Okay, so in the last year, I have had about 10-15 people mention the exact same quote by an author that they have never read, never researched, and cannot even site where the quote comes from that they are so enamoured with telling everyone about so that they can be warned of apparent ”wolves in sheeps clothing”. I get emails about it, I attend sermons where preachers are quoting it, blah blah blah… and I had another person today quote it to me. So I wanted to blog about it once and for all, so that I can just start emailing links to people when I get nasty emails.
The Author in question is none other than the infamous Brian McLaren (about whom I WOULD consider myself qualified to talk about having read all of his books and met and listened to him preach in person about 3 weeks ago). And the quote in question goes a little something like this “…it sounds like divine child abuse…” this comment was made regarding the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Now, if you’ll look at the quote, you will see little dots (…) do you know what the dots mean? It means that the entire quote is not there, and some of the (presumably) unnecessary words have been omitted for “easy consumption” (a very dangerous phrase in and of itself, always leading to propaganda for the purpose of swaying peoples minds).
If you don’t know where this phrase comes from, lets look at it together shall we? It comes from a book of his by the title of “The Story We Find Ourselves In”. And it is found on page 102.Now, if you are not familiar with Brians “New Kind of Christian” trilogy, let me fill you in a little. It’s called “creative non-fiction”. In other words, it’s written in story form. Fictional characters drive the plot line and are having deep theological discussion that emulates much of what you will hear in coffee shops near christian campuses all over america today. On page 102, there is a conversation going on between a character name “Kerry” and another named “Neo”. It is the character “Kerry” who is talking about the atonement when she says this paragraph:
“I know that’s supposed to mean something to me, and I suppose I can see it, but it raises so many questions. . . . For starters, if God wants to forgive us, why doesn’t he just do it? How does punishing an innocent person make things better? That just sounds like one more injustice in the cosmic equation. It sounds like divine child abuse”
Nowhere in this book is this idea actually promoted or even addressed. And most of the conversations in this book were obviously modeled after actually theological dialogue that has taken place in the last half century.
The paragraph I just quoted in particular, is obviously modeled after a statement in a book by the author/kingdom-theologian Steve Chalke in his book “The Lost Message of Jesus”, in which he refers to the substitutionary atonement as “cosmic child abuse”.Mr Chalke is an advocate of the “Christus-Victor” theology of atonement as opposed the the idea widely accepted in the US known as “Penal-Substitution”. (Surprise, people in america predominately have different views of the scriptures than the rest of the world… welcome to the global conversation about God, start paying attention!). Most peoples theology comes from where they were raised, not from their actual biblical study. And most peoples view of many of the current theological authors really depends on who got to them first. If they just picked up a book and read it, they will probably be blessed by it. But, if they were given a list of people who were considered heretics by someone they know, they will probably never read or understand the postmodern culture (which they are living in wether they want to or not). And views on Brian Mclaren, Rob Bell, NT Wright (who is far from new), and many other current thinkers of our generation are usually predetermined and never actually challenged from a fair viewpoint.
I grow very weary with people questioning the ideas of people whom they have never read, and do not even know enough about them to rightfully make an accurate assumption. I guess this is what happens when we rely on our forefathers to sift through theology for us and tell us what the scriptures say. Seriously, what did Martin Luther have that we don’t have today? The truth is that we have SO MUCH more useful tools for understanding scriptures, yet most people will never go any deeper than what has already been laid out for us.
We seem to have forgotten that our forefathers studied the scriptures and came into their theological beliefs because that is how they worship the Lord. And what do we do? We say “Thanks for doing all the work for us!” and we just drink the juice. I have to assume that our fathers would be furious with us that we have taken them at their word and have not challenged a thing that they have written.We have stopped studying, deconstructing, dissecting, poking and prodding and these are the exact things that brought about the reformation!
At what point do we stop insulting our previous generations of theologians by patronizing every word that they have written. Most of them wrote rebellious ideas that were considered “dangerous” and “liberal” in their day, but are now considered to be the very fundamentals of Orthodoxy.If you disagree, disagree for a reason. Not because your dad told you this, or your pastor told you that, or your proffessor told you to “stear clear of them”. Read the books, and state what you disagree with and why. Don’t let others do it for you (I know that’s the western way to do things, but easy isn’t always right!).
Sorry for the rant. I’m done.
