Review: A Generous Orthodoxy, by Brian McLaren

What is orthodoxy? What is the essence of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) for which we are to contend? Through much of church history Christians have understood “orthodox” to mean (as the word itself would suggest) right thinking—belief in a body of essential doctrine that the Bible reveals as the central message of Christianity. For some today, however, this definition does not suffice. Whether because of a postmodern aversion to doctrinal propositions or because of a desire not to be “divisive,” many today are redefining the essence of following Jesus as a mission, rather than a message. Brian McLaren is perhaps the most visible example of this. His book, “A Generous Orthodoxy,” seeks to paint a new vision for what orthodoxy ought to be in a postmodern world.

Mr. McLaren begins in Chapter 0 with an extended disclaimer, wherein he appears to apologize for any misstatements, overstatements, inaccuracies, hyperbole, or hasty generalizations. His excuse is that he has no formal theological training, and is not necessarily trying to be perfectly clear, but rather is trying to be provocative and contribute to a conversation about the nature of Christianity.

In Part One of the book, Mr. McLaren explains “Why I Am a Christian.” He recounts “Seven Jesuses I have known,” each representing a different strain of Christianity with which he has come into contact—Conservative Protestantism, Pentecostalism, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Liberal Protestantism, Anabaptists, and Liberation Theology. Each has a different understanding of the chief problem with humanity, and a different understanding of how Jesus solves that problem, and Mr. McLaren thinks that each of them should be welcomed for their valuable contributions to a generous orthodoxy. In Chapter 2 he talks about who he understands Jesus to be, in Chapter 3 he argues that following Jesus doesn’t necessarily mean being a Christian, and in Chapter 4 he explains how and from what Jesus saves humans.

Part Two is Mr. McLaren’s description of “The Kind of Christian I Am.” As he explains, he is missional, which means that he understands the point of Christianity to be a mission of proclaiming salvation for the whole world. He is evangelical, which means passionate toward God, the Bible, and the Christian mission, but doesn’t mean identification with the Religious Right or narrow-minded fundamentalist Evangelicals. He is Post/Protestant, which doesn’t mean so much identification with Christians who define themselves by protest against Rome, but means pro-testifying, positively, about what we are for, rather than what we are against. He is Liberal/Conservative, which means joining the best of both streams and moving beyond division. He is Mystical/Poetic, which means recognizing the limits of systematic, propositional ways of understanding and communicating truth. There are several more attributes which would take more space to summarize than would be helpful—Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, (Ana)baptist/Anglican, Methodist, catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-Yet-Hopeful, Emergent, and Unfinished. Essentially, Mr. McLaren prefers to take what he sees as the best and most generous parts of these various traditions and unite them in moving forward on a mission that celebrates the various ways that Christians understand their faith.

The attitude with which Mr. McLaren approaches this work is admirable, in many ways. He is genuinely concerned with promoting a Christianity that is not selfish and narrow-minded, but displays the magnificent, lavish, prodigal love of God. Mr. McLaren understands that an otherworldly pietism that causes you to ignore your neighbors just shows that you don’t understand very well what it means to follow Jesus. His compassion for the last, lost, least (modeled, he understands, by the Savior) and his passion for reaching them with the good news of Jesus Christ are great things, and many evangelicals today could benefit from a dose of them.
His concern for understanding and adapting to the culture in which we live is also commendable, to a certain extent. He understands, rightly, that some of what many Christians have treated as essential parts of the Christian faith are in reality just cultural expressions and trappings that are particular to our modern, Western context. To the extent that Western culture is changing and modernist expressions of Christianity are no longer helpful or appropriate for reaching men and women with the Gospel today, we should be willing to change what may be legitimately changed for the sake of the Gospel.

Mr. McLaren’s analyses of problems with some corners of Evangelical Protestantism also ring true, at least at times throughout the book. He is apparently from a very conservative fundamentalist upbringing, and there are surely legitimate criticisms to be leveled against that tradition. More broadly, he recognizes, for instance, that evangelicals’ emphasis on the Bible and faithfulness to Scripture has on occasion fueled a concern to prove themselves right and others wrong, for the sake of feeding selfish desires for self-promotion and sinful boasting.

However, the way he levels these criticisms, and the solutions he proposes for them, should be of grave concern (and here I turn to my problems with Mr. McLaren’s book). If these concerns and other legitimate problems are cracks that have on occasion appeared in the edifice of traditional conservative Protestantism, Mr. McLaren seems to think that the whole building is nothing but cracks and should be pulled down forthwith. One theme that runs throughout A Generous Orthodoxy is that absolutism, the tendency to make any sort of sweeping truth claims, is narrow-minded, exclusivist, and bad.2 Yet he displays a tendency to make statements about those he criticizes that are not only sweeping and lack nuance, but in many cases are positively deceptive.

Examples of hasty generalizing are numerous enough to give a careful reader pause. For example, his critique of the modern missionary movement is that it adopted (albeit unintentionally) a colonial outlook characterized by “white supremacy, Eurocentrism, jingoism, and chauvinism.” While this may indeed have been true of some missionaries and missions organizations in the last two centuries, counter-examples are so numerous as to make this charge inaccurate at best, and deceptive at worst. In another example, he recounts a story of “Christian” conquistadors under Pizarro committing atrocities in the name of Christianity, and portrays it as in some way characteristic of Christianity in the centuries before his humble, generous, postmodern orthodoxy came along.

