Replies

From the Baptist Press (http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=27867):

The emphasis Christians place on the traditional Christian doctrines of hell and the second coming of Jesus inhibits believers from living effective lives of service in this world, according to speaker and author Brian McLaren.

McLaren explained his views April 9-10 at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., as a featured speaker during the Willow Creek Association's annual Shift student ministries conference. During the conference's opening session, Bo Boshers, executive director of student ministries for the Willow Creek Association, said he does not agree with all McLaren's views but that all youth ministers should consider his thoughts.

In his most recent book, "Everything Must Change" (Thomas Nelson), McLaren commends Willow Creek pastor Bill Hybels as one of only a handful of evangelical leaders properly addressing global poverty and equity for the world's population.

"Some of us came from a religious tradition or a religious background where our main role was to recruit kids to go to heaven," said McLaren, a controversial leader within the emerging church movement. "And that's a good thing. Mortality rates are still pretty high, and we all have to face that decision. But I'm here to challenge you to think bigger and deeper and in more layers and dimensions about your role."

In a later conference breakout session, McLaren elaborated, "There are some ideas that are not truly ideas of the Gospel but are ideas of the modern understanding of the Gospel. The problem isn't the Bible. The problem is modern rings that we put around the Bible. And what we need to do -- some of us in our thinking -- is to find the courage to snip the ring so that our faith ... can really have a future."

Though he did not specify at Willow Creek which traditional doctrines need revision, McLaren wrote in his 2007 book "Everything Must Change" that the doctrine of hell needs radical rethinking. He argues that people who believe in hell may be inclined to dominate and take advantage of other people, rather than help them.

"Many of us have been increasingly critical in recent years of popular American eschatology in general, and conventional views of hell in particular," he wrote. "Simply put, if we believe that God will ultimately enforce his will by forceful domination, and will eternally torture all who resist that domination, then torture and domination become not only permissible but in some way godly."

The orthodox understanding that Jesus will return at a future date and forcefully conquer all His enemies also needs rethinking, according to McLaren.

"This eschatological understanding of a violent second coming leads us to believe (as we've said before) that in the end, even God finds it impossible to fix the world apart from violence and coercion; no one should be surprised when those shaped by this theology behave accordingly," McLaren wrote.

The book of Revelation does not actually teach that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, he wrote, but that a new way of living is possible within this universe if humans will follow Jesus' example.

By going to the cross, McLaren argued in his book, Jesus committed an act similar to the Chinese student at Tiananmen Square in the late 1980s -- he placed himself in harm's way to demonstrate the injustice of a society that would harm a peaceful and godly man.

McLaren's views break harshly from traditional Christian theology that Jesus died on the cross as substitute for sinful humanity, taking the punishment that men and women deserved for their sin. Traditional Christian theology also contends that those who do not trust Jesus for their salvation will be punished in hell eternally for their sins and that Jesus will return at a future date to conquer all evil.

This "huge shift" ain't good!