Everything Must Change

If you visit this blog with any regularity, you'll notice that the last few books I've written about were all written by Brian McLaren. Here's what's up with that: I was not trendy nor hip enough to catch on to the Brian McLaren bandwagon back in 2001 when A New Kind of Christian first came out. I had friends that told me it was a must-read, but I didn't take their word for it. Since then, I heard more about Mr. McLaren - both good and bad - and I came to realize what a polarizing figure he can be.

For some, he's a true prophet, pointing the way to a brighter future, and calling us to repent of our sins of greed, idolatry, and carelessness. For others, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing, twisting the Scriptures in an attempt to promote his liberal social and political agenda. A couple of years ago, he wrote an article on Christianity Today's blog in which he suggested that evangelicals should take a five-year break from discussing the issue of homosexuality, since we have a myriad of opinions on the subject and often do harm to the name of Christ when our rhetoric sounds more like hate speech. This, of course, got him into trouble with folks on both sides of the political aisle. Those on the left called him a coward for not speaking up for gays. Those on the right flatly called him unbiblical for not voicing the traditionally-held view that homosexual behavior is a sin. This is just one example of an area where Brian McLaren has been at the center of controversy.

So, rather than throwing a stone or ignoring him, I decided to read what he's written. I haven't read everything he's written. (In fact, I've got a brand-new copy of A Generous Orthodoxy waiting for my next bit of free time.) But I wanted to be able to speak intelligently when McLaren comes up in conversation. I'm not a fan of the demonization of individuals. Even people with whom I regularly disagree sometimes say things that resonates with me. And people with whom I usually agree can say things that makes my skin crawl. I think it's important that, as Christians, we become intelligent consumers of information and media; we need to take in what's good and spit out what's bad. We need to be able to see the divine image in everyone, even "the bad guys," and we need to recognize when someone on "our side" strays from the truth. We may not always agree on these distinctions, but it's important to think in these terms. No one is all bad and all wrong all the time, and no one is always right all the time either.

And so, as I read Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change, I did so with a critical eye and an open spirit. The book is huge in its scope. Essentially, McLaren argues for an entirely new understanding of life, and society, and the economy, and prosperity, and justice, and the environment. Such a scope is sure to alienate someone at every turn. Still, he does a good job of breaking down our world system into three interdependent mini-systems - prosperity, equity, and security. Together, they way they operate today, they constitute a suicide machine. Our insatiable desire for more stuff necessarily leads to a widening gap between the richest and the poorest. This, in turn, leads to a need for an adequate security system - one that will keep the poor from stealing our stuff. And the need for security means taxation, which brings the equity system into play. A society must not only decide who will pay for security, but also who will benefit most from the prosperity system.

McLaren argues that these three interlocking systems will ultimately lead us to our own destruction because by their very nature, they must always increase. What's the solution? Drawing from his previous book The Secret Message of Jesus, McLaren insists that Jesus taught a way that exists above the current political and social divides - one that will reform the current prosperity, security, and equity systems into one that works in harmony with Creation and the limits of our natural and social boundaries.

To get the full effect of the message, you'll have to read the book (I got mine for $0.25 on eBay), but central to his appeal is the disparity between the message of good news we bring to the world's poor and the lack of practical change wrought by that good news. In other words, shouldn't the message of the kingdom bring relief to those who are hungering and thirsting? Or is it just a message about the afterlife? If you read through the Gospels, it's really difficult to find a solely heavenly meaning to much of what Jesus taught. There's just so much that should impact the way in which we live every day. While the call of the kingdom is a call to change the story we live by, many of us too easily accept the framing story that the world takes for granted - a framing story that's shallow and does not see any need for change. Jesus' framing story is the kind of story that would necessitate a radical change to the systems of this world; it's a story that stands in sharp contrast to the trite and all-too-simple messages we get from television theme songs from the 1980s and from most Christian music.

The book left me feeling challenged, but I'll readily admit that, despite McLaren's attempt to close the book on a note of hope, I felt discouraged as I closed the back cover. If just part of what McLaren argues for is true, it seems that much of the modern evangelical tradition has missed some pretty important truths contained in Jesus' teachings. On the other hand, if our understanding of Jesus must deepen, then so must our understanding of one another. Suddenly, perhaps someone from another tradition isn't simply wrong, but instead, they're just seeing an aspect of Jesus we never emphasized. And that does leave me feeling hopeful.

If you're not ready to read the whole book, much of the premise of Everything Must Change was presented by Brian in a speaking tour he conducted in 2007/2008. One of the stops on this tour was my alma mater, Gordon College. Here's an iTunes link to his talk there. Enjoy.

Source:

Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change. Resources are available at www.brianmclaren.net, www.everythingmustchange.org, and www.deepshift.org.