Kim Gentes

Brian McLaren is lauded by many as the teaching voice of the post-modern movement within Protestantism. He is seen as a rabble-rouser, genius and even heretic. His initial work that sowed much of the love (and angst) for his perspective and his personage is “A Generous Orthodoxy”. In many respects, this book provides an apologetic, not for post-modern methodology, but for pre-modern (or perhaps pre-reformation) church understanding and hopeful unity. Having read the book two complete times (and a 3rd time through spent skimming to wrangle further details), I grew more affectionate towards the book with each time revisiting concepts and chapters.

In its sum, A Generous Orthodoxy attempts to provide a overarching narrative for how the scope of all Christian faith traditions might reach towards one another, finding the good, and enjoining the best from each of the groups into a single conversation that might become one voice of love to a broken world. McLaren is clearly a man with the goal of seeing the larger picture, making it plain to others, and hoping it will inspire deeper thinking and even more profound action.  He performs his work in this book by walking systematically through each tradition, pointing out the various differences in each, while being careful to highlight the beauty God has stored as treasures in each tradition.  McLaren finds this treasure, gathers them together in a warm-hearted banter, and presents a jewel box back to the reader- all with the hope it may be cherished as a whole, not as just the component parts.

In large part, his attempt succeeds. He does point out the beauty of the Eastern tradition, the wisdom of the Catholics, the passion of the Pentecostals and on and on.  He does this, and all the while he challenges the reader to expand the breadth of their generosity to draw near,  sit down, and share a meal with their brothers and sisters in the family  of God.  In actuality, nothing McLaren says is at all new, or even shocking. What makes it surprisingly effective is that he is one of the first to say most of the essential points of recent critical thought on our faith while surveying the breadth of the Christian traditions. The book has a number of poignant moments where it draws on truly cross-denominational understandings of faith, and ways to speak such things that bridge traditions.  One example I enjoyed greatly was:

This is why, for starters, I am a Christian: the image of God conveyed by Jesus as the Son of God, and the image of the universe that resonates with this image of God best fit my deepest experience, best resonate with my deepest intuition, best inspire my deepest hope, and best challenge me to live with what my friend, the late Mike Yaconelli, called “dangerous wonder,” which is the starting point for a generous orthodoxy.[1]

After those points, however, I run out of “generous” else to affirm in A Generous Orthodoxy.  McLaren’s attempt to subvert the barb of division in the global Christian church by generously presenting the best it has to offer fails on two main fronts, which kill the book at its outset and damage its credibility closest the source (the authors own tradition).  First first problem is such a painstaking burp in editorial supervision that his publishing house should fire consider firing their general editor on the spot.

At the outset of the book, McLaren thinks he will forcefully, glibly and extensively chastise his audience before they begin reading the book. He does so by flagellating himself with the scorn of his own self-interest. In the end, it is a terribly failed attempt at asking permission that turns into a childish display of literary rambling.  He turns a one paragraph apology into an entire chapter of ridiculousness. He starts by saying:

You are about to begin an absurd and ridiculous book. Those who like it and those who hate it, those who get it and those who don’t, equally stand in some peril. So some words of warning are required. It is not too late to turn back, as you have not yet reached Chapter 1.[2]

It seems silly and deft. Humorously, he introduces us to his apology for what is to come. But it goes horribly wrong. What bothers me most about McLaren’s approach in the introduction (he calls it chapter 0) is mostly that he tries to absolve himself of any responsibility for the things he says. His jocularity is endearing but the constant effusing of his humble intentions, self-deprecating dismissal of his own efforts, and disclaimers so ridiculous that he clearly takes it that he wants to say whatever he wishes and takes absolutely the tact that his opinions are protected under "I told you so" mentality. It doesn't endear the reader, and it sounds wildly self-serving. From his buttress of denyability that he builds in 4 pre-sections (preface, foreword, introduction and chapter 0), McLaren stands arrogantly above anyone who would dare to question anything he says, making him the least generous of all (of course, he is careful to refute the possibility of anyone refuting his refutability as well). I'd have loved it if he just started saying what he came to say, instead of wasting everyone's time on his own sense of justification (which he absolutely declares everyone else to be steeped in). Not a good start, in my opinion (and of course, he has refuted and disclaimed the right of anyone else’s opinions to be valid as anything more than blabbering next to his fictitiously unimportant text). 

