The Evangelical Left's Nostalgia Trip Down Wall Street

Mark Tooley, who is always worth reading, has some thoughts on the embrace of Occupy Wall Street by left-wing leaders. (Why, by the way, are those leaders always jumping on secular bandwagons to prove their relevance?)

In an article entitled, "Religion Flocks to Wall Street" he writes:

Because they are Americans, the Wall Street Occupiers are suffused with messianic purpose, as are nearly all our nation's American political crusades. But the often raggedy Occupiers themselves do not seem specifically oriented towards organized religion.

Not to worry. Religious Leftists of all sorts have rallied to the Occupiers' bedraggled banners. Guided by the Social Gospel's emphasis on social justice over theological details, these religionists discern God's Kingdom among the squatters' tents and sleeping bags. One group of clergy visited while carrying a mock golden idol shaped like the dreaded Wall Street Bull, the very incarnation of greed.

Praising the Occupation is a gamble for liberal evangelicals, who have tried so hard to appear centrist in recent years, anxious to softly persuade suburban churchgoers to abandon their conservative voting habits. Oldline Protestant elites, along with left-wing Catholic activists, of course welcome the Occupation as a long overdue 1960s revival.

After reviewing the police lineup of the usual suspects from the Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ and Methodist church hierarchies, Tooley comes back to left-wing Evangelicals.

This call towards utopia, enshrouded simultaneously in grievance, entitlement, idealism, and youthful naiveté, has understandably seduced old-style street activists like Jim Wallis of Sojourners, or even Brian McLaren of the emergent church movement. "When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus," Wallis has pronounced, even before himself visiting the Occupation, which doubtless only amplified his excited nostalgia. "'The occupation of God has begun'" might inspire the same fear and hope among people today as 'the Kingdom of God is at hand' inspired in the first century," gushed McLaren, after attending his own local Occupation protest.

Indeed, I'll bet Jim Wallis is re-living his old Students for a Democratic Society days as he basks in the glow of the nostalgia. Is Brian McLaren even aware of how much he sounds like old-fashioned, early 20th century social gospelers when he compares the latest social trend to the kingdom of God?

I sometimes wonder if they grasp just how out of date they really are; the leftists who operated in the pre-World War I era and pre-Soviet era could be excused to some extent because they had never seen the fruits of Communism (although they should have been warned by the orgy of violence that was the French Revolution). But to gush about "equality" and "building the kingdom" with secular protest movements today is to have one's feet embedded in the cement of nostalgia while the parade passes by.

Representing a newer generation of Evangelical liberal is Shane Claiborne, a winsome young white man who typically sports dreadlocks, a bandana, and a rustic smock, while proclaiming good news for the poor to attentive middle class evangelical students. "In a world where 1 percent of the world owns half the world's stuff, we are beginning to realize that there is enough for everyone's need, but there is not enough for everyone's greed," he recently insisted. "Lots of folks are beginning to say, 'Maybe God has a different dream for the world than the Wall Street dream.'"

The dubious statistic about the wicked "1 percent" aside, Claiborne speaks some truth. But he and the other religious enthusiasts for Wall Street aren't calling for individuals to shed their wealth for God's Kingdom. Of course, they primarily want an all powerful state to seize and redistribute wealth according to some imagined just formula, after which the lion will lie peaceably with the lamb. It's a utopian dream, not based on the Gospels, always monstrous when attempted, and premised more on resentment than godly generosity. But it's a message that will always have an audience in a covetous world.

What strikes me is the insight Tooley offers in the last sentence. Is it not transparently obvious that the whole appeal of the OWS protests to the ordinary, fuzzy-minded, college kids with iPhones and $100K of student load debt is nothing other than plain covetousness? The Gospel is about generosity; socialism is about forced redistribution. Why is this? Because the Gospel changes lives while socialism fiddles around with social structures. Socialism cannot make people generous; only the indwelling Spirit of God can do that.

But really, religious leaders promoting covetousness??? I suppose it is no stranger than religious leaders promoting fornication . . . or divorce . . . or murdering pre-born babies. Breaking the Ten Commandments seems to be just what the Religious Left does.

Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Brian McLaren has two remarkable posts up at the moment which explain his strategy and his goals in his speaking and writing. He basically admits that he is trying to nudge Evangelicals leftward and this is why he has tried to stay within the Evangelical world so long. He has been a theological liberal for a long time, but only gradually revealed his true leanings so as to take as many souls with him out the door as possible.

The first post is on the Sojourners website where he defends Jim Wallis and Sojourners against criticism from the Left based on the fact that Sojourners magazine refused an ad from a pro-homosexual group aimed at local churches. The criticism seems to be two-fold: (1) "why aren't you openly with us on this issue when you are with us on so many others" and (2) "you are being hypocritical because we both know you favor the liberal position on sexuality." So how does McLaren defend Wallis?

Basically, his argument comes down to this: Sojourners is trying to influence as many Evangelicals as possible toward a left-wing, welfare-state, big government politics by portraying themselves as advocates for poverty reduction. And it is working; a sliver of the left wing of the Evangelical spectrum is being seduced [my word] into Marxism. And this is Sojourners' mission. In the world of left-wing politics there are many Soros-funded advocacy groups, but only one that has a realistic chance of appealing to left-wing Evangelicals and so Jim Wallis can perform a service for the radical Left that no one else can. Why destroy that potential by taking a position Evangelicals oppose so strongly it would drive them away?

In this post, McLaren links in this post to one on his blog in which he chronicles his journey from a conservative to a progressive position on homosexuality. What I found interesting is how far back his openness to theological liberalism, cultural Marxism and progressive politics actually goes. He writes:

I speak as a person who inherited the conventional conservative position about homosexuality, but who began questioning it in my teens when one of my close friends came out. When faced with the choice between a) truly listening and seeking to understand this friend and b) showing what compassion I could without endangering my status in conservative Christian circles, I chose b). I suppose my response during my "conventional phase" could have been worse, but it could have been much better.

When I became a pastor, more and more gay people came out to me and data started to accumulate that indicated problems with my inherited understanding. I went through a stage where I sought to be as personally understanding and humane to LGBTQ people as I could while still holding, however tenuously, to a theology that stigmatized them.

