Brian McLaren
Brian D. McLaren (born 1956) is a prominent Christian pastor, author, activist and speaker and leading figure in the emerging church movement. McLaren is also associated with postmodern Christianity and progressive Christianity and is a major figure in post-evangelical thought. He has often been named one of the most influential Christian leaders in America and was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America in 2005. McLaren was also the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland, which he left in 2006 to pursue writing and speaking full-time.
Life After Doom
The author Brian McLaren has had a confused upbringing. According to his latest book, Life After Doom, he "had been taught that the purpose and focus of Christianity was to help people end up in a good place after they die". If only he had been brought up a Presbyterian and learned that our "chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever", then he could have saved himself a lot of pain, and avoided the road he has taken in his new book. And he would have spared us the teaching of his new syncretistic, pagan religion. McLaren admits that his latest book is only for those who have already been converted to his new religion – the cult of climate catastrophism. "Life After Doom is not for you if you think that problems like climate change, ecological overshoot, economic inequality, racial injustice and religious corruption are nothing but a hoax." Personally, I have no problem with believing in human sinfulness in these areas – and in many others. But Brian takes a shallow, limited view – it is really the bad news without the Good News. (Christianity Today; 7/18/24) READ MORE>>>>>
The author Brian McLaren has had a confused upbringing. According to his latest book, Life After Doom, he "had been taught that the purpose and focus of Christianity was to help people end up in a good place after they die". If only he had been brought up a Presbyterian and learned that our "chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever", then he could have saved himself a lot of pain, and avoided the road he has taken in his new book. And he would have spared us the teaching of his new syncretistic, pagan religion. McLaren admits that his latest book is only for those who have already been converted to his new religion – the cult of climate catastrophism. "Life After Doom is not for you if you think that problems like climate change, ecological overshoot, economic inequality, racial injustice and religious corruption are nothing but a hoax." Personally, I have no problem with believing in human sinfulness in these areas – and in many others. But Brian takes a shallow, limited view – it is really the bad news without the Good News. (Christianity Today; 7/18/24) READ MORE>>>>>
There’s a link between climate crisis and Christian nationalism, McLaren says
Americans must connect the dots between the earth’s climate crisis and the resurgence of Christian nationalism and white supremacy, according to activist and theologian Brian McLaren. But they must do so without falling into defeatism or complacency, he added. “The fact that the environment influences every dimension of life makes it of special concern,” McLaren explained during a recent episode of the “The State of Belief” podcast moderated by Interfaith Alliance President Paul Raushenbush. “It’s easy for climate to get off of the headlines unless Canadian wildfires bring a cloud of smoke in our direction or unless the headlines are saying we’ve just had the hottest month or the hottest year,” McLaren said. “But once the headline is gone, it is easy to forget about the environment.” (Baptist News Global; 5/21/24) READ MORE>>>>>
Americans must connect the dots between the earth’s climate crisis and the resurgence of Christian nationalism and white supremacy, according to activist and theologian Brian McLaren. But they must do so without falling into defeatism or complacency, he added. “The fact that the environment influences every dimension of life makes it of special concern,” McLaren explained during a recent episode of the “The State of Belief” podcast moderated by Interfaith Alliance President Paul Raushenbush. “It’s easy for climate to get off of the headlines unless Canadian wildfires bring a cloud of smoke in our direction or unless the headlines are saying we’ve just had the hottest month or the hottest year,” McLaren said. “But once the headline is gone, it is easy to forget about the environment.” (Baptist News Global; 5/21/24) READ MORE>>>>>
Feb 20, 2023: Religion Profess: There’s Always a Bigger Out-Group
As I listened to Brian McLaren’s wonderful book Do I Stay Christian? a while back I had lots of thoughts. The book has prompted me to think and reflect not only about the book’s content itself but also related (and at times tangential) matters. One major theme in the book, even if not flagged as such, is shifting from being part of a conservative Christian minority in the context of a liberal secular society, to being a liberal inclusive minority in the context of conservative Christian society.
As I listened to Brian McLaren’s wonderful book Do I Stay Christian? a while back I had lots of thoughts. The book has prompted me to think and reflect not only about the book’s content itself but also related (and at times tangential) matters. One major theme in the book, even if not flagged as such, is shifting from being part of a conservative Christian minority in the context of a liberal secular society, to being a liberal inclusive minority in the context of conservative Christian society.
I have found the permission and freedom to be a new kind of Christian, a progressive Christian, a contemplative-activist Christian, a Christian humanist, or whatever you want to call me. I am learning to be content whatever I am called, as long as I remain passionately eager to embody a way of being human that is pro-justice, pro-kindness, and pro-humility.