Past the introduction, McLaren’s other major failure is his unashamed disdain for evangelical Christians. He lauds through all traditions, showing small err and lots of grace for the breadth of Christianity. Save the evangelicals.  It seems he hopes that the only ones who will read his book are those he will hope to “change” - the evangelicals. The clear indication is that all evangelicals are the most in need of change and that they have little good ingredients to add to the global soul soup of Christian expression.  I understand McLaren’s broader point- self-criticism is where we must start. We all get it. But McLaren spends an entire book being generous to everyone else, but the evangelicals.  From that perspective, he decides to forgo thinking well of his brother whom he hopes to change (the evangelicals), while speaking kindly to others who might appreciate the warm embrace.  To quote from our leader, “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” 

I’d further say that McLaren makes blunders in a few other places that don’t help his case. For example, he says :

If conservative Protestants focus on the way Jesus initially saves individuals by dying on the cross, and Pentecostals focus on the way Jesus continues to save individuals by giving the Holy Spirit, Roman Catholics focus on the way Jesus saves the church by rising from the dead.[3]

Our Catholic family have much to be lauded, but their focus (especially in juxtaposition to the protestants) is more crisply towards the cross, while Protestants has been to Easter and resurrection.  His sub-point dealing specifically with soteriology is fine, but in a book like this, this statement uses the wrong language at an important place, and leaves the wrong impression about two great traditions.

McLaren had a chance to make a book that would rock the Christian world, and actually help all (especially evangelicals) with his warm and hopeful heart. But he fails by alienating the group he seeks to target with his dismissive approach towards his own tradition, and an absolutely abysmal introduction. Amidst a large collection of good thoughts from the author, I feel he misses the mark, when so much more was hoped for.

Amazon Product Link: http://amzn.to/rtJIO6

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]McLaren, Brian D.. “A Generous Orthodoxy: By celebrating strengths of many traditions in the church (and beyond)”. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Youth Specialties, 2004), Pg. 78

[2]Ibid., Pg. 27

[3]Ibid., Pg. 53

The Country Parson is a instructional book written from 17th century Anglican minister George Herbert in an attempt to describe and define the “perfect” country ministry.  The same writer was a prolific poet and penned a generous volume of poems gathered and published as “The Temple”.  Herbert is a brilliant academic figure, whose writing is surprisingly poignant and succinct, while remaining excellent pastoral guidance across the centuries.

Much in the tradition of Gregory the Great, whose “pastoral care” manual gave very specific and practical admonitions about human behavior, Herbert helps us understand how to properly lead the life of an Anglican priest and how it can be properly administered in a country parish.  This is not so much an examination of the parishioner as it is a prescriptive agenda for various circumstances that may be encountered by the priest.

What is refreshing about Herbert immediately is his humility.  Though the book is little more than 60 pages, he starts out with this abrupt stance to those who would theorise the ministry from an academic understanding:

Of those that live in the Universities, some live there in office, whose rule is that of the Apostle; Rom. 12.6. Having gifts differing, according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministring, or he that teacheth, on teaching, &c. he that ruleth, let him do it with diligence, &c. Some in a preparatory way, whose aim and labour must be not only to get knowledge, but to subdue and mortify all lusts and affections: and not to think, that when they have read the Fathers, or Schoolmen, a Minister is made, and the thing done.[1]

Such clarity of theology and praxis is still appropriate advice for us today.  Herbert’s lessons to the pastor already serving are no less profound. One great example is his elevation of integrity as a duty for the minister to gain a hearing with his parishioners:

because Country people (as indeed all honest men) do much esteem their word, it being the Life of buying, and selling, and dealing in the world; therfore the Parson is very strict in keeping his word, though it be to his own hindrance, as knowing, that if he be not so, he will quickly be discovered, and disregarded: neither will they believe him in the pulpit, whom they cannot trust in his Conversation.[2]

Herbert teaches the minister to take the congregation as his barometer in all things. Preach using analogies they understand. Expound the textual meaning of a scripture, then communicate an application. Don’t preach too long. Divide your time up across a month and visit a quarter of the people in your congregation each week, thus seeing everyone personally in the span of each month in their own homes. Such practical wisdom is found on every page of Herbert’s book. All of this may sound mechanistic, but to a minister who is learning the craft of caring for people, it can be sound guidelines for beginning and understanding excellent common practices that can help frame a lifetime of ministry.