So his leftist ideas about human sexuality go all the way back to his teens, before he ever became a pastor. So, you may wonder, how did he ever gain a reputation as an Evangelical writer? It was no accident, but a deliberately crafted strategy:

But at this point I was a pastor and had to deal with the conflict between two commitments: first, one of my primary job requirements - to keep together rather than divide my congregation on the one hand, and second, to stand up with integrity and be counted as an advocate for people I had become convinced were being treated with neither justice nor compassion. I negotiated this tension by speaking up when I could and by seeking to use my influence to increase sensitivity to people whom I felt were being treated by Christians in a truly sub-Christian way.

But at every turn I felt that I couldn't speak out too strongly too fast without dividing the church that I was called to serve. . . .

You might ask why I didn't go ahead and take a stand, letting the chips fall where they may. After all, I had inherited a conservative position on the role of women in church leadership, and our church crossed that boundary and never looked back. The honest answers to that question are complex and many (perhaps a subject for another time). . . .

One essential dimension of my decision to hold back was my desire - and sense of calling - to hold together a fragile coalition.

He wanted to hold together a coalition, which is exactly what he claims is motivating Jim Wallis to cultivate ambiguity about where he stands on biblical morality. In other words, he wanted Evangelical money, Evangelical support and Evangelical converts to his liberal position. He wanted Evangelicalism to underwrite its own destruction.

To the extent that Evangelicals embrace McLaren's sordid sexual ethics and his vacuous and heretical theology, they will witness institutional decline as their hold on the Gospel evaporates. To see the future, one only has to look at the rapidly declining liberal Protestants in the Episcopal Church. The future is statistical decline, cultural irrelevance, and eventually death.

Evangelicals lives only by the Gospel; Evangelical churches grow only because they have a life transformational Gospel to preach. Take that away and substitute a vaguely humanistic therapeutic message and socialism in its progressivist form, and there is no future. The Gospel is Good News about sin and salvation, heaven and hell, a supernatural Savior and a living God who answers prayer. If one turns these doctrines into symbols of social justice with a Marxist tinge, one eviscerates them of meaning and significance.

Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis are trolling for poorly-taught, Scripturally-ignorant, emotion-driven, easily-deceived prey on the left wing or other fringes of Evangelicalism. They pretend to be (kind of) Evangelical even though they have really embraced a new religion and they are dangerous to those sheep who wander around outside the sheepfold. Tragically, there are a lot of wayward sheep and sleepy shepherds today and so the pickings are not slim at all for the wolves.

Let us recall the warning of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesian elders:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:28-32) [ESV, my bolding]

Elders of Evangelical churches have a duty to speak out and warn the flock about those who are "speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them;" men such as Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis, who are wolves disguised as sheep. Make no mistake: book royalties are not their goal, they are after souls. And they are extremely open about it.

Brian McLaren Interviewed by Scot McKnight

The following interview of Brian McLaren by Scot McKnight at a recent conference is an interesting opportunity to hear McLaren's answers to three pre-approved questions. McKnight does not really debate or dialogue with McLaren: he just reads the questions. So it is really like a structured speech by McLaren.

What I found interesting was the way in which McLaren obfuscates on doctrine and sounds the clarion call with utter clarity on social work and politics. He expresses frustration with those who read him to see if his views are compatible with biblical truth saying that when he is in the presence of people like that it feels like the inquisition. He advocates reading an author for what one can get out of it rather than to see if the author is orthodox, which is to present a false dilemma between two kinds of reading with two different purposes - both of which are perfectly legitimate. To suggest that only one way of reading is legitimate when one has been accused of teaching false doctrine is pretty self-serving and question-begging.

He says he was "stunned" that people could read his book, Everything Must Change, and then ask questions about the doctrine of the atonement - as if to think of a question on atonement after reading a book about Jesus is somehow surprising. He says "I talked about war, I talked about poverty, I talked about the environment - and all they wanted to talk about was atonement theory." The scorn in his voice here is crystal clear: how provincial and uncaring these people must be! Yet, if the greatest need of the poor is to know Jesus and the eternal salvation he offers, then it is cruel and unfeeling to place socialist ideology above the spiritual needs of poor people. Yet this is what he does - and then calls his critics uncaring because they object to his rejection of the penal substitution doctrine of the atonement, which is the heart of the gospel.

The discussion on universalism in the third part is not very interesting to me because I don't think we can know or are supposed to know whether it is somehow possible that more than we think will end up saved. All we know from Scripture is that eternal punishment is eternal and some are eternally punished. To go beyond this is dangerous. But it is interesting to see McLaren dancing around the question like a politician who knows he will lose votes if he gives a clear answer no matter which side he comes down on. It simply reinforces the impression that theology qua theology is not very interesting to McLaren; it is simply a tool that can be used to motivate certain people to embrace left-wing positions.

Answering a question about whether some of the things he writes are "provocatively ambiguous" McLaren compares his approach to that of Soren Kierkegaard, who said that when you are talking to people who are in the grip of an illusion, who are wrong but don't know they are wrong, it is difficult to be indirect. This shows what McLaren thinks of his "theological critics." Of course, it is not the liberals who criticize his theology; they have no problem with his theology because it leads him to agree with them on what they deeply care about: namely, politics. But conservatives are the ones who are concerned about possible false teaching and McLaren shows very little patience for them in this interview. They are the ones who are in the grip of an illusion and are so obviously wrong even though they can't see it. And why is he so sure they are wrong? Because they don't accept his leftist views on politics and ethics.

When asked about whether his rejection of "the Greco-Roman narrative" in A New Kind of Christianity does not contradict his affirmation of the faith of the Christian Church in Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren proceeds to redefine the word "faith." In so doing he sounds a lot like Rudolph Bultmann insofar as he makes a distinction between "faith" as trust and dependence on God and "faith" in the sense clearly meant in the question, which was "faith" in the sense of the main teachings of Christianity: the Gospel and the cardinal doctrines flowing from and supporting the Gospel. McLaren makes a great point of affirming the need for "faith" in the Bultmannian sense, which Evangelicals would not deny, but fails to go to affirm the importance of the Biblical Gospel and major doctrines that flesh out the Gospel, which would be just as important to Evangelicals as "faith" in the sense of trust.

