Everything Must Change: What's Wrong?
I want to begin discussion of McLaren's Everything Must Change in the same place where he begins and assess the trajectory of the book in that light. I mentioned previously that I found myself underwhelmed with the book; upon further reflection, I think the problem that I have with it begins at the beginning and never fully resolves. McLaren asks two questions, which the rest of the book attempts to answer: What are the biggest problems in the world? and What does Jesus have to say about these global problems? In and of themselves, these are good questions, even if I have a bit of a quibble with the second that I'll discuss in a later post. I'm not convinced of his answers, however.
McLaren discusses four primary crises which he believes answer the first question (all quotes from p. 5):
- The Prosperity Crisis - "Environmental breakdown caused by our unsustainable global economy, an economy that fails to respect environmental limits even as it succeeds in producing great wealth for about one-third of the world's population."
- The Equity Crisis - "The growing gap between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor, which prompts the poor majority to envy, resent, and even hate the rich minority - which in turn elicits fear and anger in the rich."
- The Security Crisis - "The danger of cataclysmic war arising from the intensifying resentment and fear among various groups at opposite ends of the economic spectrum.
- The Spirituality Crisis - "The failure of the world's religions, especially its two largest religions, to provide a framing story capable of healing or reducing the three previous crises."
But I'm wrestling with this set of crises primarily because of the way that he's defined the last one, the spirituality crisis. I don't think that what he's saying is untrue - in fact, I think it's a great way to discuss some of the reasons that the American flavor of Christianity has been so ineffective in responding to social issues in the past century. But I don't think it's big enough. My problem is that he leaves out a fairly significant piece of the puzzle here, and without it the rest of the book feels like a chair with one leg too short - in other words, rather unstable and with a distracting tendency to lean to the side instead of remaining centered.
Let me take a step back and state what I think scripture presents as the answer to the first question. I think, if I were going to summarize the whole of scripture and give a concise way of talking about what's wrong, I'd say two things: idolatry and injustice. I've never attempted to do this, but I think it would be fascinating to walk through Leviticus or Deuteronomy and categorize each prescription in terms of these two headers, sort of a scriptural version of tags. (Side note - that's a damn fine idea. Someone who's smarter than me should put a tagging system together for the biblical text, sort of like a scripture wiki, and open it up for folks to tag texts in ways that they find meaningful. Wouldn't that be fascinating? There's a dissertation in there somewhere.) Anyway - I'm willing to bet that you won't find a part of the Law that doesn't fit in one of those two categories. Throughout the OT, the two seem to be linked, particularly so in the prophets. Zechariah, for example, says this:
Then the word of the LORD Almighty came to me: "Ask all the people of the land and the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the words the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?'" And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'" (Zech. 7:4-10)I think that Jesus was thinking along these lines when he stated that the two greatest commands were love of God and love of one's neighbor - aren't those really just the opposite of idolatry and injustice?
The primary problem that I have with the book, and one of the reasons that I find it ultimately unsatisfying, is that it fails to identify idolatry as a significant part of the problem. That is what is at the root of the spirituality crisis, and it explains nicely why it is that American Christianity has been so remarkably silent on a number of these issues. I agree that the problem is one of framing stories, but what is needed is a framing story that is rooted in the worship of the One True God. Absent that, all of our attempts at solving the other crises will only perpetuate injustice - not correct it.
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I believe you are right about idolatry. Can I suggest wherein idolatry finds its root (this is from my experience with my remarkable father, who I am about to be very unfair to)?
Idolatry (at least in American Christianity) comes from fear caused by modernism's materialism and post-modernism's deconstructive polemic. Simply put, my father's noblest character and spirit gifted from God was clearly crippled by his fear that without economic security and social checks and balances Christianity wouldn't survive more than a generation or two.
He had to construct an adjunct to God because he didn't see God violating the laws of modernistic mechanistics or manifesting to vaporize post-modern skepticism.
Apologia wasn't for answering challenges, it was for maintaining the faith itself as if apologia could be a substitute for transcendent experience. And "prudent" economic decisions became the extension of God's providence.
I think I really need to explore these thoughts at length, but I wanted to scratch them down on your blog to get your thoughts and make sure I didn't forget.
Posted by David on November 13, 2007 02:39 AMJust finished a cursury reading of Leviticus and am halfway thru Deuteronomy. Idolatry does come thru loud and clear. I haven't heard the injustice theme to the same extent, maybe because God isn't kicking my butt in that area at the moment. Another theme I noticed in these books is warnings against lust. It seems that God is saying, "If you worship idols and practice injustice, you will feel free to go after whatever you desire. Worship me alone!"
McClaren's first three crises could easily fit under the themes of idolarty and injustice, more so the latter, as major subcatagories or focus points. I'm not sure that they are the root problem so much as symptoms of the problem. Would lust fit into a focus point or a root problem?