For sure, Herbert’s work is not to be taken as a exact template for every ministry or every circumstance. This is not his intention and we shouldn't be saddled by such expectations any more than us writing a book of practical wisdom for pastors today would be seen as useful in every aspect to ministers 300 years later from us. Accept and use what is good, but do not dogmatically undertake the book as a present-day regimen for all ministries.

Amazon Product Link: http://amzn.to/vLCyzi

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]George Herbert, “George Herbert: The Country Parson, The Temple”, (Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press 1981), Pg. 55

[2]Ibid., Pg. 57

Reading and reviewing NT Wright's "Jesus and the Victory of God" is a monolithic task, as the book is both lengthy and highly academic. Its success is not in its volume of pages, however, but in its thorough treatment of Jesus and his work as historical fact leading to theological reality.

The portrait of Jesus of Galilee as the first century Jew who is both prophet/messiah is so profoundly unlike our 20th/21st Century thinking, that it is a shock treatment into the historical Jesus. It re-levels our Christian beliefs and theology from our arrogant "looking back on history" to a profound looking from the 1rst century forward, through the eyes of Judaism and its traditions and worldview. When we wake up from the shock, we find we are in a world that is thoroughly Jewish, thoroughly 1rst century, living as a conquered nation of Israel with its neck under the heel of the tyrannical Roman Empire.

Amongst a brood of  1st century revolutionary Zionists, Pharisees and "Jews-still-in-exile" within their own country, Jesus appears and draws on this climactic time, announcing in himself the arrival the kingdom-of-god message in which he comes to reconstitute the Temple, the Torah, and the Wisdom into his very person, reissuing their true essence into himself.  At the same time, he redefines the true people of God not as a swipe against Israel but as a reinstatement of the core of its vocation and character- to be the light of the world.

Once the core of who Jesus is, what he intended, and what he actually did is redefined, the entire synoptic readings need complete reinterpreting, and Wright provides that as well, exploring the parables, symbols, actions and praxis of Jesus as both a means and expression to his brilliant thesis.

Product Link on Amazon: Jesus and the Victory of God

Review by Kim Gentes

Dominion and Dynasty is a purposeful book meant to articulate the guiding narrative of the Hebrew scriptures by examining the original structure of Text (and texts within), re-envisioning a supportive literary approach as a hermeneutic for micro-interpretation within a macro-context, identifying the covenantal promises and blessings of land and lineage, and guiding the further interpretation of the narrative through understanding the symbols of Eden and David.

Structure to the narrative.

Reading through Stephen Dempster’s “Dominion and Dynasty” I found myself seeing the entire Old Testament (and the New Testament as well) as being a truly unified narrative.  Previously, I had always read the Bible based on the modern day arrangement/order of books. Along with this, the text seemed to lack a coherent timeline, appeared ambiguous on so many referential levels and not seem to be part of a grander plot. The first profound change for me was to encounter Dempster’s explanation of the book order (and  3 groupings of books within) within the Tanakh.  For the first time, I understood that the Hebrew Bible was architected as a narrative (even edited/ordered). It was grouped by three main sections within the overall volume- narrative, commentary, and concluding narrative. This may seem obvious or trivial to some, but in reading this one sentence below, my viewpoint of the Old Testament was changed forever:

The storyline begins with creation and moves to the exile of Judah in Babylon, from Genesis to 2 Kings; then the narrative is interrupted by poetic texts- largely prophecy, psalms and wisdom literature- before being resumed with Israel back in Babylon in the book of Daniel, moving on to the return of the exiles to Judah and concluding with a narrative summation of the entire history of Israel from creation to the exile in the books of Chronicles.[1]

Exegesis based on literary structure and synthesis.

With this introductory understanding of the structure of the Tanakh, I began to see a plan of the larger narrative of the entire Bible. Dempster pushes further on this point and holds that a broader literary approach to the Bible is itself a required hermeneutic for correct understanding of the specific texts in light of this larger, structured, progressive narrative.

Covenants of Land and Lineage.

The other major point that Dempster makes is that the major plot-line of the Hebrew Bible is centered on the covenant-making of God with individuals (primarily Adam, Noah, Abraham, David), tribes (the 12, and especially Judah) and nations (Israel). Specifically, this covenant-making pivots critically on two kinds of promise from God: provision and grants of land (dominion), and blessing and increase of the progeny of the covenantal figures (dynasty). In return, the human agents in those covenants were to agree to be bound to faithfulness in their devotion and service to Yahweh. God would give them land and children, if those in covenant with Him would remain faithful.

