'What Jesus envisioned was a world transformed. If Jesus had never lived, we would not have been able to invent him.' (Walter Wink)
~~~

Brian McLaren has been 'flavour of the decade' for Christians to the right of, say, the Jesus Seminar people, and well to the left of, say, the 'Evangelical Right.' His mentors are scholars like N T Wright, Walter Brueggeman, Dallas Willard, Huston Smith and Walter Wink. He is the 'darling' of the 'emerging church' and radical Sojourners people in the U.S., Australia, and elsewhere, for good reasons: he's been a pastor (but is very critical of 'establishments' whether ecclesiastical or political), he's committed to radical social justice, and he's also done his homework in terms of wide theological and general reading. Think of him, if you like, as a more literary and literate Tony Campolo.

Making the primary agenda of Jesus' teaching - the Kingdom of God - palatable for modern democrats/liberals/republicans et. al is quite a challenge, and McLaren does it well. What synonymous expression is appropriate today? McLaren offers six (take your pick): The Dream of God, the Revolution (or Conspiracy) of God, the Mission of God, the Party of God, the Network of God, the Dance of God.

His thesis? 'The secret message of Jesus isn't primarily about "heaven after you die". It doesn't give us an exit ramp or escape hatch from this world; rather, it thrusts us back into the here and now so we can be part of God's dreams for planet Earth coming true'. 'For Jesus. the ultimate hope beyond death was not to live forever in a timeless disembodied state away from the earth. Instead they anticipated resurrection, an embodied state within this creation in a new era. when wrongs would be made right.' 'God's ultimate dream: not the destruction and replacement of this creation, but the destruction of dominating powers that ruin creation. In the words of C S Lewis, the old field of space, time, matter, and the senses is to be weeded, dug and sown for a new crop.'

Interspersed with provocative exegesis - mainly of the Gospels - are personal vignettes. Like: 'As a boy. [I perceived Jesus as] a nice, quiet, gentle, perhaps somewhat fragile guy on whose lap children like to sit. Or he was a fellow in strange robes who held a small sheep in one arm and always seemed to have the other raised as if he were hailing a taxi'. 'Jesus' main job was to die so my sins could be forgiven and I could go to heaven. (no small thing of course), of great value "in my heart" and outside of this world and history'.

Jesus' message, he says, was 'personal' but not private. 'It has everything to do with public matters in general and politics in particular - including economics and aid, personal empowerment and choice, foreign policy and war'. Jesus idea is that we love our enemies - and so our foreign policies should reflect that love'. Jesus is a 'revolutionary revolutionary': encouraging us not to damn sinners and scoundrels to hell, but inviting them to our parties. Like the prophets, Jesus spoke on behalf of the poor, the forgotten, the rejected and the outcasts.

What to do with 'pre-modern' imagery? McLaren recommends that for those who are unable to honestly accept satanic imagery as factual, to suspend judgment long enough to see what insight appears after taking the stories at face value. Following Wink: '[Jesus']

opposition arises not from dirty personal demons crouching in darkness but rather from dirty systems of power and violence operating in powerful people who function in broad daylight. Dangerous "spirits" can inhabit the most respected of institutions.' 'Interestingly Paul, a second generation leader in the movement started by Jesus, commonly speaks of realities that sound very much like this corporate way of seeing the demonic. These forces of evil, in Paul's mind, are not simply invisible individual devils hiding in between neurons in individuals. Instead, they are the very real and powerful forces that enter groups of people and guide or even control their internal functioning and external behavior.'

As I write this, Iraq's ex-dictator Saddam Hussein has just been hanged. It's been interesting to read how folks from different theological positions reacted.McLaren in his chapter 'The Future of the Kingdom refers to the irony of Jonah's disappointment when the Ninevites repented: he would have preferred them to be incinerated.

McLaren is nothing if not honest: 'By the end of the second century [Christianity] took a fateful turn. It went from being a Jewish sect. to becoming a Gentile religion with persistent anti-Semitic tendencies. It pains me to say this. Greek philosophy - especially the Neoplatonic stream in which many early Christian thinkers were immersed - was more interested in universal concepts than particulars, more focused on timeless truths than timely ones.'

He is what I would call a 'progressive Evangelical' and is thus critical of modern Jesus studies: 'There have been several .[quests] for the historical Jesus in recent centuries. These quests have too often created a Jesus cast more or less in the image of those doing the scholarship: a rationalist Jesus, a romantic Jesus, and so on. It takes time for bad or biased scholarship to be sorted out from good and for the slices of good scholarship to be in some way integrated with one another - and more importantly with the biblical text itself.'

McLaren is a wonderful story-teller. Like this one: 'Years ago, a group of our friends began collecting used clothing. When we had a couple of car trunks full of clothes, we would drive to a poor neighborhood on a Saturday. Then we'd string clotheslines between some trees in a parking lot and hang out all the clothes. Then we'd run into the apartment buildings and. tell people there was a surprise outside. I'll never forget the thrill of watching scores of people rush out and go shopping for free in their parking lot.'

Want more? Visit Brianmclaren.net (bonus material, including a discussion guide), emergentvillage.com, anewkindofchristian.com, worship4justice.org, crcc.org.

I'm teaching an 'Introduction to Theology' course this year, and can't think of a better book on Jesus to recommend than this one. It's good for theological beginners, and also for more mature readers.

