A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional + Evangelical + Post/Protestant + Liberal/Conservative + Mystical/Poetic + Biblical + Charismatic/Contemplative + Fundamentalist/Calvinist + Anabaptist/Anglican + Methodist + Catholic + Green + Incarnational + Depressed-yet-Hopeful + Emergent + Unfinished CHRISTIAN
by Brian D. McLaren
Grand Rapids: Zondervan (Emergent YS), 2004, 297 pp., $19.90, hardcover.

Brian McLaren, whether he likes it or not, is the de facto spokesman for the emergent church conversation (those in the emergent movement tend to dislike the term "movement.") As such, it is important to examine with care what he is proclaiming. A Generous Orthodoxy (unwieldy subtitle and all) offers the most systematic presentation of his views seen yet, although many facets of his emergent paradigm have already been introduced in his A New Kind of Christian series and other works. We will not exhaustively examine every proposition set forth, but I will address a few points that were especially noteworthy.

A Generous Orthodoxy starts with plenty of disclaimers and warnings, some to potential readers and some to evangelicals or potential emergent adherents. For example, we read:

The last thing we need is a new group of proud, super protestant, hyper puritan, ultra restorationist reformers who say, "Only we've got it right!" (McLaren 19).

While I agree with McLaren's concerns about arrogant narrowmindedness, I wonder about his insinuation that past reformers have been proud super protestant hyper puritans. Considering what puritans stood for, is it undesirable to be "hyper puritan"? I think not. Not all moderation is praiseworthy. However, it's too early to be judgmental, so let's continue on.

After praising Renovare mystic Richard Foster in a footnote (Foster is also lauded later), McLaren begins to clarify what emergent teaching involves:

This generous orthodoxy...disagrees with both regarding the "view of certainty and knowledge which liberals and evangelicals hold in common" (24).

McLaren then commences to expound views which he is quite certain are an improvement over "old-school" evangelicalism. He seems quite comfortable in that knowledge, illustrating the self-defeating nature of so much of the postmodern-flavored emergent worldview. Perhaps that comfort with inconsistency characterizes post-foundationalism, a philosophical perspective eagerly embraced by McLaren.

McLaren has been called "slippery" at times, not a surprising observation to those who have read paragraphs such as this one:

...this book suggests that relativists are right in their denunciation of absolutism. It also affirms that absolutists are right in their denunciation of relativism. And then it suggests that they are both wrong because the answer lies beyond both absolutism and relativism (38).

That's similar to saying that a light bulb isn't on or off, it's beyond both concepts. We never really learn just how this muddled "beyond" state will pan out, but it's a safe bet that things will get confusing. The instant you deny absolutes, you are committed to relativism--there are no "beyond" options unless you start redefining terms beyond accepted usage. McLaren is merely playing word games when he suggests that two mutually exclusive positions can be both right and wrong. With the concept of truth rendered that meaningless, how are we to take the rest of his book seriously? I can assert that A Generous Orthodoxy is a brilliant theological defense of Biblical orthodoxy and at the same time brand it as a heretical denial of God's Word; apparently both views are equally valid in an emergent context. The problem with this denial of the law of non-contradiction should be apparent.

Not surprisingly, McLaren attacks the exclusivism of traditional evangelical Christianity:

Missional Christian faith asserts that Jesus did not come to make some people saved and others condemned. Jesus did not come to help some people be right while leaving everyone else to be wrong. Jesus did not come to create another exclusive religion-Judaism having been exclusive based on genetics and Christianity being exclusive based on belief (which can be a tougher requirement than genetics!) (110).

Jesus was not exclusive? What about John 14:6?

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ESV

John 6:37-44 had already established that Jesus came to save His people, and to do so successfully. Perhaps McLaren means that Jesus didn't come to make some condemned because they stood condemned already, but that would seem to be disingenuous and would not be the understanding of the typical reader.

Consistent with the "non-exclusive" perspective, McLaren hails Gulley and Mulholland's If Grace is True, (112) a universalist book that has been panned by Christianity Today, a magazine not known for being tough on aberrant theology. The authors of If Grace is True go so far as to claim that any atonement theology contradicts the ethics of Jesus, and admit that their arguments contradict an infallible Bible.