McLaren shows a tendency here to view doctrine in a pragmatic manner; true doctrine is doctrine which leads those who hold it to take up a properly left-wing political stance. False doctrine is any doctrine that leads people to oppose left-wing politics. Doctrine is not true or false in itself; it becomes true or false only when its political outcomes are observed.

McLaren is not shy about specifying who in church history is right and who is wrong. He lists St. Patrick as over against Constantine, St. Francis as over against the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in their colonial era and their crusading era. He also identifies with the approach taken by the Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation and in the modern era with movements like the Social Gospel, Liberation Theology, Black Theology, Latino Theology, Feminist and Eco Theologies and so on. Ironically, he gives this list of the "Good Guys" right after criticizing those who look in the Church for only one line of purity stretching down through church history. One wonders if he really objects to the methodology or the conclusions because he seems to be utilizing the same methodology by constructing his "alternative history" of what I suppose could be termed "counter-orthodoxy."

If you don't want to invest the time in reading his books, this 18 minute video is an excellent way to acquaint yourself with his main ideas in a first hand way in a short time.

Q | Conversations on Being a Heretic from Q Ideas on Vimeo.

What is the Gospel?

John R. W. Stott, in his classic, The Cross of Christ, notes the objections to orthodox Christianity in his day based on the idea the Gospel the Church proclaims is not the message of Jesus. He quotes Sr. Alister Hardy in his 1965 Gifford Lectures, who asked if Jesus himself would be a Christian if he were to live today and then said:

I very much doubt it . . . I feel certain that he would not have preached to us of a God who would be appeased by the cruel sacrifice of a tortured body . . . I cannot accept either the hypothesis that the appalling death of Jesus was a sacrifice in the eyes of God for the sins of the world, or that God, in the shape of his son, tortured himself for our redemption. I can only confess that, in my hearth of hearts, I find such religious ideas to be amongst the least attractive in the whole of anthropology. To me, they belong to a quite different philosophy - different psychology - from that of the religion that Jesus taught." (quoted on pl. 111)

I was struck by how similar this objection is to Brian McLaren's and Steve Chalke's and those of feminist and liberal theologians of recent years. How does Stott reply?

Stott notes that the cross was at the core of the apostolic proclamation as described by Luke in the Book of Acts. Stott points out that there are five sermons by Peter (Acts 2:14-39, 3:12-36, 4:8-12, 5:29-32 and 10:34-43) and five by Paul (Acts 13:16-41, 14:15-17, 17:2-3 and 22-31, and 28:23-31). Stott then reconstructs the core of their proclamation as follows:

Jesus was a man who was accredited by God through miracles and anointed by the Spirit to do good and to heal. Despite this, he was crucified through the agency of wicked men, though also by God's purpose according to the Scriptures that the Messiah must suffer. Then God reversed the human verdict on Jesus by raising him from the dead, also according to the Scriptures, and as attested by the apostolic eyewitnesses. Next God exalted him to the place of supreme honour as Lord and Saviour. He now possesses full authority both to save those who repent, believe and are baptized in his name, bestowing on them the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit, and to judge those who reject him. (p. 33)

Stott is concerned to show that the doctrine of the atonement was preached from the very beginning and was not a later doctrinal development, which is why he is concentrating here on Acts, as opposed to the epistles. Noting that a full-scale doctrine of atonement is missing, he points out that Luke is careful to record of both Peter and Paul that they used the term "tree" in describing the cross. Paul says to the synagogue congregation in Pisidian Antioch that when the people and rulers of Jerusalem "had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree." (Acts 13:29)

Both Peter and Paul used other ways of referring to the means of death: Paul speaks of his sufferings and his execution, while Peter speaks of Jesus' crucifixion. So their references to "tree" and his having been "hanged" on it must have theological significance. In Deuteronomy 21:22-23 instructions are given for the burial of a hanged man before nightfall "because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse." The apostles were quite aware of the law and could have hushed up or at least discretely not referred openly to the manner of Jesus' death. Instead, they trumpeted it with no apparent sense of shame.

They must have understood the curse under which Jesus suffered to have been our curse, which is what both apostles teach clearly in their later letters. (eg. Gal. 3:13, I Pet. 2:24) so in the very earliest preaching of the apostles we see the interpretation of the cross as atoning and substitutionary.

It seems to me to be obvious, although Stott does not mention it, that in so doing the apostles were interpreting the words of Jesus at the Last Supper "this cup is the new covenant in my blood . . . this is my body broken for you." In the end the apostles were preaching a Gospel that originates with Jesus himself.

Christianity and McLarenism: A Response to "A New Kind of Christianity" - Part II

- Continued From Last Post -

4. Salvation by Good Works: Turning the Biblical Gospel Upside Down
On p. 204 Mclaren explains his revised understanding of the Final Judgment. It will be the "life and way of Jesus - not a list of laws, rules, or beliefs - to be the high and gracious standard by which history's events and our own lives will be valued and evaluated." So what we believe about Jesus is irrelevant. Whether we have put our trust in His amazing grace or not is beside the point. McLaren has nothing to say about the Lamb's Book of Life in Rev. 20.

On the one hand we have the most depressing moralism: "God will examine the story of our lives for Christlikeness - for a cup of cold water or a plate of hot food given to one in need . . . " By this standard none of us has a hope. But, on the other hand, there is a breezy and cheerful denial of eternal punishment: "So when we say, with the writer of Hebrews, that 'it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment,' we are not saying 'and after that the condemnation' (Heb. 9:27). We are saying, with John, that to 'see God,' to be in God's unspeakable light, will purge us of all darkness." (p., 205)

He twists the Scripture here so as to make it say that we will all escape condemnation even if we have no personal faith in Christ. There is no eternal punishment, no hell, no eternal separation from God. The promises made to believers are applied to humanity as such. All that is important is that we do good works, but even when we don't we still will experience salvation.

5. Undermining the Authority of Scripture: From Constitution to Library
In chapters 7-9 McLaren works hard to subordinate the authority of the Bible to the enlightened common sense of late modern, Western culture. He says that we should move from viewing it as a constitution (i.e. a document with authority) to a library (from which we can pick and choose what suits us).

