Brian McLaren: A
Prime Example Of Diaprax!
by Sandy Simpson, 2/16/06
Introduction
I have written in a previous article called The
Emerging/Emergent Church - and their use of "Diaprax" briefly
detailing the use of the Hegelian Dialectic and praxis (Diaprax) by New
Apostolic and Emerging Church leaders.
What I want to show in this article is a perfect example of Diaprax in
the teachings of Brian McLaren, a main leader in the Emerging Church. If you want to read the entire transcript of
“An New Kind Of Christian – Part 1”, a video teaching by Brian McLaren, you can
access it here. I also urge you to watch the video for
yourself which is available online here. When you watch, be aware of the intentional
and perhaps even unintentional uses of brainwashing techniques. I will only quote certain parts of McLaren’s
teachings in order to emphasize the use of Diaprax as well as other false
teachings.
“A New Kind Of Christian”?
“… if you’re
going someplace where no one has ever been a map cannot help you. That’s where the name “Off The Map” comes
from in part. But another
problem with maps is that sometimes they change. (Brian McLaren, A New Kind Of
Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
McLaren makes his first point that Christianity needs to
change with the culture and times.
According to Brian we also apparently need a change of operations
manual, the Bible. The Bible is the
“map” for true Christianity from the beginning to the end. What McLaren proposes is that over time,
like geography, maps change and so our entire perception of reality must change
to keep in lock step with the world.
The basic fact that Jesus Christ never changes, that the truth of God’s
Word never changes and is always applicable no matter what century you come
from, and that Christians are to be light and salt to the world working to change
worldviews to a biblical one is no longer part of the palate of the New Age,
postmodern, “emerging” Christian. This
opens the doors wide to new revelation, a new “Breed”, a new paradigm, and very
old heresies.
I’d like to
show you a slide of a map that changed.
This comes from Honduras in 1998.
A phenomenally strong and destructive hurricane named “Hurricane Mitch”
formed in the Caribbean started moving west.
Everybody expected that it would move over the coast of Central America
as most hurricanes do. I confess to
being a Weather Channel nerd, you know I, so if this were the Weather Channel
they’d be making a motion like this, right about now. And you know, but they expected this hurricane to kind of move
west and the eye of the hurricane would go over the land and when that would
happen the hurricane begins to just desinigrate and fall apart. So you end up with a number of hours of
extremely intense rain and then a day of extremely intense wind and a day or
two of extremely intense rain and then you end up with a tropical storm and a
tropical depression and soon the blue skies are back. But what happened with Hurricane Mitch was as it formed it
started moving west and when it got about forty miles form the coast of
Honduras it stopped and then for the next day it just began to wobble. Two days, three days, fours days, for a
week, for five days it wobbled and then it moved over the shore. What that meant is that for those five days
it was picking up all that warm moist Caribbean air and dropping it on Central
America. You may have heard a terrible
tragedy occurred in Nicaragua where a volcano, you know, that had formed over
thousands and thousands of years from the ash of this volcano creating a huge
cinder cone, well that cinder cone of ash absorbed this rain water day after
day and finally one day, during this rain event, the whole hurricane slumped
all at once and a town at the base of the hurricane was just covered, I’m
sorry, the town at the base of the volcano was covered by the ash and over
30,000 people died in a matter of minutes, they were just wiped out
instantly. It was a horrific effect of
the storm. In Honduras, in downtown
Tegucigalpa, someone who was there told me that the floodwaters reached the 8th
story of buildings. Can you imagine
this? Because in that week 100 inches
of rain fell in Honduras. Now try to imagine over 8 feet of rain fell in
Honduras, and when that rain fell it swelled the rivers as you can imagine. This is the Chulateka River, and what you
see here is a structure that used to be a bridge. We can’t even call it a bridge anymore because by definition a
bridge helps you get from one side of something to another. This doesn’t help you do anything anymore,
because the floodwaters washed the road away on both sides of the bridge and
then when the flood waters receded the riverbed was in a new place. So now this bridge is completely worthless,
except that it is now become a tourist attraction. Because people from the two villages that were connected
by this road and bridge go to the end of the road and sort of wave at the
people they haven’t been able to visit in all of these years. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
I
doubt this last “fact” is true. They
still had ways to see each other by boat, etc.
This is exaggeration to make a point.
But McLaren and the emerging new heretics have no qualms about using
fabrication, exaggeration, disinformation, misrepresentation, vilification,
prevarication and even falsification to achieve a complete brainwash in their
followers.
But I think
this picture is a power metaphor for what happens in our world because 100
inches of rain falls in Honduras falls every year, every two years. What’s unusual though is when 100 inches of
rain is condensed, you see, into a week.
Now I think change is the same way. Change is happening constantly.