We must not be surprised then when McLaren lauds his friend Dave Tomlinson for contributing The Post-Evangelical to the conversation about Christian faith (120). As I pointed out in my review, Tomlinson's book mocks Biblical miracles, opines that it is ridiculous to expect couples to marry before co-habiting, calls inerrancy "a monumental waste of time" and concludes that it's more important to be true to our convictions than that our convictions actually prove to be correct.

Now that McLaren has warmed up to assaulting much of what evangelicals hold dear, it's time to praise the liberals:

Liberals were heroic for tackling tough issues often several decades before the conservatives. For example, in terms of science and learning, they tackled issues like evolution and the age of the earth long before their conservative counterparts (138).

Tackled? Acquiesced would be a more apt description of the liberal response to evolution. However, since McLaren is an avid fan of evolution, he finds that those who succumb to the allure of evolutionary science while ignoring contrary evidence are heroic. Earlier he complains about conservatives "explaining away fossils" (134), apparently unwilling to even consider that numerous Ph. D. scientists see fossils as a strong support for the Biblical flood accounts with no need to explain them away. Recall his condemnation about conservatives and their view of certainty. That coin appears to have but one side.

Defending the Eastern mystical traditions, McLaren writes:

This rebuke to arrogant intellectualizing is especially apt for modern Christians, who do not build cathedrals of stone and glass as in the Middle Ages, but rather conceptual cathedrals of proposition and argument (151).

Ironically, McLaren utilizes proposition and argument to make his case, for one could scarcely write a non-fiction book of any worth--or intelligibility--without doing so. Again, the "arrogant intellectualizing" seems to be a disease for which liberals possess immunity.

McLaren goes on to caricature the traditional evangelical trust in God's Word:

True, I grew up being taught that the Bible was an answer book, supplying exactly the kind of information modern, Western, moderately educated people want from a phone book, encyclopedia, or legal constitution. We want to know exactly when the earth was created (4004 B.C. or thereabouts) and how (instantaneously, during six 24-hour periods), along with when it will end...

We wanted a simple, clear, efficient, and convenient plan for getting to heaven after death. Between now and then, we wanted clear assurance that God didn't like the people we didn't like, and for the same reasons we didn't like them. Finally, we wanted a rule book that made it objectively clear, with no subjective ambiguity, what behaviors were right and wrong for all time, in all places, and among all cultures, especially if those rules confirmed our views and not those of people we considered "liberal" (159).

This passage summarizes most of what irritates me about McLaren's approach. Traditional evangelicalism gets a strawman makeover to prime it for an easy assault. There's no mention of inspiration, a key component of the evangelical approach to Scripture. There's plenty of "redneck simplification," though, something McLaren enjoys doing throughout his A New Kind of Christian series as well. Traditional evangelicals just aren't as bright or as cool or as humble as his cutting-edge emergent pals with their wonderfully open minds. I'll be condemned for it, but I can't help but quote Steve Taylor's classic lyric:

You're so open-minded that your brains leaked out. ("Whatcha Gonna Do When Your Number's Up?" from I Want To Be A Clone)

Nothing gets Brian McLaren riled up more than environmental issues, which he addresses in both chapters 10, Why I Am Biblical, and 16, Why I Am Green. No, McLaren is not admitting to alien origins or a problem with envy. Kermit the Frog said, "It isn't easy being green," but Brian McLaren wants Christians to be greener than Kermit when it comes to the environment. To that end, radical (rabid) environmentalist Al Gore is described as someone who sees his "environmentalism as an expression of (his) Christian faith" (233).

That may well be true, but doesn't say much about either one. Like McLaren, Gore expresses far more faith in Darwin than in Genesis. I don't know anyone who actually managed to read Earth in the Balance, but perusing it was painful enough. There are those who bravely spent more time wading through it than I did, and their refutations of its absurd New Age enviro-paganism are easy to find online. Why McLaren thinks it is helpful to positively reference Gore is beyond my understanding.

