Tim Challies, a staunch reformed Calvinist, is reviewing Brian McLaren's new book, Everything Must Change. Challies makes it clear that McLaren's disregard for centuries of carefully formulated reformed doctrine leaves him ill at ease. And he highlights McLaren's stinging re-write of the Magnificat as a prime example:
My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my personal Savior, for he has been mindful of the correct saving faith of his servant. My spirit will go to heaven when my body dies for the Mighty One has provided forgiveness, assurance, and eternal security for me—holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who have correct saving faith and orthodox articulations of belief, from generation to generation. He will overcome the damning effects of original sin with his mighty arm; he will damn to hell those who believe they can be saved through their own efforts or through any religion other than the new one He is about to form. He will condemn followers of other religions to hell but bring to heaven those with correct belief. He has filled correct believers with spiritual blessings but will send those who are not elect to hell forever. He has helped those with correct doctrinal understanding, remembering to be merciful to those who believe in the correct theories of atonement, just as our preferred theologians through history have articulated.
Indeed, Christ's teachings throughout the Gospels, particularly his self-proclaimed mission statement (Luke 4:16-20) are remarkably free of what Protestants consider to be the basic doctrines of salvation and holy living. We should properly credit the apostle Paul as the founding father of Christian doctrine, not Jesus. What this seems to tell me is that doctrine is a wholly human construct, and not something that emanates from God, regardless of how truthful it is.
What Jesus does emphasize (that is, what directly emanates from God), and what is at the heart of Brian McLaren's understanding of the Gospel, is simple social justice. The Magnificat found in Luke Chapter 1 states in part,
- He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
- He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away
Further, Matthew 25:31-46 and Luke 16:19-31 explicitly state that those who have been given the means to care for the poor, but who fail to do so, face eternal damnation; particularly if they exploit the poor in order to remain wealthy or increase their wealth.
Christianity's centuries-long preoccupation with trying to explain the exact mechanism utilized by God as He forgives, justifies, atones, regenerates, and sanctifies each individual, and Protestant fundamentalism's lop-sided emphasis on "personal salvation" and a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ", have obscured the social justice that is central to Jesus Christ's teaching.
I am going to offer readers of this blog a warning: I am currently working through the JustFaith program, a 30 week overview of contemporary social justice issues and a biblically-oriented, Christ-centered response to them.
Consequently, I will probably be writing nearly exclusively on these topics for the next six to nine months. In that time span, both you and I will learn much more about what I believe and how my faith has changed over the past few years toward a state that I call "post-fundamentalist," which is to say that I find more things right with McLaren's take on traditional Protestant Christianity than I find wrong with it.
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