Christian Shock Treatment: Brian McLaren
I’ve been reading Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity for the past couple of months. My intent is to share some thoughts on what I’ve been reading in a series of posts after I’m done with the book. However, this could not wait. In a guest article for the Huffington Post, Brian McLaren attempts to answer the question, “Why do evangelical hate me so much?” In this article he talks about the Milgram Experiement,
The classic Milgram experiment performed at Yale in the early 1960s showed that a strong majority of normal people will surrender their conscience to a person perceived as a legitimate authority figure. When people were instructed by an authoritative researcher to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity after each wrong answer given by a stranger (who was actually an actor cooperating with the test), they complied in alarming numbers. And they kept complying, continuing to press the punishment button after the person had screamed in pain and then apparently gone unconscious…In my opinion, multitudes of Christians find themselves in a real-life Milgram experiment these days. Their consciences are in conflict with their beloved religious authority figures on several key issues — ten of which I raise in my book — but they continue to press the punishment button when instructed to do so.
He has a lengthy excerpt from his book about the challenging questions many Christians have but submit to their leaders without question because they fear the repercussions of their faith communities.
While I don’t completely agree with McLaren on a lot of the points he brings up in this new book I will say this:
- I find it deeply troubling that people have these kind of questions and don’t bring them up out of fear. I don’t blame them, I blame a church culture that treats the Bible like a weapon against people who may not agree with their fundamental beliefs. I am guilty of that and I want to do what I can to change the culture.
- McLaren raises some serious issues and concerns with the current state of Christianity and as a result asks 10 provocative questions in his new book.
- McLaren will become the new Satan as Christian leaders will completely ignore the spirit of his book and destroy his Character.
Robert
I love theology and the challenge of making deep teachings non-boring. Let's face it, most of the time we hear theological teaching, it really is boring. Does it really have to be that way? Nope.
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