But when a lot of change is concentrated in a short amount of time
structures that used to serve become tourist attractions. (Brian
McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: Here is the beginning of the Hegelian Dialectic and McLaren’s “Antitesis”. McLaren is now reducing historical
Christianity to a “tourist attraction” that no longer speaks to our world, is
out of touch, and in fact is completely washed out by the “100 inches of rain”
of time.
And the maps that used to accurately reflect
reality don’t reflect reality anymore.
(Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The
Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: So apparently the Bible,
Christianity and everything we stand for as followers of Christ is now no
longer reflecting reality. The hint at
the Thesis of the Diaprax is that we need pied pipers like McLaren to help us
see the real map through our old tired Christian haze. But you have to remember that this is from a
man who only uses one Bible verse in this entire diatribe and demonstrates
clearly that he does not understand the original “map” to begin with.
And then you have to start adventuring off the
map. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of
Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: Okay, here comes the
Thesis. We not only need new maps, we
need to venture “off the map”. Just
when we think we have come to accept that we need a new map McLaran takes his
audience one step further in order to establish his Thesis. The Antithesis is old useless maps, the Thesis
is off the map, the praxis is coming to understand that we need a new map. This reminds me of a segment on the Seinfeld
show where Elaine and George wreck Jerry’s car so Elaine concocts a tragic
story to cover for the slight ding in Jerry’s car. By the time she has told Jerry about their close escape from
death (Antithesis), and then introduces the ding (Thesis) Jerry is happy to
hear that they only put one ding in his car.
This is an old Diaprax trick, but one that works perfectly with people
who don’t use their brains, with those who are not mature in Christ and have no
discernment.
If you go to
that next slide please. A good
Scripture I think that sets a framework for what we want to talk about in part
this weekend is something that the apostle Peter told the early
Christians. He said “In your heart set
apart Christ as Lord. ALWAYS BE
PREPARED TO GIVE AN ANSWER TO EVERYONE WHO ASKS YOU to give the reason for the hope
that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect.” (Emphasis in original, Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
Let’s
look at the context of 1 Pet. 3:14-17 here, since
McLaren never bothers to do so. “But
even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear
what they fear; do not be frightened." But in your hearts set apart Christ
as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give
the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against
your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better,
if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. This passage is about suffering for
the TRUTH, not trying to change the truth to fit the cultural or worldly
circumstances.
And that phrase “always be prepared” I think is
very significant. It’s not that you can
get prepared once and you’re prepared forever.
It would be like your software, you know, you keep getting upgrades. (Brian
McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
According
to McLaren this verse is talking about getting constant upgrades of the
truth. But in context it is clearly
talking about standing for the historic unchanging truths of God’s Word. In context, then, what McLaren is teaching
is evil. Though it is true that the
Holy Spirit continues to teach us the truths of the will and character of God,
the truths themselves do not change, nor do they need to be upgraded.
And he’s
saying “you have to continually be upgraded in your preparation” because people
are going to continue to ask you new questions. A lot of our churches are very
well prepared for the questions of the 1840’s.
Some are prepared for the 1950’s.
What we call contemporary churches are prepared for the 1970’s. But there are relatively few churches
and few Christians that are still being prepared to deal with the questions of
the new century and new millennium. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian –
Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: How does McLaren know this?
He gives no facts to back this up.
Is the Gospel any less effective when preached today than at any other
time in history? If more people aren’t
calling themselves Christians, is it the fault of the Gospel or the fault of
false teachers like McLaren (who would not know how to preach the Gospel or
have the desire to do so if a ton of bricks fell on his head)? This is another example of Antithesis,
vilifying the past and present in order to bring in a new system of thought.
And one of the
real essentials, the apostle Peter says, is that as we engage with people we do
so with gentleness and respect. And
that’s going to be our tone toward our culture. I try not to do this but occasionally I succumb to
temptation and listen to Christian radio.
And when I do it always frustrates me because the attitude toward our
neighbors and the attitude toward our culture that I hear there is not
gentleness and respect. Generally it’s
an attitude of disgust and disdain. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian –
Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: I know of very few Christian
shows, even the heretical ones, that reflect a bad “attitude” toward the
American culture, unless you are talking about the problem of sin being taught. Apparently McLaren is not concerned with the
problem of sin. He wants Christians to
be so gentle that they do not even deal with the truth of cultural
degradation. What he ignores is that
Paul called the Hebrew culture “dung” in light of the cause of the Gospel (Phil.
3:8). What then is Gentile culture by
comparison? The problem with people
like McLaren is that they have forgotten how to be salt and light, if indeed
they ever were regenerate, and are now preaching a Gospel of tolerance in the
name of “gentleness and respect”. You
can speak the truth in love, but you must speak the truth. I do not hear Christian radio exuding an air
of “disgust and disdain”, but rather of warning and admonition with regard to
the pitfalls of sin, the world, the flesh and the devil.