Examples of argumentation that is downright deceptive are also numerous. He does wonders with definitions. In discussing his choice of the word “orthodoxy” for the book, he says, “For most people, orthodoxy means right thinking or right opinions, or in other words, ‘what we think,’ as opposed to ‘what they think.’” I am quite sure that nobody who claims to be orthodox would define “right thinking” in such an egocentric manner with no regard for Scripture or tradition. In another example, his definition of fundamentalist as it has traditionally been used in the last several decades is that it includes “a foundationalist epistemology, assenting to something like a dictation theory of biblical inspiration, upholding a sectarian and elitist approach to non-Fundamentalist Christians, and identifying judgmentalism and anger as fruits of the Holy Spirit.” Even if some would agree with the first two items (and they are surely a tiny minority), asserting that they go hand-in-hand with the last two seems like just the sort of mean-spirited argumentation for which he vilifies fundamentalist/evangelical/conservative Protestants.

Mr. McLaren, as noted above, has a tendency to see small or localize problems as representative of entire sectors of Christianity. In so doing, he shows a disturbing propensity to caricature these sectors, setting up straw men that are easy to knock down with the rod of generosity. His description of the modern missionary movement referenced above is a prime example, and it illustrates well how he handles modernism, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, conservative Protestantism, and confessional Christianity in general.

Another troubling thing about this book has to do with the way Mr. McLaren sets it up in his introduction and Chapter O. In an attempt to be humble and avoid any claim of having gotten it all right (and, it seems in an attempt to preempt criticism), he has what is essentially an extended disclaimer. He plays the ignorance card, saying that he has never had any formal theological training and just “snuck into pastoral ministry accidentally through the back doors of the English department and church planting, and whose graduate education consisted of learning how to read—a skill most people feel they have mastered by about the third grade.” He anticipates many criticisms that readers may level. He acknowledges that the book is full of “overstatement, hyperbole, and generalizations,” and the only explanation or excuse he offers is that he has gone out of his way to be “provocative, mischievous, and unclear, reflecting my belief that clarity is sometimes overrated, and that shock, obscurity, playfulness, and intrigue” are often more helpful than clarity.

In all this, I cannot help but feel that he has tried to anticipate, and so deflate, any potential criticisms that readers might have after reading the book. I get the feeling that if he read my paper, he would not contest any of the things I have to say about his “generous orthodoxy.” He would just smile, nod, and move on. I am, no doubt, one of the narrow-minded, mean, exclusivist, ungenerous Fundamentalist-Evangelicals that he understands to be the problem with Christianity today. I am certain that I have not, in fact, missed his point, and that instead I fundamentally disagree with his conclusions. I feel the only criticism that might be effective would be on the level of an epistemological analysis that I am not competent to offer. All I can do is know what in his book I find problematic and be prepared to explain my concerns to others who might be willing to listen.

And this brings me to my gravest concern with A Generous Orthodoxy. I fear that in his emphasis on “missional” Christianity, he distorts the Gospel and makes it unclear. Mr. McLaren believes that the essence and foundation of Christianity is following Jesus in a journey of love, faith, and acceptance that embraces the entire world. To be a missional Christian is to “join Jesus in expressing God’s love for the whole world, to follow Jesus in his mission of saving love for the whole world.”

It must be emphasized that this mission is not fundamentally about proclaiming a message, at least not one that is eternal and unchanging, and certainly not one that talks of sin and redemption or of heaven and hell. The core of Christianity is not about believing the message of the Gospel, that man is inherently sinful and in rebellion against God, estranged from God and under His just condemnation. It is not about believing that in his perfect life, death, and resurrection Jesus purchased redemption, reconciliation to God, and eternal life for all those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ. It is not about that. That message, and thinking that it is the essence of what Jesus is about, is narrow-minded, exclusivist, and antithetical to the love of God.

Mr. McLaren doesn’t prefer to talk about the “hell question.” Rather, he wants to talk about the benefits of the Gospel for everyone, for the whole world, here and now. He is interested in a Gospel that is universally good news for Christians and non-Christians alike. He is interested in a gospel that is universally efficacious for the whole earth before death in history. This gospel frees the oppressed, provides for the poor, treats minorities with respect, and values the environment—whether everyone participates in following Jesus or not.

Now, we can affirm (from the Bible) that indeed the whole creation groans in travail, and that all things are reconciled in Christ. The story of God’s working in history is one of the restoration of creation—which has been bent to degraded and wretched ends—to its intended direction, use, and purpose—the glory of God. This includes all the fullness of created humanity’s rich experience in the world, but this is all achieved by the atoning work of Christ on the Cross that provides redemption for sins. Any “gospel” that marginalizes heaven and hell and fails to require repentance and faith in Jesus atoning work is no Gospel at all. There is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ, which faith is truly what it means to be one of His followers.

The apostle Paul said that if he or even an angel from heaven should preach another gospel than the one he had previously preached—the message of a God who will judge the earth in righteousness, the message of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the message of forgiveness of sins—he should be accursed. Brian McLaren is no angel from heaven, and it grieves me that such an incoherent, deceptive, Gospel-obscuring book should gain the acceptance that it seems to have in many evangelical circles. I pray that people who are skilled at handling the Word of God and understanding the perils of such stuff will gain a voice and be clear in showing others the dangers of this “orthodoxy” that will generously lead people straight to destruction.