The Logic of Intersubjectivity. Darren M. Slade
a chapter entry in Evangelicals Engaging Emergent, where they both charge McLaren with being dishonest (§2.3), manipulative (§5.4), relativistic (§8.3.3), and sacrilegious (§6.2). For them, true Christianity must entail absolutism, foundationalism, propositionalism, and infallibilism; otherwise, it is not orthodox Christianity (§8.2).69
In late 2011, Mark Christy completed his dissertation on what he labels McLaren’s “neoorthopraxy,” meaning McLaren undermines orthodox Christianity and replaces it with a call for social action. Christy contends that McLaren rejects the exclusivity of salvation through Christ (§8.4.1.1) and maintains a heretical Christology (§6.1.1). Christy describes McLaren’s belief that orthodoxy (right beliefs) is inseparably related to orthopraxy (right practices). The issue for Christy is that McLaren engages in relativistic syncretism with the postmodern culture (§8.3.3). McLaren denies Scripture as an objective source of divine authority (§7.3.1), making him both dangerous and misguided.70 Likewise, a 2013 dissertation by Joe Stewart explores the influence of Lesslie Newbigin on McLaren’s missiology. Labeling McLaren a “revisionist,” Stewart distinguishes McLaren’s ambiguous and provocative writing style from Newbigin’s work, claiming McLaren prevents readers from comprehending his line of reasoning (§5.4).71
In a 2015 dissertation by Gary Blackwell on McLaren’s spirituality, Blackwell investigated whether McLaren’s piety is authentic to the practices of the ancient church (§6.2.2.3). He concludes that McLaren is a religious deconstructionist (§6.1), who incorrectly uses Medieval mysticism to combat modernistic forms of Christianity (§4.2.3.1). His spirituality is a creative “bricolage” of various source material and religious beliefs that combine together, without regard for consistency or accuracy, to produce a mosaic of culturally acceptable attitudes and practices (§8.4).72 In the same year, John Hatch analyzed McLaren’s bibliology, explaining that his hermeneutic is an innovative approach that views the Bible as an inspired library of divergent voices (§7.3) dialoguing over important social issues (§8.4.1). Using the insights of Mikhail Bakhtin’s “centrifugal-centripetal dialectic,” Hatch describes McLaren’s hermeneutic as emphasizing Scripture’s “heteroglossia,” the appearance of multiple viewpoints, which he views as an embrace of competing voices (“polyphony”) in order to stimulate conversation (§8.4.1.2).73
To date, the most extensive treatment of McLaren’s work originally appeared in a 2014 dissertation by Scott Burson, which later became a book in 2016. Aiming to provide a critical examination of McLaren’s postmodern apologetic method, Burson details McLaren’s antagonism for the foundationalist-derived theology of Calvinism (§4.2.2). Using John Wesley’s quadrilateral, Burson evaluates McLaren’s defense of Christianity with a special emphasis on his use of moral intuition (§5.2). He ultimately agrees with McLaren’s concern that analytic Christianity has deviated from its original social and moral obligations, though he does not embrace all of McLaren’s ideas. Instead, Burson believes the solution to modernity is, in fact, an Arminian theology.74 From this review, it is evident that McLaren elicits both outrage and praise from his readers, something the author of this book has observed in various contexts.
1.5 Locating Self as a Researcher
I was first exposed to Brian McLaren’s writings in the Fall of 2014 when I took a doctoral class on Emergence Christianity. It did not take long before a polarization occurred among the students. Those who openly advocated for tolerance toward divergent political and religious perspectives had also appreciated the aims of McLaren and the Emergent Church.75 Those students who vociferously protested McLaren’s work tended to be older, opposed to diversity, and ultraconservative (politically and religiously). Despite being younger in age, I was originally intolerant of McLaren and other so-called “liberal” agendas. Soon, however, my religious prejudice diminished once professional and personal experiences forced me to confront what I perceived to be an increasingly radicalized and abusive evangelical culture. Unexpectedly, I found myself being able to discern the rationale behind McLaren’s work while many other students simply refused to entertain his insights or contentions.76 I likewise observed that the students who disavowed McLaren’s beliefs were also hostile to his work’s underlying principle. That is to say, instead of attempting to be intellectually incorrigible, McLaren believes it is spiritually and morally superior to withhold absolute judgment, maintain epistemic humility, and cultivate a willingness to doubt religious beliefs. Hence, those who are less troubled by McLaren, including myself, tend not to possess the same “uncertainty-phobia” (EMC §6, 44) as exhibited among his harshest critics. Consequently, I developed a research method that sought to answer one question as I read through his publications: If systematized, what would be the logical precursor or rationale for each of McLaren’s religious contentions?
1.6 Research Methodology
The research methodology for this book is exploratory, meaning it examines the basis for McLaren’s philosophy of religion and then organizes the results into a coherent system.77 The methodology does recognize, however, that McLaren’s reflexive reasoning processes likely did not occur in the same logical order of discovery as presented in this study. Historiographically, the book will appropriate an “integral-developmental” model, which will attempt an exposition of current philosophical developments leading to Christianity’s present paradigm shift. As an approach to religious history, it will chronicle the dominant theo-political issues affecting McLaren by recognizing the interchange between his socio-political experiences and missiological concerns.78 Likewise, the study will capitalize on Brian McLaren’s agreement to review the final product so as to ensure the study accurately portrays his religio-philosophy.79 In this sense, the book is a type of historical theology, with a “history of Christian theology” approach, that examines the interconnecting beliefs of a particular theologian and his relationship to the surrounding milieu.80 Nevertheless, taking an exploratory approach requires several nuances for the study of the philosophy of religion.
1.6.1 The Philosophy of Religion
The most basic assumption of this study is that McLaren is, in fact, a philosopher of religion.81 Being different from an academic study of theology, the philosophy of religion systematizes the logical and philosophical rationale underlying a belief system’s basic ideas, as well as the criteria used to evaluate those beliefs.82 In the West, this undertaking has traditionally employed logical formulas to justify religious assumptions.83 However, with McLaren’s philosophy of Christian religion (often termed a “religio-philosophy” in this book), an academic survey of his beliefs must specifically investigate how McLaren approaches his Christian faith, the rationale for why, and the evaluative criteria he uses to assess Christian paradigms. The assumption here is that McLaren’s belief system actually resembles a “body politic” where his beliefs and practices unite him to a particular subculture within American Christianity, being the overarching ideology that permeates his perceptions and interpretations of reality.84
Underlying this method is what Howard Kee refers to as social interior-exterior dimensions: “(1) the interior dimensions of social groups, by which groups form, merge, evolve, and by which leadership and group goals emerge and change; and (2) exterior aspects by which group identity develops in relation to the wider culture.”85 From these dimensions, this investigation will utilize social-scientific data (where appropriate) to identify the evolutionary development of McLaren’s religiosity.86 Nonetheless, because of its academic nature, the study will remain theologically impartial regarding his beliefs in order to focus on discovering, simplifying, and systematizing his reasoning processes within their socio-historical context.87 As expected, however, any discussion of McLaren’s work must also address his fictional novels.
1.6.2 McLaren’s Fictional Writings
By acknowledging that his writing style is closely aligned with Søren Kierkegaard (cf. MRTYR §1, 27‒28; PTP, 125), McLaren makes an explicit distinction between his nonfictional material (“signed” discourses) and his fictional “dialogs.” This book views McLaren’s novels as an indirect method for challenging the status quo of American religiosity by disturbing its culture-religion and exposing readers to the strengths and weaknesses of divergent approaches to faith.88 The trouble is with how to identify McLaren’s actual viewpoints from the fictional interactions of his characters.