is more at stake here Michael 45 than being against your father, there is being against our one Father.
Dave

Travis,
I doubt that many here think that all of the emerging church conversation is simply a rehash of the mainline – many would see aspects that are looking for a genuine new way of expressing the orthodox gospel. This includes removing the errors of the truncated 6 line narrative and the plan of salvation approach – and the skepticism and rationalism of an approach that demythologizes Christianity leaving an practical ethical “pure” form.
Isn’t Scot suggesting that Brian’s latest book takes Christianity to a form of universal example and follows in the footsteps of the sanitized, humanist, demythologized church? This isn’t orthodox or biblical Christianity. Now the question – is Scot’s analysis right?

RD, what of these? For Paul “non-believers” would more properly be the disobedient too…
1Cor. 6:9 ??Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers?none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal. 5:21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Eph. 5:5 Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person, or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Acts 17:30-31 is pretty close to your question, too: While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.?
Now we can spend our time figuring out if this is us and seek to relativize what is said, but clearly here Paul sees some who won’t make it.

Scot (#50) — Right. There is judgment. There is a Kingdom of God which is set over against the “Kingdoms of this World,” and not all people are in the right Kingdom. But RD’s question it seems to me is a bit more subtle: are the texts you’re quoting equating exclusion from the “kingdom of God” with “eternal conscious torment in Hell?” I would say yes, and no.
Yes: the state of exclusion is “Hell”. It is real. And Jesus is the coming Judge and King as well as the Savior. Judgment apart from the grace available in Christ is to be feared. No: this is not the same thing ontologically as the Chick Tract version of Hell, nor even of Augustine’s speculation about flames that don’t burn or Dante’s concentric circles, and so on. What it is exactly ontologically is something of a mystery, but whatever exactly it is, it will be both terrible and just.
But the “in-or-out” questions that Brian asks still remain ones we need to ask, it seems to me. Can anyone among us read these vice lists and say “none of those vices describe me?” Or in all honesty, do most of us see ourselves described in Romans 3:10: “there is no one righteous, not even one”? If Romans 3:10-18 is true, how can 1 Cor. 6:9 also be true, unless no one will be saved?
I think this is where, by eliding judgment, Brian’s narrative also cuts out the keys to these puzzles: election and grace. Apart from God’s election and God’s grace, no one would be saved. But because God is the One who elects and saves, we can have confidence that the result will be both generous and just. I’d rather leave the eschatological future in the hands of the crucified God who is generous and just than to an evolving god who is surprised by what happens in creation.
That said, I think popular evangelical soteriology as well as traditional-fundamentalist Reformed soteriology make some mistakes when it comes to the nature and scope of election and grace. I need to think it through more carefully, but I feel that some of Barth’s insights about election probably can help us here.

“Any Christian narrative must include judgment.”
Agreed. If here is no judgment, there is no good news for the poor, etc.
BUT
We have to let the Triune God define that judgment and it’s purpose. Is it purely punitive (like Anselm posits) or is God desiring to truly restore everything and everyone no matter how long that takes (which seems to fit better with how Jesus relates to notorious sinners in his day)?
This would be a major difference, IMHO, between the soul-sort that emphasizes the afterlife and the Kingdom-sorting that emphasizes the here and now. Both involve sorting but the fruit of each of these will be very different with different purposes and intents.

Scot, your anti-rhetoric Insight/point not only has me shaking my head in absolute agreement, but reexamining my heart, motivation and thinking. I have noticed this in others but have only thought about it as a response from some, not as any sort of consistent principle. I am convicted personally, and humbly pray that this revelation creates a level of circumspection in my thinking that will not easily be bypassed.

Scot (#50),
Thanks for taking the time to check out several references. I really do appreciate that you didn’t just blow by my question. I do have to say, though, that the fact that Paul states that certain people won’t inherit the Kingdom doesn’t emphatically represent that they will be condemned. I’m not sure I ever recall an instance where Paul talks about nonbelievers residing in Hell. It seems to me that his narrative idea is that those who are “in” Christ will inherit a place in the Kingdom when Christ returns. All others will simply cease to be.
And, as was stated earlier, if Hell is an idea not located in Old Testament times but, instead, is a later concept or idea or belief, then how can we say that mankind is “fallen” at all? Was Adam fallen? Was King David?
-RD

RJS @ 49,
Sometimes when I try to describe the ec I get “Well, you should just become [Lutheran/Catholic/Anglican/whatever].” Which is less than helpful. Not that I have anything against those traditions.
“Isn’t Scot suggesting that Brian’s latest book takes Christianity to a form of universal example and follows in the footsteps of the sanitized, humanist, demythologized church? This isn’t orthodox or biblical Christianity. Now the question – is Scot’s analysis right?”
I’m not sure Scot has, in this series, discussed Brian’s actual views. He takes issues with Brian’s (as he sees it) inaccurate critique of conventional theology. I haven’t read Brian’s latest book, so I don’t know if it does “follow in the footsteps of the sanitized, humanist, demythologized church” and “isn’t orthodox or biblical Christianity”, but I certainly would argue with anyone who would make that claim about his earlier work. Brian affirms the creeds, the divinity of Jesus, and the resurrection.
It seems to me there’s lots of guilt-by-association, suspicion, and jumping-to-conclusions when it comes to this topic.

Travis,
I have not read this latest book – so I won’t comment on whether Scot is right or not, except to note that he has read the book and his evaluation is not based on guilt-by-association, suspicion, or jumping to conclusions.
I am more interested here in thinking about the appropriate presentation of the gospel – and the fact that it is often done poorly and learned poorly. I disagree with the idea that Brian’s portrayal of the 6 Line narrative is an accurate reflection of orthodox Christianity leading to the need for a new kind of Christianity. However, I do agree that that his 6 line narrative is sometimes taught, sometimes learned even when not taught, and that other less odious, but nonetheless inadequate presentations of the gospel are often both taught and learned.
I also have a great deal of trouble with the idea that the church has gotten not just details, but the essence of the faith wrong for 1600+ years, from ca. 300 or earlier to 1900 or 2000. I suggest that every expression of the church has gotten details wrong – but most (vast majority, but not all) have had the essence right. My belief in God and in the power of the Spirit makes this, I think, undeniable. If it isn’t true we may as well give up and spend our time on something else.

Scot,
Thanks for your thoughts about “anti-rhetoric”. It causes me to reflect upon how we all have an “anti-rhetoric”. I will certainly be considering what I am reacting against.
I am wondering about the definition of salvation. What are we saved FROM, and what are we saved TO?
According to Brian, what are we being saved FROM, and what are we being saved TO?
According to you, what are we being saved FROM, and what are we being saved TO?
I find that the Bible offers many examples of salvation defined as “rescue FROM” and “rescue TO”.
Abraham rescued FROM “childlessness” TO “having a son of the Promise”.
Israel rescued FROM “slavery in Egypt” TO “the freedom of the Promised Land”.
In the prophets there is rescue FROM “injustice and oppression” TO “justice and liberation”
Human beings under Adam being rescued FROM the powers of sin, death, and the demonic TO right relationship with God and others, not to mention abundant Life.
In USA history we are still in the process of being rescued FROM the “original sin of racism” TO “the beloved community.”
Jesus often rescued people FROM “blindness, deafness, disease, isolation from community” TO “sight, hearing, health, and restoration to the community.”
It is clear Brian rejects “soul sort salvation” where a few are rescued FROM “hell as eternal conscious torment” TO “a heaven of eternal, spiritual, non-material bliss.” There has been reaction against this “anti-rhetoric” from Brian. Might a way forward in the conversation be for us to lay our “saved FROM what TO what” cards on the table?
Tim

RJS,
“I also have a great deal of trouble with the idea that the church has gotten not just details, but the essence of the faith wrong for 1600+ years, from ca. 300 or earlier to 1900 or 2000.”
I understand the difficulty, but at the same time, how can one be Protestant at all and not hold to some version of “the church has gotten it very wrong for a long time”? If one is Anabaptist, one almost certainly has to hold something like this. I don’t think that proposition is inconsistent with belief in God and the power of the Spirit, or with the idea of the church as still God’s called-out people. I’m with Augustine. The church is a whore, but she’s still our mother.
I agree, a simplistic “They twisted the real message of Jesus but we’ve finally figured it out” is dumb, especially when applied to Paul (which conveniently ignores that almost all the references to hell come from Jesus and almost none from Paul). But…there are lots of things we’ve gotten wrong and had to repent of. Slavery, subjugation of women (still working on that one in most of the church), use of violence (in my opinion). The Bible is a record of people screwing up what God is up to, and him working through them just the same.

