Does McLaren Reject Penal Substitution?: A Review of the Evidence

Does Brian McLaren reject penal substitution?  Read his books and one will find that when he does mention the subject he raises questions but never comes out and openly rejects it.  However, many other times, the absence of its presence is also telling.

For McLaren salvation is primarily about the here and now, not the then and later.  Salvation isn't about getting us into heaven and out of hell, but about bringing the Kingdom of God down to Earth.  This contradicts penal substitution.  Penal Substitution says that salvation is concerned with both the here and now and the then and later.  Salvation is more "holistic" (to use the word) than what McLaren offers.  If salvation is only about solving political, systemic, and cultural problems, then salvation is limited and will mean nothing after death.  Penal substitution, however, demands obedience (or righteousness) while living and heaven after death.

Throughout his writings, one must conclude that McLaren not only redefines the cross and penal substitution but also seems to reject it.  The former pastor suggests that Jesus Himself did not even know why He had to die.  McLaren tells the story of a church member, George, who came into his office and asked him “why did Jesus have to die?”  The climax at the cross made no sense to him and so McLaren, as the pastor, spent two weeks thinking about that question before answering.  Just days before he was to give his answer, after researching the theology of “John Stott, J. I. Packer, James Boice, and others,” McLaren still had no answer.  Finding himself swimming at his parents house with his brother McLaren asked his brother the same question.  His brother answered, “well, neither did Jesus . . . Remember the story about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? . . . It sounds to me like Jesus didn’t really understand why it had to be that way either.  But the point wasn’t understanding it; the point was doing what needed to be done.”  After some thought, McLaren responded, “You know . . . for some reason . . . that doesn’t answer my question, but somehow, that’s better than an answer.  It kind of makes the question not really matter so much.”  And so McLaren gave the same answer to George who became “a committed follower of Jesus.”*


Furthermore, in the “conversation” between Dan, the burned-out pastor, and Neo, the postmodern Christian, in his book, A New Kind of Christian, Dan asks Neo why he failed to share the “gospel” with a certain woman who was hurting and craving “to feel closer to God again.”  Neo’s answer is telling:

'Dan, I don’t think that most Christians have any idea what the gospel really is . . . For example, how would you define the gospel?’  I said something about accepting Christ as your personal savior and justification by grace through faith, not by our works, based on the finished work of Christ on the cross, and he said, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what most modern Christians would say . . . Does it bother you that Jesus never defined the gospel in this way?  And does it bother you that no Christians in history ever used the phrase ‘accept Christ as your personal savior’ until a few decades ago?  Does it bother you that our little gospel presentations are really just modern sales pitches that reduce the gospel to modern dimensions - laws, steps, simple diagrams, complete with sales close?'**

Neo goes on to define the gospel as “The Kingdom of God is at hand.”  By the Kingdom of God, McLaren means the Kingdom as here and now. We must bring the Kingdom of God down on earth and we do so through politics, economics, social justice, etc.

In the sequel to A New Kind of Christian, McLaren deals specifically with penal substitution through the characters of his story.  Carol explains to Kerry the doctrine of penal substitution:

Well, I believe that God sent Jesus into the world to absorb all the punishment for our sins.  That’s what the cross was all about.  It was Jesus absorbing the punishment that all of us deserve.  He became the substitute for all of us.  As he suffered and died, all our wrongs were paid for, so all of us can be forgiven.  Ok?

Kerry immediately has her concerns regarding this “substitutionary atonement theory.”  Kerry is confused, “if God wants to forgive us, why doesn’t he just do it?  How does punishing an innocent person make things better? . . . It sounds like divine child abuse.  You know?”  She goes on to add, “Christian dogma and doctrine don’t make complete sense to me.  No offense, but I grew up with this stuff, and it just stopped working for me as I grew older.”  From here, the various characters, namely Dan and Neo, help Kerry and the others understand the various atonement theories regarding the cross.  Neo concludes that the theory that works best for him is the “powerful weakness theory” where Jesus became “vulnerable” on the cross.***

There are a number of interesting things to point out here.  First, nowhere in the discussion regarding the atonement do the characters refer to Scripture.  What McLaren offers, through the medium of story, is a list of theories, yet no answers.  Scripture is never alluded to.  Rather, these theories are just labels that theologians use to describe “how Jesus’ life and death play a role in the salvation of the human race.”        
Secondly, McLaren defines truth by what makes sense to the individual.  Kerry confesses that substitutionary atonement makes no sense to her and that it does not work for her anymore, therefore, it is not true for her.  So to McLaren, the seeker defines Christian truth, not Scripture.  In the end, just through this simple conversation among these characters McLaren allows the doctrine of penal substitution to be undermined in a matter of a few paragraphs.

What is most interesting about this interchange among the seekers in McLaren’s story is the striking similarity between McLaren’s treatment of penal substitution and Steve Chaulke’s description regarding it.  Both men refer to penal substitution as “divine child abuse.”
       
Quoting John 3:16, Chalke asks, “how then, have we come to believe that at the cross this God of love suddenly decides to vent his anger and wrath on his own Son?”  To Chalke, penal substitution contradicts God’s love:
       
The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offense he has not even committed.  Understandably, both people inside and outside of the Church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith.  Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement “God is love”.  If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.****

To Chalke, penal substitution has a number of flaws.  First, it is “child abuse” because God punishes Jesus for something He did not do.  It is also “morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith.”  Therefore, it is implied, Christians should discard it as unnecessary not because it is necessarily unbiblical, but because it has become a “huge barrier” to those seeking the faith.  Finally, if God is love, then how could He pour out His wrath and torture His Son in a vengeful way?  Did Jesus not Himself say to “love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil?”
       