And so I
would, this weekend we’re going get practice in trying to look at our neighbors
and our culture, including the people who don’t understand or agree with a lot
of what we believe, and instead of talking about how wrong they are
we’re going to try to understand them and treat them with gentleness and
respect and take their questions seriously. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004,
Off The Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: Again, what McLaren means is tolerance without truth. When have Christians NOT taken
non-believer’s questions seriously?
This is not true at all. The
reason for speaking the truth to non-believers is for the very reason that
Christians DO and will CONTINUE to take their questions seriously.
In order to do
that, let me try to give you kind of the history of humanity in about five
minutes. Now in order to do this we
will have to skip a few details, ok? But
we’re gonna start our survey in about 2500 BC in what we call the prehistoric
world. Now I remember when I was a kid and
they talked about prehistory I thought, how can anything be before
history? It was like negative numbers,
I didn’t understand negative numbers, how can you have anything less than zero
you see. But when historians say
prehistory what they mean is before people had written history. (Brian
McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
Obviously
McLaren is not a believer in written records passed down from before the flood
even though their life spans gave them ample time to develop and use written
methods. The records of Genesis are
clear that they were records passed down through the line of Noah, Shem, Terah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. The literary
styles of the different accounts, which are signed by the person who wrote
them, are quite different and suggest that the records were likely in written
form, not oral. For an interesting
study on this subject go here. Christians don’t talk about prehistory, only
evolutionists. There is no such thing
as “prehistory” in Christianity as we have a book written by eyewitnesses going
back to the creation (and before in the case of the information God gave Adam
about creation before Adam was alive).
And when you think about it writing is an
incredible technological advancement. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian –
Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: Again we see he does not
hold those who came before us in high esteem and wants his audience to think
the same way. We are led by Diaprax to
believe that the patriarchs were uneducated boobs, and that only those on the
cutting edge of technology have the wherewithal to write.
In fact this
would be interesting to think about and talk about later on, but when
you invent writing you make possible new levels of economy, economics, new
levels of government, all kinds of new levels of learning and passing on your
learning from generation to generation. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian –
Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT: So then the Bible must be faulty and because we need to disregard
the old “untechnical” stuff, we can be assured that we are the evolved ones who
can decide what to do and believe. We
can make our own rules on the basis that we are more advanced
technologically. This is a tautological
argument based on a myth, but with the goal of shmoozing postmoderns into
thinking they are at the top of the intellectual food chain. What hogwash!
The invention
of writing is an incredible technological advancement. It’s like one hundred inches of rain falling
in a week, it changes the world, and it gives birth to a new world that we call
the ancient world. And this is
the period that goes from about 2500 BC to about 500 AD. And because
of the invention of writing, largely, you have these new economies and new
political systems that become possible and what you end up with is are things
called empires. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright:
2004, Off The Map)
From
approximately 4000 BC. at the time of creation, to 2300 BC about the time of
the flood, people sometimes lived to be over 900 years old. Why would they not have developed writing
during that time? Gen. 6:1 says people
increased on the earth before the flood, and 2 Pet. 2:5 says the world before
the flood was called the ancient world, not prehistory. There were great
civilizations such as the one at Babel and there is lots of biblical evidence
that the people before the flood were not dummies. Why does McLaren say the “ancient world” starts when Noah built
the Ark when the Bible says the world before the flood was the “ancient world”. Also, some of the greatest empires of
mankind are already in the past such as the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and
Roman Empires. If we are realistic we
are living today in the times of the feet of iron mixed with clay, not the head
of gold (Dan. 2). The seven wonders of
the ancient world remind us that we are not necessarily participants in the
most glorious times of this planet, even if we do have technology.
And the
ancient world is a succession of great empires around the Mediterranean. There’s the Sumerian, Acadian, Egyptian, I’m
sorry, stay with that previous slide, the Sumerian, Acadian, Egyptian, Hittite,
Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. And if you know anything about the Bible a
lot of those names are familiar because they’re important characters in the
biblical story. Abraham comes out of
the Sumerian empire. Moses, you’ll
remember, he brings the people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt where
they’d been slaves for 400 years. So
the story starts in the Sumerian empire, it ends up for awhile in the Egyptian
empire. You might remember when they
resettle under Joshua and Caleb and the others in the land of promise eventually
the northern Kingdom is conquered by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians,
its actually it was in modern day Iraq and you got a regime change in Iraq is
nothing new. And after the Babylonians
you had another regime change to the Medo-Persians. They’re the ones who allowed Nehemiah and Ezra and other to go
back and resettle, where the people resettled were living under a series of
empires until the Roman Empire begins and that’s when Jesus comes and the
apostles and they spread the Good News of Jesus across the Roman Empire. But something fascinating happens about 500
AD. The Roman Empire ends through a
whole series of causes. One of them, by
the way, might be the spread of Christianity. Some people think that the Roman Empire ended because when more
people became Christians nobody could sustain the brutality necessary to keep
imperial power. (Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
Hitler
had no problem sustaining the brutality to kill 6 million Jews. Stalin had not problem imprisoning and
killing up to 30 million Christians, Jews and other people who disagreed with
him. I doubt this was the reason for
the demise of the Roman Empire. Today
the world is under attack from Muslims who want to eradicate anyone who will
not bow to their false god. They have
no problem “sustaining” their attack.