I’ve been following all 3 parts of this thread, and a key largely-missing element in it seems to be this: What are the best reasons to believe that either narrative under discussion (or any from within the Bible) represents a unique revelation from God?
If one wants to consider the very broad kind of “revelation” that is not really supernatural in type (such as Rodney Stark’s concept if I’ve read him right), then the discussion is largely outside Evangelicalism, I realize. My own reason for abandoning the basic, foundational structure of Evangelical theology, after very, very long and detailed study, is lack of substantive evidence that the Bible is either “revealed” or “unique” in more than the sense that any system is distinctive from others, or unique. That coupled with perceiving it as capable of being humanly explained quite adequately, while still reflecting certain spiritual realities (and thus an important, valuable document).
Yes, the concepts “worked” for me, for many years, in both beneficial and detrimental ways, as they do for millions… they are powerful and CAN be liberating. But many others (cf. the “fruit” vs. “trunk” discussion) find them detrimental, misguided, etc., and agonize greatly over what to do with their doubt, confusion, or desire to believe something else, but not knowing what TO believe. (There ARE plenty of materials presenting vialble alternatives, whether or not one considers McLaren’s one of them.)
And as to “anti-rhetoric” I surely examine and monitor mine, with care, but to have such only makes good sense–aside from the matter of whether a new position is necessarily more “true” than a prior one. At least in my case, I hold all my positions now more tentatively (tho with a satisfactory trust level) than I did mine during my orthodox days.

Liberation must primarily be interpreted in terms of a freedom gifted by grace, a gift that frees us from the slavery of sin which robs people of their dignity. This slavery is certainly experienced as marginalization and oppression in our socio-economic-politico-cultural sphere but in its most “radical” form it is experienced as a slavery to sin, where other forms of slavery find their “root.” How do we distinguish, though, between an authentic theology of liberation as rooted in the correctly interpreted Word of God and an ideology of liberation that corrupts the essential Gospel message?
As Christians with a robust pneumatology, we believe that the Holy Spirit is the source of all renewal and that God is the Lord of all history. Our Gospel ecclesiology professes faith in a Kingdom begun here on earth in the Church, but takes account (with science, even) that this earth will pass away. Our eschatology professes faith in a Kingdom not of this world, where we have no lasting dwelling. In our soteriology, while we recognize with Lonergan that human conversions grow us as individuals – intellectually, affectively, morally, socially & religiously – from image to likeness, at the same time, we do not identify the Kingdom’s growth with progress in science, culture and philosophy. We grow, rather, as Brian described, via Bernardian love, from love of self to sake of self to love of God for sake of self, to love of God for sake of God and love of self for sake of God. And it is this same Spirit-inspired love, which is animated by our faith in Christ’s riches and hope in things eternal, that concerns us with social justice in the welfare of all who inhabit this temporal earthly city, where we seek to permeate and improve our temporal order with a preferential option for the poor and the young.
With a radically incarnational view, human dignity is grounded in the individual and celebrated in community. This, in turn, grounds the subsidiarity principle, which holds individual liberty in a creative tension with socialization processes, all ordered toward the common good. Still, both social justice and injustice is located in the hearts of people, where God indwells, and not in the structures of institutions, whether social, economic, political, cultural or even religious. It is thus an ideological -not a theological- vision that is reflexively and partisanly biased, whether for or against, regarding socialization processes. Charles S. Peirce was correct, I believe, in suggesting that we should speculate boldly regarding theoretical matters but should proceed cautiously and tentatively in our vital (or practical) affairs. Thus we find the Church, I believe, properly biased toward tradition and our prudential judgment properly biased toward a conservative approach, in my vieww. This honors our belief that the Spirit has been active in our world among its people. But such biases toward the traditional and conservative are not, at the same time, absolutes. They are, instead, weakly truth-indicative and not robustly truth-conducive. As Brian has suggested, our institutions thus conserve the past fruits of the Spirit, while our movements are the vehicle for present novel works of God among His people. Brian has described certain sociological and psychological patterns that emerge as institutions and movements interact. There is a certain irony in the fact that the dynamics Brian has described somewhat mirror Scott’s own account of the psychology of conversion.
There is another irony here in any charge that Brian’s theology has been shaped by liberation themes. Let me explain.
Another way to interpret Brian’s critique of the 6LN is to look at it as a charge that an authentic theology has been corrupted by a partisan ideology. In essence, he is suggesting that a certain cohort of Christianity has allowed ideological elements of a particular socio-economic-politico-cultural sphere to corrupt the essential theological message of the Gospel.
It is important to note that he is NOT arguing against an inculturation of the Gospel as it might have otherwise profitably assimilated Hellenic philosophy and Roman culture, for example, to Western civilization’s true edification. Rather, he is protesting a subversion of Gospel imperatives by certain ideological absolutes that were propagated as viral memes within those societies.
That’s the irony here insofar as Brian has similarly been charged, to quoque, with a subversion of Gospel values by a liberation ideology. I would counter that Brian has not embraced a subversive liberation ideology but has articulated a sound theology of liberation, as systematically consistent with his other Franciscan sensibilities ( see Leonardo Boff’s Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor) and wholly in line with my brief sketch above. As Brian put it to me, for the gospel to incarnate into a culture is very different from a culture co-opting the gospel.
There are ways, in my view, to hold a nuanced particularism in a creative tension with a nuanced religious pluralism. So, too, we hold in tension the Kingdom now and to come. We can also better nuance what the early fathers called apokatastasis as a legitimate hope for universal salvation, affirming, as a theological necessity, the belief that God leaves us free and would not coerce us into an eternal relationship. Finally, a great deal of our God-encounter is mediated via our participatory and imaginative engagement of symbol systems, which we inhabit existentially (or not). This is where I locate most of my resonance with the Evangelical approach. So much of the disagreement is articulated in a conceptual form that, sometimes, tends to overemphasize the more propositional aspects of our belief system. Those are not important but, if we do not pay heed to all that we share vis a vis our participatory imaginative engagements, I think we risk despairing of a deeper unity, losing sight of all that we do have in common, like the riches that we share in Christ and the hopes we share for things eternal.
We can reasonably expect that all of us will be more or less influenced by our socio-economic-politico-cultural milieu, sometimes allowing it to subvert the Gospel in our lives, but hopefully, most of the time fostering the Gospel’s incarnation into our culture. Which cohorts have allowed the Gospel to be co-opted for how long and to what extent makes for quite a discussion. The sociological and psychological dynamics that might be involved are very interesting and the ones discussed in this context seem pretty intuitive even, providing a rough composite mapping of what many of us have encountered over the years, generally speaking. It is with some peril, however, that we apply such diagnostics to any given person in particular. For one thing, such analyses can be facile. For another, we do need to be sensitive to such a framing and description of another person. What groups of people believe what, however, do lend themselves to sociologic analysis. No need to trade anecdotes; see Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.

Broken Link: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=380

John (#60) — interesting post, as always. You’re Roman Catholic, and my take on what you’ve said in various places is that you’re not a deeply radical Catholic ala Mary Daly or ala radical Marxist liberation theology. (True?) You reference Boff but you also reference Lonergan. Interestingly enough, Lonergan’s critical realist theological method is popular among many evangelicals these days. So, I don’t see you at least in this thread talking about a “new” kind of Christianity. I see you talking about strands of contemporary Catholic theology that reside within the broad stream of the Christian Tradition and in particular within the Catholic Tradition.

I’ve had occasion recently to re-read Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence, the cover of which bears a blurb from Scot. Tickle’s theme is that every 500 years or so the Church has a massive rummage sale in which hitherto commonly accepted verities are opened up for re-examination. The discussion on Brian’s book would tend to support her thesis that we are in the midst of one of those ” massive rummage sales.”

