McLaren, Brian Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words HarperOne – an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY. Copyright © 2011 by Brian D. McLaren.

By Bill Dahl

Beyond Beautiful – or – It’s Wednesday – But Sunday’s A Comin’

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas has said, “Theology is not best understood as a system — narrative might have something to do with theology.”[i] Narrative is fine Stanley – but I’d like some tools that have practical application to my life, and those around me, as a person of faith. I’d also like some boots on the ground authenticity from the real life experiences of a fellow sojourner.

Enter Brian McLaren – Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words. Here’s the honest truth about the impact this book had on my life:

I had just finished Chapter 20 “Why – When You Have Come to Zero.” My wife arrived home from work. She began to prepare dinner and I wandered into the kitchen to catch up together on the day’s events – an uneventful Wednesday.

As we stood there chatting, the phone rang. It was our daughter Liz calling from her home in Utah. Liz and her fiancée Aaron had buried Aaron’s mother on Monday – just two days ago. They had just received a phone call – Aaron’s father had been killed in a car crash.

We concluded the tearful call with our daughter. I went into another room and sat silently – questions, remorse, sorrow, anger, dismay, confusion – ricocheting throughout my being. We ate half our dinner and adjourned to a couch. Jacki looked at me – sorrow and befuddled are two words that were embossed on her facial expression. We were both at zero – in shock – wounded – naked and fully exposed to the unconscionable in life. I leaned forward, grabbed my reading glasses and Brian’s book. I turned to the first page of Chapter 20 and read the chapter aloud to my wife.

I looked up and closed the book. “Beautiful?” I remarked, gazing at my wife. – “Beyond Beautiful,” she replied – as restorative waves of soothing, healing truth rolled through our souls.

In Naked Spirituality – A Life With God in 12 Simple Words Brian McLaren gets real with God, with life, the seasons inherent within human existence – sharing his boots on the ground experience as a fellow sojourner. Another formulaic, step-by-step, overly simplistic, bogus promise-laden landmine from an over-caffeinated evangelical Christian? Not Hardly.

At this stage in life, I need to learn from the experience of others…others who live in my world…the real world – the world of faith that Brian McLaren lives in. I’m worn out on opinions, perspectives and narrative nonsense of people trying to sell books – suggesting that “if you do this, you’ll be fine.”

In this book, Brian shares his own personal life lessons that are raw, real and uncut. McLaren’s dance with language provides hues of color that I had overlooked in the life of. He provides vistas and vantage points where the reader can stand side-by-side with him gazing beyond what we are presently able to visualize. There’s no artificial ingredients in the flavors McLaren serves up.

Take a seat with Brian McLaren – at his table – The table of life with the living God. Enjoy the feast that Naked Spirituality provides – one course at a time. Savor the tender, succulent, mysterious seasonings contained in each course: Here, Thanks, O, Sorry, Help, Please, When, No, Why, Behold, Yes and Silence.

No, this is not another fast-food systematic theology or another bland narrative. For us, Naked Spirituality is a unique and nutritious innovation from Brian McLaren – as he continues to evolve his craft in delivering fare for the faithful. There’s one thing that separates Brian from the rest of the authors in faith and culture – he has eaten his own stuff before he allows anybody else to sample it in print. He readily identifies the faith dishes he has dined on, admits the tastes he has worn out, the spices that have turned out to be bland, the sinew of life he has choked on – the wards of people he has encountered, hospitalized after being poisoned with the fare of faith served up with a seal of God attached to it.

“Beautiful?” – “Yes – Beyond Beautiful.”

For us, this book was, and shall be, both a timely and enduring blessing. For us, it was It’s Wednesday – But Sunday’s a Comin’.

Forgive me Tony – Thank you Brian!

Please pray for our daughter Liz, son-in-law Aaron and their daughter Rebekka.

This book is precious – so is life – so is the privilege of relationship with the living God – here – today – in any and all circumstances – even when you’re at zero….or not.

NOTES

You can reach Bill Dahl at http://www.BillDahl.net or http://www.ThePorpoiseDivingLife.com

About The Reviewer – Bill Dahl

Bill Dahl is a creative thinker, freelance writer, and social observer/commentator. He is an ongoing contributor to the dialog in the faith and culture, economics and creative thinking arenas. He has been characterized as a gifted story teller.

