Repost - The Immutability of god: Its Truth and Relevancy - The Challenge of McLaren and Process Theology

In recent weeks, we have discussed in some detail the important (and often ignored) doctrine of God's Immutability.  We have established its importance, its Biblical foundation, a number of Scriptural challenges, a recent rejection (in Tony Jones, but more could be give), and now we turn to perhaps the most prominent theological movement that stands in contrast to this wonderful doctrine, namely Process Theology and Open Theism.

Process Theology argues that God is always changing, or progressing.  Open Theism is primarily concerned with getting God off the hook over theodicy (or the problem of evil).  If God is good then why is there so much evil, suffering, war, injustice, poverty, and death in the world?  Both beliefs argue that since the world is always changing (and evolving), then so does God.  God is always changing, adapting, and progressing.  He is not yet what He will one day be.  The God of yesterday is not the same God of today.

Another common thread that is important here regards human free will.  It is believed (similarly to Pelagianism) that God does not mess with human free will.  Such a belief ultimately challenges God's sovereignty (and even His personal relationship with His creation).  If God is Sovereign, then He is intimate, personal, and in control.  If humans are completely free (especially in the Pelagian school of thought), then God is more distant and sort of spectator watching (and progressing with us) His creation.

As one can see, such a theology flies in the face of God's Immutability and the clear teaching of Scripture.  To adopt progressive theology and/or open theism is to reject the immutability of God.  One cannot hold to either of these theologies and still affirm that God does not change.

But instead of tracing the thought out more, I want to focus on a particular theologian whose recent writings sound eerily similar to Process Theology and Open Theism.  That man is Brian McLaren who has become one of the main faces of the Emergent Church Movement.  Though McLaren, as far as I have been able to tell, has never defended either of these theologies outright or spoken of God as evolving, He has comes close.

In his latest book, A New Kind of Christianity Brian McLaren  suggests that the Bible itself tells of an evolution.  What we are witnessing in the Bible is a conversation among characters and writers on their undestanding of God.  In the Old Testament, God is possessive, nationalistic, and even angry, but in the New Testament God is less racial and more loving.  It isn't necessarily that God has changed, but the conversation about God has changed.

In his book McLaren writes that our ancestor’s images and understanding of God continually changed, evolved, and matured over the centuries. God, it seemed, kept initiating this evolution (99).  McLaren is not directly implying that God evolves with history and human culture, but that instead of God directly revealing Himself to the Biblical authors, the authors are actually conversing among themselves. Therefore, in the Bible, the image we get of God is always evolving.

The problem with this view should immediately be apparent.  What do you do with a book like Job in which God is a major narrative-bending character in the story.  In response, McLaren suggests that God in the Bible is not the real God, but another character.  To understand Him as the real God is to lean towards the abuse of interpreting the Bible literally.  God doesn't order entire nations to be wiped out.  God doesn't favor one race or people over others.  God doesn't murder rebellious children and husbands who sleep with their wives while on their menstrual period. Therefore, when such atrocities are committed, it isn't that God Himself commands such things to happen (because God is not violent), rather during the evolution of ancient man's understanding of God they wrote a character named God and put Him into the story.

How convienant!

So in the case of Job, God is only a character reflecting the authors understanding of God.  But that understanding of God has evolved over time. 

If one were to read the Bible all the way through, McLaren would argue, the character, will, and actions of God evolve.  For example, the image of God moves from violent, retaliatory, given to favoritism, and careless of human life in the OT to loving justice, kindness, reconciliation, and peace in the NT.  He goes on to say that 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.

So what do you do with Jesus?  McLaren argues that Jesus isn’t God per se, but only like God bringing us to a new evolutionary level in our understanding of God (114).  He adds:

The historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus . . . [this insight] is an unspeakably precious gift that can be offered to people of all faiths. The character of Jesus…provides humanity with a unique and indispensable guide for tracing the development of maturing images and concepts of God across human history and culture. [The character of Jesus] is the North Star…to all people, whatever their religious background. The images of God that most resemble Jesus, whether they originate in the Bible or elsewhere, are the more mature and complete images. -114

In other words, Jesus is just another part (though the climax) of man's evolutionary understanding of God.  Jesus is like God, but not (in the literal sense) God.  God is a character in the Bible and Jesus wears the costume the best.  McLaren sees in Jesus the ultimate and closest thing to the character of God being lived out in this world.  If one wants to be like God, then we ought to look at the example of Christ.

