This is going to be my concluding post (unless of course I think of something totally awesome to say later on) on McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity. In the end I think I was underwhelmed by the book from the time it set up Plato as the root of everything that’s wrong with Christianity. It’s not even that I particularly buy into the notion of Platonic ideals (I actually found Robert Pirsig’s critique of Plato rather insightful), but once McLaren sets up “Greco-Roman” dualism and portrays it (dualistically, I might add) as everything that’s wrong with the church, the book is irreparably wrecked for me.
This is a shame because it would be helpful to have a popular-level public discussion about many of the topics in this book – if for no other reason than that it would engage many more people in really learning about their faith. Instead the discussion has generated far more heat than light. Some of the things that McLaren said that I find fairly uncontroversial have been drawn into the morass that is the criticism back and forth about this book. I mean his comments about reading the bible from a Jewish perspective and recognizing that it is a mixture of literary genres both strike me as just plain common sense. I am sympathetic towards a lot of what McLaren says, but the way he says it, his philosophical underpinnings are so unsound that he makes good topics of discussion suddenly disreputable.
“I mean his comments about reading the bible from a Jewish perspective and recognizing that it is a mixture of literary genres both strike me as just plain common sense.”
Is there anyone who would disagree with these two points?
Darryl just wants his book back, Dan.
What I have found bizarre in all of this is the number of people who have been blogging or blog commenting with lines like “what Brian is really saying” or “Brian wasn’t directing that comment at you.” I am beginning to wonder whether Brian’s writing is like glossolalia and only a few people get the interpretation.
You’d be surprised, I’ve read some blog posts more-or-less to the effect that the whole Bible is one big systematic theology text.
Bill,
I wonder whether the book was rushed out somehow under some kind of publisher’s deadline. I mean in places I think McLaren has good points and even where I disagreed with him, I thought this was something worth considering as Christians, but the book he gave us was just not the vehicle. What frustrated me is I could see the potential there.