Publisher: W Publishing Group
Authors: Brian McLaren
List Price: $19.99
Amazon Price: $13.59
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Summary: A sad substitute for the gospel message found in Scripture
McLaren is at it again in this latest effort to promote the emergent church movement. He really did not write anything in The Secret Message of Jesus that is not in his previous volumes, although he does seem to soften his rhetoric a bit. For example, having taken a lot of flak for his previous statement that "clarity is overrated," he now says that he has some things he wants to say "clearly" about "what Jesus' message really was." (p. 7) But herein lies the problem. McLaren believes that the church has never understood the real message of Jesus (see Appendix 1). Very early, the church "twisted" what Jesus and Paul taught into a gospel of "justification by grace through faith, the free gift of salvation, Christ being a substitutionary sacrifice for...sin." (p. 91) That is not the gospel at all according to McLaren, the gospel is that "the kingdom of God is at hand." (p. 92)
McLaren reasons that believers have long misunderstood the true gospel because Jesus' message was not given in a straight-forward manner but in a secret, codified form. The parables (pp. 39-49) were the primary vehicle Jesus used to "conceal His deepest message." (p. 4) As a result, only now have we finally unearthed the treasure that Jesus hid. The secret message revealed a secret plan having to do with His kingdom. The secret plan is not that the Lord came to set us free from sin and bring us God's righteousness--He didn't come to start a new religion. He "came to start a political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual and spiritual revolution that would give birth to a new world." (p. 4)
The kingdom, in McLaren's understanding, is here in some sense now yet needs to be further developed. Our agenda as kingdom people is to assist God in helping "this world become a place God is at home in, a place God takes pride and pleasure in, a place where God's dreams become true." (p. 203) The world is not going to be destroyed and recreated by God; what will be destroyed is the "dominating powers that ruin creation." (p. 190)
McLaren is sure the kingdom is populated by people from all religions, not just Christianity. It is open to all but those who actively oppose it. (pp. 163, 167) As a matter of fact, it is possible that some Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus might "begin to `take their places at the feast,' discovering the secret message of Jesus in ways that many Christians have not." (p. 217) Of course, "there is always hope that we Christians will not be the last to rediscover the truth that could change everything." (p. 217)
This secret message of the kingdom, what does it look like? In a word: missional. It is a kingdom focused on injustice, poverty, education, integrity, the environment, hospitality, medical care, the healing of the earth, pollution, exploitation, greed, etc. (pp. 84-89, 111, 141, 222-225) In McLaren's view, this is what the kingdom is all about, not the redemption of souls. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, both in the past and present, the people who call themselves Christians have supposedly neglected these physical/earthly concerns to focus on spiritual/heavenly matters. In McLaren's program, the spiritual barely gets a nod--the kingdom is all about saving the planet. (p. 128) McLaren believes that if enough people catch on to Jesus' secret message this planet might just be rescued (p. 128) and even war will be no more. (p. 160)
With this perspective of the kingdom it should not surprise us that Jesus did not come to be a redeemer but a model--a model of love. (pp. 147, 153) McLaren's well-known practitioners of this model are most instructive. They include: Martin Luther King (pp. 147, 154, 157-158, 169), St. Patrick, St. Francis, Teresa of Avila, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela. (pp. 78, 125, 169) It is questionable if most of these would meet the biblical criteria of a true Christian, but they constitute McLaren's roster of lead citizens in the kingdom of God. It should not surprise us that McLaren lists Dallas Willard, N. T. Wright, Howard Snyder. and Tony Campolo among those who have influenced his thinking. (p. 209)
McLaren's hope is "if enough of us see the kingdom [his version]--and seeing it, rethink our lives, and rethinking our lives, believe that the impossible is possible--everything could change." (p. 204) This, in essence, is the gospel of the emergent movement: if enough of us become missional, we can make this world a better place. What a sad substitute for the gospel message as found in Scripture. - Gary Gilley, Christian Book Previews.com
Summary: Winsomely written, but with one caveat
McLaren seems to be highlighting what has been called the "kingdom vision" of Christianity---a vision of the Jesus Way that embraces life at its fullest, including the full range of arts and sciences and a deep concern for global justice. This is intended as a corrective for a Christian faith that focuses only on individual salvation and piety rather than the whole cosmos and beyond.
It is a book that would serve well with theological neophytes who are skeptical of church and faith but open to peruse something that looks and sounds fresh and exciting. It will also open up new worlds for those caught in fundamentalist circles, where morality is presupposed as the sole dimension of Christian faith (and for some, U.S. Republicanism). McLaren brings mystery, nerve, and an idealistic spirituality to what many perceive as the old, tired established religion.
This is the secret message: "We are under a gentle, compassionate assault by a kingdom of peace and healing and forgiveness and life" (60). It is a scandalous message, because "the kingdom of God does fail. It is weak. It is crushed." McLaren says that God's kingdom is a vulnerable, sacrificing kingdom, which even when pressed, refuses to take on the methods of its oppressors. Its success comes through its failure, a message that is too subversive to be overt, too inefficient to be easily lived, and too poetic to be confined by prosaic manifestos. "Clarity is sometimes overrated," he says, "intrigue is correspondingly undervalued." (7)
I enjoy reading McLaren's books, and I wish I could write as fresh and winsomely as he does. We can learn so much about being both alluring and provocative from him and his friends at the Emerging Church. The one concern I have with this book follows the critique of Jamie Smith in his book Whose Afraid of Postmodernism?(Baker Academic, 2006) which is this: McLaren makes too radical a separation with the history of the church. For example, he says, "sadly, for centuries at a time in too many places to count, the Christian religion has downplayed, misconstrued, or forgotten the secret message of Jesus entirely." (78) While one cannot argue that the church is perpetually caught in corruptive vices, it seems disingenuous to cast the whole church under such a shadow. A few pages later he suggests "most evangelicals haven't the foggiest notion what the gospel really is." (90) These seem to be clichés at best, and, along with the idea of a "secret message", betray a tinge of the Gnosticism he sympathizes with at the beginning of the book (he valorizes the sentiments of The DaVinci Code on xii).