So what McLaren offers isn't process theology or open theology in the strictest sense, but he certainly raises an interpretation similar to that and is equally dangerous.  The theological challenges this brings forth are numerous.  To begin, if the Bible is nothing more than a conversation about God rather than direct revelation from God, then we still do not know who God is or what He expects of us. In other words, everything we know about God is an educated guess.

This is postmodernism at its best.  Turning the Bible into a conversation allows me, based on my experience and preconceived adulterated assumptions, to pick and choose the aspects I want to believe and to fashion God in any image I want.  If I want God to be love, then I will find such a God in the biblical conversation.  Or if I want to turn God into a postmodern, enlightened deity, then I will see the Bible as an ancient book in where religious people from all walks of life tried their best to understand God but fell far too short as all of us do.  At this point I am free to emphasize God's unworkability without any effort on my part to try to understand Him in any way.

This means that if we don’t know who God is, then we do not know what He demands.  And if we do not know what He commands of us, then we are not responsible for actions.  This is the wholesale rejection of God's holiness, righteousness, jealousy, and wrath.  After all, such concepts in the Bible were just part of a conversation, not real revelation about who God really is. Likewise, if the Bible is simply a conversation then we do not know the gospel by which we can be saved.  Therefore, what is our message?  Finally, all Biblical doctrines are abstract truths that we cannot be certain making the church a collection of seekers of mystery instead of a place for those seeking the truth since the truth cannot be known.

 Though McLaren would likely reject some of these points, it is the logical conclusion of his theology.  McLaren wants his readers to follow the example of Christ, but why bother since even Christ (though came close) was nothing more than an imposter.  If Christ is not God, then how does one live in the manner of God?

This theology fundamentally undermines the biblical doctrine of sin.  In this understanding of Scripture, sin is not necessary sin because God never directly revealed what is sin and what isn’t. Since God is only a character in the biblical narrative, then we can never take that characters word for truth.  Just because that manifestation of the character of God condemned adultery, homosexuality, murder, and violence does not necessarily mean that they are actually sins.  Again, McLaren would reject such an understanding (though he is OK with homosexuality, but not with injustice and violence), but apart from personal beliefs, where in the Bible can we turn to for truths if it is only a conversation instead of direct and divine revelation?  How do I know what is right and wrong unless I turn to some relativistic, experiential, un-transcendent message.  In other words, truth and morality is the by-product of human imagination instead of revelation if the Bible is nothing more than a conversation.

McLaren and others in the Emergent conversation would add that moral truths (and even theological truths) are determined through community and conversation among equals that unite racial, gender, national, and age boundaries.  Until we hear from every walk of life, we cannot have any certainty, but since truth is never anchored, what is true today will not necessarily be true tomorrow.  This means that by their acts McLaren clearly rejects God's immutability (and he has said so elsewhere).  If God is immutable, then His Word and its message is immutable, and any communities' conclusion about truth or morality is irrelevant because God has spoken.




Clearly modern theologian are assaulting this fundamental truth of Scripture.  God is immutable and has declared so in His Word.  Though we may jump through hoops, we cannot miss the reality that God does not change and we are thus accountable for His standards and definitions of truth and morality.  By fundamentally rejecting the immutability of God, theologians like McLaren have rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ. 


