In 2008 Scott McKnight reviewed Brian McLaren’s two then-recent books—The Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change. McKnight wrote in the page of Christianity Today:
although I continue to have questions for McLaren . . . , I believe he can be a rich source for Christian imagination, vision, and reflection. No one today better expresses, like a beat poet, both the ironic faith of emergents and a strong sense of how the gospel should be lived today. As emergent’s pastor and confessing priest, McLaren has moved through this irony and come out the other side with a vision that has won over many.
You can read the whole review for McKnight’s appreciation for McLaren, along with questions about his writing—related to clarity, the cross, and the church and the kingdom.
McKnight has been, perhaps, evangelicalism’s most patient reviewer or McLaren’s works. But the patience can only last so long, given McLaren’s trajectory. CT‘s latest issue contains a new review by McKnight, this time of McLaren’s latest book, A New Kind of Christianity. It opens with this line:
Brian McLaren has grown tired of evangelicalism. In turn, many evangelicals are wearied with Brian.
In the conclusion McKnight courageously calls a spade a spade:
Unfortunately, this book lacks the “generosity” of genuine orthodoxy and, frankly, I find little space in it for orthodoxy itself. Orthodoxy for too many today means little more than the absence of denying what’s in the creeds. But a robust orthodoxy means that orthodoxy itself is the lens through which we see theology. One thing about this book is clear: Orthodoxy is not central.
Alas, A New Kind of Christianity shows us that Brian, though he is now thinking more systematically, has fallen for an old school of thought. I read this book carefully, and I found nothing new. It may be new for Brian, but it’s a rehash of ideas that grew into fruition with Adolf von Harnack and now find iterations in folks like Harvey Cox and Marcus Borg. For me, Brian’s new kind of Christianity is quite old. And the problem is that it’s not old enough.
You can read the whole review here.