The Bible says their power will not end until Jesus Christ Himself
returns to judge them and reigns from the throne of David for a thousand
years.
And so the
idea is that wherever Christianity goes people become less violent and it makes
that, and I wish that were still true, it doesn’t seem to be true anymore
sadly. But around 500 AD also you have
these succession of invading barbarian hordes, the Goths and the Huns and later
the Vikings and the Mongols. But around
500 AD enough of these invaders come and the Roman Empire’s getting brittle and
fragile and the Roman Senate leaves Rome when some invaders come in and they
just disappear and there’s no government left.
Now I come from Washington DC and a lot of people sort of wish that
would happen there but it’s a mess when you have no government, nobodies there
to pay the soldiers, nobodies there to take out the trash, nobodies there to
keep the mail going. And so the
remaining nobles in the city come to the pope, Pope Gregory, and they said
“listen, we’re in a mess, could you help us, could you help us run the
city.” And so something fascinating
happens at 500 AD it’s like 500 inches of rain happening in a week. When you’re done with that period of time
the world, the maps of the world, are different and the new world is what we
call the Middle Ages of the Medieval World and it’s a world where the Church
and the State are working closely together where you don’t have one dominating
political empire but you have the influence of the Church in Western
Civilization at least being the glue that holds civilization together. And it’s a fascinating period, it lasts
about 1000 years. But you get to about
1500 AD and you have another convergence of phenomenal change. You have a new communication technology, the
printing press. Writing was monumental
2500 BC but 1500 AD the printing press changes the world in phenomenal
ways. You have new weapons
technology, you have guns, you have infantry, you have cavalry that changes the
world in phenomenal ways, and artillery changes the world, phenomenal ways. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
The
world had infantry and cavalry back as far as history goes, namely foot
soldiers and mounted troops. This is
misinformation.
You have a spiritual kind of new movement this Reformation
Movement with Martin Luther, which Protestants tend to think was a good thing,
although sometimes we all have our second thoughts. (Brian
McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
Sounds
like he is a cheerleader for the “Church” of the Middle Ages but not the
Reformation. Apparently McLaren is one
of those who has his “second thoughts” about the Reformation. Why?
Because his “emerging church” is totally involved with Catholics and he
has to be very careful about saying anything that would offend them. McLaren demonstrates that his type of
“gentleness and respect” has to do with burying the truth instead of standing
against the many heresies of the Roman Catholic Church since the early third
century.
Then there was
new transportation technology; man that one changed the world. This multi-masted transoceanic
sailing vessel, the Caravel, makes possible all kinds of unbelievable things. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
McLaren
did not do his homework. Multi-masted
ships can be found back as far as the 12th to 15th
century in China which had a huge fleet.
http://www.brlsi.org/proceed02/science017a.htm. They had oceangoing trade ships as far back
as the 9th century. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sultan/explorers.html)
Remember the
Conquistadors, they come to the New World, they bring back literally boatloads
of gold that makes Europe unfathomably rich compared to what they had been
before. It also makes possible them
going down and finding slaves in Africa and exporting slaves around the world,
tragic consequences. It also makes possible
the influx of huge numbers of new people into the New World and so many
of our ancestors came here and stole the lands of the people who lived here,
the thought never crossed out mind that they belonged here and that they’d
owned these lands, we just took ‘em. (Brian
McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX
ALERT: McLaren is a master of
generalization because stealing was not universally true of every European who
came to the “New World”. This is the
same line the Indigenous Peoples Movement uses in vilifying white men,
including missionaries who came to help.
One sign of Diaprax is the usage of generalization.
And in
addition to taking the lands we brought with us gifts: smallpox, venereal
disease, we killed millions and millions of people through our diseases. The world changed, the maps changed, because
of this new transportation technology.
