Gadfly's Muse

Turning Away From Truth and Turning Aside to Myths

Reflections on Brian McLaren

I'm reading his latest book "The Last Word and the Word After That".  I have commented before on the fundamental errors in McLaren's thinking but I am gratified to discover, in this book, that he is much more clearly stating his errors than earlier.  In "A Generous Orthodoxy" you had to sift  through a bunch of stuff to understand his foundational thought.  In this book it is generally right out there on the table.  For that I commend him.... For the views he holds, I do not.

The well known  words of 2 Tim. 4:1-5 are entirely apropros to McLaren's preaching.  He exactly fits the description Paul gives of preachers whoturn people's ears away from truth by telling them what their itching ears wants to hear.  He proclaims a gospel of nice.  The Good News is that God is a lot nicer than Christians have thought for the last 2000 years.  I would be so bold as to say that, according to Mclaren, God is a lot nicer than Jesus said he was.  Of course, God hasn't changed, but the manner in which we, the church, Christians, have thought of Him, has changed.  And that's OK, that's the way it's supposed to be.  We are emerging into a glorious new light of understanding and Brian McLaren is right there to help us attain it.  If along the way we have to completely revamp how we read the Bible and even what working authority we ascribe to it, then such is what must be done.  The lens we apply is this - God is good... since God is good, He is nice.... whatever we read in Scripture, we must read in such a way, that God's niceness is preserved.  If something in the Bible does not agree with "nice" then God must have meant it in some other way than we understand it.  The Good News is.... God is nice.

No Other Gods: Marilynne Robinson

After a tumultuous six months perhaps I can get back into this blogging scene.  Certainly I could not find a better stimulus for jotting down some thoughts than Robinson's guest editoral in the Jan. issue of Theology Today.  (Available at TheologyToday.ptsem.edu )

Robinson is an accomplished writer, a Pulitzer Price winning author and teaches at the University of Iowa.  I had never heard of her until this article caught my eye.  Her writing skills caught me right away and I read the work straight through, something unusual for me. 

I have picked up a few things here and there in Theology Today but it is not one of those publications that I expect to furnish more than an occasional tidbit or provocative paragraph.  Robinson's work is the best I have ever found in it.  In fact, I would say it may very well be the best, most concise, monograph providing the warrant for OT cosmogony and courteous, but deliberate polemical refutation of the sneering arguments of academic progressives that I have ever seen.

Robinson's own humble respect for God is evident.  She simply outlines where the Biblical creation account fits within the cultural mileau from which it originated.  She notes the self-evident differences between the Israelite motifs and those of the other ancient cultures.  In doing so, the plain superiority and radical distinctions of the OT stories are everywhere illustrated.  Our God cares for humanity.  We forget how revolutionary that concept was in its time.  She reminds us that Romans 1 furnishes a far more excellent reason why man's history is one of seeking supernatural explanations about life, the progress of time and the illusions of man's existence, than any of the currently popular ideas of Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins.  IIt is amazing to find a respected academic postulating that our essential anthropology includes a yearning for the Divine.  It is even more amazing to find one stating that this yearning is not a defect but an impulse toward truth.  Man years for the Divine because the Divine exists and intuitively he knows it.

Robinson quotes Julian the Apostate to good effect.  It is a wonderful tactic to use one one's foes against each other.  I suppose in the entire article I found only one irritating statement.  In speaking about the pagan goddess Anat and the gruesome role she played in Canaanite mythology, Robinson states "...here we see the female side of divinity so woefully lacking in the Hebrew Bible." The unneccessary adverb "woefully" distracts from the excellence of her work.  God, for His own reasons, has depicted Himself as He sees fit in His bible.  We may note that He does not do so in female terms, it is not our right to criticize His methods nor express woe that He has not done it differently.  But that is about it as far as criticism goes.

Read her article.