He sees the Bible as the record of the evolution of human ideas about God and the trajectory is from viewing God as violent, tribal and punitive to seeing God as peaceful, universal and tolerant, that is as Christlike. The 19th century liberal Protestants who advocated this type of evolutionary view of the Bible engaged in a lot of detailed biblical criticism to rearrange the order and structure of the Bible so as to get the structure of primitive to higher to line up properly. But McLaren does not engage in that level of detailed consideration of the text. For him, what is important is that have a common sense conception of what is loving and good and then we project that on Jesus, who then becomes our criterion for choosing what in the library is "relevant."

The problem for the evolutionary view of the Bible is that there is grace in Genesis and wrath in Revelation. And the biblical Jesus speaks as much about hell and judgment as most of the Evangelical theologians and pastors McLaren rejects as "gatekeepers," "prison guards" and other unsavory labels.

6. Having a Crisis of Faith? Get a Consultant
Chapter 21 is a kind of altar call plus some follow up advice for those who come forward in response to McLaren's call for conversion. He starts out by assuming a victim/martyr position and assuring the potential convert that in ten years' time it will be easier for them because of "some of us who have pioneered the early paths and taken the brunt of the first rounds of unfriendly fire from people who, like Gamaliel's colleagues, want to 'keep it from spreading further among the people.' (Acts 4:17)" (p. 242) He is pretty clear he is in a war and he expects to win.

He gives some advice to people who find his new religion compelling and want to join. If potential converts find their pastor or priest strangely uninterested in McLarenism, they should not bother them. Instead they should consider leaving their church and starting a new congregation. Instead of trusting their own pastors and leaders, McLaren advises them to "get a consultant." Now, it just so happens that McLaren and his friends, Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt advertise themselves as "consultants."

Conclusion
At the end of the day the most fundamental question is the one Jesus posed to his disciples: Who do you say that I am?" (Mk. 8:29) Brian McLaren sees Jesus as the one who proclaims the new society of the kingdom of God, a teacher of ethics whose message remains when all the doctrinal accretions have been swept away. J. G. Machen, in his classic, Christianity and Liberalism, critiques the liberals of the early 20th century who argued for such a view of Jesus:

"In another way also the teaching of Jesus was rooted in doctrine. It was rooted in doctrine because it depended upon a stupendous presentation of Jesus' own Person. The assertion is often made that Jesus kept his own Person out of His gospel, and came forward merely as the supreme prophet of God. That assertion lies at the very root of the modern liberal conception of the life of Christ. But common as it is, it is radically false." (p. 33)

In the end, McLarenism is another religion and not Christianity at all because it does not do justice to the biblical portrayal of Jesus Christ.

Christianity and McLarenism: A Response to "A New Kind of Christianity" - Part I

Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity is ambitious, direct and defiant. Although McLaren always couches his prose in a "Let's just raise some questions here and think about some possible answers" kind of manner, there should be no mistake that in this book he is advocating exactly what the title indicates: a completely new kind of Christianity that rejects historic orthodoxy, biblical authority and the Gospel of salvation from sin through the atoning death of Jesus Christ appropriated by personal repentance and faith. And he wants you to accept his new faith.

Brian McLaren once was an Evangelical, but he is no longer one. I don't know how much more clear and honest he could be about it than he is in this book. That is fine - there are no apostasy laws in the US and he can leave Evangelicalism and convert to Liberal Protestantism if he wants to do so.

But he needs to stop cashing in on his one and only claim to fame,which is that he used to be an Evangelical. This "used to be an Evangelical" status is the only thing that makes him remotely interesting to anybody. His views are mostly a century or more old and come from the dying wing of Protestantism. He has nothing really new to say. So the only angle he has is "Look isn't that a daring thing for an Evangelical to say!"

That worked back in the days of A Generous Orthodoxy and it persisted through The Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change. When those books came out it was just barely possible to view him as a left wing Evangelical, a recently lapsed Evangelical or a progressive Evangelical. His followers were able to dream that what McLaren is today, all of Evangelicalism will be tomorrow.

At The Secret Message of Jesus stage, I was still willing to defend him as an Evangelical raising questions that needed answers and so I opposed the effort of some of my colleagues to ban him from speaking on campus. I knew that many of my students were reading him and falling for the old social gospel line as if it were new and so I thought engagement was the way to go. I guess I'm still engaging by writing this review, but I no longer think that McLaren can be regarded as an Evangelical asking questions: he is now a liberal giving answers. And he is calling for Evangelicals to abandon their faith and embrace his. Again, it is a free country and he can preach whatever message he wants. What he cannot expect is for the rest of us, who love our Evangelical theology and heritage, to treat him as one of us just so he gain an audience from the ranks of confused or gullible Evangelical young people. Pastors have a solemn responsibility to warn the flock against heresy, so McLaren should not take it personally. It is not about him, but rather about his heretical doctrine.

I don't intend to summarize the contents of the book and I don't want simply to repeat what others have said already. There are a number of good reviews of it on the net and anyone familiar with Google can find them. I've already noted some of the best ones - by McKnight, Bouma and DeYoung - on this blog. Here are two more by Nathan Gilmour: here and here.

What I want to do is to clarify where McLaren goes off the rails in this book and why he is a bad and heretical teacher to whom you should not listen. I know the blogosphere is often used as a place to throw around random comments and spontaneous opinions, but I offer what follows as a serious set of reflections that have taken about five years to formulate and which are set forth more in sorrow than in anger.

1. Up From Evangelicalism: McLaren's Theological Journey
In chapter 1 McLaren describes a crisis of faith he went through as a pastor: "I experienced a kind of spiritual crisis that started me on a quest: a quest for honesty, for authenticity, and for a faith that made more sense to me and to others." (6) He says that throughout this process his spirituality remained "intact" even as "my belief system was in a shambles." (8) He describes what replaced his lost beliefs as not a new set of beliefs, but rather as a "new way of believing," whatever that is supposed to mean. What he is getting here is not entirely clear, but it is clear from the book as a whole that he has traded in his old, traditional, Evangelical doctrines for modern, liberal doctrines.

2. Scrubbing off that Nasty Tradition Using the Handy, All-Purpose "Greco-Roman Narrative"
In chapter 4, McLaren shares what he calls "the Greco-Roman Narrative," which he claims is a story line borrowed from non-Christian culture and imposed on the Bible by the church in the 4th century. This false narrative is basically the traditional "Creation - Fall - Redemption" story line embodied in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds and taught throughout the history of the Church by pretty much every branch of Christianity.

