Comments on: Modern Reformation #6: Conversation Partners- An Interview with Brian McLaren

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 18:29:00 +0000

Mac, I have no need to take a pill. I had Corn Flakes for breakfast, followed by my usual 10 A.M. Dr. Pepper on the way to work. I am currently drinking Gatorade. I think you should take notice of the question mark at the end of my post. I'm not saying that McLaren has embraced Buddhism, but I am raising the question because I believe it's an important one to consider. At any rate, if McLaren has not embraced Buddhist ideas, it is still important to know that he is influenced by Buddhist ideas and take them into account as we evaluate his work. Moreover, we need to be wary of those who dismiss the ideas of their opponents as mere power plays, for, as the twentieth century has shown, the rhetoric of community is often a mask worn by those who wish to acquire power of their own. I'm not saying that McLaren is doing this, but that we need to acknowledge that everybody, not just modern fundamentalists and liberals, can be tempted by power.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:26:00 +0000

The power that I believe McLaren is speaking of is the kind antithetical to Incarnational Love. The model for power is Philippians 2. In giving up power for love's sake Jesus over-turned the entire power structure. We dishonor Him when we as Fundamentalists or Liberals try to re-establish the old paradigm of power.
I believe that is what McLaren and others are addressing. That and control which is the opposite of living faith.
As for Timbo's comment. That's just silly. Take a pill. If I quoted or found some of Thich Nyat Hanh's writings helpful would that make me a Buddhist? I don't think so.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 04:02:00 +0000

Micah, I appreciate that you've never been so despondent about others in the church. That is admirable. Your self-description as a “Protestant mutt with Catholic and Orthodox sympathies” puts you ahead of the curve to a certain degree on that.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 02:34:00 +0000

Power this, power that. MLK Jr. , and Gandhi were powerful, the soldiers who liberated the concentration camps and enforced the Emancipation proclamation used a different sort of power, but power nonetheless.
Yes, power can be abused. Yes, Christains have abused it. So what. This is news? Did God not know this when he gave humanity dominion over the earth? Did He ask for it back and I missed it?
I'm tired of McLaren. It is not surprising that someone who disdains giving clear answers and clear thinking does not come across as a good thinker.
I'm glad for those who have waded through his stuff, but I'm beginning to think he should be ignored, and we should focus on the more conversant and orthodox voices in Emergent.
I know many have found something in McLaren that speaks powerfully to them, and I wish them well. But I don't know what the fuss is about. I have never been so despondent about the fallen brothers and sisters I grew up with (i.e. the Church) and our imperfect ways that I thought I needed another reformation.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 21:38:00 +0000

I think Jesus tended to go both ways with power. One the one hand he is certainly the “way the truth and the life”, but on the other hand, no one has ever been more submissive. A God willing to die at the hands of His puny creation, wow!
Secondly, while God should and ultimately does have the power, I'm not so sure that Christians should. We are sinful people, prone to all the same mistakes as others. I identify with Paul when he describes his struggles to do what he knows is right.
Consider the church before and after Constantine, in some respects it seemed a bit more successful pre-Constantine, when it served as the leaven. When we start to become the dough, the majority, the ones with the power, we tend, like the Israelites in the book of Judges, to forget where we came from, and why we do what we do. (I am not saying evangelicals have necessarily done this, but it is a danger) So often it becomes about the power, instead of our sovereign God, our Friend, Jesus Christ.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:44:00 +0000

It seems to me that Brian McLaren's appeal to power relationships in discourse has more in common with Michael Foucault than Jesus Christ. Didn't Jesus say “I am the way, the Truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me”?
By appealing to power relationships, all Brian McLaren is doing is using his own language in an imperialistic way to negate all views other than his own. The problem is that his own language is subject to the same critique of imperialism.
Is it just me, or is there this heavy thread of post-Marx style thinking going on? It's like we're coming at Christianity with a dialectical view. Let's present two differential extremes and then find a synthesis between the two. Anyone who disagrees with the synthesis is merely locked in their own linguistic power game.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:38:00 +0000

Sweet, it's about time you posted that 😉

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:30:00 +0000

Roger, you're talking about God A. McLaren is "in universe B, getting to know God B." And B is the first letter in the word Buddhist.