New ways of thinking, we don’t have time to get into, but a whole new
view of the universe, in fact if you go to the next slide Copernicus and
Galileo come up with this small adjustment in the map of the universe. Instead of the earth being in the center
with ten concentric spheres, each of which holds the planets and stars, they
make a slight adjustment, “let’s put the sun in the center”. And boy with this you have to hear shrieks
of anguish, because people had thought that this view of the world with the
earth in the center and the Bible went right together and if you bring down
that earth-centered view of the world they thought the Bible, the Gospel, the
Church, the Christian faith will go down with it and there was bitter debate
and bitter argument. It wasn’t
just the Catholics who opposed this, Martin Luther, John Calvin, they all were
against Copernicus and their successors were against Galileo as well. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
Whose
fault was this wrong view of astronomy?
Not the patriarchs! Perhaps if
those Christians McClaren mentions had read their Bibles they would have known
that the earth was not flat (Isaiah 40:22). He
sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out
the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. It was mainly the
Catholics who opposed this view. The
view of an earth-centered solar system was predominant in the Middle Ages, not
necessarily earlier or later.
And
so amazing changes happened 500 years ago and brought us to this new world that
we call the modern world. Let’s say
it’s born in 1500, let’s say that it kind of reaches its adulthood in about
1750, and let’s say right now it’s in the
prime of life. But many of us believe that in the last 50
years or so, a lot of us believe another 100 inches of rain has been falling
and that our world is going through another
major change in its landscape. (Brian
McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
If the modern world is in its prime, how can it be
changing again? If it is in its prime,
which is debatable, then the next change would be devolutionary.
Not
everybody agrees with this but a lot of people, more and more people, are
starting to think “yes, something’s going on” and what we’ve grown used to as
the modern world is now giving birth to some new kind of world, a world that’s
different. When you think about it,
there’s new communication technology.
First you have the telephone, telegraph, telephone, but then you have
the television and the screen and then the Internet and it’s very hard to
overestimate how much the world will change because of these new communication
technologies. It’s very hard to
underestimate, to overestimate it. In fact I just was hearing recently about a theory that’s
out right now that says when you write with your hand you write with, most
people with their right hand, which strengthens the left side of the brain. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off
The Map)
What about left handed and ambidextrous people? Apparently they are the stupid minority.
And
there’s a theory that’s developing now that says when most of your
communication is done, written communication
is done through typing what you strengthen is the interaction of both sides of
the brain and they believe that we are going through a major neural rewiring
right now. It could be true. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
McLaren debunks his own theses by subsequently claiming
that ambidextrous people are more evolved than right handed or left handed
people? What about humans who have
always worked with both their hands through the millennia? Why is this now some kind of radical new
move. Maybe for couch potatoes, but
there are many jobs that require equal use of both hands. I’m guessing that McLaren perhaps missed out
on this experience, if this ridiculous sermon is any indication.
A
whole new approach to science. How many of you were taught that the world, that
matter is composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons? Yeh, I mean that is so 20th
Century. You have no idea what they’re talking about now, it’s a whole new
understanding of science. (Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
The fact is we are still eons away from understanding almost
anything, and true believers understand that the more we understand the more we
understand what we don’t know. Worldly
science will always be a rat’s nest of egomania and headlong conclusions
without adequate support. This is
because most scientists are spending their entire lives trying to prove there
is no God instead of believing the eyewitness accounts in the Bible.
And
we don’t even have to say anything about new weapons technology. I mean if guns and cannons changed the world
500 years ago, think about atom bombs in the last 60 or so years. And then
think about biological and chemical weapons and think about terrorism and
suicide bombers and you start to get a feel for, who knows how that will change
the world. New transportation, think
about how airplanes change the world, cars, trains, automobiles, I’m not just
thinking about the movie with John Candy and Steve Martin although it was a
pretty funny movie. New spirituality, whole new approach to spirituality. 50 years ago people thought that religion
was on its way out. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
The press thought God was dead, yes. The true Church, no. At least the church I went to.
50
years ago people thought that science and government would answer all of
humanities questions and that religion, the sun was setting. But now everybody knows this spirituality is
here to stay. People seem to be
incurably religious. So our choice is not between religion and no religion, our
choice is between good religion and bad religion. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off
The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT:
There is only false religion and true religion, not “good religion and
bad religion”. This is a very Pelegian viewpoint. Sounds like McLaren has been spending too much time becoming a
“Jedi” learning about the dark and light side of the “force” and less time
studying to show himself approved by God.
And
then whole new ways of thinking that we could talk more about if we had more
time. One scientist or historian of
philosophy and science Tomas Kune described it like this “When you have a
hundred inches of rainfall you have a period of time where people have an old
paradigm, or an old methodology and an old way of thinking. Then
there’s an early transition period when people are very negative and very
cynical, very critical, they’re angry about how the old system doesn’t answer
the questions anymore.
(Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of
Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT: Is he talking about a new paradigm or
rainfall? If the analogy is rainfall
then when it floods people just try to get out of the way and deal with the
aftermath. If he is being true to his
metaphor, McLaren is basically teaching that we need to get out of the way of
this new paradigm and let it flood in.
