Reviewing the Reviews

As I was finishing the book, I watched as reviews began to pop-up on the internet. The less-than-surprising news is that hard-core Calvinists (including the “New-Calvinists”) hate it with a white-hot hatred they normally reserve for child abusers and made-for-TV movies on the Lifetime Network. Reading their reviews, you would think that Brian had done something to them personally, or had betrayed them in some sense (which is weird, sense they haven’t liked most of his books). I was disappointed to pick up on this vibe even in a review by Michael Wittmer, whom I had generally considered to be one of the more level-headed thinkers from that perspective. Scot McKnight, whom I have a great deal of respect for, and who is not really thought of as a Calvinist, wrote a review for Christianity Today that, while much kinder and respectful in tone, claimed that Brian wasn’t really saying anything new, but was simply re-packaging the Classical Liberalism that was typical of German Theology before the 2nd World War as typified in Adof Von Harnack. This struck me as odd, because Brian clearly intends to transcend such polarized categories (not merely repackage one category in a fresh way as “the right one), and the point at which Brian’s thought draws this criticism from McKnight, is actually closer to the much more contemporary (and 3rd-way) thinking found in the work of Peter Enns.

Most of the critics’ objections essentially stem from concerns about orthodoxy. Maybe it’s because I’m from a non-creedal tradition, but I’ve never quite resonated with the orthodoxy/heresy argument. (I realize I may have just painted a target on myself…but that kind of illustrates my point, doesn’t it). For starters, an enormous amount of what has historically been defined as “heresy” was so classified by people who were publicly executing people they disagreed with, in the name of the crucified Christ! I’m fairly sure that misses the point of the Gospel to a much greater degree than having different ideas about whether God and Jesus are made out of the same substance. Secondly, when certain subjects are off-limits for questions, it looks like we’re not actually interested in “truth”, but rather merely maintaining the status quo. Additionally, for large portions of church history, the “orthodox positions” were precisely wrong (Slavery, women’s rights, etc.) I could go on and on…but I won’t.

The Actual Book

A New Kind of Christianity, is the book that many of us have been wanting McLaren to write for years. Ever since he sparked our imaginations with the fictional conversations between Dan Poole and Neil Edward Oliver in A New Kind of Christian, we’ve been dying to see those ideas teased out in non-fiction. He structures the book around 10 crucial questions, identifying the first 5 as theological in nature, and the remaining 5 as practical.

1. The Narrative Question: What Is the Overarching Storyline of the Bible?
2. The Authority Question: How Should the Bible Be Understood?
3. The God Question: Is God Violent?
4. The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus and Why is He Important?
5. The Gospel Question: What Is the Gospel?
6. The Church Question: What Do We Do About the Church?
7. The Sex Question: Can We Find a Way to Address Sexuality Without Fighting About It?
8. The Future Question: Can We Find a Better Way of View the Future?
9. The Pluralism Question: How Should Followers of Jesus Relate to People of Other Religions?
10. The What Do We Do Now Question: How Can We Translate Our Quest into Action?

McLaren’s approach isn’t coercive. He explains that he isn’t attempting to answer these questions definitively but rather is responding to them and inviting us, as readers and willing participants into the conversation. He is seeking to get conversation out of the polarized deadlock that it is so often bogged down in, because of the bounded categories (liberal, conservative, etc.) imposed in modernity that serve to insure no real conversation can ever take place (which reminds me of the state of another country’s political system…but I digress).

What Brian offers here, in my opinion, is a beautiful way forward. Is it perfect? No, and he doesn’t claim that it is. Will his responses satisfy everyone? Ummm…I’ve never read any book that did that. Actually, I think it’s to his credit that he doesn’t pander to any particular category’s concept of “orthodoxy”. Does it transcend unhelpful categories and spark hopeful conversation that could point the way forward? It does (in my opinion)…if you have ears to hear, and eyes to see.

http://adamellis.blogspot.com

Mac
169 Auriel Circle
Maumelle, CA 72113

Hey Mike..I am working with Tim King on the retreat thingy this summer you are coming to. I will be in SF! Ack. But if I can fly out I will.

Grace Bro

GABixler

The “Jewish” side of Christianity is all the buzz nowadays, and rightfully so, but some books seems to be sent to print more as a bandwagon addition than an actual contribution. This book is more of a personal narrative; a devotional of sorts.

To get a sense of where this conversation seems to be going, it might be helpful to know something of the author of Thy Kingdom Connected. Dwight Friesen is a youngish Emergent former pastor teaching practical theology at a rather new and upstart seminary in Seattle (Mars Hill Graduate School). He’s evangelical, but his evangelicalism seems to be open and generous. Oh, and I might add that he’s wearing an ear ring in the back cover picture. The author is technologically savvy, understands the new sciences, and is conversant with the latest trends in society. This background helps illuminate Friesen’s sense of vision. Unlike some of the Emergent and Missional works I’ve read, even though he is critical at points of the way things are going with institutions, he’s not overly anti-institutional. Rather than focus on the problems, he seeks to find clues that would help us move forward — especially forms of social media such as Facebook.

