Religion in the news: McLaren Interview

Washington Post has a short interview with Brian McLaren:
Q: On the theology behind the emerging church, you reject the idea that there's an absolute truth. So what boundaries are there on theology that churches are teaching? Can any church just call itself an emerging church?

A: Obviously that's a challenge. The flip side of that question is look at the Catholic Church: For all of its orthodoxy, it could have bishops covering up for molesting priests. And evangelicals, for all their claims of orthodoxy, can be barbaric to gay people and can blindly support a rush to war in Iraq and can be, as we speak, fomenting for war with Iran. ... Obviously, I have a lot of critics and they often say, 'You're wanting to water down the Gospel to accommodate to post-modernity.' I say, 'No, I really don't want to do that. But what I do want to do is acknowledge first the ways we've already watered down the Gospel to accommodate modernity.' ... I think the naivete of some of those critics is that they're starting with a pure pristine understanding of the Gospel. It seems to me we're all in danger of screwing up.


Read the entire interview here.


21 May, 2008 | Virgil
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Comments


by Tim - 22 May, 2008 - 23:13:20
Virgil,
They took down the original article. There's a copy here.

by VanSkaamper - 23 May, 2008 - 02:08:31
The single thing that bothers me most about PostModern Man(R) is the self-refuting assertion that there is no absolute truth. For me, all the interesting aspects of McLaren's thought are outweighed by the fact that he's bought into what I consider to be an absurd, yet fashionable epistemic fad.

by Virgil - 23 May, 2008 - 10:24:34
Thanks Tim - I am not sure why they would remove the original.

VanSkaamper - In a sense I agree with you, however I do not see McLaren claiming anywhere that "there is no absolute truth." Postmodernism claims no such thing; ultimately it is likely that postmoderism itself it's a natural response to the obscenities of modernism. It may have a foundation in the same skepticism we saw rising in the 1600s and 1700s in Europe.

Postmodernism makes good use of contextualizing knowledge in order to question absolute certainty, not absolute truth, in the same sense David Hume did. Hume speculated that we know and learn things through accumulating "customs" or "habits" over time, not simply by "knowing" them.

One cannot "know" the Bible unless one knows how to read and interpret the black marks printed out in the paper which makes the book. Furthermore the very language used to print the Bible has certain inevitable cultural attachments to it that may interfere with his ability to understand the text properly, etc.

I do not know any postmodern who claims that there is no absolute truth. The struggle is with the ability to know this absolute truth with [absolute] certainty, which develops in the sort of arrogance of the 19th and 20th century modern Christians claiming to have it all together; well, now many of them realize that they did not and instead of being scared of the unknown, they embrace it and they learn to live with it.

by VanSkaamper - 23 May, 2008 - 16:40:49
Virgil, point taken...for the most part.

McClaren, however, doesn't dispute the statement in the question posed to him, which, if he was being mischaracterized, he should have...his lack of discomfort with the premise of the question makes me uncomfortable.

Second, it's sloppy writing on my part for just adopting the interviewer's way of putting it to McClaren. It's the agnosticism about about all truth that bothers me, and the self-contradictory nature of the postmodern argument about cultural conditioning.

If, as many PM's say, that everything we claim to know is culturally conditioned, then they're making a self-refuting argument...because their assertion is clearly intended to transcend cultural influences.

I'm very sympathetic to much of what postmodernism has done to bring the epistemic hubris of certain quarters of modernism back down to earth...I think that was a necessary correction. However, as is typical of such movements, the pendulum has swung way too far in favor of relativism and skepticism.

It's one thing to come to grips with the fact that much of what we claim to "know" is really just something we think is probable or plausible. It's quite another to say that even plausibility and probability are culturally imposed illusions, which some pm authors do.

So, my frustration with McClaren, Grenz, Franke, et. al and those like him is that they've thrown the epistemic baby out with the bathwater, IMHO, and undermined their own ability to speak truth to the world.

by Virgil - 23 May, 2008 - 23:30:17
Look, I am not McLaren's apologist, however in all fairness you are assigning to him something he does not say and you are reading too much into what he did not say rather than what he said.

Yes, I find the stuff Brian says frustrating once in a while too, but that is who he is. I will not develop this thread into some modern vs. postmodern debate because I am tired of those. Whether or not Brian speaks truth to the world can be greatly debated and it will continue to be debated. I believe he speaks a lot of truth, and many ears do not like to hear it. He is also mistaken especially when he gets involved in politics and social issues. The thing is..he is not Christ, so not surprisingly he is wrong on some things.

by VanSkaamper - 24 May, 2008 - 00:56:51
After reading the Q&A for the third time, I have to say I think you're right. I think the interviewer was referring to theological truth, not truth per se. I should never read any McClaren when I'm already cranky...because I'm not Christ either...

I still think he's a pied piper of awfully bad epistemology, but I'd also have to agree with you that there are some very positive aspects to his work...I'm finding much to reflect upon in Finding Our Way Again.

by Virgil - 24 May, 2008 - 12:16:20
I still think he's a pied piper of awfully bad epistemology

Aren't we all here in the west? Spend some time in an Eastern Orthodox environment and you may get a different perspective on epistemology.

by VanSkaamper - 25 May, 2008 - 02:20:20
Aren't we all here in the west?

I don't think so...but that was probably a rhetorical question, so never mind.

Spend some time in an Eastern Orthodox environment and you may get a different perspective on epistemology.

I've been reading about Eastern Orthodoxy for the last couple years, and it's definitely different perspective when it comes to religious epistemology. Right now it feels like a badly needed balance or counterpoint to overly ambitious rationalism and systemization...but for me the ideal is something in between those two ends of the spectrum.

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