This is brainwashing.
And
that frustration eventually gives way to a late transition period where then people start saying “It’s not enough to complain about
how bad the old system is, let’s start dreaming about the new system” and that
gives birth to this new system or new paradigm. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off
The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT: I think it is McLaren who is dreaming! The claim is made that the old system is
washed out, those who support it are negative, so we have no choice but to
adopt a new system we are all “dreaming” into existence. This is totally against the ultimate
revelation and authority of the Bible.
We are not to “dream” new truth into reality, but are to apply the tried
and true “old” truths of the Bible to our present circumstance and teach
Christians how to think biblically.
And
a number of people, I’m one of them, think that we’re not in that new paradigm
yet, we’re far from there but we’re in this transition period. Some of us are in the negative stage, others
of us are just trying to get a little more constructive, but we don’t know what
this new paradigm is going to be yet. But we’re in the process and there’s this sense that the
new road hasn’t been built, the new bridge hasn’t been built, but a lot of us
are saying the old one doesn’t seem to be working anymore. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off
The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT: What a statement to make! The bridge of historical Christianity and
timeless truth “doesn’t seem to be working anymore”, so we need to build a new
one. This is classic Hegelian
Dialectic. Vilify the old, get people
to come to consensus on the new.
A
scientist looking back on Albert Einstein and a lot of his discoveries that
contributed to the new science, said “A new
scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them
see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new
generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
And if that’s true in the world of
science, how much more true would it be in the world of religion where so much
more is at stake. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT: So we
cannot argue for the Gospel anymore, but simply wait for a new generation to
come along and redefine and live with what it deems to be the light? This is dangerous stuff. It spells the death of historical
Christianity and the birth of a new postmodern, subjective, existential,
relativist, self-serving worldview that will basically damn a whole generation
to hell because they have “done what is right in their own eyes” and
disregarded the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ!
And
so many of us find ourselves struggling with old paradigms and old ways of
thinking. We really love that old bridge
and the fact that it’s not working anymore really causes us pain. What we
want to do is get out the bulldozers and dig out the riverbed and get the river
back where it belongs and bring in some fill dirt and make everything the way
it used to be. But others of us are
saying, “Well no, this is the new world, change happens, we’ve got to figure
out how to deal with it.” (Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT: So to stay with this ridiculous analogy, we either have to
(1) stick to the original map or (2) let the flood define a new map and then we
will just have to deal with reality when it comes. The message here is that the old is bad, the new is good. Therefore we must follow the gurus who have
a handle on how to navigate these new extra-biblical waters, like McLaren (as
luck would have it).
God
isn’t walking around in heaven going (hits head) “Oh Myself, what am I going to
do about this” you know. He’s not
upset, He’s not worried, you know His blood pressure, He’s not in a nervous
breakdown danger zone. But rather God
is with us through all these changes, you know these past storms, these past
epochal changes, these paradigm changes of the past, they didn’t surprise God
and that we feel that we can cope with it.
And so that’s what we’re going to be talking about this weekend. What does it mean to be Christians? What would it
mean if you became a very, very effective modern Christian and then the world changed
under your feet into a postmodern world and you were still practicing your
faith for a world that no longer exists?
What would that mean? (Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
DIAPRAX ALERT:
Here is the crux. Antithesis, the old is no longer effective. Thesis, the new has not come yet. Praxis, we need to go with the flow to be
effective.
They challenging
questions and they are a little bit scary, but that’s what we’re gonna be
thinking about this weekend. (Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
These questions are only scary in the context as
presented. Out of that context the
Bible and Jesus Christ are the same forever.
Gonna
bring Jim Henderson up and Jim’s, actually what I’d like to do right now is,
before I bring Jim up, is say, a little exercise for you. I’d like
you to stand up and find one or two people, preferably not someone you came
with, and I would like you to just talk about what we just considered together. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off
The Map)
PRAXIS: This is what McLaren has
considered. Now he is using praxis –
the final process of HD/Diaprax – to get others to consider and come to
consensus on what he has presented.
This is the last step in brain washing.
If he is able to bring the crowd (which was very small if you watch the
video) to consensus on what he has presented, then they have given up their own
ideas and replaced them with those of McLaren.
Was
there something that you thought was especially interesting or appropriate or
is there something you really have questions about or disagree with, but what’s your dominate impression of this, and we’re gonna give you five minutes
to have a little conference about that, but please do it standing up with no
more than two or three people and it wouldn’t hurt to exchange names either. (Music comes up, the song by Avril Lavigne a non-believer pop
singer, “Complicated”: Tell me, Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else gets me frustrated.
Life's like this you know.