Hi, all – Thanks again, Scot, for hosting such an important and worthwhile dialogue, and to all for participating. A few quick comments …
First, to get a few negatives out of the way: a few comments continue to misrepresent my thought, #21 especially, and also #40 stands out. Regarding #21, the comment says, “McLaren will praise, revere and give Jesus a place in his NKofC, but it is not the Jesus who ever separates sheep from goats or sits as Judge of all.” I can only think this commenter hasn’t read my book, or missed page 204, for example. I’ll come back to the “sorting” issue in a minute. The comment continues, “As long as Jesus is simply a peer to Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandella, Brian and his followers will be satisfied. McLaren’s narrative fiercely sociological with not a drop of Jesus’ blood in it.” Again, this is a terribly unfair assessment of me and my friends, or reveals a surprisingly uncareful reading of the book. The Jesus I describe in Chapters 11-13 is God revealed in human flesh, the Word of God, the Lord of all. This Jesus has no peer … and I can only imagine why anyone would say something so obviously contrary to what I’ve said in the book.
On the soul-sort issue, #40 says, “There are so many passages he will not even quote, because they so obviously refute his doctrine.” Again, quite unfair. The comment mentions Matthew 13, which I reflect on at length in an earlier book. But let me note this: in the gospels, the sorting is quite different than the sorting I hear from many, actually most, of my brothers and sisters. In Matthew 13, it is “the evil” who are sorted out – not the “nonChristians.” It is “all causes of sin and all law-breakers” that are sorted out, not “all those who don’t accept Christ as personal savior.” In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man is sorted out not because of a failure to become a Christian but because he failed to show compassion on Lazarus – and (reading the text quite closely) because “in this life” he received his good things. Similarly in Matthew 25. So … please don’t suggest I’m not reading the texts or avoiding them: I’m paying close attention to them, and I’m uncomfortable when they contradict what I was taught. I’ve tried to adjust my thinking and teaching to what I’ve actually found in the texts. Are there loose ends in my theology? I’m sure, along with many other imperfections. But I don’t think any of us can claim to have no loose ends and inconsistencies. If so, I suppose you can cast the first stone!
The comment also mentions the “horrific” dimensions of Revelation 19. Again, it sounds like this commenter is making pronouncements on my thought when he hasn’t read the book. Otherwise, he would know that I don’t deny Revelation 19 at all; I just believe that it isn’t saying what this reader thinks it’s saying … again, not against the text, but because of an important detail in the text, namely, that the sword Jesus carries comes out of his mouth … it’s not in his hand.
Scot, on #50, I agree with you that there are terrible consequences to rejecting Jesus’ good news of the kingdom, and for failing to live by it. But I wouldn’t assume in the texts you quote that “inherit the kingdom” means go to heaven after death, and that “not inherit the kingdom” means “suffer eternal conscious torment in hell.” For me, it’s becoming harder and harder to assume – as I once did – that “judgment” in the Scriptures means “punitive or retributive judgment” and little or nothing more. More and more I’m persuaded that ultimately God’s judgment is restorative, that it does identify and eliminate evil … but more, that it also sets every wrong thing right that God can possibly set right. Comment #51 might represent this as “eliding” judgment, but I think it is rethinking judgment in light of Christ, and Christ crucified. How that setting right will happen, I can’t claim to know, but the quotes from Dr. King and Moltmann (205-206) help me at least begin to imagine it.
On a positive note, comments 27 (on atonement), 29 (on process theology), 44 (on judgment), 57 (on salvation as “from” and “to”), and 60 (on a whole range of things) accurately reflect my thought.
Finally, I should say this: Scot, your de-conversion framework may have some value, but I think it may distract from my main concerns. My concerns are a lot less about reacting against fundamentalist theology, and a lot more about avoiding the kind of problems Comment #48 addresses. Some commenters seem quite happy to defend a violent God, and even to propose (against the canonical gospels) a violent Jesus. But I wonder if that means they are happy to defend a violent Christianity?

Thanks Brian.
One question then: would you say that when Jesus says “broad is the path and many find it” and “narrow is the path and few find it” that this means: “broad is the path, many find it, but in the end they, too, will end up with those who were on the narrow path?” That’s not snarky; I’m trying to discern if you see a judgment for kingdom life now that is negative but that, in the end, the final word is life eternal (for all).
I’m all over this idea that “kingdom” doesn’t mean “heaven when you die” simply (and I’ve written about it), but that’s a false dichotomy for me. The issues are twofold: (1) that “kingdom entrance” is not for all (acc to Jesus) and (2) that kingdom is life now with Jesus that has direct eternal connection with kingdom life then (whatever term one wants to use for life beyond death, etc). As I read you, you are saying that kingdom entrance can be missed by some now, but in the end God will restore all to life in the kingdom. Is that right?

Brian (#64) said: The Jesus I describe in Chapters 11-13 is God revealed in human flesh, the Word of God, the Lord of all.
I respond: this seems to answer the concerns I raised about process theology and Trinitarian thought. I’d say then that this isn’t a “new” kind of Christianity but an exploration of what the God revealed in Jesus Christ implies for ethics and for eschatology. If that is the enterprise, whether the conclusions are on-track or not, this aspect of it seems to me within the stream of historic Christian theology.
Scot (#65) — given Brian’s comments in #64, I think I see the differences between your approaches as being significantly more narrow than I might have otherwise thought.
Scot, I think you’d agree that within the framework of historic Christian theology, it’s legitimate to conclude that, although “kingdom entrance can be missed by some now,” we can hope confidently that“in the end God will restore many of those to life in the kingdom.” In other words, ideas such as post-mortem evangelism (many of the Patristics, Donald Bloesch, Clark Pinnock) or Christological inclusivism (Post Vatican-II RCC theology, John Sanders, John Stackhouse, C.S. Lewis)or a “final option” (Terrance Thiessen) are properly “Christian” approaches to the “theodicy of soteriology” problem that troubles Brian (and many of us!).
It’s the word “all” that you could not accept, because the Biblical narrative seems clear that at the end of all things, at the final judgment, many are separated from the eschatological kingdom. Right? I agree with you on this — but it seems it itself like less of a concern than the Trinitarian issues and the question of the Lordship of Christ. There is after all a long and strong tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy of apokastasis.
Now, I still want to go a step further given the references to Moltmann and King (both of whom I very much appreciate, but with both of whom I would theologically have some differences): is the “Kingdom of God” only a here-and-now political question? Having read a great deal of Moltmann, I think that is what his proleptic eschatology boils down to. It is a kind of liberation theology in which the liberation is really only political. This, I think, would be an important point of departure from the historic Christian Tradition, and one that ultimately isn’t really helpful on the “theodicy of soteriology” problems we need to address (IMHO).

argh! close “em” tag after the word “many” above.

Scot,
I like your questions but I might posit a different question for you:
Are those who missed the entrance then relegated to eternity outside of God’s Kingdom? And what does Jesus mean in Matthew 5 when he says that there are those who are “least in the Kingdom of Heaven”? Doesn’t “hell” have to be within the realm of God’s love? Is “hell” at all paralleled to being “least” in God’s Kingdom?

Hi Everyone,
I am glad Brian responded and it does remind me that when seeing charicatures in Brian’s writings, we need to be careful of our own charicatures of Brian’s theology. I suspect the planks are bigger in all of our eyes than we would rather admit. After saying that, I still think Scot suggesting Brian is reacting to his own past is spot on (I don’t think Brian would deny that even though he flew by it without a remark). Secondly, I am a pacifist in the tradition of J. H. Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas. Brevity and lack of massive unpacking may lead Brian to think that many of us support violence when in fact, I suspect more of us don’t than do. My thesis is simply “let God be God and every man a liar.” I love the way that Brian said the sword was coming out of Jesus mouth and not in his hand. Actually, the evil kings employing violence in the book of Revelation actually end up using it against themselves. Christians are called to “patiently endure” (something many American Christians are not good at). In the end, maybe Brian has worked out the difficult texts of horror and violence to his liking but for some of us, it seems neither to do justice to the witness of Scripture nor the nature of God (which Brian has a hard time it seems at least comptemplating from his own philsophical perspective). All I can say is even if Brian is right, he still may need to be haunted more by the Christ who suffered immense horror and violence. I still remember Karl Barth, even though a universalist who had a dream about Hell that haunted him forevermore. Maybe whatever perspective we have, we ought to be a little more haunted by the others perspective and a little less tenacious in our undertakings. Shalom!

PS – Maybe the early church father Origen is a bridgebuilder between people who suffer judgement and hell (contra Brian) and finally all are restored to heaven (the restoration of all things as Brian would claim). Or to put things very simply, “Does God kill people?” However that question is answered biblically leads to the further questions of death, judgment, and destruction.

