Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren (1956- ) is an American pastor, author, speaker and leading figure in the emerging church movement. McLaren is a postmodernist and presents this philosophy with Christian themes. He has often been named one of the most influential ‘Christian’ leaders in America and was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America in 2005. McLaren was also the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church which he left in 2006 to pursue writing and public speaking full-time.
The two most noteworthy of McLaren’s books are A Generous Orthodoxy which he calls “a personal confession and a manifesto of the emerging church conversation” and A New Kind of Christianity in which he offers responses to “ten questions that are central to the emergence of a postmodern, post-colonial Christian faith.”
In A New Kind of Christianity he insists that Christians in general misread, misinterpret and misapply the Bible – and he is going to set them all straight. Essentially, as a postmodern would, he declares that we should not take the Bible’s teachings as absolute truth, but rather ideas that we can personally interpret and apply at our own will and discretion. He is a heretic of the highest order who distorts the Word of God reinventing ‘god’, the nature of man, the meaning and purpose of the cross, and salvation. He displays this, for example, in his interpretation of the account of Noah by saying “a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship”.
Effectively, McLaren dismantles the core beliefs of Christianity and builds his own set (which are not new at all, just a re-branded form of what is known as liberal theology which denies that the Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God, and borrows from an assortment of human philosophies and dresses them up with Christian garb). His way of interpreting the Bible enables the redefinition of sin and righteousness. (For instance, he has stated elsewhere that homosexuality is not sin and that he supports gay marriage.)
McLaren writes:
“I’m recommending we read the Bible as an inspired library. This inspired library preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed … revelation doesn’t simply happen in statements. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities of people who share the same essential questions across generations. Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements.”
He understands the Bible to be a slowly-evolving human understanding of God.
“Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment.”
McLaren thereby assumes personal authority over the Bible; instead of placing himself under its authority which is true Christianity. Therefore, McLaren is a false Christian and a false teacher. His view of the Scriptures defines Christian doctrine as an evolving and changing concept, and he himself is an instrument of this evolution. Accordingly, he specifically denies the literal nature of an eternal hell for the enemies of God, that Jesus Christ died as a substitute to pay the penalty for our sins, and that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father – all essential Christian truths based upon the plain reading of the Bible:
“For many Christians, their faith is primarily about what happens to people after they die. That distracts them from seeking justice and living in a compassionate way while we’re still alive in this life. We need to go back and take another look at Jesus’ teachings about hell. For so many people, the conventional teaching about hell makes God seem vicious. That’s not something we should let stand.”
(Beyond Business-as-Usual Christianity – Brian McLaren talks about hell, the emerging church, and seeker Christians who are fed up with traditional Christianity, Interview by Sherry Huang, Beliefnet, http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2005/05/Beyond-Business-As-Usual-Christianity.aspx)
“[T]his is one of the huge problems with the traditional understanding of hell, because if the Cross is in line with Jesus’ teaching, then I won’t say the only and I certainly won’t say … or even the primary or a primary meaning of the Cross … is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come like the kingdoms of this world by inflicting violence and coercing people. But that the kingdom of God comes through suffering and willing voluntary sacrifice right? But in an ironic way the doctrine of hell basically says no, that’s not really true. At the end God get’s his way through coercion and violence and intimidation and domination just like every other kingdom does. The Cross isn’t the center then, the Cross is almost a distraction and false advertising for God.”
(Brian McLaren speaking, http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?www.enteuxis.org/leifh/bleedingpurple21b.mp3)
“”… all who do not consciously and decisively accept Jesus as their personal Saviour will burn forever in hell.” … That phrase raises concerns for me, because based on the Scriptures, I believe Jesus primarily came not to proclaim a way out of hell for some after death, but rather a way into a better life for all before death … not to constrict but rather to expand the dimensions of who could be welcomed into the kingdom of God, of who could be accepted in the people of God. So my understanding of Jesus’ essential message tells me that ‘exclusivity of’ should generally precede ‘the Pharisees’ or ‘the judgmental’ or ‘the hypocrites,’ and never ‘Christ.’
(Brian McLaren, “A Reading of John 14:6,” http://www.brianmclaren.net/emc/archives/McLaren %20- %20John%2014.6.pdf )
Contrary to McLaren’s statements, Jesus Christ clearly taught that those who do not believe and live in sin are destined for hell (Matthew 5:22, 5:29-30, 10:28, 16:18, 18:9, 23:15, 23:33, Mark 9:43-49, Luke 12:5, 16:23). And specifically that hell was a place of torment:
Mark 9:47-48
“…thrown into hell where ‘their worm does not die , and the fire is not quenched.’ “
Luke 16:23
In hell, where he was in torment
The Bible clearly states elsewhere the terrible consequences for those who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ and remain in sin:
2 Thessalonians 1:7-10
“…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.”
Revelation 20:15
“If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
Revelation 21:8
“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars — their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
McLaren has placed himself in direct opposition to the scriptures and, therefore, to God Himself. The Bible warns us of such men:
“For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord…But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.”
Jude 4, 17-19