(Brian McLaren, A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
McLaren
wants people to summarize, to find the “dominate impression” of what he has
just said. There will be no real
disagreement, as we can see in the later questions and comments, thus they are
likely to agree with his basic premise, which is wrong. Christianity does not need a retooling to
deal with postmodern society.
Postmodern society needs a retooling to deal with the Word of God! Notice McLaren uses a pop song by and
unbeliever to drive home his point that the people need to chill out and stop
acting like judgmental Christians.
DISCUSSION
PERIOD
QUESTION
ANSWER PERIOD (Dan & Brian)
Dan: … In the
aisle here and here’s what we’d like to do.
What we want to do is find out, you know we each talked to somebody and
I’d like to know first of all to start this off, what did you hear somebody tell
you that you thought was interesting or insightful and maybe you know their
name, you can just stand up, if you just raise your hand we’ve got a couple of
mikes here we want to get to you. What
did you hear somebody say that you thought was insightful or helpful or
interesting? Raise your hand, you know
tell on somebody that you thought was pretty smart or had something interesting
to say. Ok. Nobody’s smart, I see, hmmm?
Nobody said anything interesting?
There’s a hand, would you stand up please? Who’s that?
June: Hi, I’m June.
Dan: We’re not going to hand you the microphones, it’s
a rule, nothing personal.
June: Sorry Dan, I’m gonna share a little bit of what
my friend down there said to me. We were
talking about how it’s a general concept that sometimes this is a younger
phenomenon that this is kind of a youth sort of thing and my friend here works
with women’s ministries very frequently and she said that she is finding a lot
it also in the Oprah generation as she called it, which I thought was pretty
profound.
Dan: You thought that people like us wouldn’t get it?
(Laughter) I understand. We’re kinda surprised ourselves actually.
June: Yeh, we
think you are a little behind the ball on that.
Dan: Ok, so that’s interesting. So surprised that some older people get
it. Anybody else had an
observation? Somebody else? What did you hear Brian say that you thought
was interesting or maybe you had a question about, something you’d just like to
comment on? Anybody have a thought
about that? You want to stand up? What’s your name please?
Kathy: Kathy.
Dan: Hi Kathy.
Kathy: Hi. We
talked about how the comment about the Christian radio station caught us
because we feel like that there’s a whole continuum on that as well as far as
from the very conservative to the very liberal and basically everything
inbetween.
Dan: Tell me a little bit more about your question, you
mean you caught, explain, go into a little more detail.
Kathy: Yeh
basically you just made the comment about that you tried not to listen to
Christian radio because you wanted to expand, I assume you were wanting to
expand your horizons and know what other people out there listen to and this
and that, that said that even within Christian radio itself there is that
broadness too that even as Christians we pick and choose which ones we want to
listen to.
Brian: That’s a
really good point, although it makes me wish I had your Christian radio station
around because where I live there is not much of a spectrum. Although there might be variety in music,
the content that’s behind it I think is all very much a form of Christianity
that made a lot of sense in the modern world but makes a lot less sense in an
emerging postmodern world.
Dan: So anyone else?
Thoughts, comments you have? Yes
sir, in that back here.
Randy: My name is Randy and how would the phenomenon of
the mega churches fit, is that still part of the old paradigm, cause it appears
to be quite successful as far as the numbers of people that it’s drawing, but
where would that fit in that explanation?
Dan: Just for a comment on that what he is addressing
is in Protestant evangelicalism for those of you that are not from that tradition,
there’s a phenomenon of mega churches and that have a lot of visibility and
he’s wondering about it fitting into the world that Brian’s talking about.
Brian: That’s a great question. Maybe my best answer to that would
be, I’m for all kinds of churches, big ones, small ones, organized,
disorganized, liturgical, non-liturgical, loud, quiet, I mean I think their all
great. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright:
2004, Off The Map)
Disorganized
churches? The Church is not to be one
of confusion and disorder according to the Bible (1 Cor. 14:33 & 40, James
3:16, 2 Thes. 3:6-7).
Brian: But I think in the modern world there is
this hostility from the culture, especially the educated culture, toward
religion and hostility basically was science and government will have all the
answers as we said. And religion was
marginalized; it was seen as a personal, private thing. If you need it, it’s sort of a crutch,
strong people sort of get on with their lives.
And I think in that setting it makes a whole lot of sense to get really
big churches. Because it’s a way
of us saying “We’re strong, we’re important, we’re not insignificant, we’re not
marginalized” and think there’s a lot of momentum toward that. (Brian McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1,
Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
This
is Dominionism. The fact is that the Church will ALWAYS be marginalized in
society until the Lord Jesus Christ returns.
We are a remnant (Rom. 11:5), a little flock (Luke 12:32), a few who
will find the narrow way (Matt. 7:14).