But Brian McLaren has discovered that everyone from St. Augustine to Karl Barth has misread the Bible drastically and disastrously - except him. He doesn't quote any scholarly sources for his revisionist claims; he says this critique came to him in conversation with a friend. Maybe he got it from The DaVinci Code.

Aren't we lucky to be living in the age of McLarenism? Poor St. Anselm and St. Thomas, poor Martin Luther and John Calvin, poor John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, poor William Carey and Billy Graham. They all got it spectacularly wrong. But McLaren has now straightened it all out. This is what you must be able to swallow in order to embrace McLarenism.

The Greco-Roman narrative is the story of Western civilization, for McLaren, rather than the Bible. He claims to interpret the Bible in simple Hebraic categories rather than all those nasty old Greek categories, just like Adolf von Harnack and 19th century culture Protestantism. So McLaren's Jesus is more of an Teacher of Ethics than a Divine Savior. He proclaims the Kingdom of God, which is interpreted in ethical-political terms, and calls us to participate in building this kingdom on earth.

You can hear the chanting faintly from beyond the barricades: "Hey, ho - Hey, ho, Western civ. has got to go." If we could just tear down Western civilization - which for McLaren means Constantine, the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch burning, ecological disaster and capitalism - then we would have eliminated the obstacles to the coming of the Kingdom of God. (Or, we might have made the world safe for Islamic domination - but he does not consider that possibility.)

This handy little device enables McLaren to throw over the side the entire tradition of the Church for the past 20 centuries. He can pick through the rubble and appropriate a bit here and there according to his own preferences, but any doctrine or idea he doesn't like is instantly vaporized by his "Greco-Roman Narrative Zapper Gun." Original sin - poof - gone. Biblical authority - poof - gone. The uniqueness of Christ - poof - gone. And so on.

3. Don't Blame God - He is Doing the Best He Can!
McLarenism worships a different God than Christianity does. The God of Christianity is the sovereign Creator of the cosmos and Lord of All. He is Judge of Evil and He is holy. In McLarenism, however, God is a rather kindly, even indulgent, father who makes threats and then fails to follow through. He threatens Adam and Eve with death if they eat of the tree of the knoweledge of good and evil, but when they do so he does not kill them. And there is no Fall into sin (p. 50), it is just "a classic coming-of-age story, filled with ambivalence - a childhood lost, an adulthood gained." (p. 51) A hunter gatherer society turns into an agricultural society: that is the meaning of Genesis 3. God is less the Judge of all the earth and more of an indulgent parent working with his rebellious but lovable children.

Later in the book, McLaren's god comes into focus as not omnipotent and it becomes clear why McLaren cannot conceive of such a god actually judging the world in righteousness. (See next point). McLaren's god is a limited being who interacts with the world in order to try to steer and prod it in the right direction, but who is not sovereign or in control.

The god of McLarenism is the god of process theology in which god and the world are interdependent: "God is like a parent guiding a child with a will of her own." (p. 196) McLaren denies that eschatology refers to the end of this world. It is just "the beginning of a new spiritual-historical age or era." (p. 197) I suppose that would be the post-Western civilization age. The cosmos is evolving and we participate, along with god, in this process of evolution. Since god is not fully in control, it makes no sense to blame him for evil. We just need to work harder to eradicate evil ourselves and god will help us.

- To Be Continued in Next Post -

Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity

The book came the other day and I have read about half. I'll post a review within a day or two. Today has been busy, but tomorrow I'll have time to post. After reading half of the book I agree with those who say that it is Brian's best work yet in terms of clarity and systematic thinking. He lays it out and preaches for conversion to his new kind of Christianity. I don't think I'll be converting though.

Scot McKnight on Brian McLaren

Here is a review of Brian McLaren's new book, A New Kind of Christianity, by Scot McKnight in Christianity Today. He begins with the following two sentences: "Brian McLaren has grown tired of evangelicalism. In turn, many evangelicals are wearied with Brian." He goes on to say: "If evangelicalism is characterized by David Bebbington's famous quadrilateral—that is, biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism—then Brian has poked and, to one degree or another, criticized, deconstructed, and rejected each."

But, according to McKnight, McLaren is going much further in this book than simply challenging Evangelical distinctives. He is moving beyond orthodoxy itself. McKnight notes that McLaren has adopted an old way of reading the Bible, namely, the 19th century evolutionary approach of liberal Protestantism and then says:

"Reading the Bible through the lens of Jesus Christ is indeed the way to go. But to use Jesus against the God of Israel he worshiped and prayed to and loved and obeyed pits us against what Jesus himself is doing.

One must also ask the root question: How do we determine what is less or more "mature"?

In particular, the evolutionary theory of God contains another fatal flaw. It's not the fact that it was tried out in the 19th-century Religionsgeschichtliche Schule ("history of religion school") of Germany and has been shown inadequate (though it finds an occasional admirer in folks like Karen Armstrong). And it's not the fact that the category of "evolution" is about as modernistic and imperialistic of a category I can think of. No, the singular flaw is this: The flow of the Bible is not neat. It doesn't fit into an evolutionary scheme. There are as many mercy passages in the Old Testament as there are grace-and-love passages in the New. What's more, passages about God's grace stand side-by-side with passages about God's wrath (e.g., Hosea 1-3; Matt. 23-25). The evolutionary approach doesn't work because that's not how Scripture's narrative works. There is wrath in Revelation and there is covenant love in Genesis. And Jesus talks more about Abba and hell than does the rest of the Bible combined."

McKnight pulls no punches in this review and if this is what McLaren's friends think of his book, one wonders what those who have been suspicious of him all along will say. McKnight ends the review as follows:

"Alas, A New Kind of Christianity shows us that Brian, though he is now thinking more systemically, has fallen for an old school of thought. I read this book carefully, and I found nothing new. It may be new for Brian, but it's a rehash of ideas that grew into fruition with Adolf von Harnack and now find iterations in folks like Harvey Cox and Marcus Borg. For me, Brian's new kind of Christianity is quite old. And the problem is that it's not old enough."

