Fact or Fad? Part II

I did not plan to do any sort of follow up on yesterday's post, so please indulge me. I recently read Brian McLaren's new book, Everything Must Change. He is very much an 'incarnational' water carrier. I walked away from the book troubled by the conspicuously absent Jesus. In summary: McLaren sets the stage for the whole of humanity incarnating Jesus because we have Christ's example of what is good living and where we find that life we find Christ. Crudely stated, Jesus came 2000 years ago as the prime example and now we are to incarnate that example. I could not help but ask, "Is that all there is?" The Holy Spirit and Christ's second coming are given lip service, and it is difficult to discern just how they act in his narrative.

This type of thought gaining ground but the foundations of it are purely modernistic. The assumption that the betterment of the world (or in Christian terms, the movement of God's Kingdom) is human prerogative, comes straight out of the Western Enlightenment. Government programs and scientific progress under gird this movement which is theologically argued from an immanent God position, or God can be seen working in history and within the rules of the natural realm (ie time and space). God is somehow made subject to his creation. Thus, if God wants to act, He will not intervene supernaturally (also Enlightenment thinking), rather He limits his activity to the natural. So, we 'incarnate' Christ for that is the only way He works.

After the 2oth century, I don't think I want to subscribe to this view. If progress is measured in humanity's efficient killing of one another, the 20th century was truly the most progressive. That seems contrary to the Gospel. Government programs and scientific advance have a place, but the evidence of evil cannot be ignored. McLaren rightly points to systemic evil, but then calls for a new system that will be administered by corrupt humans. He never deals with the individual heart because to do so forces one to see the Kingdom of God as exclusively residing in the Church. That is, only the Church has the answer for the evil that lurks in each of our hearts. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that allows us to do any sort of good, and it is the return of Christ in power that will ultimately quash the ongoing rebellion against His sovereignty.