Scot – thanks for this question, and it’s really important. Here’s my reading of Matthew 7 …
The context is not the “soul-sort” question – i.e. who goes to eternal conscious torment and who goes to eternal bliss. The context is the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, a nation occupied by the Roman Empire. The assumption is that the status quo is untenable – how could people who believe in one living God be subjugated and humiliated by an empire that believes in many false gods? The scribes and the Pharisees propose one kind of solution to the question – a formula for right or just living (5:17 ff) that focuses on private morality. The underlying assumption is, “If we do a better job obeying the law, God will free us.” The zealots propose another – one that focuses on violent political rebellion. The assumption seems to be, “If we would rise up like David against Goliath, God will fight for us and free us.”
(The two, it turns out, fit together well, one providing cover for the other. They also share an understanding of “save” or “salvation” that is, I think, far more Jewish and Biblical than our – pardon the word – conventional one: saving is paradigmatically what God did for the Jews in Egypt, and so by extension saving means liberating from evil and oppression in all its forms – social, political, personal, spiritual, etc. BTW, I don’t think the ancient Jews would have seen these as discrete categories, but as one holistic salvation.)
Jesus proposes a radical alternative. He lines it out in terms of attitude (5:1-11), identity (5:13-16), interpersonal behavior (5:21 ff – culminating in 4:38 – 48 where he advocates love for enemies), spiritual practices (6:1 ff), economics (6:19 ff), etc.
Then he says (7:13-29 – here’s my rough and expanded paraphrase, tying what I think he’s saying here with his larger message elsewhere), “If you practice what I’m saying, when the storm of violence comes, your house will stand. But if you reject what I’m saying – if you choose the path of private piety fused with political violence proposed by the scribes, Pharisees, and zealots – you will rebel against Rome and Rome will come in and crush you. Not one stone will be left on another. Your entire way of life centered in temple, sacrifice, priesthood, ethnicity, and holy city will be destroyed. I know what I’m saying sounds impractical and preposterous. Most people will reject it – but that wide road will lead to escalating cycles of violence, ending in destruction. By trying to save your lives by violence, you will lose them; those who live by the sword will die by it. Only a few are willing to explore my alternative path of justice and shalom based on kingdom-of-God attitudes and values (rather than typical Roman attitudes of domination and acquisition), enemy-love (rather than in-grouping ‘brothers’ and out-grouping ‘enemies’), and radical reconciliation (rather than retaliation and revolution).”
I hope that makes sense – again, not expecting you to agree with it, but at least to understand how I honestly read the text. I also think there are other dimensions to salvation, judgment, etc., than this, but if we’re going to refer to Matthew 7, I have to start with this understanding until someone shows me a reading that is more true to the text itself. (Here I find myself humbly standing with Luther … )
Also, Scot, as you said, not to be snarky, if anyone wants to quote Matthew 7 to reinforce the 6-line, soul-sort narrative, they have to deal with the fact that Jesus doesn’t say, “Enter through the narrow gate of believing in me as personal Savior, having confidence in the penal substitutionary theory of atonement (I know you and “responsible thinkers” don’t say this, but surprisingly many do), identifying as a member of the orthodox Christian religion and disavowing any other religious affiliation, fulfilling your sacramental obligations and avoiding church-indicated mortal sin (or whatever). Otherwise you will experience eternal conscious torment.”
According to Matthew 7, who will experience destruction? (Again, in this context, I don’t think this means eternal conscious torment: it means exactly what happened in AD 70, the dead end of the broad road of eye-for-eye violence that we continue to follow today.) It will be those who hear “these words of mine” – indicating, I think you’ll agree, first and foremost the words of the sermon on the mount themselves – and do not practice them. The ones who will stand, who will be saved through the storm, who will experience God’s shalom, are those who hear and practice Jesus’ words. I don’t think you can quote Jesus for the outcome (many experience destruction, few life) without also accepting what he says for the means (practicing his teaching). If applied in the soul-sort narrative, this would contradict “justification by grace through faith.” My reading avoids that problem. (And many will feel it creates worse problems, I’m sure.)
I don’t expect many people to agree with this reading. I’m simply saying this reading makes most sense to me, and to growing numbers of others too. But it requires me to step outside the soul-sort narrative. I don’t re-interpret the passage to get out of the narrative – but rather my honest grappling with the Scriptures, especially the Sermon on the Mount but all the gospels with it, has forced me to question the narrative.
This is why, try as I might, I find it hard to make myself clear when people ask me, “Are you a universalist?” My only honest response is, “That question only makes sense when you’re living inside a certain narrative. But I don’t. For me to answer the question requires me to re-enter a narrative that I think is a huge part of the problem because it keeps us from seeing so much of what Jesus was saying and was doing.” I believe that in the end, we all – universally – will face judgment and mercy, because we all will face the living God in whom justice and mercy live in perfect harmony … the living God who was revealed most fully not in the religious or political authority figures executing judgment, but in the one being executed. I think this gets us close to the true scandal of the cross. I hope that before people rush to condemn this, they will be sure to at least try to understand it. If you reject it after understanding it, that’s one thing. But if you reject it without understanding it, we haven’t even achieved disagreement. Sometimes, it’s not easy to achieve disagreement well!
Sorry to ramble on … but hopefully this clarifies an issue or two.

Brian (#64),
I am glad for your push back against my concerns (comment #21). If indeed your vision of Jesus is God’s unique soteriological agent without peer, then I was wrong. I am sorry. I am trying to sync your concepts with historic orthodoxy which paradoxically sees Jesus the Christ, second Person of the Trinity incarnate as both the Great Unifier (reconcilor)of all things and the Great Divider–the Present and Final Judge of all (and this is not to mean I am unaware of views of Christian universalism and/or annihilation).

Brian (#71),
I have read commentators who say “the house built on the rock” refers to the Temple and Jesus as the new Temple calls to obedience to his new way (versus the Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes, etc.) for he is the only one who will withstand the storm (of violent oppression) by entering it and disarming it (verified in the resurrection). So, no, I don’t think your view of the Matthew text is that far off a 1st century Jewish understanding. The issue then for some of us is your blatant, idiosyncratic caricature of the biblical 6LN with it absorbed Zeus-monster god theology as the core of the historic Christian faith.
You don’t have to step outside evangelicalism to understand the question: are you a universalist (as dopderbeck pointed out).

dopderbeck #66
I am reading through Moltmann’s book, In the End-the Beginning: The Life of Hope”, now for the second time. It is my only exposure to Moltmann. I certainly can not see anywhere in it that the kingdom of God is only a here-and-now political question or that his eschatology boils down to a liberation that is only political. Far from it. Is this book a departure from his other works? Or am I misunderstanding him?
Thanks,
Sam

Sam (#66) — well, Moltmann famously never comes out and says exactly what he thinks, or says things that seem contradictory, so I confess that I’m characterizing or summarizing what I take to be his understanding of the Kingdom. His “Theology of Hope” and “The Crucified God” I think support my reading. In The Crucified God, the final chapter is titled “Ways Towards the Political Liberation of Man.” He says there, for example,

If the Christ of God was executed in the name of the politico-religious authorities of his time, then for the believer the higher justification of these and similar authorities is removed…. Wherever Christianity extends, the idea of the state changes…. Christians will seek to anticipate the future of Christ according to the measure of possibilities available to them, by breaking down lordship and building up the political liveliness of the individual.

This is true, but you read through to the end of the chapter waiting for Moltmann to say clearly that Christ himself really will return and consummate the “not yet” part of the eschaton — but he never does.

Brian,
Thanks for writing in. I’ve been in classes and didn’t think I’d see a response from you until our conversation this afternoon.
I would read Matt 7 along very similar lines: I’ve written extensively, in A New Vision for Israel, on learning to see Jesus’ mission and teachings in his historical context and in the context of 70AD, but there is something that falls short for me in limiting Matthew 7 to that. I doubt very much that Jesus means: If you follow me, you’ll survive 70AD’s destructions, and if you don’t, you’ll get your head cut off by the Romans. (That’s my summation of a historicist reading of Matthew 7.) I want to say he meant something like that but also that he was speaking in ultimate, eternal categories with entrance into the kingdom and not just a “this life and this life only” historical condition. Entrance into the kingdom for Jesus is serious stuff; it is forever stuff; it is very earthly, yes — and I’ve been urging this a long time — but I’m concerned with a just this earthly life way of seeing things.
One of my arguments in New Vision was that Jesus predicted 70AD but read that event as an ultimate event, and ultimacy matters to Jesus.
ON your snarky comment … nor do I or did I impart the 6line drama. And I’m all for having to follow Jesus; my next book, called One.Life, will argue just that.
And on the universalism question, well, hold one one minute: if one reads Matthew 7 (or all of this stuff) in purely historicist categories, then yes you have opted out of the soul-sort narrative entirely, but once you bring up any soteriological categories, and you have in that last paragraph, some kind of universalism question remains. Anyway.. gotta grade.