Brian McLaren's New Kind of Christianity

Brian McLaren now blogs at the liberal Huffington Post website. In a post on his new book, A New Kind of Christianity, he makes it clear that he is finished with conservatism and advocates a constantly evolving religion that has no fixed reference points and which is therefore able to develop and change along with its host culture in such a way as never to come into real, out and out conflict with the culture. He writes:

"It is the past around which many faith communities orient themselves - faithfully preserving a deposit or rule or articulation of faith that they inherited from their ancestors. That orientation engenders a sense of dignity and strength, along with an inherently conservative bias. In this past-orientation, most or all of the important questions are already answered once and for all. Our job, should we choose to accept it, is to learn and accept those answers, and make sure our children and grandchildren do the same.

Of course I agree that we must preserve and conserve what is precious and good from our past, and even our embarrassments and mistakes must be remembered so we can learn from and be humbled by them. But there's another way to conceive of our faith communities, an identity that includes but is not limited to a conservative orientation. We can see ourselves at heart as creative, prophetic, progressive, emergent, missional, and forward-looking people on a quest. A quest orientation challenges us to retain all our memories from the past, but then turns our focus towards the future, a future we hope not merely to endure, but by God's grace, to help create.

A quest orientation unleashes for us the transformative power of questions. Instead of seeing ourselves as a community bound together exclusively by age-old answers, we see ourselves as a community animated by what humorist-philosopher Garrison Keillor calls (with a wink) "life's persistent questions" - the questions that each generation struggles with and then passes on to the next generation to become their own. On the macro scale, those questions are few and deep: Who are we? How and why are we here? What is the good life? What matters most? What dangers, toils, and snares must we be careful to avoid? What is sacred, and why? I think all of us know that simply memorizing rote answers to these kinds of questions, while it has some real value, shapes a life far less radically than spending a lifetime asking, re-asking, struggling, and grappling with them does."

Here he tells us that the frequent Old Testament calls to remember, teach your children, memorize the Torah and be faithful to tradition and the many New Testament calls to "hold fast to the faith," "guard the gospel," and "pass on what you have received" are really just obstacles that create the kind of faith that has an inherently conservative bias, which for him is a bad thing.

The key sentence comes after he tells us that: "Of course I agree that we must preserve and conserve what is precious and good from our past, and even our embarrassments and mistakes must be remembered so we can learn from and be humbled by them." The first part of this sentence seems encouraging: so he does admit that we have to preserve something. But what he gives with one hand, he takes back with the other by implying that there is just as much bad in our tradition that needs to be jettisoned as good to be preserved.

There is no hint here that there is any criterion by which the distinction must be made, that is, no fixed tradition concerning the life, death, resurrection, ascension and second coming of Jesus Christ that is constant and to which the rest of our doctrine must bear witness. Instead, in the next sentence, he tells us that there is a different way to conceive of faith communities (which for him replace the Church, being more amorphous and less defined) and he tells us that this better way is to be open to the future, which we will create, instead of being chained to the past.

One could hardly ask for a clearer expression of modern, liberal Christianity in the tradition of 19th century culture Protestantism. The fact that this is served up as "postmodern" and "new" is a deception that can only fool the gullible and the ignorant. Liberal progressivism is not new, not is it anything but a continuation of the same old same old of modernity.

What we see here is not so much a "new kind of Christianity" as an "old kind of heresy."

So How About that New McLaren Book?

People have been asking me what I think about Brian McLaren's new book. I have not yet posted my opinion on it because I have this old-fashioned hang-up about actually reading a book before I trash it. (I know not everybody has this inhibition!) But seriously, it is coming as fast as Amazon.ca can get it here and I will read it and respond as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Bill Kinnon has compiled a very handy list of responses so far to McLaren. From what I've seen so far, I would have to agree with one person who offered the view that the majority opinion is a hesitant tendency to admit that the cranky conservatives have been right about him all along. I would not be surprised if that were the case, but as I say I want to read the book first.

The Emergent Church: RIP

Over at Mere Orthodoxy, Matthew Anderson has a good post on the death of the emergent church. He provides a link to this obituary, which is hilarious. The best bits are:

"She is survived by her parents, the Seeker Church, and Sojourners; her paternal grandmother, the former Deconstructionism, now Postmodernity; her maternal grandmother, French Nihilism and her paternal great-grandparents, the Social Gospel and Fundamentalism. . . . Her father, the child of California’s Jesus Movement lived primarily in the Chicago suburbs, while her mother lived in Washington, DC with boyfriend the Democratic Party. Her parents have since reconciled."

That last line especially just nails it! That is how the world is different because of the Emergent Church.

Mike Wittmer has a blog series going on Brian McLaren's new book A New Kind of Christianity here.

As Matthew points out, Jeremy Bouma has a good post on why he left emergent here.

Bill Kinnon has an initial reaction to Brian McLaren's new book here.

Brian McLaren, on his blog, suggests that anyone who does not like his new book is a fundamentalist. (Calling your opponents names is a whole lot easier than taking their critiques seriously.)

I'll be posting more on Brian McLaren's book. I figure I may as well order it; I don't see any way around having to read it. From the hints given by those who have already read it, however, it seems that we may finally have McLaren saying what he really believes instead of ducking and weaving so as to keep everyone off balance thus making a fair and clear critique difficult.

The Hypocrisy of Sojourners

A decade ago, Jim Wallis’ criticisms of the “Religious Right” seemed to me to have some merit. Here were some of his most telling points:

1. The Church qua Church should not be in politics. Evangelical churches that allow voter registration in services, that distribute voting report cards and allow Republican candidates to speak during the campaign risk allowing their primary mission of preaching the gospel to be compromised by their political involvement.

2. Conservative Evangelicals have sold their souls to the Republican Party and support it even when it is wrong for the sake of influence within the party. They thus have lost the ability or will to be prophetic and critical of the Republican Party. Not everything the Republican Party stands for is consistent with Christian morality.

3. The Religious Right is self-righteous and strident. It projects an attitude of “My way or the highway” and thus alienates sinners for whom Christ died who think the Church is not for them. People get tired of being hectored and lectured by self-righteous prigs.

4. The Religious Right does not bear a specific witness to Jesus Christ; it has embraced a bland form of civil religion that reflects the general culture rather than the Biblical gospel.