In Chalke’s theology, the cross is the ultimate symbol of love.  “It is a demonstration of just how far God as Father and Jesus as his Son are prepared to go to prove that love.”

By redefining the gospel apart from the cross is a radical shift from historical orthodox Soteriology.  Jesus, in Emergent theology, becomes less of a sacrificial lamb and more of a unfortunate martyr who stood for something that was too radical for His day.  Something in which one must continue to learn and apply today.  McLaren wrote:
       
[This] new idea sees Jesus becoming vulnerable on the cross and accepting suffering from every one, Jew and Roman, and not visiting suffering on everyone in some sort of revenge.  It puts on display God’s loving heart which wants forgiveness, not vengeance.  The idea is about suffering and transforming it into reconciliation, and not avenging it through retaliation.  God rejects the violence, dominance, and oppression which have so gripped the world from the time of Cain and Abel until today’s news headlines.  The call of the cross is for mankind not to make the Kingdom come about through coercion but ‘to welcome it through self sacrifice and vulnerability.’*****

So in these writings it seems very clear that McLaren rejects penal substitution, but McLaren's refusal to speak clearly and embrace mystery makes it at time difficult to say with certainty that he rejects penal substitution.  But make no mistake about it, he does.

Take a recent comment he made on a blog post.  The context of the post was in answer to a reader's request for McLaren to speak positively about a movement, group, person, or belief that he disagrees with.  McLaren's response concludes:

And millions of wonderful and good-hearted people believe in penal substitution and a literal fire-and-brimstone hell, and have done so for centuries. The problem isn't the good people who, as you say, "reconcile these doctrines to help better shape society." The problem is the unintended negative consequences of these beliefs, especially as they're held by less sensitive or ethical people. And then there's the question of whether these beliefs are the best consolidations of the biblical data. But you wanted me to say something positive, so I won't go any further in this direction!

Notice the language. The context of the post is to say something positive to things he disagrees with.  He picks on proponents of the rapture and penal substitution.  So it is clear that by its inclusion, McLaren admittedly rejects both the rapture and penal substitution.

The reason McLaren gives for rejecting penal substitution is first because of "the unintended negative consequences of these beliefs, especially as they're held by less sensitive or ethical people."  McLaren does not go into more detail than that and so what he means exactly remains a mystery.  What he seems to be saying (or at least how I interpret them) is that penal substitution has been abused in the past as an excuse for licentiousness.  But one must not forget that entire books of the New Testament are dedicated to the subject especially 2 Peter and Jude.  The gospel is neither legalistic or libertarian.  Certainly persons have abused the gospel as a license to since, but abusing the gospel should result in correcting the abuser, not a wholesale rejection of the gospel.

The second reason he rejects penal substitution in this post is because of the biblical data.  I will not take the time to defend the biblical record regarding penal substitution.  Needless to say that from Genesis 3 all the way to the end, the Bible affirms propitiation and penal substitution.  Whether it be the slaying of an animal in order to provide Adam and Eve with clothes in Genesis 3, the day of atonement in Leviticus 16, or the exchange of Barabbas for Jesus in Mark 15, penal substitution runs through the whole Bible.

These reasons given by McLaren are rather weak.  McLaren is distrusted and disliked by many orthodox Evangelicals, not because of his stance on homosexuality or the church, but primarily because of his wholesale rejection of the gospel.  McLaren's soteriology is left to the social gospel and works righteousness.  So does McLaren reject penal substitution?  I see no evidence of his firm belief in it nor does it at all appear to be central to his understanding of the gospel.

Discussing McLaren in depth is important because he has written the most on the gospel, salvation, and the cross and his influence is unsurpassed.  Most Emergents affirm much of what McLaren believes including his understanding of the gospel and the purpose/meaning of salvation.  Therefore, many in the Emergent movement are far from orthodoxy and should be rejected for that reason.  Yes we can complain on McLaren's and many Emergents stances on various political and social issues, but our main concern should regard the gospel.  To get the gospel wrong is to get everything else in the Christian worldview wrong.

McLaren - Q & R:  Could You Say Something Positive


Sources:
*  McLaren, More Ready Than You Realize, 79-82.
**  McLaren, A New Kind of Christian, 105-106.
***First quote taken from McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, 101-102.  Neo says, “By becoming vulnerable on the cross, by accepting suffering from everyone, Jews and Romans alike, rather than visiting suffering on everyone, Jesus is showing God’s loving heart, which wants forgiveness, not revenge, for everyone.  Jesus shows us that the wisdom of God’s kingdom is sacrifice, not violence.  It’s about accepting suffering and transforming it into reconciliation not avenging suffering through retaliation . . . The cross shows God’s rejection of the human violence and dominance and oppression that have spun the world in a cycle of crisis from the story of Cain and Abel through the headlines in this morning’s Washington Post.  I don’t know . . . this theory might be nonsense, but maybe there’s a grain of truth in it.  The cross calls humanity to stop trying to make God’s kingdom happen through coercion and force, which are always self-defeating in the end, and instead, to welcome it through self-sacrifice and vulnerability.” McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, 105-106.
****  Chalke, The Lost Message of Jesus, 182-183.  McLaren endorsed Chalke's book.
******  McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, 105-106.

I have not quoted or mentioned McLaren's most recent book, A New Kind of Christianity, because a fuller review of the book is forthcoming.
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