I wonder how the new heaven and new earth fits into all this? Are they separate entities? Is the picture of the New Jerusalem coming down to earth a picture of heaven on earth? It seems many people would just as much look at heaven/hell as a polarity as heaven/earth but is this the best way to look at all this? What is your take on all this Scot?

Quick comment to John (#73) … Thanks for your gracious response, John. Just to clarify: I am seeking to distance myself from a vicious, violent, and as you say, monstrous image of God. Nobody thinks they hold such a view, and I imagine that nobody consciously does.
But … I wonder if we can try to imagine what it felt like for Jews during the pogroms in Europe to have Christians call them “Christ-killers,” to burn, kill, and exile them … I wonder if we can try to imagine what it felt like for the Native Americans in our own history to be called savages and Canaanites (thus placing them in a category for “biblical genocide”), and then to watch our ancestors systematically steal their lands, relocate them to reservations, eradicate their culture, and so on. We could similarly try to imagine what it was like to hear the gospel from the same people who were colonizing … Then I wonder if we can imagine what it feels like today to be Muslim, or Hindu, or gay, etc., and become the focal point of fear, rage, distrust, fury, disgust, and so on … again, in the name of God and “Jesus.” I wonder if we can imagine what women feel like when the Bible is used to tell them to be quiet and do what they’re told … again, knowing that you probably don’t do this, but a lot of men still do, and even more used to do so even a few decades ago …
On top of my intellectual and spiritual responsibility to interpret the texts wisely and responsibly, I feel an ethical responsibility to interpret the texts with “the other” in mind. Perhaps that will help you understand where I’m coming from.
I don’t think the 6 line narrative (as I described it) is biblical – you may. You may not think that narrative – as I described it – is common; I do. You may not think the Christian faith has portrayed a monstrous image of God to the world very often; I wish that were true but don’t believe it is. I imagine you think that eternal conscious torment can be held without producing the ugly social consequences it has for “the other” in the past; that’s not a risk I can take. But If you share my concern that in the present and future we don’t portray – in word and deed – a monstrous image of a violent God to the world, then we can work together on behalf of “the other,” and I’m glad for that.

Brian,
We are not called to re-interpret scripture simply because some people have experienced abuse from those who adhere (or pretend to adhere) to scriptural truth. Women aren’t told to be quiet and do what they’re told (you will find many women among the strongest critics of your theology). Nobody really regards Muslims and Hindus with rage and disgust.
There are those who have a hard time distinguishing between violent representatives of a religion, and those who adhere to it peacefully. To be honest, you seem to have a similar difficulty. Your “theology of genocide” meme seems to echo many of the more belligerent voices in opposition to Islam.
So it’s an easy mistake to make. The answer, then, is to root out those who misinterpret the conventional narrative (which does not call for rage or disgust), rather than dispensing with the narrative.
I don’t understand your assertion that you cannot take a risk that the conventional narrative will produce ugly social consequences. Since when is this a standard for truth? You make it clear that you believe in evolutionary theory, which has certainly been used to rather ugly ends. Does this invalidate the theory?
Even if your take on the conventional narrative merely reflects your observation, it does not reflect the my observations, nor does it reflect those of many millions of evangelicals in this country. We are angry with you because we believe you have maligned our faith experience, to the detriment of scripture. You (per your piece @ HuffPo) dismiss this as a sort of astroturf resentment, perpetuated by our church leaders, to whom we blindly submit.
I find this to be utterly ridiculous. I only discovered your writing at the behest of one of my pastors. In fact, I once admired your work. Over time, I came to dismiss your writings, precisely because it is so dismissive (concretely, not rhetorically) of other viewpoints.
Until you lend substantive credence to your critics, you will be summarily dismissed, and rightly so. Does it not strike you that one of your most vocal supporters is now accusing you of engaging in the very sort of caricature you once decried? Even a little bit?

In response to the following statement from Brian (#78):
“I am seeking to distance myself from a vicious, violent, and as you say, monstrous image of God. Nobody thinks they hold such a view, and I imagine that nobody consciously does.”
You seem to suggest here that people hold to a monstrous view of God subconsciously, and I wonder if you can try to imagine what it feels like to be criticized for believing in a certain narrative and then told that your belief in it is subconscious. This is probably why “Caricature!” is the first response to your description of the G-R soul-sort narrative, and I expect that you would have protested if your critics said that you don’t really think that you hold to the universalist (or whatever) view attributed to you but implied that you subconsciously did so. Wouldn’t the conversation be much more beneficial for everyone if everyone addressed the consciously held beliefs of others rather than beliefs “nobody thinks they hold” to?

On Friday, we marked the 65th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He fought to save the Jewish people from extermination, a particular case of the Other that Brian talks about. Millions of Jews were murdered. Millions of “good Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed Christians” either passively went along or actively participated in this slaughter. There certainly was a “monster god” behind this genocide!
Of course, I don’t believe that the orthodox, traditional, biblical, revealed God was this “monster god.” Yet what is the explanation for why millions did not actively seek to stop the slaughter? I must ask this question. I must be concerned that believers today not repeat this horrific, abominating error. I cannot accept that we are any better than those German Christians.
I understand that some of you feel stung by Brian’s questions and explorations. Some feel he has painted a caricature. But the dangers Brian is writing about are very real! We orthodox, biblical, Great Tradition Christians have blown it. We must confess. We must repent. We must get to the bottom of this idolatry.
There really is a “monster god” people have been following. It is natural for us to say “those people” follow this god but not us. Yet there have been genocides since the Holocaust, even in the most Christian nation in Africa in 1994. There have been “sortings” carried out by Christians.
We really do need to be saved by Jesus FROM “sorting” TO “loving” the Other.

Tim,
Of course there have been sortings – and substantial evil perpetrated by “Christians” in the name of God. But I don’t think we need a new kind of Christianity – we need real Christians. Assigning these evils to a caricature of a soul-sort narrative is an exercise in futility. These evils have been around – everywhere, in every culture and among every people from time immemorial.
It seems to me that the only way out is a real atonement narrative, which is not simply an example or sacrifice (I am not stuck on penal substitution) but is a real change in which we must rest. But a real atonement also requires things like real judgment.

#81
Tim, we may not be any better than the “good Christians” of Germany, but are people participating in the slaughter of 6 million Jews really “good Christians”? Would Bonhoeffer so describe them? How do we account for the confessing church that stood against the Third Reich and the Christian who tried to subvert the Nazi rule?
Yes, there was a “monster God” behind this slaughter but his name was Hitler, not Brian’s empirically challenged Theos that Brian himself admits no one consciously believes in (which, incidently, is a great illustration of a caricature–a concept you attribute to theological opponents that none of them consciously believe in). The “good Christians” were following the ideology of Hitler, not the orthodox gospel of the West. Yes, Brian has constructive questions to raise about the gospel and his emphasis on justice and love for those who are Other is commendable. But his depiction of the theological narrative of the Christian West is founded on a crudely drawn caricature rather than a carefully documented description of what Western Christians believe.
As I said, I agree with you that we share the same human nature as the Germans. May God keep us in faith that we may follow the example of the confessing church if we are told to submit to a state sponsored program of murder.

Scot and Brian – thanks for having this conversation in a forum where the rest of us can read and participate.
I’m having a sort-of quirky reaction to all of this.
I’m with Brian on this: I think a conventional presentation of the gospel has a soul-sorting feel to it, and – like him – I find that presentation deeply disturbing. I realize, as Scot has pointed out, that not everyone reacts that way. I do.
Here, however, is where I get confused:
When Scot says (#65): “As I read you, you are saying that kingdom entrance can be missed by some now, but in the end God will restore all to life in the kingdom. Is that right?” I want to say “Yes, exactly. I’m not entirely satisfied by it, but – when I do my best to put the pieces together – that is how they fit.”
For me, the question of exclusivism/inclusivism/universalism persists, even after the thanatocentric, soul-sort narrative is abandoned. God still has to deal with evil – within and among humanity – and, presumably, there is and will be recalcitrance. What happens at that point?
For Brian, however, the whole question vanishes with the soul-sort narrative…and THAT is what has me puzzled. To me, your perspective seems to end up in the same place as an evangelical universalist, even though traditional universalists may have arrived at the same destination by a dramatically different route.