~~~

Here's my little list of 'McLarenisms' to do some more thinking about:

'Our Western individualist preoccupation is unusual in human history, a peculiarity of our current times, politics, psychology and economics'

'Although many of us believe Jesus was much more than a prophet, it's certain he was not less'

'Jesus might give an entire lecture and never mention God by name.'

'Whenever he did show up in a religious setting - synagogue or temple - he tended to disrupt the normal proceedings'

'[The prophets] spoke of a day when the lion would like down with lambs (an image not of literal biological upheaval but of social transformation - so that the violent, lionlike people with power would no longer oppress the vulnerable ones)'

'Jesus' words and ways. are the primal, disruptive, inspiring, terrifying, shocking, hopeful words and ways of a revolutionary who seeks to overthrow the status quo in nearly every conceivable way'

'Most of us in the modern West - religious or irreligious - have inherited a worldview formed largely in the seventeenth century. In this worldview miracles - if they occur - would involve interference from outside. [For Jesus] the universe isn't a machine. it's more like a family, a community, or a kingdom. And God isn't positioned outside of the universe, reaching in occasionally, but rather God is here, in it with us, present, near'

'Jesus confronts the dark spirit of the religious elite of his day. He dances on their dividing lines, violates their taboos, honors their villains, and vilifies their honorees. He tells the truth to them, inviting their fury'

'Can you see why such a message is too subversive to be overt?' 'This understanding of the secret message of Jesus makes sense of a number of odd details of the gospel story, such as why the resurrection of Jesus wouldn't be miraculously broadcasted to millions as irrefutable evidence of Jesus' legitimacy. Can you see it? As soon as evidence becomes irrefutable, it takes on a kind of dominating power.'

If you can think of a better plan, let the rest of us know and you may just become the savior of the world. But before you reject this plan, you'd better be sure yours is truly better. This one has no peer that I have ever encountered or been able to imagine'

'The ancient Jews, like their more recent monotheistic colleagues. often saw their calling to be exclusive ('Blessed to the exclusion of other nations')

rather than instrumental ('Blessed for the benefit of all other nations')

'A new life in the kingdom. [where] people live at a different pace than you're used to - they're not lazy, and they're not workaholics either. They live with a certain rhythm, weaving rest and work and worship and play and fellowship and sacrifice and feasting and fasting.'

'[Quoting Dallas Willard: Jesus reduces the Pharisees' principle] - that righteousness lies in not doing anything wrong - to the absurd, in the hope that they will forsake their principle and see and enter the righteousness that is "beyond the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees" - beyond, where compassion or love and not sacrifice is the fundamental thing'

The Future According to Jesus (Jay Gary) (Highly recommended by Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, p. 179: 'First there is a conventional future with the status quo continuing on uninterrupted... Second there are various counterfutures imagined by various groups for whom the status quo is not too profitable or satisfying. There is the fight response of the Zealots (fight, rebel, terrorize), the flight response of the Essenes (isolate, evacuate, escape), and the blame response of the Pharisees (condemn, shame, avoid). Jesus enters with a creative future... 'It is time to live in a radical new way - the way of the kingdom of God. Learn from me to take that path - it's the only way to avoid destruction.')

You can purchase this and other books by McLaren at Ridley College Bookshop - bookshop [at] ridley.unimelb.edu.au

Rowland Croucher

January 2007.