A Generous Orthodoxy is Brian McLaren’s handbook for practical theology. He believes that American Christianity has missed the point of following Jesus. In this book Mr. McLaren points out where he thinks the religion has gone wrong and offers some ideas for how to follow Christ in a postmodern global culture.
The subtitle of the book sets the stage for where Mr. McLaren wants to go: “Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinist + anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian” Each of these categories constitutes a chapter in which he looks at the strengths and weaknesses of different traditions.
Mr. McLaren sees a new church, a new kind of Christianity, a new way of following Jesus emerging from the rubble of a Christianity ravaged by divisions over doctrine, a neglect of social responsibilities, and the tyranny of capitalism/colonialism/conservativism. “Each of these new challenges and opportunities requires Christian leaders to create new forms, new methods, new structures—and it requires them to find new content, new ideas, new truths, new meaning to bring to bear on the new challenges. The new messages are not incompatible with the gospel of the kingdom Jesus taught. No, they are inherent in it, but previously undiscovered, unexpressed, perhaps unimagined.” (192-193)
This is one of the clearest theological statements Mr. McLaren makes; in fact, he’s intentionally not clear. “I have gone out of my way to be provocative, mischievous, and unclear, reflecting my belief that clarity is sometimes overrated.” (23) Not only is he purposefully vague, but also he purposefully uses words in ways no one else does. Suppose I said, “This is the most helpful, insightful book a Christian can possibly read. Of course, by helpful I mean self-serving, by insightful I mean incoherent, and by Christian I mean someone who doesn’t like the Jesus of the Bible.” Would my first sentence be of any worth if by it I meant something completely different than how any reader would understand it? Not at all. But this is precisely what Mr. McLaren does throughout the entire book.
Chapter 12, “Why I am a Fundamentalist/Calvinist,” is the best example of this. Mr. McLaren doesn’t like the movement/ideology that everyone refers to as Fundamentalism, so he substitutes all that Fundamentalism has meant with, “the ‘fundamentals of the faith’ boil down to those given by Jesus: to love God and to love our neighbors. These two fundamentals will not satisfy many fundamentalists, I fear.” (184) No kidding, nor will they satisfy anyone who’s read more than a few verses of the Bible. Fundamentalism is not the only casuality; Mr. McLaren appears to have some great disdain for Calvinism. I can see why, if he believes what he says about Calvinists. Mr. McLaren paints all Calvinists has determinists (hyper-Calvinists) so that he can easily dismiss them. He also somehow manages to pin responsibility on Calvinists for stealing from the Native Americans, slavery, and the apartheid in South Africa. (194) He then proceeds to offer a new version of TULIP, a version that has nothing to do with what Calvinists mean by it. In the end, Mr. McLaren is in no possible way a Calvinist in any known use of the word, except for the use he makes up for it. This is the same for Protestant, Evangelical, and a few others.
To be fair, Mr. McLaren makes some good points against contemporary Christianity. For example, He seeks to correct the individualistic gospel of evangelicalism (107), the shallowness of a religion that focuses on Jesus’ death but not his life (86), and the failure of missions to preach a gospel that applies to all of life (63). However, the few good points he makes are greatly overshadowed by the confused meandering of incoherent practical theology they are buried in.
No, A Generous Orthodoxy is not helpful, insightful, nor is it a must read except for those with Biblical discernment who are seeking to understand what Paul meant by those who will not endure sound doctrine, but “wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.” (2 Tim 4:3) Is it Generous? It is to Roman Catholics but not to Calvinists. Is it orthodox? Only by Mr. McLaren’s twisted definition of the word. I was hoping to find more I could agree with in this book, but I suppose it just wasn’t generous orthodox enough. Whatever message he intended to offer is lost in his distortions, straw men, and promiscuous piety (HT: Frank Beckwith for that phrase).