Do I Stay Christian? addresses in public the powerful question that surprising numbers of people―including pastors, priests, and other religious leaders―are asking in private. Picking up where Faith After Doubt leaves off, Do I Stay Christian? is not McLaren's attempt to persuade Christians to dig in their heels or run for the exit. Instead, he combines his own experience with that of thousands of people who have confided in him over the years to help readers make a responsible, honest, ethical decision about their religious identity.
Do I Stay Christian? addresses in public the powerful question that surprising numbers of people―including pastors, priests, and other religious leaders―are asking in private. Picking up where Faith After Doubt leaves off, Do I Stay Christian? is not McLaren's attempt to persuade Christians to dig in their heels or run for the exit. Instead, he combines his own experience with that of thousands of people who have confided in him over the years to help readers make a responsible, honest, ethical decision about their religious identity.
- Publisher : St. Martin's Essentials (May 24, 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 272 pages
June 27, 2021: MilleLacs Messenger: Koinonia ‘The older I get, the less I know’
For those wanting more, I recommend to you Brian McLaren’s recent book, Faith After Doubt.
For those wanting more, I recommend to you Brian McLaren’s recent book, Faith After Doubt.
Sept 4, 2014: Christian Today: Brian McLaren: 'We've entered a new era of Bible reading'
We've moved into a new era of approaching the Bible, controversial Christian author and speaker Brian McLaren says. It's an era that could see Christians abandoning the idea that there is one 'right' way of interpreting Scripture – an era he calls Bible 3.0.
We've moved into a new era of approaching the Bible, controversial Christian author and speaker Brian McLaren says. It's an era that could see Christians abandoning the idea that there is one 'right' way of interpreting Scripture – an era he calls Bible 3.0.
May 1, 2014: Challies.com: The False Teachers: Brian McLaren
Today we turn to a man who helped lead the Emerging Church and who was once named by TIME as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. Brian McLaren
Today we turn to a man who helped lead the Emerging Church and who was once named by TIME as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. Brian McLaren
Mar 23, 2011: Albert Mohler: A Theological Conversation Worth Having: A Response to Brian McLaren
That is why a recent essay by Brian McLaren helps us all to understand what is at stake in the controversy over Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. Beyond this, his argument reveals a great deal about the actual beliefs and trajectories of what has become known as the emerging church. As such, his essay is a welcome addition to this important conversation.
That is why a recent essay by Brian McLaren helps us all to understand what is at stake in the controversy over Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. Beyond this, his argument reveals a great deal about the actual beliefs and trajectories of what has become known as the emerging church. As such, his essay is a welcome addition to this important conversation.
Tim Challis
In A New Kind of Christianity he insists that Christians have long been reading the Bible through the distorted lens of a Greco-Roman narrative. This narrative produced many false dualisms, an air of superiority, and a false distinction between those who were “in” and those who were “out.” These three marks of false narrative have so impacted our faith that we can hardly see past them. His book attempts to do that, and to reconstruct the Christian faith as it is meant to be.
Leading the way is his view of the Bible. He does not see the Bible as God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. He displays this, for example, in his interpretation of the account of Noah by saying, “a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship” (A New Kind of Christianity).
He goes on to say, “I’m recommending we read the Bible as an inspired library. This inspired library preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed” (New Kind). After all, “revelation doesn’t simply happen in statements. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities of people who share the same essential questions across generations. Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements.” He understands the Bible to be a slowly-evolving human understanding of God. “Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment.” This is nothing less than theological liberalism in twenty-first century, post-modern clothing (which is why Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism offers a rebuttal, though it was written 90 years earlier). Like Fosdick and other liberals before him, McLaren has assumed authority over the Bible instead of placing himself under its authority. His understanding of Scripture frees him to see Christian doctrine as evolving, and himself as an instrument of this evolution. In this way he revisits and reinterprets whatever does not accord with modern sensibilities. He has denied the literal nature of hell along with its eternality; he has denied the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ; he has denied Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father; he has affirmed homosexuality as good and pleasing to God. And he continues to think and to write, meaning that his theological development is not yet complete.
--Tim Challis; The False Teachers: Brian McLaren May 1, 2014
Leading the way is his view of the Bible. He does not see the Bible as God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. He displays this, for example, in his interpretation of the account of Noah by saying, “a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship” (A New Kind of Christianity).