RJS,
“But a real atonement also requires things like real judgment.”
Why?

Barry H (85),
Because you would be left with a theology that is merely about a God without wrath bringing people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.

Adam – to what you said add: that doesn’t even begin to address the systemic and individual evil rampant in human reality.

I worry about any interpretation of “real judgment” that sets up Jesus as returning in a different way than he left…violent where he was nonviolent, retributive where he was forgiving, etc. Some very unhelpful readings of Revelation are attempts to get around the scandal of the cross.

Thanks Scott and Brian and everyone for a wonderful discussion.
Brian, how do you justify using postmodern methods to deconstruct other paradigms without allowing those methods to deconstruct the paradigm you yourself are presenting? I’m not sure if you are facing the full implications of your postmodern methodology.
For me, I can see the validity of the postmodern methods in showing that all interpretations are ultimately bound to the bio-social nature of our ‘minds’ in the world. I think that in the end we can only trust and hope that Jesus provides salvation even though we ourselves can only see through the glass darkly. I can’t prove via modernist reason that this faith is logical, but it is the branch to which I cling to over the abyss. God saves through Jesus. How? Where? Why? Not sure. I trust he will make it all clear some day. Thank God that Jesus Christ is the answer to Ecclesiastes. You ask me why or how that is? I can only answer in silence and hope that you pray for Jesus Christ to comfort you rather than find them in endlessly deconstructing texts.

Adam Omelianchuk,
Very quaint. I guess we need to define ‘real judgment’. I assume that this is to mean punitive judgment and the quote to read “But a real atonement also requires things like punitive judgment”.
But why can judgment not be restorative. Based in reconciliation?
To attempt quaintness my self:
What about a theology that is about a God with real wrath bearing down on sin and shame that has enslaved humanity, in order to free sin bound people to live lives in the Kingdom of God here on earth as it is in Heaven with the reconciliation of all things by the restorative judgment through the ministrations on Christs life, crucifixion and resurrection.
RJS,
Sounds like a human need for revenge.
How about the systemic and divine love and forgiveness rampant in God’s reality as revealed in Christ.
Why cannot God JUST forgive? Why must the Almighty “come in Wrath to destroy the Devil and evil men”? This same God who will smite his enemies requires me to love mine. This same God who will allow some to be consciously tormented eternally – either through His ‘good will’ or by sitting back and letting it happen seems to require more from me. Besides, forgiveness that is the result of Christ work on the cross is no forgiveness at all, it is appeasement. We have Christ dieing on the cross to appease an wrathful God.
So again I ask:
“But a real atonement also requires things like real, punitive judgment.”
Why?

Brian/Scott
I wrote a post this morning and then deleted it by mistake. I wanted to ask Brian about how we would work with James Allisons use of violence – that Jesus is not Gods victim but ours and comes out to us in ressurection as our victim to declare our forgiveness and to show us that Sacred Violence does not work (he gets to all of this through a view of Jewish liturgical practices and their overlaps with Johns Gospel.
For conversation I will post this bit from Allison. The Eucharist becomes the symbold, for him, as the our victim in our midst declaring the end of sacred violence.
“The Catholic Church, heir to an extraordinarily rich tradition of creative Jewish textual reading, reads scripture Eucharistically, because for us the prime source of authority is not the text itself, but the crucified and living victim, alive in our midst, who is the living interpretative presence teaching us how to undo our violent and evil ways of relating to each other, and how together to enter into the way of penitence and peace. For us ?The Word of God? refers in the first place to a living person, and only by analogy to the texts which bear witness to him. The living hermeneutical presence is more important than that which it is hermeneuting. This is what is meant by Jesus telling the Pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 9:13; 12:7):
Go and learn what this means, ?I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.?
And:
… If you had known what this means, ?I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,? you would not have condemned the guiltless.”

Yes, no doubt mcclaren is affected by his experiences. we all are.
the more important issue is whether he is right about his responses to the 10 questions he poses. I read lots of critical commentary in the blogosphere, but most of it seems to basically say — the 6 lines are true so therefore what mcclaren says is wrong. but, i’ve read little that really addresses mcclaren’s specific points/arguments and disagrees with them.
does anyone here have anything substantive to disagree with him on?
by the way, i’m come from a southern baptist background and mcclaren’s book certainly resonated with me. anyone who thinks the 6 line version of theology is not what’s taught should visit an SBC church (the largest evangelical denomenation in the USA).
I for one was excited about mcclaren’s book and found that is strengthened my faith actually since the God, Jesus and bible he illuminates seems much more real to me than the God, Jesus and bible that i’ve been taught all my life.

I’d like to respond to RD. RD, Adam and Eve lived in the garden and communed openly with God. He forbid them to eat from ONE tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Once they ate from that tree, they had sinned against God and sin entered the world. God clothed them in the skin of an animal (the first sacrifice for sin) and they were banished from the garden, which contained the Tree of Life. At this point, they were not “doomed to hell” but they were separated from God. He provided the atonement and he mercifully removed them from the tree of life so they would not be forever stuck in their sin. Thus begins the story of man’s struggle against sin and his need for an atoning sacrifice. Jesus became that sacrifice and our bridge to restoration and communion with God, for we saw that we are not capable of fully keeping God’s law on our own.
But please don’t take my word for it. Please don’t take anyone’s word for it. Please, everybody, verify what you hear by finding it in the Bible! Genesis 2-3; Hebrews 10; Revelations 2; Revelations 22

“But why can judgment not be restorative. Based in reconciliation?”
Because that’s not what judgment is, by any definition of the word. I mean, why can’t God’s wrath mean joy? Because words mean things.
“What about a theology that is about a God with real wrath bearing down on sin and shame that has enslaved humanity,”
What, then, is “sin and shame”, and why is it worthy of wrath? Man brought sin into the world, and so any wrath against sin must also be directed at man. The bible says that rather unequivocally, and repeatedly says that man will be judged for HIS sin, and not the sin that passively consumed him.
“in order to free sin bound people to live lives in the Kingdom of God here on earth as it is in Heaven with the reconciliation of all things by the restorative judgment through the ministrations on Christs life, crucifixion and resurrection.”
In part because the resurrection serves no purpose in your narrative. If judgment is, on its own, restorative, then we relegate Christ’s resurrection to a trivial pleasantry. It’s nice that he came back to life, but not all that necessary.
There is no biblical basis for the separation of sin and man, except through the resurrection of Christ.
“Sounds like a human need for revenge.”
The fact that it sounds like something humans do wrong does not mean that God cannot decree it. That said, I would compare it to our system of justice. We punish criminals, not for the purpose of exacting revenge, but because crime merits punishment. If we may punish (and we may, unless you want to call every judge and prosecutor in the country on the carpet for the inherent sin of their profession) then so, too, can God.
“How about the systemic and divine love and forgiveness rampant in God’s reality as revealed in Christ.”
But what does it mean that he allowed his son to die on the cross? If God’s divine love and rampant forgiveness is incompatible with suffering, how is it that God brought suffering on his own son?
“Why cannot God JUST forgive?”
Because he is more than just a forgiveness machine. He is more than just some benevolent sky fairy (to borrow a phrase) who wants everything to be hunky dory. He doesn’t simply want people to behave themselves in the hope that this world will achieve some sort of stasis where everyone is happy. This world demands justice. It is not just to just forgive.
“This same God who will smite his enemies requires me to love mine.”
Yes, God can require different things of humans than he does himself. I suppose that sounds unfair, but the reason we are required to love our enemies is that we are as broken and willfully sinful as they are. God is perfect, and sinless, and therefore can discern an enemy from a friend.
“Besides, forgiveness that is the result of Christ work on the cross is no forgiveness at all, it is appeasement.”
Right, Christ dying on the cross is not the act of forgiveness. I think it is more complicated than simply appeasing a wrathful God (remember, God was the one who willed the whole endeavor), but I have no problem with the notion that Christ’s death was insufficient for mankind to be forgiven.
I would argue, in fact, that Christ’s death is the judgment. Man killed the only sinless person to walk the Earth. One of the chosen disciples betrayed him, and yet another denied him. Nobody saved him, not God’s chosen, not the political elite, not his family.
The mere fact of this despicable act (and who could argue that the murder of the Christ is not despicable?) is certainly not a statement of forgiveness. To discern forgiveness from this act is to reject not only scriptures, but common sense.

