Form and Substance

Book Review of “A New Kind of Christian” by Brian McLaren

I recently read the book, “A New Kind of Christian” after it was recommended by a couple of friends. This is certainly a thought provoking book and is proving to be quite controversial. Much of it addresses American Christianity which has become so entwined with modernity that it has developed into its own unique and sometimes bizarre culture. For those of you who know me well, this is one of those topics that I get quite worked up about as I feel that the American Church has missed much of the depth of the gospel and is stuck in a little world of its own making.

Perhaps I can partly blame my perspective on my cultural anthropology teacher, though I know that I was developing some of these thoughts even before then. In this course, as well as in others, we focused on how we bring the gospel to different cultures. We were challenged again and again to understand the difference between the message itself and the methods we used to present the gospel. The message itself shouldn’t be changed, but the means of communicating that message would need to be adapted so that it could be understood in the new context. A very simple example would be if I wanted to express the concept of “yes” in Bulgaria. To do this, I would shake my head from side to side (like we shake our head “no”). Although contrary to our approach in the west, this head movement faithfully communicates the message “yes”, and in a form that would be understood in the Bulgarian context. The message didn’t change, just the way of expressing it to help it be more clearly understood.

I’ve always liked to turn this concept of differentiating message from method on our own western understanding of the gospel. I find that very few of us are aware of much of the baggage we have added. What aspects of western Christianity are merely western coverings that we’ve put on over the centuries and what aspects are truly rooted in the teachings of Scripture? The results can be somewhat startling as there are many things that we take as being Biblical which are merely cultural, whether it is our view of Church, our understanding of work, or our perception of leadership. One of my passions in life is to strip away the form to find the real. When the dirt is taken off and the real substance is found, it is usually much more powerful and life changing than the cultural form which was developed to express it. The author of “A New Kind of Christian” takes that same journey in his book, trying to discern what is real and what is cultural. He uses a fictional story to walk a traditional American pastor down this road, a road which turns his world upside down.

Much of what is discussed here is not new, but rather part of a large societal shift known as “postmodernism”. Postmodernism is the latest buzzword and refers to the growing rejection of many of the concepts upon which our modern world is built. The foundations of truth, logic, progress, order, etc are being reconsidered and many of these are being changed or discarded by the younger generations. Many scholars anticipate that we will have a very different world in the future as a result of these changes, many of which are already beginning to happen today, though perhaps not as visible yet as they are likely to be in another decade. Some churches are beginning to grapple with what the church will look like in this new era, trying now to discern form from substance and looking at new models.

This book was very thought provoking and I found many aspects of it that I fully agreed with. At times I almost felt like he was reading my journal and quoting parts of it. There are many ideas that we as a Church should take the time to grapple with. At the same time, there are areas of serious concern. In modernism, we believed that we could know everything and that everything could be fully understood through careful scientific study. This is certainly not entirely true, though there is an element of truth in it. Postmodernism however, believes that nothing can be truly known and that there is no such thing as foundational truth. This also is not entirely true, and swings the pendulum too far the other way. Somewhere in the middle is where we need to stand.

I am concerned as I read this book that McLaren has followed the pendulum too far to the postmodern side. Much of the book is written in story form and so you have to read between the lines or read some of his other books to understand where he is coming from or what he is trying to communicate. It appears to me that he begins to undermine some of the foundations of the faith while still trying to stand on them. The importance and authority of Scripture seem to be weakened and a loose form of interpretation seems to be encouraged. At the same time, he seems to have little fear of syncretism, perhaps even pushing us in this direction a bit.

These issues cause serious concern, however now is a good time to begin addressing them. If postmodernism becomes as big a movement as some expect, then these will be issues which we will have to be prepared to address for a long time to come. Our modern answers on these issues will no longer be accepted and we will have to be able to explain our foundations in a postmodern world. Although McLaren’s thoughts are disturbing, I hope that we will not simply dismiss them but rather take them seriously and address them in a clear and thoughtful way. There is much we can learn from his insights and he reveals numerous areas where we need to grow. At the same time, these are dangerous waters that we must carefully navigate while at the same time equipping the Church to navigate them too. Some say postmodernism is the enemy, others say it is the answer, while more likely it is neither. It is merely a new period which the Church may need to travel through. The church usually follows the world from a safe distance of 10 years behind. It may be time for us to turn our eyes to where the world is heading rather than standing at the back of the ship addressing where we have been.