Strangely Familiar, Yet Alien

Having gone through almost half of Brian D. McLaren’s book, I find some of his thoughts somewhat strangely familiar. It feels as if I have been through it before. It feels as if my heart yearns for all that he stands for. Maybe I am a postmodern inside. He challenges the sole authority and inerrancy of the Bible. What if the Bible is just a useful book for instruction as St. Paul says it is? What if our view of the Bible as the sole authority has somehow been influenced by our modern culture, just as how the medieval people looked at the Pope and the Church as infallible authority? Is it possible that much of what we believe, much of our interpretations of the Bible, and much of our theology could have been influenced by our modern culture?

After reading McLaren, I realize that these are not new thoughts. They have been with me long before I have even heard of him. I have doubted if the Bible really is the ‘Word of God’ as we evangelicals would define it – our answer book, the sole authority on what we should believe. Nowhere in the Bible does it claim to be the Word of God. Nowhere in the Bible does it claim to be the sole authority. I keep wondering if the Bible itself is even influenced by the culture of those who decided on the books that should be included. Why did they choose what we have in the Bible now? Why were others dropped? Could they have chosen only things that they wanted to hear? Could they have chosen what they thought was ‘correct’ teachings based on what they believed at that time? No doubt the Holy Spirit could have been guiding them and leading them, but isn’t this the same explanation the Catholics give to explain the infallibility of the Pope and Catholic tradition, that the Holy Spirit was guiding them? Why were books added or dropped as time went on? Will it be valid if a group of church leaders initiates a council and decides to add the writings of C. S. Lewis and Phillip Yancey into the Bible? Isn’t this how they did it at that time? No doubt these are ‘heretical’ thoughts in the eyes of evangelicals, but they have resided in the back of my mind for a long time. Reading McLaren has actually helped me to articulate these thoughts.

Of course, I won’t be so quick to say that everything is relative and that there are no absolutes, as the postmodernists would like to believe. I believe that God is absolute. Jesus is absolute. God’s Word to us (which may not necessarily be just the Bible, though I do not deny that God can speak to us through the Bible as He has done many times before in my life) is absolute. The Bible may be absolute, but our interpretation of the Bible may not be absolute.

To say that all knowledge is relative is not to say that there are no absolutes, but only to accept that we do not have absolute knowledge of the absolutes ~ on Pastor Sivin Kit’s blog

However, there are times when I am totally shocked by what McLaren says through Neo, one of his chief characters. Just as some thoughts are strangely familiar, others are totally alien. Could it be possible that Heaven and Hell are the same place? Could it be that those who choose to obey God will enjoy it, but those who reject God will not like it there? Ideas such as these I cannot accept, for now at least. I look forward to my next session with him!