I just wandered onto this blog from Brian McLaren’s site, which I decided to check out after seeing him speak at a conference last weekend. I have not read A New Kind of Christianity, and I know I should really refrain from entering a blog on a book I haven?t read. I did buy it today, though, so I am going to count that as entrance into this conversation.
At the risk of looking like one of those people who is obsessively counting heads for diverse representation, I do have to say that I am struck by the fact that this blog seems to largely be men (unless, besides Jane and perhaps Chris, all those using initials are women) discussing the ideas of men. I hope this does not sound like an indictment. I am aware that none of us have control over who gets in on this conversation.
However, I bring up this point to specifically address the comments of #79. I have spent a great deal of time as a Christian woman feeling like I live in a twilight zone where I have been paid in my job to have ideas and opinions and then marginalized to baking brownies at church (and being told how valuable a contribution brownies are to the Body of Christ so that I will feel good about baking brownies). Don?t get me wrong; I do like to bake. But I also like to think and have a space to talk as well as listen. I think that it is hard to see the reality of the “other” unless you live it. For instance, many of us who are White could say that racism does not exist because we are not racists. However, the answer to that question for someone who confronts racism, because s/he is Black, would be an obvious affirmative.
I think that, for me, as a Christian, it has been very disappointing to be taken seriously by non-Christian men in other spheres and then to walk into the Body of Christ and feel an impenetrable wall behind which I have no voice, kind of like those rooms in which you can look in and observe others having a conversation but your side is sound-proof. I have always hoped that my brothers in Christ would be the most receptive to dialogue, but that has consistently not been my experience over the years. And I do have to say that during those times when I have been most disappointed, God is always there and a really good listener.
I do not presume to know where Brian McLaren is coming from, but my sense is that he deeply tries to understand where others ?are at.? And when we do start to see the perspective of the “other,” many of our own reference points necessarily become problematized. We understand and, in that process, are transformed. Isn’t this the way of Christ?

In reference to Brian McLaren, whose recent book I have not read, but I am familiar with some of his writings.
I beg to differ with Brian on the matter of reducing Jesus’ kingdom language to a mere earthly outcome, salvation from physical death by the Romans in 70AD.
It seems Brian is a (hyper)preterist which sees all prophesy as being fulfilled in 70AD?
If so, does Jesus’ words have anything to do with believers post-70AD? Is Jesus calling us to the narrow way by the Holy Spirit post-70AD? If not, then the Scriptures we have are irrelevant. If so, then Brian’s interpretation is far from the truth.
Contextually, Brian’s words do not have a leg to stand on:
Jesus opens with an a literal post-earthy, post-mordem reality and calling the Kingdom, the Kingdom heaven:
Matthew 5:3-12 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This Kingdom has an earthly dimension seeing that the gentle inherits the eternal earthly kingdom (cf. Rom. 8):
5 “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
Seeing God is a post-mordem reality, otherwise we shall all die.
1 John 4:12 12 No one has seen God at any time;
John 1:18 18 No one has seen God at any time;
Deuteronomy 5:24-26 24 “You said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. 25 ‘Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer, then we will die. 26 ‘For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
There is an eternal reward for those who are persecuted for Christ.
12 “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Jesus is looking beyond this life to the next. He is calling for a greater righteousness for entrance into Heaven.
Matthew 5:20 20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
This is true – because those who get angry with their brothers unnecessarily will endure the punishment of hell which is not an earthly reality:
Matthew 5:22 22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
This is true – because those who lust in their hearts without repentance will suffer the torments of hell. All extra-marital infidelity is worthy of hell.
Matthew 5:30 30 “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
Just in case you are wondering about the term ‘kingdom of heaven’ notice how Jesus uses the term heaven to contrast earth:
Matthew 5:34-35 34 “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet,
We are called to a lifestyle of unhypocritical righteousness lest we forfeit our reward in heaven:
Matthew 6:1 Matthew 6:1 ? “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
By the way, the Lord is our righteousness (Jer. 23) by faith which is a productive faith. We trust in the Lord Jesus our Savior apart from all our merits with a faith that does good. Trust in the Lord and do good (Psa. 34). We trust not in our good deeds. We trust in the Lord, and that faith will be productive and without hypocrisy – though it does falter. (See Gal. 2:16)
In chp. 6:9ff., Jesus displays the disciples’ prayer. It is a prayer looking to our Heavenly Father to bring His heavenly kingdom to bare on our lives which has both present and eternal implications since the Father’s kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. To not be apart of that kingdom has eternal implications.
Where do we store are treasures according to 6:19-20?
Why should we not be concerned about our earthly welfare in contrast to our concern for the kingdom of God and His righteousness: Matthew 6:33 33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you?
Where does entry into the gate lead: Matthew 7:14 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it?
On what day will many cry, ‘Lord, Lord’ and where will they not go: Matthew 7:21-23 21 ? “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 will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS’?
I say now. Beware of Brian McLaren! who is a false prophet doing many mighty deeds but having not the Spirit who must fear the judgment of God (Matthew 7:20 20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits). You keep twisting the Scriptures to your own eternal hurt. You must fear the impending judgment, justice not brute violence (violence implies violation to the Law of God – Jesus does not do violence to the law of God; the sword is not in the hands of our Lord in vain), of the Lord of lords who will come in flaming fire to render His eternal justice on all who do not bow exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ in submission to His eternal Word and decree. We all must turn from our wicked ways and man-made religions and bow to Jesus alone whose grace is plea. All the pleas of revenge will be meeted out on that final day of reckoning. Let us kiss the feet of the Son lest He be angry and we perish in the way (Ps. 2:11).
Repent! Brian. You must chuck your unfaithful writings and Scripture twisting.
The sheep of God must be put to fear for the sake of their souls and Brian’s deception.
Read Jude. We will contend for the faith – the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ who is absolutely rigid and unbending to the will and demands of mere mortals.
Jesus is the King and He will crush the serpent’s head having dealt His mighty deadly blow at the cross. Jesus will also take His rod and crush all His enemies – all for the sake of His precious chosen ones.
Like Pharaoh – so will be the end of all the enemies of God.
1 Corinthians 16:22 22 If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha.
From a peon preacher who loves the truth and God’s people enough not to be silent.

“The only problem is that the analogy is loaded with extremely negative connotations and it misses one extremely vital piece of the argument: Free and informed consent.”
Valid arguments against a comparison. Against an analogy, no. The most compelling argument you can make for gay marriage is that people should be able to do what they want and, therefore, marry whomever they want. Free and informed consent applies to polygamy and many forms of incest.
“Children and animals are not able to give it and have protected status, so are therefore free and clear of any slippery slope implications.”
Do you seriously think that the only thing wrong with bestiality is the fact that animals cannot give consent? That’s the only barrier to marrying a goat? What are you trying to argue here? I mean, we can kill animals with rocks. That is totally allowed.
“Anyway, I’ll just pay attention to the fruit. If Jennifer’s music is uplifting and God speaks through it, far be it from me to sit in God’s seat and judge her soul.”
You are welcome to enjoy her music. I am just making the point that there is a difference between an analogy and a comparison. You seem to concede that point, but want to make this about something else.
“He has a way of getting to people who honestly seek him, yeah?”
Doesn’t stop people from making things up about him.

Janet,
As an attorney and a member of a traditional, conservative church, I understand your “twilight zone” feelings. However, I’m concerned by your comments.
My concern is that you might choose to follow a man(or movement) because he (it) appeals to your intellectual pride, rather than digging deeper into how God himself would have you proceed. (As I write this I feel I’m coming across as judgmental since you don’t know me at all. Please know I sincerely care and mean well).
God has given men and women different roles and responsibilities that challenge and refine us. Following my husband, for instance, is the very biggest challenge of my life. As I attempt to do so, however, solely in obedience to God’s word, I find that I am learning to die to self and am, thereby, becoming a better follower and servant of Christ.
Secondly, God has most definitely used women and their intellect in mighty ways for His kingdom. Truly, we are not relegated to merely baking brownies…but even if that IS all that we do, so what?
My concern is that the church is taking an “it is all about me” stance on Christianity…or at a minimum, “it is all about us.” The truth is, it is all about God. I don’t really know why He made me female and I don’t know why he gave me the role He gave me, but my decision is to trust Him and follow Him. If the men in my life fail to properly fulfill their roles, I will not let that sway me from my path.
I urge you to seek your answers from the author of your faith, through prayer and His word…and be wary of those who flatter.