Back in chapter 10, we learned that the future looks grim indeed:

Imagine (it's not hard) that a thousand years from now, in a world ravaged by side effects of the industrial revolution (global warming from fossil fuels, extinction of species, destruction of rain forests, pollution of water and air, nuclear contamination or catastrophe, etc.), our descendents look back on our era as the most destructive in human history. "How could God ever have blessed people who drove automobiles, who heated their homes with energy derived from fossil fuels or nuclear energy, who through their taxes funded the creation of horrific weapons?" they'll ask (169).

Of course, we labor in vain to find just how McLaren heats his home or what kind of bicycle he rides to work. While being hailed as a leading emergent figure, McLaren is behind the curve on environmentalism. Perhaps he needs to catch up on what leaders like Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore and Gaia hypothesis originator James Lovelock are writing in defense of nuclear energy, sustainable forestry and the like.

Continuing on with the green/ecumenical theme of chapter 16, we read:

One realizes that the spirit of St. Francis and the spirit of Mother Theresa are one and the same: the spirit of Jesus, to whom the poor and sick and the sparrows and salamanders are all precious, each in a unique way (239).

Mother Teresa proclaimed that she loved all religions and that Buddhists, Hindus and Christians all have the same access to God. Acts 4:12 wasn't a favorite verse of hers. No wonder McLaren later writes:

It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within in their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts (260).

This strikes me as absurd for someone claiming to propose a generous orthodoxy. Does McLaren really believe that it's possible to be a Christian polytheist? How else can you remain in a "Hindu context" as a Christian? A little later in the chapter we read:

Ultimately, I hope Jesus will save Buddhism, Islam, and every other religion, including the Christian religion, which often seems to need saving about as much as any other religion does (264).

Make of that what you will. McLaren concludes the chapter with an anecdote about a Washington, D.C.-area Christian mother who taught her daughter that Muslim women wear veils because they love God (265). Keep in mind that Muslims deny the trinity, as well as the deity of Jesus. That's not going to slow down McLaren. He includes a defensive footnote:

Before some readers wish to embroil me in debates about whether Allah of Islam is the same God as Yahweh of the Bible, please allow me to show at least a few Muslims the same grace Jesus showed: (a) a Roman centurion when Jesus said he had not seen such faith in all of Israel and (b) a Syrophoenician woman when he told her she had great faith (265).

Perusing Matthew 8, it doesn't take long to realize that the centurion had just expressed his faith in Jesus and His ability to heal. Likewise, the Syrophoenician woman described in Mark 7 appealed directly to Jesus to heal her daughter. How does either example support McLaren's contention that following the legalistic rules of Islam displays a love for the unitarian Allah that he equates to the Trinitarian God of the Bible? There is no defense for his view in the passages he cited. McLaren may as well have encouraged us to teach our children that Hindus use forehead markings to show that they love God (or gods) that also correspond to Yahweh.

I saved chapter 12, Why I Am Fundamentalist/Calvinist for the end because it is the most absurd in a book McLaren himself hails as absurd (27). Anyone who has read McLaren knows he is not Fundamentalist/Calvinist regardless of the chapter title. While being careful not to lump in all Calvinists, McLaren asserts that

This view of reality folds much (not all) of today's Calvinism into a broader way of thinking called Determinism, which says that ultimately, our freedom is an illusion, and that we're just puppets of one sort or another (186).

There's no mention of compatibilism anywhere in the chapter, which means that either McLaren is uninformed, or overeager to paint the Reformed viewpoint in a negative light by providing a distorted view. Still, he admits that in his youth

it was mostly in the Reformed churches (Presbyterian, Christian Reformed, etc.) that one found much intellectual vigor and life of the mind. Reformed writers and speakers like Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, Ravi Zacharias, Os Guiness, J. I. Packer, and others gave me a challenge and permission to think (187).

Ravi Zacharias? As much as I've enjoyed Ravi's ministry over the years, I've never seen any evidence that he's Reformed in his views. Nonetheless, all of the men listed have created worthwhile resources, not only for dealing with the modern world, but with the postmodern as well. Of course, they wouldn't support the relativistic bent of most emergent aficionados and would insist that the Law of Non-Contradiction can only be abandoned in lockstep with meaningful communication.

