Getting the Last Word In …
Brian’s voice echoes through the church graciously and eloquently stating that you can be a believer without accepting all that is held within the Christian faith. Does Brian’s voice echo as much outside the church as it does within? I believe that in large part, yes, it does.
Getting the Last Word In …
Brian McLaren’s newest book, The Last Word and the Word After That, is a superb final book in his New Kind of Christian trilogy. My only regret is that the series is over; however, I hold out much hope that this trilogy will continue in other forms as the trilogy parallels his own spiritual development through the use of story. What I love about Brian is his willingness to write about his doubts and the areas where he has divested himself of American evangelical thinking. What I get frustrated with Brian about is that he seems to stop short of what the logic of his various arguments would require. But here I have to see the beauty I want others to see in me as I wrestle with my own doubt: I want those more mature or simply more gracious to let me wander, to encourage my seeking, and to love me while I go on my journey. I hope so much that he will continue to write about his spiritual journey, realizing that he is making more friends than he is losing, that he is touching lives the church has done a poor job of reaching.
Brian’s first book introduced us to Pastor Dan, who is wrestling with questions over pluralism, the argument that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, and general ideas about what Jesus meant when he talked about the kingdom. Dan meets Neo, a Christian who has been through similar questioning and has found a certain peace in these new answers. The second book in the series focuses on Dan wrestling with the debate between creationism and evolution, and again the underlying ideas about the identity of the Bible that are an implicit part of this debate. Within the second book, Pastor Dan is put on forced hiatus by his church because of some of his changing teaching. The final book brings the church crisis to a head but first forces Dan to deal with the most painful part of the Christian story - the teachings of Jesus on hell.
For me, this third book may be one of Brian’s best. Christians who want to be honest about their struggle with the idea of a loving God sending those who have never heard of Jesus to an eternity of torment in hell will find this book provocative and helpful. I would caution those new to Brian’s writing to not begin with this book, but with the first book in this series. To begin with Brian’s teaching on hell builds a house of cards where a firmer foundation should be built with his teaching on the mechanisms by which the Bible should be interpreted. If we start with Brian’s third book we jump right in to his teaching on hell without dealing with the searching that led this point or the logic that makes his argument sustainable. Christians who see nothing needing to be explained within the doctrine of hell will find Brian’s book heresy. Upon publication of this book, Brian is going to find out who his real friends are, who the real Christians in his midst are, and who he has helped the most with his teaching.
Brian makes what I believe is probably a conscious choice to focus on what Jesus really said and as a result what Jesus really meant when he spoke about hell. This is a position that allows him to avoid the more divisive question of why hell is such a central issue for contemporary Christianity. To me, these type of decisions folded delicately within the tapestry of his writing, suggests that his voice belongs most within the church. I believe, as does Brian, that many people within the church do not really buy into much of the church’s teaching on creationism, the environment, politics, the end-times, or hell. Brian’s voice echoes through the church graciously and eloquently stating that you can be a believer without accepting all that is held within the Christian faith. Does Brian’s voice echo as much outside the church as it does within? I believe that in large part, yes, it does. Many people, even those familiar with the writing of atheists like Bertrand Russell, will find that Russell’s denial of Christianity (which he based in large part based on the fundamentalists’ presentation of Jesus’ teaching on hell) falls apart when Brian’s discussion on hell is presented. This is why Brian needs to be encouraged to have a broader voice than he now does; this is why I buy his books and share them frequently with family and friends. People need to know that you can be a Christian without believing in eternal torment. People need to know that you can be a Christian without being comfortable in an idea of God that accommodates eternal torment.
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“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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