This post inspired me
The great faith traditions of Evangelicalism have developed flowers to help people understand what they belive (often at the cost of what their founders actually belived.)
Calvinists have TULIP
Now the future McLarenists will have their own flower… the LAUREL
http://orant.blogspot.com/2010/04/mclarenism-tulip-daisy-laurel.html

Scot seems to believe that Brian is responding to a fiction of sorts, an imaginative construct of his mind, which he has labeled “conventional” but which is no more “real” or part of the actual experience of American Christians than Quixote’s fearsome giants. Others in this thread are convinced that there are theological traumas in Brian’s past religious experiences among some narrow-minded fundamentalist sect of his upbringing.
But as I sit here and get caught up on the last few comments, I’m left wondering if it’s not at least plausible that Brian is responding to something that is both *very real* and *very immediate* in the everyday common theology of American Christianity. I don’t think we’d have to look very far to find examples of the kinds of language and thinking that Brian is concerned about. These are not windmills on the distant horizon.

Scot: “My plea: If you think the conventional narrative that is shaped by soteriology, one that divides those who are saved from those who aren’t, is wrong, I ask you to be sensitive to how those who do believe it in how you frame it and describe it. Or, tell us you think it is morally deficient and that its moral deficiencies shape how you describe it.”
Scot, is your problem with what Brian wrote that he wasn’t explicit enough about it being his take on the conventional narrative that he was describing? That he should have included more qualifiers like, “this is now it comes across to me” in it?
For what it’s worth, what I’ve seen from Brian’s critics is usually written in absolute terms – I’m not seeing that they add “it seems to me” or “in my opinion” when they denounce him as a heretic/someone who believes in a false Jesus, etc. Should they be using qualifiers too?

Hi Jane,
Please picture me saying this all in a loving spirit and with all meekness, because that is how it is meant. I know words on a page can sound harsh. I thought I might hear back from you, and I made a pretty good guess that your argument would follow along the lines it did. I understand your stance, as I have heard it many times before in conservative church settings. I think that it is important to be careful about how we frame this idea of submission, since it has been used to subjugate many groups of people, including slaves in our own country.
I don?t think that it is intellectual pride to want to share thoughts or shows a lack of humility to want to be included in conversation. Nor does wanting to have a voice have anything to do with submission. I understand that you want to reinforce in others the structure under which you choose to live. It is not my choice to live that way, nor would my husband have any interest in such a structure. At the very least, women should give other women the option to voice their ideas without fear that they will be deemed unfeminine, lacking in submission, prone to pride and flattery, thoughtlessly serving themselves, mindlessly following men/movements, and not really seeking the path of God.
May God richly bless you with peace and well-being, my Sister in Christ.

Janet, I appreciated reading about your experiences.
Commenters on this site can be from any perspective. For what it’s worth, Scot (whose blog this is) is an advocate of women leading alongside men in churches. As best I know he’s happy to have women comment here and has done nothing I’m aware of to discourage them. Some of his guest posts are by women.
In my experience Brian is also very respectful of women and is an advocate of women leaders in churches too.

Helen,
I really appreciate your comments and have no doubt that both Scot and Brian are supportive of women.
I fear I have created a digression among a few of us females by my comments and will get off of this blog until I have read the book and have something more substantive to say regarding the topic at hand.

Hi Everyone,
I resonate with what some of you are saying, especially#95, Janet. To be honest, I just went to two academic conferences which were made up of mostly white men with few women there much less on the itenary to speak. People want to throw stones at the Emergent movement that Brian associates with as mainly upper-white-middle-class men (and a few women?). The two conservative Evangelical conferences I went to are not doing any better. All this tells me we all need to repent.
Lastly, I love Brian’s last post in his concern for “the other.” I will say that political conservative and conservative Evangelicals don’t seem to be really made of this concern. Would Brian talk to Muslim leaders or Jewish leaders and refer ot them in the spirit of dialogue of following a kind of Monster God? I think the postmodern impulse towards “the other” is correct but it seems like exclusion and polarities are still very much part and parcel of these kind of discussions. May God help us all!

To the women commentors above, Julie Clawson is organizing a synchroblog tomorrow, Monday, April 19th that may address the diversity (or lack thereof as some see it) of perspectives within the emerging church: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/event.php?eid=113483942014464
I don’t know much about theology, but I think Brian McLaren may be doing to Christianity what Howard Zinn did to the telling of U.S. History. And all I can say is, Amen to that!

First let me say, that I have never had the opportunity to read and engage in such high level dialogue regarding the faith that I have held for so many years. Thank you all.
I really am compelled to respond to a few comments regarding Mr. McLaren and his new book, among other things:
1) Steve, 96: “Does Jesus words have anything to do with believers post 70 AD?” Sir, you must really read the book before you rail. Having read the book, I can assure you of this: Mr. McLaren does not flippantly quote verse with history to make a vision of his own new religion. He visits and revisits scripture, with God as his teacher, and with humble question in mind: “Lord, what will you have me know?” I realize that I am doing what Mr. McLaren dislikes in saying this- putting words in his mouth- but I really identified with his way of investigation and thinking, and I appreciate a man with humility that reads and thinks like I do. (Does that make me a heretic?) I can also assure you, having read the book, that while I don’t agree with all of Mr. McLaren’s interpretations, (Brian–would love to have a chat with you, sir!) his writing is real, relavant, and will save many people in the long run.
2) RJS, 82: “But a real atonement also requires real judgment.” Agreed, sir, wholeheartedly. No matter how or you read scriptures, it is irrefutable, God is just, God is merciful, and God will judge the living and the dead. And we thank Him for it.
BUT WE ARE NOT CALLED TO JUDGE.
It is true, souls will be sorted, but HOW they are sorted are beyond our understanding. Let me give you an example.
Last I attended a funeral of a man that I worked with. He was in his mid-forties and died of a rare form of cancer. He and his family were devoutly Jewish. The service was moving, spiritual, and had the raw feeling of the God of Abraham in Holy Spirit in the room. This man, Brooke, was an ophthalmologist, and had left his successful and lucrative practice to teach high school science to inner city kids. I taught with him. The kids were heartbreaking, helpless, and hopeless, and he built them up in every way. As he went through painful treatment, he refused to quit teaching, and taught up until a week before he died. The synagogue at his funeral was filled with his students: poor kids, minority kids, kids that had never set foot in a house of worship before. Through Brooke, these kids, and all who worked with him, saw God. Brooke, though he didn’t know it, was a true servant of Christ.
Meanwhile, my very Christian neighbors across the street sport a confederate flag bumper sticker right next to their cross. Through this simple gesture, they have turned away many people in my neighborhood from even being willing to hear the name of Jesus. These people, have condemned countless people to eternity without Christ through their ignorance and selfishness.
So tell me, who’s soul will be condemned to torment? Brooke’s or my neighbors’?
I don’t know for sure, but I do know that God is just, God is merciful, and God will judge. But I won’t. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, as my brother Brooke did.
Finally,
Kevin S, to Mr. McLaren: “We are angry with you because you have maligned out faith experience, to the detriment of scripture.” Your anger is misplaced, sir. Your faith experience is not about you, it is about God. You should obey Him, serve Him, and focus only on Him. You should be angry with those that separate man from God, for that is truly what break’s God’s heart. Brian is working to bring men to God, and even if you disagree with his tactics, you should appreciate his effort.
Thank you again, gentlemen and ladies, for letting me say my piece. I know I am not the biblical scholar that many of you seem to be, but I know my Jesus, and He seems to be working in all of you. Many blessings.

Scott writes in the original post: “Rauschenbusch, Sobrino, Donovan, Boff”
Brian – rest up. That’s high praise indeed! Those are some great theologians of the twentieth century there.
Reading the Scriptures as much as possible from the perspective of “the other”, is (IMHO) an essential hermeneutical task for white males like me. Let’s face it, one of the unique things about the Bible is that it is written by the victims of history, not the victors. That’s who God speaks through. What this says for Mclaren or McKnight, I’m not sure!
On a separate strand, I would like to humbly say that in my experience, Brian’s critique of widespread belief in a ‘monstrous God’ is sadly true. Some of the comments here clearly back this up. I often wonder what would have happened if Martin Luther had been successful in his attempt to cut Revelation out of the canon. He wanted to cut the awesome letter of James too mind, but looking at what has happened to the church since then I suspect it would have been worth it.