This is the 3rd part of a post from Brian McLaren. Part one is here and part two is here, if you have not read them yet. The full post will be released via .pdf tomorrow, August 12th.
Becoming Convergent
by Brian McLaren
Since reading Percy in the 1970’s, dozens of writers have been of special help to me, but several stand out as extraordinary. First, British missiologist (and missionary to India) Lesslie Newbigin’s work has been absolutely essential to my development. Next, Leonard Sweet and Alan Roxburgh have been not only thought leaders for me, but also personal friends and mentors. Nancey Murphy, Stanley Grenz (who died earlier this year), and John Franke (who will carry on important facets of Stan’s unfinished work) have also taught me much both in writing and in person. Dallas Willard has played an important role, in terms of theology, philosophy, and spiritual formation. N. T. Wright’s books have been catalytic in more ways than I can count, as have those of Walter Brueggemann. And Wendell Berry’s essays, novels, and poetry have continued the integration of theology, philosophy, and art which I needed and grew to love in Walker Percy thirty years ago. I should hasten to add that I have also learned much from my critics, and will continue to do so.
My books in many ways chronicle the story of my own grappling with the challenges of making disciples in the changing context which for me was originally described by novelist Walker Percy back in the 1970’s. The titles of my books suggest the kind of path I have been exploring.
I wrote The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix. I did not write The Church Postmodernized: Accommodating Uncritically to Postmodern Philosophy, nor did I write The Church in the Box: Doing Ministry as It Was Done in the 1950’s. This was a book about leading missional churches – churches committed to reaching people in the mission field of the emerging global (as opposed to colonial) culture.
I then wrote Finding Faith, not Confining Faith to Those Who Already Have It or Giving Up on Faith and Surrendering to Postmodern Nihilism. This was a book written for seekers – showing my commitment to evangelism.
Then I began a trilogy. The first title was A New Kind of Christian, not A Sixteenth Century Kind of Christian and not A New Kind of NonChristian. The second title was an attempt to tell the Biblical story, entitled The Story We Find Ourselves In, not The System We Find Ourselves In and not The Postmodern Culture We Lose Our Christian Identity In. The trilogy recently concluded with The Last Word and the Word After That, not My Word Is The Last Word or The Last Word is Condemnation.
I also wrote a book to help people share their faith with unchurched or dechurched non-Christians. It was called More Ready Than You Realize, not How to Intimidate And Scare People Into Heaven, and not How To Keep Your Faith a Personal Secret So You Never Offend Anybody.
The book that especially seemed to upset some of my critics was A Generous Orthodoxy. I was recently asked to add an epilogue to the book, from which I include this title-oriented paragraph:
A number of people have asked me if I have learned anything from the book’s critics. The answer is yes, many things. But apart from a few small edits, there is only one substantial change I would make: I wish I would have entitled the book Notes Toward A Generous Orthodoxy, or Stumbling Toward a Generous Orthodoxy, or something like that. The awkward and excessive subtitle was intended to reduce or undermine any immodesty implied by the title. (Who am I to try to define a generous orthodoxy for anybody?) It was also intended to put the book more in the personal, confessional genre of, say, Annie LaMott’s Traveling Mercies or Plan B (though I am not a fragment of the writer she is). But in spite of the subtitle, I fear that the title as it stands seems to promise something the book doesn’t deliver, namely a comprehensive, scholarly, well-defended systematic theology for a new movement. That failure has been duly noted by a number of critics, and I wish I would have anticipated and somehow avoided it. Other than that, though, even if I had the chance for a “do-over,” I wouldn’t change anything substantial, including the few statements that have been so often quoted (and misquoted) by my critics. I trust that my meaning and their misunderstanding will become clear over time – and that our honest differences in both content and rhetoric will make clear what I mean by a new kind of Christian.
In the end, A Generous Orthodoxy was written from my lifelong evangelistic impulse: hoping to encourage the church to be a more hospitable, healthy, and wholesome place for seekers, so when they come in and become disciples, they will not be socialized into believers who are excessively argumentative, judgmental, and hostile to both the world and to many of their fellow Christians. Even those who are most critical of me and my work will probably agree: we have enough of those kind of folk around already.
Originally, it was pragmatic struggles in evangelism (a.k.a. church growth – an increasingly problematic term, in my mind) that got me asking some pragmatic questions – like “how do we reach postmoderns for Christ?” Then, those pragmatic questions led to honest theological questions - like “Why do we who claim to be biblical talk so much about accepting Christ as personal savior, which is not really biblical language – and so little about the kingdom of God is at hand, which is at the core of Jesus’ message in the Bible?” Those theological questions in turn led to political questions – like “why do conservative American Christians focus so much on some issues (abortion, homosexuality) and so little on other issues (poverty, racism, peace)?” And they no doubt lead back to new pragmatic questions – like “how do we form authentic disciples of Jesus who integrate concern for personal spirituality with global social justice, so the church of the future will pursue holistic, integral mission?”
With these questions fomenting in my heart, in recent years I have felt increasingly called to address issues of justice, compassion, and peace from a biblical perspective. The genocides in Rwanda, Burundi, and Darfur … the legacies of slavery, anti-Semitism, colonialism, and racism … the linkage between the prevailing eschatology of the religious right and a “manifest destiny” and pro-war American foreign policy … growing concerns about “just war theory” and the idea of “redemptive violence” in an age of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons … these kinds of issues have called me to new levels of activism and outspokenness. My next book (The Secret Message of Jesus), which explores Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God for a “spiritual but not religious” audience, will provide another example my essential evangelistic passion - integrated with these emerging concerns for justice and peace.
I hope this brief narrative gives people a more accurate understanding of who the nonfictional Brian McLaren is, and I hope it will reduce collateral damage against people involved in the emergent conversation and the larger emerging church community. I also hope we can as soon as possible stop talking so much about certain notorious personalities (either semi-fictional ones or real ones) and certain notorious buzzwords (postmodern, emerging, etc., etc.), and instead get on with the more important mission which the Lord gave us: being and making disciples, in authentic community, for the good of the world. I hope that recent controversies about emergence will give way to a profound new convergence – where formerly alienated people come together as never before to form Christ-centered communities in which more and more of us learn to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength … in which we learn to love our neighbors and our enemies according to the teachings of Jesus … and through which we teach others by word and example to do the same, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Toward that convergence I will continue to bend my efforts in grateful collaboration with all who dream a similar dream.