In my book Rethinking Christ and Culture, I took what I thought was a balanced approach to criticizing the failings of both the secular left and the secular right equally. And I tried to be critical of my own Evangelical tradition, as well as liberal Protestantism. I took some of the criticisms of the Religious Right from Wallis and others to heart and let them shape my thinking about faith and culture.

Now I’m sorry I did. Now I’m sorry that I let Wallis and co. make me feel guilty for being a conservative. I feel embarrassed that I fell for the line that Evangelicals are all wrong and that we should apologize for taking a stand for conservative beliefs and morals. I feel that Jim Wallis has let me down. In fact, I feel like I’ve been played for a fool.

He never was interested in developing a distinctly Christian position and most of those who hammered the Religious Right have now simply revealed their true colors as the Religious Left. I’m embarrassed because I should have seen it coming. What has happened to Sojourners over the past two decades is simply a repeat of history. Nineteenth century Evangelical Protestantism was invaded and distorted by theological liberalism imported from Germany and European socialism took the form of the Social Gospel movement that emptied churches, muted the preaching of the true Gospel and led to the dying hulks that dot the ecclesiastical landscape today called liberal Protestant denominations.

The latest e-mail blast from Sojourners contains further evidence, as if any more were needed, of the fact that the Religious Left has now become a perfect mirror image of what it once criticized in the Religious Right. Take the list above and apply it to the contemporary Religious Left. Change the names from Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Charles Colson to Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren. Then go through the list; they have imitated everything about the Religious Right that they once criticized.

1. Every e-mail urges congregations to distribute “how to vote” materials in their churches and when Barack Obama and other candidates for office speak in churches while on the campaign trail, Sojourners cheers them on and says “See, he is a Christian so you can vote for him.”

2. Wallis, Campolo and McLaren have totally sold out to the Democratic Party. You never hear a peep of criticism of either Obama or the Democrats without it being framed with an excuse. Every problem is the fault of “America” or “Conservatives” but the problem is never with Obama or the Democrats. Wallis and co. are deeper into the Democratic Party and more partisan than Robertson and co. ever were. I used to admire Wallis for being one of the few left-wingers to take a pro-life stand; but his uncompromising support for Obama shows how important abortion is to him today. Sojourners can't even stand up for marriage anymore lest their liberal supporters be outraged.

3. If you thought the Religious Right types could be moralistic scolds, just try listening to Wallis tell you what “God’s Politics” is! He knows and will enlighten the rest of us. The latest article by McLaren “An Open Letter on Health Care to Conservative Christians in the US” is a condescending, ad hominem attack on conservative Christians that does not debate the issues; it just directs conservatives to liberal websites where they are supposed to find enlightenment. But the idea that conservatives are interested in being made to feel guilty for holding to orthodoxy and traditional morality and for resisting the encroachments of an out-of-control federal government is just wishful thinking on his part. There is no reason for Evangelicals to listen to him anymore.

4. As for point four, just note that in the magazine and in his writings Wallis hardly mentions Christianity any more. It is always “people of faith.” Jesus is often mentioned, usually along with Ghandi. It doesn’t get much blander than this. The moral position from which Wallis operates is not specifically Christian, yet he tries to twist the Bible and the teachings of Jesus into supporting it. His overall worldview, however, owes more to the French Revolution and Jeremy Bentham than to the Bible or Jesus.

Sojourners has convinced me of one thing, however, and that is that you can’t live in this world without taking sides. It may be morally gratifying to take a position above the fray and to look down on all the poor benighted souls who are wrong in some way while you hover in the air never getting involved or taking sides. But it is not responsible or morally right. There really is a battle going on in this world between the Church and the forces of modernity and neutrality is not possible. Sojourners made its choice years ago and now conservative Christianity is its sworn enemy. I’ve made my choice too, but I’ve come down on the other side.

Brian McLaren at The Episcopal Church General Convention

Here is a sermon preached by Brian McLaren at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church on July 16. My comments are in [bold and brackets]. (Video is available on the Media Hub, http://gchub.episcopalchurch.org/)

"Sisters and brothers, we live in a strange time in relation to the E-Word. For many of us, the word evangelism evokes ugly and morally tainted associations with colonialism, religious supremacy, and shabby televangelism. As a result, many Episcopalians would say that evangelism may be Southern Baptist or Pentecostal, but it's not Episcopalian, thank you very much. May I humbly propose that the time for this reactionary prejudice against evangelism is over? May I further propose that from this day forward, we see E-piscopal and E-vangelistic as a holy union joined together by God, and what God has joined together, no one should put asunder. Amen?

Think of it this way: If only fundamentalists evangelize in America, what predictions can you make about the future of the American religious landscape? If Christian moderates and progressives seldom if ever share their faith with love and enthusiasm, what will their future be? [The natural sense of this paragraph in light of the previous one is that Southern Baptists and Pentecostals are "Fundamentalists." This is playing to the gallery and unfair.]

To rediscover the good and true essence of evangelism, we need to rediscover evangelism in a more biblical light.And we can start with today's reading from 2 Corinthians. There we see evangelism as our call to demonstrate and proclaim a new creation in Christ. We see our call to live and invite others into a new way of life. We see evangelism as recruiting early adopters to be part of a radical new beginning for the human race - which Paul calls the new creation in Christ.

This world and its empires are living by an old script, Paul would say. Politics of domination and exploitation, economies of consumption, sociologies of exclusion and prejudice, and psychologies of shame and self-justification all flow from the old destructive narrative that is passing away. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ mean for Paul, among many other things, that it is time for a new politics of service and the common good, for new economies of sustainability and regeneration, for new sociologies of reconciliation and love, and for new psychologies rooted in grace and faith [So here he explains what he understands to be the meaning of the cross. No mention of sin or repentence or faith or justification. The only meaning is a social justice meaning and "new psychologies rooted in grace and faith" whatever that is supposed to mean.] . . . in short, in Christ, all things are made new, and evangelism means recruiting and training people to defect from the old order and throw themselves wholeheartedly into the new way. [Essentially people "see the light" and roll up their sleeves to save themselves by saving the world. This is entirely Pelagian. Apparently there is no need for repentance from sin, forgiveness and grace. The cross is an inspirational story, not an event of cosmic salvation.] The E-word for Paul, then, is the R-word: reconciliation. We are God's reconciling co-workers; we are God's reconciling co-conspirators; we seek to demonstrate what it looks like to be spiritually and socially reconciled individuals and communities in the Spirit of the risen Christ.

