A New Kind of Christianity . . . Indeed: The God Question - Part 3

We now move to the third question in Brian McLaren's new book, A New Kind of Chritianity:  Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith regarding the God Question.  Here's the question:  is God violent? One must admit that the question is a reasonable one.  I doubt anyone who grew up in Sunday School as a kid remember studying the slaughter of the Amalekites or the Canaanites.  Instead, we read the more pleasant parts of the Bible (in particularly the Old Testament).  McLaren, however, will have none of that and should be given the credit for stating what should be obvious that a lot of Christians are afraid to admit:  God is guilty of the execution of a lot of people either by His own hand or by His own commandments.

McLaren's discussion of this difficult question begins where he left off:  the authority issue.  There McLaren argued that the Bible should be read as a library of multiple genres of literature which offers a conversation on God (which evolves) rather than reading the Bible as a Constitution.  I will not rehash those arguments here, but it is obvious where the conversation is going.

McLaren's Bibliology forces him to admit that the Bible that kills millions of people in the Old Testament is not actually God, but rather the ancients best attempt to understand who God is.  Therefore, instead of seeing God killing every living being (human, animal, and plant) in the Flood account, we should rather see the ongoing conversation among the Jews regarding the identity and character of God.

McLaren likens this to math textbooks in a K-12 school.  In the second grade textbook, the author tells the students that "You cannot subtract a larger number from a smaller number" (104).  However, by the time one enters sixth grade, they find that the opposite is true, one can subtract larger numbers from smaller numbers. 

The point of the illustration is to show that like math textbooks, what appears to be contradictory in the Bible regarding God's character is not contradictions per se (for that makes the Bible a constitution), but a conversation.  In the early pages of the Bible, God appears violent, retaliatory, given to favoritism, and careless of human life.  But over time, the image of God that predominates is gentle rather than cruel, compassionate rather than violent, fair to all rather than biased toward some, forgiving rather than retaliatory.  In this more mature view, God is not capricious, bloodthirsty, hateful, or prone to fits of vengeful rage.  Rather, God loves justice, kindness, reconciliation, and peace; God's grace gets the final word. (101-102)

The highest view (or insightful conversation) into who God is, according to McLaren, is Jesus Christ.  Jesus is nothing like the capricious God of the Old Testament.  In Deuteronomy 7, for example, "God" tells the Israelite's to wipe out the Canaanites and not to marry any of them.  Jesus, however, in Matthew 15 tells us to show mercy to such people.  So in Jesus, we get a better idea of who God is.  Quoting Elton Trueblood, a Quaker scholar, McLaren writes, The historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does no simply mean that Jesus is like God.  It is far more radical than that.  It means that God is like Jesus (114).

At this point perhaps we should stop.  Though I am unfamiliar with Trueblood's theology, I can at least critique the given quote.  Orthodox doctrine has never said that Jesus is like God, but that Jesus is God.  Meaning that Jesus, in the mystery of the Trinity, is equal with the Father and is equally God.  We must not simply see Jesus as an image of the Father, but equal and the same (yet separate) from the Father.  McLaren's argument regarding the evolutionary development of the Scripture's understanding of God as climaxed in Christ only works if orthodox Christology is thrown out the window.  But it cannot be.  To take away the full deity (and humanity) of Christ is to embrace heresy.

But nonetheless, McLaren concludes:

The character of God, seen in Jesus, is not violent and tribal.  The living God is not the kind of deity who decrees ethninc cleansing, genocide, racism, slavery, sexism, homophobia, war, religious supremacy, or eternal conscious torment.  Instead, the character of the living God is like the character of Jesus.  Dont simply look at the Bible, I am suggesting; look through the Bible to look at Jesus, and you will see the character of God shining radiant and full.  Don't simply look at the many versions of Christain faith (or other religions), for htey are full of distortions; look thorough even the best of our religious communities, and beyond them see Jesus.  When you see him, you are getting th best view afforded to humans of the character of God. -118

McLaren's conclusion adequately summarizes his argument regarding God and how the Bible portrays Him.  Essentially, at the end of the day, what McLaren is saying here is that the Gospels can be accepted because of the loving way in which they portray Jesus whereas the rest of the Bible (even the Pauline Epistles which subjugates women) can be given less emphasis.  McLaren would never say to reject the rest of the Bible, but from the above quote indicates, we must understand that the violent and injustice imagery afforded God in the rest of the Bible (before and after Christ) isn't who God actually is.  But if we look at the Gospels we will see a better image of God that can more easily be believed.

How convienant. 

There are multiple problems to McLaren's argument here.  One is his starting point.  McLaren reads the parts of the Bible that he doesn't like and seeks a way to get around them.  "I know," he surmises, "I'll just say that that isn't actually who God is."  McLaren conveniently finds a way to make God into his own image.  He assumes that God is only loving, forgiving, nice, and fluffy.  This means that when God appears to be mean, capricious, homophobic, and angry that the Bible must be wrong.

If only it were that easy.  McLaren can conveniently lean on the stereotypes of Jesus as loving and forgiving as a basis for his new hermeneutic, but such a convenience is short-lived whenever one actually read how the Gospels portray Christ.  Jesus in the New Testament, and even in McLaren's beloved Gospels, is not the nice guy He is made out to be.

Jesus repeatedly condemns sinners, assaults temple workers, and publicly ostracizes private individuals.  McLaren and many among the Emergent, liberal, postmodern left want to turn Jesus into a fuzz-ball, but the Gospel record won't let us.  Jesus is not always the nice guy we try to make Him out to be.  He is, dare we say it, like His Father:


If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him." Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.  -John 14:7-12


If we use McLaren's own line of argument and Jesus' own words, then we must say that when God commanded the complete annihilation of the Canaanites, Jesus supported it.  When God killed every living being in the world apart from Noah and his family, Jesus was there all along giving His hearty approval.  We see in Jesus, the very God of the universe (hence John 1:1ff).  That being the case, we must see that both God and Jesus are immutable meaning that the difficult passages in the Old Testament describe a God who is still with us today.  The God who judges and annihilates man can and will do the same again.

This is why Scripture repeatedly calls on the reader to fear God.  The fear of God leads to repentance which then leads to grace.  What McLaren wants is a God of love apart from wrath, anger, justice, and righteousness.  He is, in effect, drawing God in His own image.  What McLaren offers is a wish fulfillment that is nothing more than the figment of his imagination.  We all want a God that is like us, but He isn't.  It is not up for us to determine who God is, but submit to God as He truly is.  God judges sinners.  God hates divorce.  God's wrath is real and His judgments just.  God is against those who promote and encourage iniquity and lawlessness.  Whether or not we like that kind of God doesn't matter because that does not change who He really is.

What McLaren offers is a sophisticated way to offer people a convenient God made in their own image.  Though it might seem attractive, Christians should stay far away from the many holes and dangers that the God of McLarenism offers.  One cannot have a God of love, without a God of wrath because to do so means to have a God who is not holy.  You cannot have one without the other.



For more:
Theology - A New Kind of Christianity . . . Indeed: The Narrative Question - Part 1
Theology - A New Kind of Christianity . . . Indeed:  The Authority Question - Part 2 
Novus Lumen - Brian McLaren’s “New Kind of Christianity”: A Theological Review, The God Question 3
Thesis: Brian McLaren and Emergent Soteriology: From Cultural Accommodation to the Social Gospel
Theology - SBTS and McLaren:  A Response to SBTS Panel Discussion
Theology - The Evolving God:  McKnight Critiques McLaren  
The Ooze TV video is no longer available online.  Once it becomes available again, I will post it here.