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Brian, conversations, heresy, heretic, interview, McKnight, McLaren, penal, Scot, substitution, universalism
In the video below, Scot McKnight probes the mind of the man who many charge with teaching heresy. Brian McLaren, the man who has openly denied the doctrines of hell and of penal substitution, author of the book A New Kind of Christianity and one of the editors of the horrible – and I mean horrible – The Voice New Testament is given ample opportunity to answer questions he has, to date, never before answered. Will he or won’t he?
From Denny Burke:
Scot McKnight recently sat down and asked Brian McLaren three questions about what exactly McLaren believes (see above). I have the three questions transcribed below, but I think the last question is the most important.
In the third question, McKnight asks McLaren if he’s a universalist. Don’t hold your breath for a direct answer because McLaren doesn’t give one. McLaren says that he is not an exclusivist but that he can’t say that he’s a universalist either. He won’t commit to either view. McLaren’s says that he’s working within a new “narrative” in which those old questions of heaven and hell don’t make sense anymore. In spite of McLaren’s obfuscation, I think it’s pretty clear that he’s a universalist.
Here are McKnight’s questions:
“Most of us detect a provocative ambiguity, while others wonder if there’s not a deliberate refusal to clarify your views… Why not just come out and tell people what you believe?”
“Many of us wonder if you have abandoned Generous Orthodoxy. How do you square what you are rejecting in A New Kind of Christianity (the Greco-Roman narrative) with your earlier affirmations of Generous Orthodoxy?”
“You seem to be coming out as a universalist… Is this true? And if it is, what led you to be a universalist?”
HT: Tim Challies
Related Posts:
Linda Harvey: The Emergent Lie
Brian McLaren & The Dangers of the Emergent Church
SBTS Panel Discussion: A New Kind of Christianity? – Brian McLaren’s Fresh Look At An Old Lie
I think this sums up my view of this man:
2 Tim 4:3-4…”For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
I can not imagine anyone looking to this man for sound doctrine.
It’s easy to see that McLaren bases his theology on experiential “truths” rather than absolute Truth. His allergic response to people who believe they know the Truth and reliance on human reasoning to make his points once again displays his ignorance. He gives all appearances to being lost, having no spiritual understanding. His view of the Word of God is that it is the work of man. His view of theology is man-focused: racism, poverty, ethnic strife, etc. – he has no grasp of the Gospel. He’s not an exclusivist – so he’s not a Christian. He wants to heal the creation as the primary mission. The family of man trumps the family of God. He reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, not understanding his environment and not discerning Truth. His efforts to “transport people” to his paradigm are based on human “wisdom”, unable to distinguish between temporal salvation and eternal salvation. Why anyone thinks McLaren is a Christian is beyond me.
Bingo
The atrocities perpetrated on humanity have not come from those who embraced the exclusivity of the Gospel rightly understood. To be a genuine follower of Christ is to take both the Great Commission and the Great Commandment seriously. It does not foster spiritual elitism or endorse a coercion to the faith through any means. Rather, Christianity is an authentic relationship with Christ, who invites us to join with Him in the ministry of reconciliation. That ministry certainly involves the active participation of alleviating human suffering and oppression, but it also includes the clear declaration of biblical truth that calls for men every where to repent and to place their trust in Christ alone. Any gospel that does not sound such a clarion call is no gospel at all.