The Logic of Intersubjectivity. Darren M. Slade
experience continues to influence how he interprets Scripture and how he understands the person of God today (GI, 185).
McLaren does point out that this pivotal spiritual experience occurred at a Southern Baptist retreat in a context that would eventually form the Religious Right. Afterwards, his continued exposure to conservative Christianity gradually soured as arguments about ancillary issues overshadowed his encounters with the divine (NS §1, 10‒11). The ensuing tribalism (§3.2.2) was enough for McLaren to realize that conservativism was not spiritually appropriate for him (GO §1, 50‒51), as expected from psychological studies on numinous experiences.
2.2.4.1 The Psychology of Spiritual Experiences
For many conversion experiences, the concept of an ideal religious fit is paramount to a person’s overall decision to subscribe to a particular ideology. “What makes any voluntary conversion process possible is a complex confluence of the ‘right’ potential convert coming into contact, under proper circumstances at the proper time, with the ‘right’ advocate and religious option.”134 In McLaren’s case, he notes that his pacifistic temperament (GO §1, 61; §12, 183) would eventually mean Christian tribalism could not work for him (MRTYR §5, 57‒58). His developing philosophy would make characteristics such as “alive, genuine, purposeful, free, [and] kind” (FFR §9, 183) the leading distinctives of his newfound spirituality, indicating that an ideal religious fit would be one that aligns with what he learned from his spiritual experiences.135
Significantly, during adolescence, the reward center of teenage brains intensifies the neurotransmitters that respond to events, making a positive experience more memorable and intense.136 A consequence of strong emotional occurrences is the attentional funneling that narrows people’s focus onto “goal-relevant” information, meaning McLaren’s desire for a vibrant spirituality actually heightened his emotional connection to these experiences. Here, his salient emotions now become empirical evidence in confirming his burgeoning religious beliefs by attributing his emotional high directly to his starry night prayer (the “feelings-as-evidence hypothesis”).137 Deriving in part from the strong emotions associated with his conversion, McLaren now approaches faith with an emphasis on beauty (§5.3.2), creation (§4.3.2), and love (§6.2.4). The psychological implications mean that McLaren’s philosophy of religion derives from the experiential knowledge he obtained through mystical experiences (§6.2.2.3), ensuring that these factors would become the foundation of his overall spiritual temperament (cf. §8.5.1).
2.3 McLaren’s Resulting Temperament
The consequence was that McLaren’s formative experiences developed into a more compassionate disposition. As is typical of college-age adults, McLaren appears to have developed an “individual-reflective” spirituality where he detached himself from the customs and mores of his upbringing in order to question the validity of his beliefs. Though this stage is intellectual, it is also existential in the sense that McLaren needed to develop a spirituality that was his own (FFR §9, 181). Here, McLaren quickly realized that his natural disposition was not that of a fundamentalist. “This kind of environment was impossible for a boy of my reflective temperament—there wasn’t room there for a person like me” (FFS §3, 87).138 Once, when asked how he developed a gentler temperament that is now more concerned with showing compassion, McLaren reflected on a number of experiences, both in adolescence and in ministry, which make him “cringe” at how many people he has hurt. He reflected on one incident in particular when one of McLaren’s best friends “came out” as gay his senior year of high school. McLaren eventually perceived a mismatch between the homophobic rhetoric preached in fundamentalism and his own relationship with homosexuals (cf. NKOCY §17, 177). There were enough of these discordant experiences to make him realize that conservatism clashed with the kind of Christianity he wanted, namely a faith that cared more about people than dogmas.139
Most notably for the study of McLaren’s religio-philosophy is his resultant Hegelian-dialectical temperament toward faith. Having had a short but penetrating period of doubt (SMJ §1, 5), McLaren’s early tension between his environment and his emerging self-identity resulted in a thought process that first manifests as a dichotomist mode of thinking (“Stage 1 dichotomy,” FFS §3, 88; cf. “dualist faith,” NS §3, 30). Here, McLaren initially believes there can be only two choices for a particular theological impasse (both choices of which McLaren loathes). Eventually, however, he realizes that the predicament is, in fact, a false dilemma, which propels him to find a third alternative (cf. AIFA, 286‒87). In this way, McLaren’s Hegelian thought process tries to learn the best parts of each option within Christian tradition so as to create a synthesis that also eliminates each of their shortcomings (§8.4.1.2).140
McLaren’s religious journey exemplifies this dichotomist pattern. He initially felt he had to decide either to deny his doubts and return to the Plymouth Brethren or embrace his doubts and deny his Christian faith. Eventually, a third option manifested when he encountered other believers who portrayed their religion as “an adventure they were on with God . . . an adventure with joy and reality and purpose” (FFR §9, 182‒83; ellipses in original). From these experiences, McLaren learned the necessity of creating communities focused on expressing love (GSM, 56). In essence, McLaren’s exposure to fundamentalist believers provided a type of pro-social “deviancy training,” whereby he learned how to dissent against the social norms of fundamentalism and to reorient himself toward the common good.141
What had captivated McLaren in his teenage years was the good news of Jesus Christ (GO §1, 48). His resultant temperament made him realize that the problem he experienced among fundamentalists was not because of Christianity or the Bible. The problem was what some fundamentalists had done with their religion (AMP §16, 245). By the end of high school, McLaren had read the philosophical and theological works of multiple intellectual Christians (e.g., C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer), who helped him to realize that it was possible to be a reflective thinker and still remain a believer.142 This exposure, coupled with several more powerful spiritual experiences, made it possible for McLaren to gain a better sense of a well-balanced approach to Christianity (FFS §3, 88‒89). Still, even with a newfound appreciation for critical thinking, there was one final temperamental result that proves essential to understanding McLaren’s philosophy of religion: his artistic personality.
2.3.1 An Artistic Disposition
As a child, McLaren developed a passionate love for nature and always felt he could experience God’s presence through creation (GSM, xii‒xiii; cf. GO §11, 177‒78). For him, the artistic beauty of nature made doubting God’s existence an absurdity. Not surprisingly, then, McLaren produced poetry about finding God in creation, commenting that he wrote song lyrics well before writing prose (FFR §7, 145‒49). To this day, McLaren maintains a penchant for creativity, including an interest in art, songwriting, and music (NKOC §Author, 53).143 Even in high school, McLaren was infatuated with the art of literature and decided he wanted to become an English teacher (NKOCY §1, 3). Hence, McLaren’s starry night prayer to God emphasized a desire to see and experience beauty. “Obviously, ‘beautiful’ was an important word to this adolescent fledgling musician/hippie/spiritual seeker” (FFR §9, 184).
Readers and critics must not underemphasize McLaren’s artistic propensity. Much of what he declares throughout his line of reasoning and religio-philosophy all contain elements of an “artistic disposition,” defined here as a preference for unstructured and dynamic practices that accentuate self-expression, especially through artistic media. “What kept me on the religious path was not the fundamentalist God. . . .It was the holy and utterly loving presence I felt one night under a starry sky. . . .It was the creative spirit I felt when I composed music or poetry or opened myself to authentic art” (GI, 185). Thus, McLaren likely scores high on a psychological “openness” scale, meaning he is creative, inquisitive, imaginative, innovative, and open to new experiences. What is suggestive is that these artistic values developed early in life and are now what constitute his code of behavior as an adult. The experiential knowledge obtained during McLaren’s psychological development transformed into a heightened sense of “passion for ideas and ideals, passion for beauty, passion to create music and art.”144
2.4