For systematic theology we had to give various book reports. The book I read was by Bryan McLaren which is called a "New Kind of Christian." I tried to be fair and non-biased when I read it but must admit it made my evangelical blood boil. Here is that report as a follow up to this blog article McLaren McEmerge - over 1 million emergers!
The book is called, “A new kind of Christian” by Bryan McLaren.
It was helpful in opening my eyes to the postmodern Church and how many of those who attend think about the gospel. As you look around it doesn’t take long to see how the postmodern movement has incorporated a large following. In reading I was able to see the why and how I differ from this thinking today in our church in Charlotte. It was also helpful because as much as I disagree with Bryan McLaren it pushed me far outside of my own spiritual paradigms and caused me to reconsider and reexamine the way I think about and do ministry. There are many today who are searching and looking for and new and improved Christianity that was not the same as their parents. The book helped me see that method in ministry is preferred over the message in ministry with Bryan McLaren and many of those in the post-modern church.
The book had many weaknesses and my word picture would be like that of a Coca Cola that one pours into a drinking glass. If you pour it directly in and fast then foam will start to rise up from the coke and should you drink that it will quickly go away because of no substance. It a nutshell, that is how I would evaluate this book by Bryan McLaren. The basic problem is Bryan’s fictional character Neo is starting to mentor a very fundamental evangelical pastor who is tired, bored and totally burn out on church in general. The book through this fictional character Neo builds a straw man of a typical Bible reading and Bible believing modern Christian as opposed to one that postmodern. He portrays the modern evangelical as a 21st Century Pharisee and is constantly talking about old ways of perceiving and doing things in the church. In part you have Bryan McLaren writing through this character Neo to deconstruct this straw man and then go through the rebuilding of this person as the new kind of Christian which is of course postmodern. When he talks about those who would take a hermeneutical approach to Scripture he concludes with statements like the following: “As a result, the Bible itself begins to vaporize, to disappear, leaving the desired residue of systematic theology, which is all you ever wanted anyway.” Bryan is so intent in telling us how to get outside our own paradigms of word centered theology and main stream thinking that he does not realize the very paradigms that he has formed along the way. I was a former sales consultant and was giving a talk about a man who told a story about oatmeal. He said that everyday of his life when he was young his mother used to give him oatmeal every morning through his entire childhood. He said that as a 55 year old man today he has never had another bowl of oatmeal in 40 years. The rest of the class looked at him and said don’t you see the problem the first 15 years you mother made you eat it and the last 40 years you have been rebelling – the fact is you don’t know whether you like oatmeal or not! To some degree that is exactly how I read this book by Bryan McLaren. It really is like the cotton candy you get at the fair, it looks good but when you take a bite it is quickly gone. I mean if you were to ask this guy his favorite color I think he would say plaid.
I am bothered by the way Bryan McLaren thinks and expresses his philosophy in this book and therefore I would not recommend it. There is little if any talk about the cross, blood, atonement, sin, redemption or suffering all of which the Bible has much to say. Even the title of the book is offensive as if we need a new kind of Christian. And isn’t that redundant if we read correctly
2 Corinthians 5:17 -Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. So then shouldn’t McLaren’s book be titled a new kind of a new creature? He overuses words like journey, process, conversation, and feeling. It seems that he is on a campaign against taking a firm stand and calling something either black or white. I really do think his favorite color if he were to be honest would be gray. This kind of book does appeal to the Christian today who has been saturated in a media driven, technology infiltrated and consumer driven environment. Bryan is going to try and convince the old school Christians (which is everyone that has not moved into a postmodern mode) that there is something beyond what they have ever known or seen in their Christian life. But when you read the book you find that Bryan is trying to jazz up some of the relational basics and play down the importance of a good fundamental understanding of doctrine. Once again I would not recommend the book nor Bryan’s new kind of Christianity!
