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My McLaren Colloquy: 2. Restorationism

20 Wednesday Dec 2006

Posted by Owen in Brian McLaren, Generous Orthodoxy, restorationism

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128750, 128751, 1483115, 157218, 157220, 2568, 3731, 69777, 8325

One of the most fascinating and vigorous sectors of protesting Protestanism has been “restorationism” — a belief held by a succession of groups through church history that, by finally getting the last or lost detail right, they now represent a full-fledged restoration of “New Testament Christianity.” – A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 128

Like Brian, I was raised with such an ethos. And my experience jives with his: “if you are part of a restorationist group, the group dynamics of your group will be nearly identical to those of every other restorationist group.” And while I no longer identify with the “group dynamics” of my spiritual heritage, I appreciate and share the kind sentiments with which McLaren describes the individual Christians within it:

Fortunately, beneath these squabbles over distinctives, one nearly always finds an idealism among restorationists, a belief that Christianity should be and can be better than its common manifestations. This is a good thing, and needed….One often finds a beautiful, sincere, childlike desire to follow Jesus whatever the cost and however lonely the road.

I am not sure where Brian is headed with his search, now that he appreciates the strengths and weaknesses of many different spiritual streams. At times he seems to envision a sort of ecumenical fusion — gaining a kind of institutional strength from many people who, it would seem, would have to miraculously lay down their points of difference and grow silent on the areas that up till now have been their sources of identity.

For myself, I think the model will be more like WIKI — devoid of institutional frameworks and fully free to embrace individual distinctions of thought and action.

I agree with McLaren, though, that the revolution must embody kindness, not as a surface gloss but as a defining, foundational principle. And in so doing it will radically depart from constant “protest”-isms.

Thus I expect that the Lord’s people who Barna says are now leaving the institutional church in droves will gather around Jesus, will sense the spirit of Christ in each other, and will be driven by humility rather than sectarian pride toward common understandings of the kindness of God and his happy plans for the human race.

It seems to me that the processes which will serve this gathering will incorporate both the rational, evidential tradition of Protestantism and the poetic, visionary disposition that is emerging through post-modern influences. Both isms are dangerous and extreme. But we do not need to choose either extreme, or lukewarmness either. We can, in Brian’s gracious words, find a balance that through generosity and humility walks that edgy middle road of Christlikeness — and honors what has been good in both the orthodox and heterodox thinking of preceding generations.

The only restorationist movement that will ever work is the inclusive, broadminded, and kindly one that God fuses together from every corner of His world.

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McLaren/MacArthur colloquy: 1. Honoring evangelicals

20 Wednesday Dec 2006

Posted by Owen in Brian McLaren, evangelicalism, Generous Orthodoxy, John MacArthur

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128750, 1395518, 157218, 192778, 19445, 2501726, 3731, 8325

I appreciate the honorable treatment Brian McLaren gives to evangelicals when he writes: (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 119)

“evangelicals have a passion that drives them into action: their emotion puts them in motion. And this emotion goes right to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus: loving God and loving others…. That’s why you’ll find evangelicals passionately at work around the world — including every dangerous and difficult place they can get themselves into. They have a mandate from Jesus to get out and make a difference. They love Jesus and they’re not going to let anything stop them. I love that.” He goes on to say, “evangelical passion for spiritual experience, for spiritual understanding, for mission is precious. If it could be bottled, one quart of it would be worth five libraries full of religious books (including mine) …. Even though it can’t be bottled, it cann be acquired, because, ultimately, “it” is the Spirit of Jesus, and Jesus gives himself freely to all who ask.”

I, too, have observed this evangelical zeal and I love it. The evangelicals who are attacking McLaren for what they perceive as dangerous perspectives in “Generous Orthodoxy” would do well to copy his kindness. I think that this missional spirit, this zeal to learn truth and stand for what is right and obey God’s commands and reach out to bring a message of salvation to the unsaved world are all noble impulses — as McLaren said, “the spirit of Jesus”.

I think Jesus was referring to this wholesome part of evangelical traditions when he praises the Philadelphia church — the only one of the churches he did not rebuke — in Rev. 3:7-13.

Unfortunately, the current church is not Philadelphia, which I believe was the 19th century church. Today we’re in Laodicea. We’ve moved beyond the missions of Dwight Moody and Hudson Taylor into the “hour of tempptation” realm of the 20th and 21st centuries. The historic period of “justice for the people” (literal translation of Laodicea).

John MacArthur’s contribution to this colloquy:

He agrees with me that the Philadelphia church is a “true, faithful church”. And he agrees with me that the Laodicea church is “a graphic picture of the church in the Tribulation.” Well, actually, Revelation doesn’t say “Tribulation,” it says “hour of temptation”. Which I think is now. And I do not share MacArthur’s black and white view of reality, that there are “no true believers, only false” in Laodicea; any more than I think there were only true and faithful believers in Philadelphia, a century or more ago. Why then, does Jesus say to them (us) “as many as I love I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent.”? And why does he counsel the lukewarm believers of Laodicea to obtain from him gold, and fine linen and eyesalve, so that they can see their nakedness etc. and be healed of it? So I agree with McLaren’s perspective, that we need to keep “flipping the script” as he put it in the Revolution conference — keep recognizing that by fits we each are what we despise.

Laodicea feels to me like Evangelicalism

Brian McLaren points out that where he got off the Evangelical (capital E) train was when he began to notice finger-pointing, strife, and debate more than bringing the poor to their house (to put it in Isaiah’s words). In Brians’s words, they seem to have “started identifying judgmentalism and anger as fruits of the Spirit.” (p. 117)

So I join McLaren in honoring what is good about evangelicalism, the focus on a good message with passion and creativity — and call to them to open their ears to the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:14-22…. something that clearly they are hearing, hence the many different strains of “revolution”.

It is the Emergent movement that is finally trying to prick the conscience of the church with this century-old social theme of Justice for the People. [that God is not on the side of the powerful but the powerless]. So I share McLaren’s observation that evangelicals need to balance their passion for getting the details right with an appropriate emphasis on the mercies of God. It is indeed above all else a Revolution of Kindness. Tomorrow I’ll give a brief reaction to his thoughts on page 125ff about Protestantism.

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