Theology - The Immutability of God:  Its Truth and Relevancy - Introduction (Part 1)
Theology - The Immutability of God:  Its Truth and Relevancy - Scriptural Foundation (Part 2)
Theology - The Immutability of God:  Its Truth and Relevancy - Scriptural Challenges (Part 3)
Theology - The Immutability of God:  Its Truth and Relevancy - Theological Challenges (Part 4)
Sermon Podcast - April 26, 2010 - The Immutability of God 
Sermon Podcast - November 29, 2009 - The Transcendence of the Gospel
Theology - The Stipulation that Paralyzes:  Tony Jones and the Limits of the Emergent Worldview
Theology - Orthopraxy is Rooted in Orthodoxy - The Postmodern Return to Rome
Commentary - Accomodationism Breed Irrelevancy:  Why Liberalism Fails and the Transcendent Gospel Triumphs
Theology - A Fad Within a Movement:   What is the Emerging Church and Where is it Going?
Reviews - "A New Kind of Christianity"  

Repost: The Immutability of God: Its Truth and Relevancy - Introduction

All theology is practical.  Everyone is a theologian.  Therefore, right theology becomes the basis for right living making theology the most important topic to discuss.  Contrary to what many postmoderns want us to believe, orthodox theology is not out of date and irrelevant.

Brian McLaren has frequently referred to theology (especially systematic theology) as "freeze-dried."  He believes that theology as we know it is the remnant of modernism.  Through his protaganist Neo, McLaren describes theology as “shrunken and freeze-dried by modernity.”  Christianity, as a result is “diced through the modern Veg-o-matic.”*  Such theology is theology that has everything figured out.  Systematic Theology is particularly distasteful to the Emerging Church because it suggests that Scripture can be fully understood and put in a formula and systematized with the apparent assumption that the theologian can know God almost exhaustively.  McLaren writes:

This rebuke to arrogant intellectualizing is especially apt for modern Christians . . . These . . . [are] known popularly as systematic theologies . . . At the heart of the theological project in the late modern world was the assumption that one could and should reduce all revealed truth into propositions and organized those propositions into an outline that exhaustively contains and serves as the best vehicle for truth . . . In Christian theology, this anti-emergent thinking is expressed in systematic theologies that claim . . .  to have final orthodoxy nailed down, freeze-dried, and shrink wrapped forever.**

Instead of a freeze-dried theology that claims to have access to the complete truth, McLaren and others in the Emerging Church push for mystery, conversation, and community.  He writes:

[In the postmodern world] “Our words will seek to be servants of mystery, not removers of it as they were in the old world.  They will convey a message that is clear yet mysterious, simple yet mysterious, substantial yet mysterious.  My faith developed in the old world of many words, in a naive confidence in the power of many words, as if the mysteries of faith could be captured like fine-print conditions in a legal document and reduced to safe equations.  Mysteries, however, can not be captured so precisely.  Freeze-dried coffee, butterflies on pins, and frogs in formaldehyde all lose something in our attempts at capturing, defining, preserving, and rendering them less jumpy, flighty, or fluid.  In the new world, we will understand this a little better.”***

To McLaren, “freeze-dried” answers to life’s most difficult questions is inadequate in the “new world.”  What postmoderns need most, and what the Church must provide, are not answers to such questions as Why am I here?  Where does life come from?  Where am I going?  What is my purpose? How might I be made right with God? but rather encourage exploration without boundaries or limits.  The Church must aid the community to think and live in a world of fluid liquid, rather than formaldehyde.

So is McLaren right?  Should we characterize theology in this manner?  Certainly in a postmodern age there seems to be little tolerance for deep truths that seem to divide.  The problem however is that McLaren and those in the Emergent Church who try to embrace mystery are revealing their own theology.  Postmoderns may want mystery, but want mystery in a dogmatic way.  Anyone who refuses to speak of theology as a mystery are suddenly labeled old-fashioned, out-of-touch, and irrelevant.

I am starting a new series on the Immutability of God.  The reason?  Its practical and it is needed.  I have said much about the transcendence of the gospel (which theological liberalism must reject) in recent months, but in order to believe in the gospel's transcendence God must be immutable (or unchanging).

What theological liberalism attacks isn't the doctrine of Scripture, the Virgin Birth, the historicity of the resurrection, or return of Christ, what they attack is God's immutability.  They want to argue that God changes and is always changing (or evolving).  As culture changes, so does God.  God adapts to the changing times.  But this is not how Scripture defines God.  Scripture is clear:  God is immutable and is not subject to the fickle winds of humans or society.