McLaren creates his own emergent TULIP to replace the traditional summation of Reformed theology:

Believing as I do that doctrinal distinctives are a lot like cigarettes, the use of which often leads to a hard-to-break Protestant habit that is hazardous to spiritual health (and that makes the breath smell bad) (195).

If McLaren truly believed himself, why would he write any books about emergent spirituality? Are they merely cynical plays for publishing royalties? If McLaren actually thinks he has solutions to problems in current Christianity, he expects readers to seriously consider his distinctives, meant to improve on those already in place. Or maybe he's just offering another brand of cigarette as he proposes his new TULIP.

The original "T" refers to total depravity, a concept McLaren snidely referred to earlier in A Generous Orthodoxy (177). His "T" is for Triune Love (195), which is good and well on its own, but we may be looking in vain to see where sin and the need for a savior occurs in this brave new TULIP.

"U" is next. Instead of Unconditional Election, he proposes an Unselfish Election designed to bless others (195). While there's truth to that (Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.), again we find that the salvific aspect of the original TULIP has been discarded.

McLaren's commentary on "L" follows:

Instead of speculating on the limited scope of legal atonement (as the original "L" in the acrostic did), a Reforming Reformed faith would concentrate on the missio dei of relational reconciliation (196).

I doubt that "speculating" is the correct description of how Reformed folks view the "L" in TULIP, but McLaren fails to understand the original TULIP anyway, especially when he goes on to describe God's marvelous irresistible grace as "a dominating, almost mechanistic force that cannot be resisted" (196).

The "I" in TULIP is about dead sinners being raised to spiritual life, not about mechanistic forces. McLaren lobbies for "Inspiring Grace," but that's really no change from the original despite his distortion of the original concept.

His dreary mischaracterization of the traditional TULIP acrostic continues with "P" as he writes about the Perseverance (or Preservation) of the Saints: "Rather than a grim endurance, they would have unquenchable hope, confident that God will never fail to fulfill a promise" (197).

That hope is already present in Reformed theology, so I don't know where "grim endurance" originated. It's simply not there in the original.

...fundamentalists and Calvinists share two traits that I hope will be dropped by any who wish to participate in a generous orthodoxy. The first is a fondness for reductionism, epitomized by their love for the Latin word sola (only), seen in what are often called Reformation mottoes: sola Scriptura, sola fide, sola TULIP, sola the five fundamentals, etc. (198).

In McLaren's generous orthodoxy, adding to the work of Christ is better than faith alone (sola fide), accepting the proclamations of the Roman Catholic magisterium appears to be preferable to sola Scriptura and so on. At this point I have to agree with his own observation:

No wonder some will call this book a generous unorthodoxy, or an ungenerous unorthodoxy, or a dangerous unorthodoxy, or worse (35).

I don't really prefer one adjective over another, provided that we recognize that "unorthodoxy" is the term being modified. McLaren sounds likeable enough in his lectures, and much of what he writes has value in encouraging us to live out faith in a day-to-day practical sense--some of his other stances are distasteful to me, but not damning; however, when he sacrifices doctrines such as sola fide on the altar of emergent ecumenism, I must part ways with him. Is that being generous or ungenerous? I'd vote for the former, but your mileage may vary. McLaren closes the chapter:

...Calvin's descendents (among others) sometimes seem to believe they have been granted an exemption from I Corinthians 13 or Ephesians 4 or Colossians 3 in the defense of Calvinist theology. The generous or ungenerous way they critique this chapter (which no doubt deserves critique) will illustrate to what degree they will uphold this trait or relax it-that word relax perhaps being the best word on which to end a fun-filled chapter like this (198).

Although that strikes me as a little too flippant (I should know, having been accused of flippancy many times), I'd like to point out that conservative Christians, especially creationists, might question whether McLaren has taken the cited passages to heart himself before going on the offensive.

I rate A Generous Orthodoxy right alongside The Post-Evangelical as a useful book in that it exposes the dangerous direction of the emergent movement away from orthodoxy.

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Works Cited

Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004).

See also aGenerousOrthodoxy.com as well as my review of A New Kind of Christian.

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