Lineage

Dempster is emphatic on this point of lineage, and it helps him explain why the Hebrew Scriptures have an insistence on including the genealogical record in key points of the narrative. He says:

A key purpose of genealogies in some contexts is to show a divine purpose that moves history to a specific goal.[2]

The book details the blessing of lineage as expressed through genealogy, especially in Genesis, where ten genealogical lists frame the movement of the storyline across both time and major characters.[3] In fact, the promise of descendants to Abraham becomes the pivotal salvation point for all of Israel, according to Dempster, when Moses is trying to plead for Israel’s sake against the judgment of God. Dempster says:

The sin forces God to threaten to destroy Israel in agreement with the covenant and to start again with Moses. But Moses pleads (certainly not on the basis of the recently broken Sinai covenant) on the basis of the descendants promised in the covenant with Abraham as grounds for saving Israel (Exod. 32:13). It is only this reason that decisively moves God to have mercy on Israel.[4]

Land

As much as the promise of descendants was a touch point of the promise made to Israel, so also was the identification with geographical space a sign of God’s blessing. Dempster highlights this extensively in his summation of Deuteronomy, where he says:

Consequently, the geographical motif is omnipresent. The final address of Moses to the people is saturated with references to the great prize awaiting possession. The land is at the forefront from the beginning to the end.[5]

The author is convinced that the Hebrew scriptures see the land as the clear external marker of both God’s blessing and Israel’s condition within the covenant. The various battles, successes and failures epitomise the faithfulness or sin of Israel, resulting in her consequence of acquiring or losing land. Dempster explains this at length in his section on the “Former Prophets”, where he talks both about the successes of faithfulness to the covenant:

The geographical nature of the promise is emphasized by the lengthy list of kinds and cities that were captured...what seems uninteresting to westerners was surely momentous to ancient Israelites. These were land deeds![6]

Likewise, later loss and rescinded access to the land (or rule over it) is seen as judgment for the break of covenant by Israel. This is highlighted when the author explains:

No sooner is the temple built and dedicated than it is duly noted that Solomon is guilty of polygamy, which leaders him to apostasy... The judgment that follows Solomon’s death splits the kingdom, dividing the tribe of Judah (and an assimilated Simeon) in the south from the ten northern tribes. With the failure of the Davidic scion, the promised land has begun to fragment.[7]

Thus, just as much as genealogy and descendants heralded God’s covenantal blessing, possession of land marked the barometer of Israel’s faithfulness (or failure) to that same covenant.

Major Narrative Symbols

Eden.

Symbols of Eden - from Egypt, to  Sinai, to the exile, to Solomon and beyond the typology for Eden is cast throughout almost every major story of the Hebrew bible. Covenant building, human failure, restoration and a spiraling into further sin and consequential desolation is the Edenic archtype that pervades the Tanakh.  Dempster sees the Eden image as a constant type that should be used to re-interpret later passages. For example, he treats Numbers 24:5-9 passage of Balaam’s blessing (3rd curse attempt) as if Edenic imagery is intended.

The passage draws from Eden and exodus imagery; Israel is compared to rivers and gardens, trees that the Lord has planted; the Israelite tents are like the trees planted by Yahweh. This was the divine intention when Israel was brought out from Egypt. It was to be planted in God’s mountain (Exod. 15:16); that is, it was to be returned to Eden.[8]

David.

David as the central character of the old Hebrew understanding of the complete man (Adam). David represented both the fulfillment of dominion and the blessing of dynasty that Israel could hold up as the archtype for their hope. And while Israel reaches her pinnacle in David/Solomon, even later hopes of restoration (for the sinful, broken Israel) come labeled as linked to the dynasty of David. It is a Davidic messiah that they wait for, a Davidic kingdom that they hope for politically, and Davidic dominion that they hope for militarily. Prophetic and narrative content replays David as the one on whom history pivots from the past into the future.

Dempster’s acute observations about the centrality of David to the Hebrew text is synthesized best in his last chapter. His description of the pinnacle role of David as a genealogical summation of humanity and a iconic figure that is hearkened back to by later generations (and texts) is clarified by the diagram on page 232, where he shows David as the pivot point of God’s efforts to draw humanity and creation back to himself.