I believe that there is no more important doctrine for the church today than this.  If we understand this doctrine correctly, we will avoid many traps in the church, and have full confidence in our faith, in our salvation, and in the God that directs the heavens and the earth.


For more:
Sermon Podcast - April 26, 2010 - The Immutability of God 
Sermon Podcast - November 29, 2009 - The Transcendence of the Gospel
Commentary - Accomodationism Breed Irrelevancy:  Why Liberalism Fails and the Transcendent Gospel Triumphs
Theology - A Fad Within a Movement:   What is the Emerging Church and Where is it Going? 
Theology - SBTS and McLaren:  A Response to SBTS Panel Discussion
Reviews - "Manifold Witness" by John Franke

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*  Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey.  A New Kind of Christian Trilogy, vol. 3, (San Francisco, CA: Joseey Bass, 2001), 130.  The context of these words regard what conservative/modernistic Christians refer to as “personal salvation.”  Neo complains that such language is exclusive and suggests that “we invite by inclusion saying, ‘God loves you.  God accepts you.  Are you ready to accept your acceptance and live in reconciliation with God?’”

**  Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional + Evangelical + Post/Protestant +Liberal/Conservative + Mystical/Poetic + Biblical + Charismatic/Contemplative + Fundamentalist/Calvinist + Anabaptist/Anglican + Methodist + Catholic +Green +Incarnational + Depressed Yet-Hopeful +Emergent + Unfinished Christian,  (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 168, 325.

***  McLaren, Church on the Other Side, 89.  McLaren elsewhere argues, “faith has too often become for us a set of easy answers and cardboard explanations instead of a window into unfathomable mystery and a pathway into an awesome adventure” in McLaren, More Ready Than You Realize, 42.


This originally appeared on my Theology blog available here.

McLaren Thesis on Wordle

This is my first Wordle. I thought I would try it out and used by Master's Thesis. It is interesting to see it in this way. Hope you enjoy.

Brian McLaren and Celebrating Ramadan

For anyone interested in knowing why I spent a year researching and writing my M.Div thesis on Brian McLaren (whom most in the church have never heard of), here is a good example why. Dr. Denny Burk, dean of Boyce College, has written an article in response to McLaren observing the Islamic holiday Ramadan. Burk has finally called McLaren a Wolf in Wolf's clothing, and I think he is right. Here is a money quote:

This explanation is so filled with dangerous and damning error, it’s difficult to know where to begin. For starters, one cannot observe Ramadan as a “deeply committed” Christian. Fasting in the Christian tradition is irreducibly Christocentric. It involves praying to the Father of Christ (Mt 6:18) and longing for the return of Christ (Mt 9:15). The meaning and aim of the Muslim fast has nothing to do with Jesus. How can one observe Ramadan in any meaningful sense and do a Christian fast? The answer is that you can’t. If you try, you will end up distorting the Christian fast with syncretistic gobbledy-goop that is no longer recognizably Christian.

I would warn that McLaren is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but he has dropped the ruse.

For more:

Denny Burk - McLaren: A Wolf in Wolf's Clothing

Brian McLaren - Ramadan 2009: Part 1 What’s going on?

Brian McLaren - Ramadan 2009: Day 1

Brian McLaren - Ramadan 2009: Day 3

Thesis Availble Online

Emerging Church Archive

Brian McLaren Archive

The Emergent Gospel In 140 Characters or Less

What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?

Thesis Availble Online

I am finally completely finished with my M.Div. Thesis. It is on the Emerging Church; specifically on Brian McLaren and his understanding of the gospel. McLaren is perhaps the most influential leader in the movement and through such influence, the gospel has been smothered and redefined within the Emergent movement. Anyone interested in understanding how dangerous a cultured-stained gospel can be, I encourage you to read it. However, remember that it is an academic paper and so uses words and concepts for academia.

The title: Brian McLaren and Emergent Soteriology: From Cultural Accommodation to the Social Gospel.

You can download it for free by clicking on the above link. I will also make it available on the left side of this page.