We are to be light and salt, not dominant in the cultures. If this is the reason for mega churches and
emerging churches, then it is the wrong reason and the broad road and gate.
Brian: Its interesting as you move into a different
setting where instead of saying religion is out, it’s more like this
“Hey, that’s cool, whatever you’re into, whatever you believe, that’s cool.” At that
point then proving something by numbers becomes less important. Now it doesn’t mean numbers are bad, but
what becomes more important is what do you prove by how you live. So I think the question that is going be
really foremost on our minds is not what approaches to church help us build the
biggest churches, but what approaches to the Christian life help us make
the best Christians. And if large churches can do that, and small
and medium size can, its all great. But
the question is what kind of Christians are we producing. That I think is the one to really pay
attention to. Great question. (Brian
McLaren , A New Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
Whatever
you believe is cool? Is this what it
means to be a “best Christian”? Are we
the ones producing Christians, or is the Holy Spirit? We disciple but we do not “produce” Christians. God does that through individual faith and
commitment. Apparently McLaren is
wholly unaware of this concept.
Dan: Someone else?
Question coming? Right down here
in front. John. And this is?
Steve: I’m Steve.
We were talking and they asked me a question and I realized we were
talking and I didn’t really answer it completely, they asked me so what kind of
church is my church? Is it a postmodern
church, the church I pastor, is it not a modern church, and maybe like a lot of
em goin here the reality is, yes, its all of those things, I’ve got people who
are very postmodern and some of them don’t just understand postmoderny and
maybe I’ve got some 60 year olds that I would consider postmoderns, but the
reality is when I teach, when you teach and when you do church the postmoderns
and of all age spectrums then the moderns don’t get it. And then when you do church to moderns the
postmoderns are like stinted and I take it at some point you’re going to talk,
maybe this weekend, in this blended generational, this transitional stage, man
how do you do it for everybody, you know.
Dan: Your book, Reinventing Church, addresses this
issue because your own church went through this process, right.
Brian:
Yeh. It’s actually the book’s called
“Church On The Other Side” but … the situation that we face now in this
time of change, I think, is very analogous to the first century church where
all the first Christians were Jewish and they felt they had the inside track,
and then the Holy Spirit messes things up and invites Gentiles into the
kingdom of God. (Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
This
is a completely erroneous way to teach this.
Bringing Gentiles into the kingdom was ALWAYS God’s plan (Ps. 86:9) and
the Jews should have seen it. On the
other hand, incorporating New Age ideas so that we will be “better Christians”
by saying “whatever you believe is cool” has NEVER been a part of God’s plan. The Holy Spirit does not mess anything
up. God is not messy. God is the ultimate in order. This is heresy and blasphemy. It sounds like the teachings of other
heretics like Tommy Tenney, Benny Hinn, John Arnott, John Kilpatrick, etc.
Brian: And no these inside track Jewish people have
to welcome in these barbarian Gentiles.
And we face a very similar situation.
All the Christians in the world right now are either modern or
pre-modern. And now we have to say are
we willing to welcome in these new people and the Scripture that always comes
to mind in this is 1 Cor. 13. It’s not
just for weddings anymore. 1
Cor. 13 is really about Jews and Gentiles loving each other, people of
different cultures. So I would say
today when we say how do we get moderns and postmoderns first of all the burden
should be on the moderns because their the ones with the heritage, their the
ones who ought to be able to be flexible and be understanding. But it goes both ways, they have to be
patient, kind, not take into account wrongs suffered, not be rude, all the
rest. 1 Cor. 13 is a great one for us
to go deep with. (Brian McLaren , A New
Kind Of Christian – Part 1, Copyright: 2004, Off The Map)
1 Cor. 13 is speaking to the Church, in
particular the Gentile church at Corinth, and is not addressing the relationship
between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
It is how we are to act toward one another in the Church, and live a
Christian life. This is not about
accepting other religions and cultures are “valid”. That we ought to love each other, as bothers in Christ, is
true. That we need to accept a false
belief system like postmodernism without question is not what the Bible
teaches.
Conclusion
Brian
McLaren is a dangerous heretical teacher.
The concepts he is brainwashing people with will, indeed, produce a new
kind of “Christian” – one without grounding in the Word of God or the desire to
obey the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the
type of church system people like Dave Hunt warned us was coming in his book
“The Seduction Of Christianity” long ago, but few would accept that the New Age
would take over the churches. The
“Emerging Church” is merging Christianity with other religions in order to
attract the world. But it is merely
bringing the world to the world, not the Word to the world. If this type of teaching is successful in
brainwashing this generation, we are on the verge of the complete demise of
Christianity in our time. Then we will
begin to understand the question Jesus asked with regard to His return:
Luke 18:8 I
tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the
Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"