Echoes in Eternity

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a cross. - H. Richard Niebuhr defines theological liberalism

As some of you likely already know, Brian McLaren, the leader of the Emergent Church movement (at least, what's left of it), released his new book, A New Kind of Christianity, this week. Formerly, McLaren has made a living from asking questions without giving any real answers. All that changed with this book. As Tim Challies put it, McLaren "appears to love Jesus but hate God... In this book we finally see where McLaren's journey has taken him; it has taken him into outright, rank, unapologetic apostasy. He hates God. Period."

Several Christian leaders have offered reviews and thoughts about the book, but I found Kevin DeYoung's the most penetrating of all. You can read it all here. DeYoung's closing words summarize McLaren's heterodoxy perfectly.

The message of McLarenism is pretty simple: God is love and wants everyone to be kind and inclusive and care for the poor and the environment. This is what Jesus was like, and we should be like Jesus. This is, of course, not wrong in so far as it goes. The Liberal/McLaren emphasis on the kingdom is right, their concern for the “other” is right, much of their ethics is right. But McLarenism, like liberalism, cannot be right. It has its emphases all out of proportion, its right statements thrown out of whack by all that is missing. In McLarenism there is no original sin, no wrath, no hell, no creation-fall-redemption, no definite future, no second coming that I can see, no clear statement on the deity of Christ, no mention of vicarious substitution or God’s holiness or divine sovereignty, no ethical demands except as they relate to being kind to others, no God-offendedness, no doctrine of justification, no unchanging apostolic deposit of truth, no absolute submission to the word of God, nary a mention of faith and worship, no doctrine of regeneration, no evangelistic impulse to save the lost, and nothing about God’s passion for his glory. This is surely a lot to leave out.

McLaren’s Christianity is not new and certainly not improved. I don’t believe you can even call it Christianity. It is liberalism dressed up for the 21st century. We can only hope this wave of liberalism fades as dramatically as did the last.