This ministry of reconciliation gives us a vibrant new identity, according to Paul. We are not merely religious insiders huddled in our stained glass ghettoes, nor are we religious outsiders living without reference to the living God, but instead we are God's peace ambassadors, insiders who intentionally move outside to invite - actually, please is Paul's word - to plead with others to be reconciled to God. So we plead with them to rethink everything [rethink - that's it?] and follow the way of Jesus. [We can do this?] We plead with them based on the good news that in Christ, God is offering amnesty for all offenders, whatever they've done, whoever they've been. We plead with people to stop being part of the problem, and to join God in Christ as agents of the solution, so God's will can indeed be done on earth as it is in heaven. ["We plead with people to stop being part of the problem." Does works righteousness get any more banal than this?]

If we go to our reading in John seeking a more biblical understanding of the E-word, we see none of the ugly things that typically scare well-bred Episcopalians. [Unlike the great unwashed of other denominations, one presumes - can we say shameless pandering?] away from evangelism. Instead, we see intelligent and earnest people engaging with Jesus in mutually respectful conversation, and at the center of the conversation, we see Jesus ask a simple, powerful question: what are you seeking? In this way, evangelism first means inciting redemptive conversations, asking good questions, helping people think about what they're really seeking in life . . . and then it means inviting people to come and see . . . to come and experience . . . to join us on a journey of faith and mission and see what unfolds.

I'm sure agree that these are good things, beautiful things, needed things. I think that Episcopalians could get downright excited about evangelism if it were defined like this. [Instead of being defined in those old-fashioned ways that talk about sin and repentence] And frankly, I believe Episcopalians will get excited about evangelism again. [Oh yeah, its bound to happen any minute now in a denomination losing 1,000 members per week.] I think it's time. I think it's happening already. But dear brothers and sisters, three obstacles or distractions must be overcome for that to happen.

The first and most obvious is institutional conflict. I believe your community has been doing a difficult but needed service for the whole church and the whole world by wading into turbulent waters in recent years. [This is as clear an endorsement of the heretical and divisive decisions to endorse homosexual behaviour in Christian leaders as one could imagine. What else could he be talking about in this context? He is commending them for schism!] But there is more at stake than the immediate outcome in terms of policy. What good would it be for your side - whatever that is - to win the debate if in the process you lost your balance and lost your identity as God's evangelistic agents of reconciliation? [Is McLaren so dense that he actually believes that TEC is an agent of reconciliation? With a Presiding Bishop who calls individual salvation a heresy? With a social gospel that focuses on politics and economics and not on personal salvation? What does the word "reconciliation" mean here?] Your challenge, it seems to me, is to faithfully work through this season of conflict without letting it form or deform your identity. Your challenge, it seems to me, is to reaffirm at this very moment of institutional conflict your deeper incarnational identity as ministers of reconciliation.

That brings us to the second potential obstacle or distraction, which I would identify as institutional identity. People like you in these times of institutional conflict and stress could easily be tempted to lodge your identity in the saving of a beloved institution. But here we encounter, I believe, a great spiritual paradox. To recall Jesus' words, what if those who try to save their institutions will lose them? What if the best way to save an institution is to focus on saving something else, something bigger? What if the point isn't saving the institution but rather leveraging the institution in the saving of . . . the world, the world God so loves, according to John 3:16? In your simultaneous commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and to true and deep evangelism, [OK, they at least claim to be commited to the MDG but where in this Convention do you see any committment to evangelism? Where - unless evangelism is redefined as social work.] you are in the process of choosing this outward, missional [the word "missional" has now been hijacked - it is an empty word] focus . . . leveraging your institution for God's mission in today's world. So much depends on this.

That means that we can't afford to have a single one of you, as leaders in the church, to see yourselves as institutional maintenance people alone. From oldest to youngest, from the most seasoned bishop to the most newly baptized disciple, you must see yourselves as leveraging the institution for the mission of making disciples, and not vice versa. Do you see the difference? If you seek to do evangelism for the sake of the institution, I think you will lose ground and experience frustration. But if you align and retool the institution for the grand biblical mission of making authentic, fully-formed disciples of Jesus Christ for the good of the world, I think you will find God's empowerment and blessing at every turn.

Which brings us to the third obstacle which all denominations face, not just Episcopalians: along with institutional conflict and institutional identity, we must grapple with institutional rigidity. From my outsider's perspective, your most urgent issue of institutional rigidity related to the complex ways candidates are accepted and trained into ordained ministry. To put it bluntly: for all your system does well, it is perfectly designed to scare away from Episcopal leadership almost everyone with the spiritual gift of evangelism. And I have to make a confession: I am one of those people who was scared away about twenty years ago. I was deeply drawn both to evangelism and to the Anglican tradition while I was in graduate school in my twenties. But as I approached my discernment retreat with the bishop, I increasingly felt that a call to Episcopal ministry was at odds with my primary calling to evangelism. I hope that you will make it possible for people like me not have to choose one over the other in the future. May it be said to all people who are gifted and called in evangelism that the Episcopal church welcomes you. Amen?

The good news is that this would be a relatively simple thing to change . . . and the Episcopal structure itself, I believe, has remarkable inherent powers of self-renewal. And that's why, I believe, this moment of Episcopal crisis is also a moment of Episcopal opportunity. Perhaps, in the ways of the Spirit, the crisis and opportunity always go together. In that Spirit, let us pray:
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My Summary: This is a sad and abysmal sermon that is simply not Evangelical. No one should be in doubt now about where Brian McLaren stands theologically. He stands with The Episcopal Church - the most radical left wing denomination in America just barely to the right of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. You don't need the Jesus of Nicaea and Chalcedon to fund the vision of evangelism as social work proferred here. Whether McLaren still believes in the deity of Christ or not, he doesn't need to in order to preach this kind of sermon. He can talk the lingo, but the theological content has been evacuated. It is really too bad. He is a nice man; but his theology simply does not measure up to Scripture and Tradition.