Posted by Bob B. on November 13, 2007 02:32 PMScott,
Awesome, you nailed it. Although I haven't read the book and find myself wanting to give Brian the benefit of the doubt, I have felt some easiness at the discussions surrounding the book.
Injustice is simply a result or fruit of idolatry, and as you said so well, idolatry and the resulting injustice cannot be resolved apart from the worship of God. I agree with your statement that absent that, attempts at solving the other crises will perpetuate injustice.
Glad to see you writing again.
Posted by grace on November 13, 2007 02:38 PMI think you're right on target. The challenge with confronting idolatry is the ever present tendency to impose a new idolatry we have mistaken for truth. Its slippery stuff.
Love the idea of a tagged Bible!
Posted by Michael W. Kruse on November 13, 2007 02:58 PMI'd like to suggest Bob Goudzwaard as person who deals with idolatry in his works. Especially his "Idols of Our Time" and his more recent "Hope in Troubled Times" (you can read the first chapter at the link above).
Posted by macht on November 13, 2007 03:15 PMI have thought for a while about that Bible markup system. It would actually not be hard to do aside from figuring out the licensing for the different translations. In the mean time, you can check out a spoof translation at www.lolcatbible.com
The other thing that really bothers me about his analysis of the last point is that it seems to take an Amerocentic understanding of Christianity and extrapolate it to the world. Christianity in Africa, for example, is a wildly different beast from Christianity in the West.
Check out Oscar Muriu's speech from the Urbana conference last year on this.
http://www.urbana.org/u2006.session.info.cfm?session=3
Posted by Chris on November 14, 2007 09:02 AMDavid - good insights. I would couple "fear" with "pride" in your example - I think there's a fair measure of both in play.
Bob - hmmm. Interesting - I confess I haven't seen the theme of lust emphasized like you're mentioning. I'll have to pay closer attention the next time I read through.
grace - thanks for the thoughts. ;)
Michael - excellent caution. I think that's one of the things that's bugging me - I feel like Brian's suggestion is to trade one set of shaky assumptions for another set. I wonder if the idea of justice can become idolatrous?
macht - thanks for the suggestion; I'll check it out!
Chris - great observation. He tries to come at the problem from the perspective of critiquing Amerocentrism, but I think you're right in that he's assuming his experience to be the normative experience and so falls into the same trap in the end. Great thought.
Posted by ScottB on November 15, 2007 12:07 AMxpound.org did bible tagging, it was a really good site, but now it seems to have disappeared. You can read about it here:
http://www.semanticbible.com/blogos/2006/08/01.html
"He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy; Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me?" Declares the Lord." (Jer 22:16)
That was definitely a thought provoking post. I wonder if a recognition of the interrelatedness of those two categories would affect your critique - perhaps blunting its edge? I've come to love the verse above because I'm one of those people who have a really hard time relating to a God that I can neither see nor hear. The only way that I feel related to Him is through my relations with others. Right relations with others = right relations with God. For me, injustice is idolatry, and idolatry is, or at least leads to, injustice. Or do you think that this is too close of an identification?
Posted by Jared on November 16, 2007 02:16 PMianmcn - thanks for the link; I'll check it out.
Jared - I've thought about your comment for a few days, and I don't think that the interconnected nature of the themes softens my critique. If anything, I think it amplifies it. I agree with your statement about injustice and idolatry. I think the book tries to deal with the first without recognizing the significance of the second. Or perhaps put differently, I think it collapses idolatry into injustice and sees both through one lens, instead of seeing how each illumines the other. I'll come back to this later, I think - there are parts of the book where this really stands out.
Posted by ScottB on November 20, 2007 11:48 PMi'm glad to see you writing again, too! hope all is well on your end. as for me - prepping for the turducken...
Posted by kristi on November 21, 2007 02:56 AMThanks for the post. Good stuff. I agree that the issues of scripture seem to be idolatry and injustice. I would argue that idolatry leads to injustice.
Another issue that I have is that with McClaren's reasoning the gospel becomes reduced to being nice to people. If that's the case the cross (and really Jesus' entire ministry) can be diregarded). We love to forget that the vast majority of Jesus' teachings come right out of the OT. Pursuing justice does not necessarily move you closer to God although pursuing God leads to to justice.
How does McClaren deal with the death and resurrection of Jesus? where doe the atonement fit into this?
Posted by Paul D on November 22, 2007 09:01 AMRe my comment regards lust... came across this in Romans 1: "25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator..." That is, they committed idolatry. "26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts." So, lust would be a subcatagory of idolatry; a cause and affect relationship.
Posted by Bob B. on December 10, 2007 12:50 PMI think the problem is incompleteness in our transformation. We are supposed to be different. To be lovers, as Jesus was a lover. Yet, the problem lies in that we are often times very unChristian. Christian literally means "little Christ." We need to begin to allow God to transform more and more of our life until we are just that: little Christs.
Posted by Adam Lehman on March 2, 2008 04:53 PM