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[This article first appeared in the Apr08 issue of Next-Wave. You can click here to browse the other articles in that issue: http://www.the-next-wave.info/archives/issue112/index.cfm.html ]

This month we’re featuring two different interactions with Brian McLaren and his recent book Everything Must Change, this one and one by David Fitch, the author of The Great Giveaway. Enjoy!

Brian, I have 3 concerns from your book that linger:

The apparent absence of the CHURCH as God’s primary instrument in accomplishing his mission on earth – and the gaping hole in your book where the example of equality and justice in the early church of Acts 2-4 should have been, in my humble opinion. [i read recently that the love feast happened daily in homes and the poor could always find a meal with the believers - a justice element in the lords supper that has gone by the wayside]

Great point. Because I decided to limit my focus to Jesus, I didn’t bring in a lot of stuff from Acts and the Epistles that I could have (except one chapter to show that Paul is part of the revolution, so to speak, not a traitor to it as so many think) … Limiting my focus to Jesus kept me from bringing in much about the church per se, or from church history – or from the Old Testament, for that matter – each of which could be a book in itself. A church history written from this perspective would be powerful – kind of a 21st century re-write of Broadbent’s “The Pilgrim Church” (which I’ll bet you’ve read, but if not, it’s worth finding in a used book shop or seminary library).

One of the things that I hope the book does (by understatement, perhaps?) is help people think of “church” in broader ways. For example, I don’t think that the church per se is going to intentionally solve economic problems in Africa. But churches will inspire entrepreneurs and activists and politicians and health care workers and community organizers and film-makers, etc., to work together in ways that will bring more and more healing. In this way, “church work” is building up the church, but “the work of the church” is doing kingdom work in our daily lives and jobs, from business to art to government to education to agriculture to whatever.

. . . however, you have already written a great book (the church on the other side) where you affirm your faith in the body of Christ and you also are choosing to speak to the church in your Deep Shift tour which tells me you actually DO see the primacy of the church . . .

Yes. I was deeply impacted a few years ago by Alan Roxburgh at one of our events (you may have been there?) when he said, the church is like a person who gets invited to a party and only talks about himself. I’ve been thinking that we get into a syndrome of trying to save our lives denominationally, etc, which makes us lose them … when instead, our churches need to lose our lives, pour ourselves out for the sake of the world, become more interested in joining God in caring for the world than in getting God to join us in caring for ourselves, that sort of thing. But of course, at heart I’ll always be a pastor, and in the end, none of this matters unless it’s embedded in local churches of whatever form. My next book will lean back in that direction – it’s on spiritual formation and disciplines, etc.

The apparent absence of HOPE in your view of future things. Maybe I missed it but you don’t seem to acknowledge hope in the afterlife, resurrection of the dead, etc in your book and i had to guess whether you had walked away from these foundational orthodox doctrines or you were focusing exclusively on the immanence of the gospel in today’s world for effect.

Again, I set a pretty specific goal for myself in this book: to explore global crises and what the message of Jesus says to those crises. I did address life after death in Secret Message of Jesus, chapter 20. So I haven’t walked away from hope in the afterlife, etc. If anything, I see more than ever how hope in the afterlife is necessary to keep us going when progress in this life seems slow or nonexistent.

BTW – have you read Andrew Perriman’s books “The Coming of the Son of Man” or “Re:Mission”? He’s opened up a lot of new questions for me regarding eschatology. I’d love to know what you think of his work if you’ve had time to look at it. He takes NT Wright’s stuff and extends it a step farther, I think. Jay Gary’s work (he has a great website) also has been forcing me to rethink my eschatology along similar lines.

Yeah – I was with Andrew Perriman a few months ago in Amsterdam and I really like his books AND the questions he brings to the text. Similar questions as Wright, ie, “What were the disciples THINKING when Jesus said that?

Hey Brian, in your book you seem to embrace a non-spiritual understanding of structures and powers. The Africans would generally hold to the presence of angels and demons behind things, a supernatural view of structures as well as natural. Philip Jenkins seems to land on the western side also on this issue. I don’t think one could claim to represent African theology without addressing that issue.