Pull back with me a moment. I said just a "tinge." N. T. Wright and Dallas Willard are the first two acknowledgements at the end of the book, so he obviously associates with mainstream conservative evangelicalism. But this is what I'm getting at: if the church past and present has no concept of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of our Lord is severely lacking. It is as if the material world--and the institutional church through the ages in particular-- could not have breathed with the Spirit of God until the Emerging Church crowd made things more clear. The appendix "Why Didn't We Get it Sooner?" suggests the gospel is a time-release capsule and we are just "getting it" now.
Don't let that discourage you, though. McLaren charmingly makes his way through important issues like miracles, war, demons, language of "kingdom", and even heaven. He has some great analogies, like where he describes Jesus as the virtuoso musician:
Jesus was the master of making the music of life--not just with wood and string, tuners and frets, but with skin and bone, smile and laughter, shout and whisper, time and space, food and drink. He invited disciples to learn to make beautiful life-music in his secret, revolutionary kingdom-of-God way... (77)
Again, unfortunately, McLaren compares this with what he calls the busy, chatty, manic or monotone religious "bombast" of the church. (79) We all push off from something when we preach, but it seems McLaren pushes off from the visible church more often than the more appropriate counter-part to God's kingdom, the Kingdom of Self, or the Kingdom of Satan and Death, or even "sin."
That said, the book is not intended for members of a traditional denomination like me. It is really intended for people who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious," who, like him, find "much in the religious establishment that repels" them and who are looking for "something new." (xv) This is definitely the book for them, which I suspect is more of a Boomer or Generation X crowd than a Millennial crowd, as the latter are, according to all the research, more optimistic about institutions. Hopefully, in time, McLaren's demographic will distinguish, as Jaroslav Pelikan said, between traditionalism, which is the dead faith of the living, and tradition, which is the living faith of the dead.
Summary: A Profound Disappointment of Open Rebellion Against Jesus
As I was reading this, the thought kept nagging: where is the cross of Jesus taking our sins away and reconciling us to the Father by Christ's blood sacrifice? Seems to be omitted as missing the point. Where's the resurrection? Where's the Holy Spirit and Pentecost empowering/cleansing?
What good is social activism without delivering the full message of New Life in Jesus? Why when I try to find back up for what this book proposes in what Peter and John and Paul proclaim as the open secret Message about Jesus in Acts 2-14, it's just not there? It's 2 completely different messages?
This book seemed one man's idea about how to interpret some favorite selections of Jesus' sayings, but not the WHOLE truth. It relies too heavily on modern recent scholars' opinions of how to uncover Jesus' message than on the apostles' writings which are the authentic original and inspired direct by heaven.
McLaren offers us earth-bound thinking substituted for Holy Spirit wisdom from above. That's open rebellion against Jesus.
Analogy: this book's sermons are like the best Nicodemus could preach pre-Christ. But unless there is baptism of repentance for sin forgiveness and Holy Spirit conversion to receive Christ as Passover Lamb, one is just a teacher of Israel rather than a genuine Gospel messenger. It's merely about improving a terrestrial kingdom waving a Jesus banner than the real heavenly kingdom that converts souls from Satan to God and transforms hearts away from rebellion to righteousness on the inside, not just shifting religious affiliations or philosophical loyalties or activism for a noble planetary cause.
This book had a very Nicodemus flavor, a Sadducee dismissal of core Scripture truth, an abandoning of the Cross for Soul Salvation.
The Lord has graciously given us all we need in the Gospels and Epistles, from Matthew to Revelation to understand the Old Testament Kingdom and coming King. Along come books like this that aren't satisfied with God's revealing and unveiling and disclosing. We need N.T.Wright (rejects Reformation justification by faith alone, Christ's deity, generally accepted doctrine of Trinity), Elaine Pagels (unbeliever who says supernatural, miracles, angels/demons are mythic fabrications Hebrews borrowed from Canaanite culture), Ken Wilber (buddhist who calls Bible-Christians 'fascists'), Walt Wink (liberal scholar denying conventional Bible truths), Leslie Newbigin (ecumenical Anglican compromising/consulting with pagan spirituality), Dallas Willard (blood atonement denier) and other speculative revisionists and skeptic thinkers to be more all-inclusive to embrace anti-conventional worldviews about Jesus and what He came to accomplish for us.
This sort of religion has always been popular. Prognosis without diagnosis. Sanctification without Justification first. Social activism gospel detached from Jesus-fastened-to-a-cross-to-atone-for-our-guilt Gospel. Spirit of the world zeitgeist without the Holy Spirit. All-inclusive vs. God-conclusive. Invite people to follow the teachings of the Lord but not necessarily the Lord of the teachings. Respect for Jesus vs. worship of Jesus. Culturally acceptable christism that makes sense for this generation vs. what Christ himself accepts and sanctions as valid faith expressions. Sinful mortals have significant input to rethink what constititues the Gospel Message vs. God-spoken as is to be received and obeyed by faith without revision.
C.S.Lewis gives the definitive case closed: * Seek after heaven and you get earth thrown in. Seek after earth and you get neither.*
This book is an earth-seeker with heaven/hell and Christ's 2nd Coming Judgment jettisoned as irrelevant and beside the point.
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