He goes on to say, “I’m recommending we read the Bible as an inspired library. This inspired library preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed” (New Kind). After all, “revelation doesn’t simply happen in statements. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities of people who share the same essential questions across generations. Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements.” He understands the Bible to be a slowly-evolving human understanding of God. “Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment.” This is nothing less than theological liberalism in twenty-first century, post-modern clothing (which is why Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism offers a rebuttal, though it was written 90 years earlier). Like Fosdick and other liberals before him, McLaren has assumed authority over the Bible instead of placing himself under its authority. His understanding of Scripture frees him to see Christian doctrine as evolving, and himself as an instrument of this evolution. In this way he revisits and reinterprets whatever does not accord with modern sensibilities. He has denied the literal nature of hell along with its eternality; he has denied the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ; he has denied Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father; he has affirmed homosexuality as good and pleasing to God. And he continues to think and to write, meaning that his theological development is not yet complete.
--Tim Challis; The False Teachers: Brian McLaren May 1, 2014
Aug 27, 2020: Religious News Service: More than 350 faith leaders to back Biden for president, including many first-time endorsers
Other endorsers — most of whom organizers said are acting as individuals and not on behalf of their affiliated organizations — include a number of liberal-leaning voices, such as the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, an author and Lutheran pastor; David Gushee, an author and Christian ethicist; David Beckmann, president emeritus of the Christian organization Bread for the World; Diana Butler Bass, author and historian of religion; Rabbi Jack Moline, head of Interfaith Alliance; Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action; the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, pastor at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City; Rabbi Sharon Brous, head of IKAR Jewish community in California; Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist and head of the Revolutionary Love Project; Anju Bhargava, former member of Barack Obama's Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and board member of the Hindu American Seva Communities; Imam Talib Shareef of Masjid Muhammad, also known as “The Nation’s Mosque”; Greg M. Epstein, Humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT; and Brian McLaren, Christian author and activist.
Other endorsers — most of whom organizers said are acting as individuals and not on behalf of their affiliated organizations — include a number of liberal-leaning voices, such as the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, an author and Lutheran pastor; David Gushee, an author and Christian ethicist; David Beckmann, president emeritus of the Christian organization Bread for the World; Diana Butler Bass, author and historian of religion; Rabbi Jack Moline, head of Interfaith Alliance; Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action; the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, pastor at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City; Rabbi Sharon Brous, head of IKAR Jewish community in California; Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist and head of the Revolutionary Love Project; Anju Bhargava, former member of Barack Obama's Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and board member of the Hindu American Seva Communities; Imam Talib Shareef of Masjid Muhammad, also known as “The Nation’s Mosque”; Greg M. Epstein, Humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT; and Brian McLaren, Christian author and activist.
Apr 5, 2015: Brian McLaren: The Uprising Begins: An Easter Sunday Reflection
Gay Christian Movement Watch: September 26, 2012 Brian McLauren, emergent church, false teachers, homosexual marriage, marriage perversion
Its been proven again and again. The main motivation for these false teachers approving homosexual conduct comes down to two things: their families or themselves. It had just been a couple of years when McLaren shifted his thinking and abandoned the traditional view of homosexuality being a sin that he grew up with. “I had gone through my change in this view before I ever guessed that any of my kids might be gay,” he said on the radio program.” [source]
How very convenient, Mr. McLaren. Either way, putting either one over the will of God is idolatrous but idolatry isn’t a big concern with false teachers.
We’ve reported on Brian McLaren and his emergent church loonies here, here and here. As a leader in the emergent church movement, GCM Watch was the first to tell you that a marriage of the two false ideologies was inevitable. Both are cut from the same doctrinal error cloth. The lies false teachers tell are always self-serving. Always. The ones who spit out the gay is not a sin lie are profiting and personally benefitting from the telling of lies.
McLaren was the co-performer of his son’s “wedding” to another man in Washington.
Its been proven again and again. The main motivation for these false teachers approving homosexual conduct comes down to two things: their families or themselves. It had just been a couple of years when McLaren shifted his thinking and abandoned the traditional view of homosexuality being a sin that he grew up with. “I had gone through my change in this view before I ever guessed that any of my kids might be gay,” he said on the radio program.” [source]
How very convenient, Mr. McLaren. Either way, putting either one over the will of God is idolatrous but idolatry isn’t a big concern with false teachers.
We’ve reported on Brian McLaren and his emergent church loonies here, here and here. As a leader in the emergent church movement, GCM Watch was the first to tell you that a marriage of the two false ideologies was inevitable. Both are cut from the same doctrinal error cloth. The lies false teachers tell are always self-serving. Always. The ones who spit out the gay is not a sin lie are profiting and personally benefitting from the telling of lies.
McLaren was the co-performer of his son’s “wedding” to another man in Washington.