I’ve talked with lots of Africans about this. It’s really complex. I’ve had a couple of personal experiences with “dark powers,” so I certainly don’t write them off. But I also think that the language used in Africa (and in a lot of Pentecostalism elsewhere) thinks it grasps these unseen realities more than it really does. So I probably lean more toward Walter Wink than either John Spong or Benny Hinn … these forces are real, deadly real. But I think that the language of devils, etc., which I think may have been borrowed by the Jews from the Zoroastrians during the exile, is no more precise than our language of waves and particles in trying to grasp light … which is truly real but which eludes our ability to define very well. So I wouldn’t call my understanding “non-spiritual.” It’s just that I think the spirituality of evil is non-dualistic, meaning it gets embodied in people and organizations etc., in their “spirit” … but I would be the first to say I have a lot to learn on this. Sometime when we’re together, I’ll tell you about some of the fascinating conversations I’ve had with Africans … from common people to theologians – on the subject of demons and tribal cosmology in general.

Fair enough. And I know that you appreciated “Colossians Remixed”. And finally . . . Number 3. An uncritical appraisal of the liberation theology movement from Latin America – there are libraries full of writings on this. I am sure you have read the criticisms (David Bosch in ‘Transforming Mission’ is good) and have your own but your book appears almost giddy and accepting without reservation -

Wow, this is really interesting … I honestly can’t imagine why you’d say this. I quote Leonardo Boff several times – but I don’t think I quote any other liberation theologians (maybe Jon Sobrino, whom I’ve tried to read in Spanish, but didn’t succeed very well!), and I think I agree with David Bosch 100% – on just about everything! (BTW – I got to know his beautiful widow in Praetoria. She’s planning to join us in Rwanda in May – maybe you could come? Let me know if you think you could swing it – it’s May 20-27)

Boff is neither Marxist nor violent by any stretch of the imagination … I think you could say he got into trouble with the pope not for his economics but for being too Protestant in advocating the priesthood of all believers! Maybe you saw something I don’t remember writing. Can you give me a specific where you think I am giddy about liberation theologians? Also, which are you critical of, and what ideas of theirs? It’s commonly said in Evangelical settings in the US that liberation theologians are Marxists, advocating violent revolution, etc., but it’s interesting: in Latin America or Africa, I’ve never heard anyone say anything like this – I think they abandoned that thinking in the 80′s or maybe even the 70′s. Everyone I met in Latin America would consider anyone advocating violence as crazy … I did quote Rene Padilla’s good insight about Marxism. He said that in Latin America, people say Capitalism is very good at production but bad at distribution. Marxism is good at distribution but terrible at production – which means the best they can do is distribute poverty evenly! The hope, clearly, is with finding ways to make capitalism more humane, compassionate, collaborative and sustainable – at least, that’s how I see it.

Ahhhh. Forgive me for misjudging. I really like Padilla’s thinking. I must have just reacted badly and assumed things that were not accurate.
Brian, your view on the last things has a few of us guessing. How does your eschatological position compare with . . say . . an evangelical post-millenial view? And do you believe in life after death?

Just to be super clear … YES! I believe in life after death! I find it hard to line up my views with conventional pre, post, or amillenial views because I think they are all based on an assumption I don’t share, i.e. that the book of Revelation is intended to tell us how the world will end. This view presupposes a deterministic view of history, which I don’t share. I suppose I’m more Wesleyan and Anabaptist in this regard than Calvinist. Anyway, I talk about this in detail in SMJ, and refer to it briefly in EMC – I believe the Book of Revelation is an example of Jewish Apocalyptic which, although it may be concerned with the end of the age, is not really talking about the end of the world at all. In this, I follow NT Wright’s general line of thought, so if I’m off the ranch, so is he. I see Biblical prophecy in terms of warnings and promises, which are different from prognostications. If I had to put a name on my eschatology, I suppose I would call it “Participatory” – meaning that God invites us to participate in God’s ongoing work in the world, leading to the ultimate victory of all that is good and the ultimate defeat of evil. Beyond that, there are a lot of eschatological details I was much surer about twenty years ago when I read the Bible less and popular end-times books more!

You seem to be calling the American church to a new level of repentance, one that is deeper and more connected with structures. How has the response been?

My loyal critics are by and large ignoring this book (so far), or if they pay attention to it – this is very sad to me – they generally ignore everything about poverty, war, and environmental destruction, and focus on doctrinal issues they disagree with me about. Sheesh. I can only hope that someone they agree with theologically will get them thinking more seriously about global crises. Apart from these loyal critics, though, response is really encouraging. People are telling me they are coming to faith or back to faith through the book … and they are feeling more confident to call themselves followers of Jesus when Jesus is presented not just as a fire escape and savior from the world, but as a liberating king and savior of the world. I am also hearing privately from some “big names” who can’t afford to associate with me publicly because of all the nastiness in the American religious world, but who are thankful for the book and affirming of its message.

