Everything Must Change by McLaren

8 Comments

1. 
   Scott
   Posted October 15, 2007 at 9:48 pm | Permalink

   I’ve skimmed through “A New Kind of Christian,” but even before reading a negative review on “Everything Must Change”, I lost interest in McLaren’s writings. I would be interested in hearing your take when you finish.

2. 
   Shawn Anthony
   Posted October 15, 2007 at 10:58 pm | Permalink

   I hear you Scott! I’m reading it out of sheer curiosity, and with a pretty critical mind. I have read the first 5 chapters. A lot of what he is saying so far, just sounds like pretty basic Christianity. In other words, it sounds more like a bunch of “emerging” hype, than it does revolution, to be honest. In other words, if one would simply follow Jesus one would be doing nearly all that he points towards. I mean seriously, I do not know of one church - one - that only preaches about believers going to heaven. McClaren makes a big deal of the “idea” that the majority of churches around us only have one message: Jesus died so we could go to heaven.

   I’ve been a lot of churches that I totally disagree with, but not one - not one - of those churches could be accused of only preaching this message, and at the expense of basic discipleship (i.e., taking care of the poor, needy, and sick and being socially aware).

   So, it seems like the book’s first really damaging strawman, to be honest. Eh, it’s a good read though.

3. 
   Helen
   Posted October 16, 2007 at 7:38 am | Permalink

   Shawn, I think your comment about strawmen in the book is fair. I agree there are places where Brian could have been more nuanced in that regard.

   You can read my review of the book here if you’re interested.

4. 
   Shawn Anthony
   Posted October 16, 2007 at 9:17 am | Permalink

   @Helen: Yeah. You know, I agree with all that McLaren is pushing for in this book (i.e., holistic Christian praxis). I care about environmental sustainability, the poor, the sick, and the damage inflicted upon the third world by greedy economics. I think a lot of Christians care about these things. So, I think a lot of Christians agree with that part of McLaren’s book. I just think he unnecessarily loses a large audience in his attempt to juxtapose “his” version of Christianity with the larger Church’s. It’s almost as if he needed an antagonist for his story … and he found one in this Church that only preaches “that Jesus came so you could go to heaven.” Again, I’ve never been in a church that only preaches that message and that message alone. It is a strawman. Furthermore, let’s suppose there is a church that only preaches that message. My question to such a church would be: don’t you people have Bibles?!? Yes, you do! Pick them up and read the Gospels and you’ll actually discover that Jesus had a lot to say about how we live this life too! Yes, he talks about Heaven, but he also says a lot about living on earth too! This church McLaren is lambasting in chapters 1-5 obviously is filled with people who have no access to Jesus’ story in the Gospel.

   That said, I actually agree with much of what McLaren says we should be doing, as Christians living on this planet. I just disagree wholeheartedly with the antagonist he created to “re-frame” the story. Every story needs a good antagonist; McLaren’s story is good, but its antagonist, this strawman church that only preaches one message (i.e., Jesus came so you could go to heaven), is very, very weak. In fact, it’s a serious distraction. A story’s antagonist is not supposed to ruin the plot. McLaren’s antagonist ruins the story because it just is not true.

5. 
   Shawn Anthony
   Posted October 16, 2007 at 9:55 am | Permalink

   @Helen: great review, by the way.

6. 
   Mjoshua
   Posted October 18, 2007 at 3:43 pm | Permalink

   Yeah, I read through the whole book. Got a prerelease of it a couple months ago. But I’ve not had a chance to truly discuss it with anybody an I’m so glad you’re saying what you are.

   I can honestly really agree about the strawman theory. It kinda gets old after a while and I’m sitting wondering “Who have I ever heard who was really like that?”

   It elevates an invisible antagonist within the Emerging community and draws further and unnecessary divide.

   I usually don’t tell anybody that I’m Emergent or Postmodern just because it infers to most that I, too, am so iconoclastic. yet I’m quite the opposite. I love standing on the backs of my wonderful predecessors.

   The thing in the book that was the most exciting to me was the scriptural commentary. A lot of the other stuff lost me. I love how certain scriptures come to so much more life when you can spend more time putting them in their context. Yet, I feel like i might need to test some of it more…

   Maybe the most useful emphasis to me in the book is about changing our framing story. Our worldview is so important to how we function. I feel that its another tool I can add to my shed and use whenever the Spirit leads in evangelism…

7. 
   Shawn Anthony
   Posted October 18, 2007 at 4:09 pm | Permalink

   @Mjshua: You wrote, “I usually don’t tell anybody that I’m Emergent or Postmodern just because it infers to most that I, too, am so iconoclastic.”

   LOL! Me too. Read the 9rules PM I sent you about 5 minutes ago. I actually just abandoned the word “Emerging” all together. Why? I found it was shutting down conversations before they even had a chance to begin. That’s really a big chunk of irony, considering “Emergent” is supposed to be all about “conversation.” All it is now is another divisive wedge. I think that happened as soon as they built a website, started to organize, and created a brand to emphasize an ideology. Funny, those are the very things “Emergent” claims to abhor.

   I think identification with the basic Gospel paves the way for authentic conversation with others. Emergent is just a door slam in the face these days. So, to be truly “emergent,” one should really stop being “emergent.”

   That’s what I discovered in the city streets.

   Like you said, it is, at the most, just another tool to be added to a much bigger shed. So, focus on the shed and let tools be tools.

   We really need to connect in real-time, brother.

8. 
   Mjoshua
   Posted October 22, 2007 at 9:05 am | Permalink

   I think I have my church planting school in Lititz next weekend… Maybe we can make it work where we can get together like on Saturday early evening or something…

   my email is shatterblade@gmail.com

   shoot me an email and maybe we can connect.