In Friesen’s vision, the Christian faith is akin to a conversation. It is relational, even as the triune God is relational. It is dynamic and creative. While Friesen is critical of religious institutions, he doesn’t seem interested in tilting at windmills or tossing out what exists. Instead he wants to offer a new paradigm, one that isn’t atomistic or static – as he correctly notes, is often true of our institutions. They are stymied by conflicting interests and concerns (consider our governmental systems for a moment).

In the new paradigm, the world is envisioned as an integrated whole. Those involved in leadership in this model are called to facilitate linkages and help create hubs that will connect people together. Again, as models to emulate, he points us to such internet staples as Facebook, Linked-In, and Twitter. Churches are not so much institutions as “Christ Commons” or “Christ-Clusters,” and pastors serve as network ecologists, helping to facilitate linkages to the hubs.

The book is composed of five clusters, which lead from “Seeing Connectively” to “Connective Practices.” He begins by inviting us to look at the world through a set of lenses, moves on to describe the kingdom in networking terms, shares how leadership functions in this new reality, and concludes with two sections, one dealing with the church and the other with missional practices. The goal is to help Christians and churches become connected, understand how they are linked, and understand that the church is called, as the body of Christ, to be part of God’s transformative work. We are, he says to be “And’ers,” linking others to Jesus and to the kingdom. He writes:

Missional linking is marked by a kingdom imagination that, when confronted with “otherness,” is able to see an And’ing in Christ; Jew and Gentile, slave and free, men and women, Republican and Democrat, modern and postmodern, left and right. The way of Christ is to become the And. God’s mission, if you choose to live into it, is to boldly link where no one has linked before; this is the Christ conjunction (p. 135).

Such a view would seem ideologically centrist, or perhaps a sense of pragmatism – trying to bridge the gaps in a very polarized society. But, his sense here is that the goal of the kingdom is reconciliation, “the linking together those who have been separated” (p. 134).

In the past, even in the biblical text, the church was envisioned as a lonely light house, shining its light into the darkness. Such an image is less useful today, and thus we might want to turn to the vision of a city, at night, its many lights centered around a hub, being our new image of the church. To get there we must move from a bounded set mentality to centered set one. Borrowing from anthropologist Paul Hiebert, Friesen suggests (rightly in my mind) that focusing on maintaining boundaries will not get us to where we want to be. Instead, we should focus on the center, that which binds us together. Moving toward Christ, we cluster together, and thus are bound together by the Holy Spirit.

The book is interesting and challenging. Those in the younger set will understand the language it is used. Those who are not as adept in social networking, especially clergy and church leaders over fifty might struggle. One thing that’s not dealt with very well in much of the literature (and that includes this book) is what we do with those who are not adept at social networking. How do we keep the older one’s from falling through the cracks? Now, I realize many over-seventy people are very active on the internet, but not to the degree that the younger set is. This is a question, that at least for now needs to be considered. It is one that I as a pastor of a long standing, rather traditional congregation, that desires to be missional, must keep in mind. Still, this is a book worth engaging with all due seriousness. Let us begin the conversation.

To do this, Friesen uses metaphors and illustrations from modern technology and network theory. At times, I found myself getting lost in the metaphors; but by the end of any one chapter, I was able to understand the connections that Friesen is making as he uses them. He does a good job of bringing together the metaphors and his vision of the church in God’s networked kingdom.

Friesen also uses numerous examples to illustrate what he is communicating. They are real-life stories that describe what Friesen means when he uses new terminology such as a “Christ-Commons” or “Christ-Clusters.” I appreciated these illustrations because they enabled me to get a vision of the reimagined church. And I liked the inventive, networked kingdom terminology that Friesen uses to describe the reimagined church.

As a minister in spiritual formation and a spiritual director, I found that Thy Kingdom Connected challenged me to rethink my own ministry and how it fits into the networked kingdom of God. In addition to the questions that Friesen poses at the end of each chapter, there were other questions that I was asking myself.

I began to imagine myself as part of a networked ministry. I wondered who were the “hubs” in my network. I thought about the sharing and receiving of information. I am considering the meaning of being a “missional and’er” and am trying to discern my links.

Although these new questions that arose from my reading challenge me to reimagine my ministry, Thy Kingdom Connected also affirmed for me some of the ideas that have been rolling around in my head for some time.

Thy Kingdom Connected is easy to read. For anyone wanting to be on the edge of missional church, I recommend reading this book.