I’m really grateful that you wrote, Andrew, and I hope we can go go-karting or something equally fun and good together before too long. I always meet people for whom you and your website are an oasis in the desert and a source of hope … I really appreciate your friendship. Warmly, in Christ – Brian

Go-Karting again would be great. Here is a photo of us and our wives at the 2002 Go-Kart race in Prague. Thanks for your helpful responses to my crass questions. Look forward to our next chat. Glad to be your friend, Andrew.

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Next-Wave:

McLaren: It’s all been kind of strange, and I try not to think about it too much. The good news is that I continue to get a strong stream of emails, letters, etc., saying that my work is helping people.  These notes are often very moving — like bring-tears-to-your-eyes moving — and they help me not be preoccupied with the people who think I’m a villain, heretic, and all-around bad guy.  I’m not a fighter by nature … so I don’t like controversy.  At heart I’m a contemplative, so this much attention can be rough.  At least I don’t have to worry about that verse, “Woe to you when all people speak well of you” any more! Processing all this and seeking to respond in a God-honoring way is a great growth opportunity for character, prayer life, etc.

Next-Wave: Some of us hope that the “Last Word” is not the last word from Dan Poole and his friend, Neil Oliver, is saying ‘to hell’ with hell the last we are going hear from these characters?

McLaren: I hadn’t planned on taking them any farther.  But you never know. Sometimes I think about picking up one of the minor characters someday.

Next-Wave: Why is hell such a thorny issue for Christians?

McLaren: All of us who have a high view of Scripture don’t want to blunt its sharp edges; we want to be faithful to Scripture, and to God — even when it’s hard to do so.  Yet — as I try to show in the book — the Bible’s treatment of hell and judgment is significantly more nuanced, multifaceted, and rich than the conventional teaching we often hear. Grappling with the Bible’s complex of teachings on hell and judgment seems to run up against the picture of God we get in the Bible: how do we reconcile the two?  That’s not easy.  It calls into question our hermeneutic (way of interpreting) as well.  What do we do with a subject that is never mentioned in the Old Testament, that arises in the Inter-testamental period and is not universally accepted (except by Jesus’ main antagonists), and then is handled by Jesus in fascinating, sophisticated ways? Add to that the varied ways the apostles deal with the subject (or don’t deal with it) … and you have a pretty challenging situation.

Next-Wave: Is it true that your book is saying that “hell” is a myth?

McLaren: No.  I never say anything like that.

Next-Wave: In your experience as a pastor, have you found that “hell” serves as a deterrent for sin?

McLaren: Not very much.  Most Christians feel that they don’t need to face any sort of judgment, much less hell.  The only people who need to worry about hell, in their minds, are the people who generally don’t worry about it.

I think if we had a stronger sense of the reality, presence, purpose, love, holiness, justice, and inevitability of God … that would strengthen sin-deterrence powerfully.

But in the end, I think it’s more our practices that help us avoid sin, not only our concepts.

Next-Wave: What’s at issue with the four main Christian perspectives on the afterlife—exclusivism, inclusivism, conditionalism and universalism, and what difference does it make to an ordinary Christian who isn’t interested in rhetorical analysis or systematic theology?

McLaren: I think that people can be good Christians with any of these views, and I also think they can be bad Christians.  One of my biggest concerns, though, is that a hell-focused understanding of the gospel distracts us from the real message of Jesus – which is the kingdom of God.  I think what would help us most would be a kingdom-focused understanding of the gospel, and I hope this book prepares the way for that.

Next-Wave: Your book proposes a new understanding of the relationship between justice and mercy in the Bible and in God’s character. Could you explain?

McLaren: With this book, I feel a lot like the dancer who was asked what her performance meant. She replied, “If I could have said it, I wouldn’t have had to dance it.” So it’s hard to sum up, but let me frame it in this way, as a question: what if justice and mercy aren’t two separate things, but rather two sides of the same thing, namely, goodness?  What if God’s justice is always merciful and God’s mercy is always just?  What if the two aren’t opposed to one another, but rather are integrated in God, just as they are in, say, a good parent or teacher or judge or king?  This is one of Jesus’ main points, I believe, in the sermon on the mount: it’s one of the ways that his “righteousness” exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees: their justice lacks mercy, but for Jesus, the two always go together.

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