These images of David and Eden, the covenantal components of land and lineage and the narrative structure (along with historical timeline) of the Hebrew scriptures are the key points of the excellent book, Dominion and Dynasty. Stephen Dempster has created an excellent guide for understanding how Jesus and the first century Jews may have understood the Hebrew scriptures. This is invaluable to those of us seeking to learn the context from which the message of Christ came forth, and gives us a greater understanding of what the New Testament writers were addressing through the gospel message and its revelation of Jesus as the Messiah who was to fulfill the Hebrew scriptures.

Product Link on Amazon: Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible 

[1]Stephen G. Dempster,  “Dominion and dynasty: a biblical theology of the Hebrew Bible”,(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), Pg 22

[2]Ibid., Pg 47

[3]Ibid., Pg 55, 56

[4]Ibid., Pg 104

[5]Ibid., Pg 118

[6]Ibid., Pg 128

[7]Ibid., Pg 149

[8]Ibid., Pg 115,116

Saint Teresa of Avila is another of the Catholic mystics who has profoundly impacted Christian formation/spirituality in the last 500 years. Like Therese of Lisieux, St. John of the Cross and others in the mystic tradition, Teresa of Avila takes a route of growth that focuses profoundly on the topic of love and uses the lens of introspection to probe the depths of the soul to find and purge inconsistencies for the person to find ultimate union with God.

To begin down this path Teresa defines an expanded understanding of the soul as a philosophically different and complete component to a human being, much in the Platonic/Geek dualistic model of separated body/spirit. Her exploration of this soul description begins with its magnitude.

In speaking of the soul we must always think of it as spacious, ample and lofty; and this can be done without the least exaggeration, for the soul's capacity is much greater than we can realize, and this Sun, Which is in the palace, reaches every part of it.[1]

But within this Platonic construct, the imagery and understanding of the soul is quite articulate and helpful. Teresa jumps immediately into the examination of the inner self.  She finds in this inward journey, a more careful examination of the human condition, both as broken and beautiful agencies to the purpose of God. Again of this inward reflection, she says:

self-knowledge is so important that, even if you were raised right up to the heavens, I should like you never to relax your cultivation of it; so long as we are on this earth, nothing matters more to us than humility. And so I repeat that it is a very good thing -- excellent, indeed -- to begin by entering the room where humility is acquired rather than by flying off to the other rooms. For that is the way to make progress, and, if we have a safe, level road to walk along, why should we desire wings to fly? Let us rather try to get the greatest possible profit out of walking. As I see it, we shall never succeed in knowing ourselves unless we seek to know God: let us think of His greatness and then come back to our own baseness; by looking at His purity we shall see our foulness; by meditating upon His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble.[2]

Teresa begins with the assumption that self-investigation is actually a way of expressing humility, since we are changed when we see the contrast between ourselves and God, our nature and God’s nature.  In fact, for Teresa of Avila, humility is acquired by self-knowledge. For most individuals in modern culture, this type of approach would seem more selfish and less apt for personal change. But this is the gift of the mystic writers - they actually become the true inquisitors of their own hearts, who deal in honestly and expect you will as well. 

What develops in this book particularly is a description of the soul as a series of unique mansions within mansions (something like a Russian doll configuration). The initial exterior mansions are representative of lesser levels of union with God, fraught with sin and seemingly regularly pulling people back to a starting of spiritual development largely due to a lack of freedom from sin and a continued unhealthy self-absorption. The interior mansions also correlate with levels of prayer progress that the adherent makes as they manage through these levels of mansions.

What anchors the mystics insistence on self-knowledge as a path to purity is their equally consistent trajectory of faith founded deeply in love. Love is the lynch-pin, the catalyst and end game for every point and sub-point of The Interior Castle, and the Avila saint says as much: 

As I have written about this at great length elsewhere,I will not repeat it here. I only want you to be warned that, if you would progress a long way on this road and ascend to the Mansions of your desire, the important thing is not to think much, but to love much; do, then, whatever most arouses you to love. Perhaps we do not know what love is: it would not surprise me a great deal to learn this, for love consists, not in the extent of our happiness, but in the firmness of our determination to try to please God in everything, and to endeavour, in all possible ways, not to offend Him, and to pray Him ever to advance the honour and glory of His Son and the growth of the Catholic Church. Those are the signs of love; do not imagine that the important thing is never to be thinking of anything else and that if your mind becomes slightly distracted all is lost.[3]

If there is any problem with the approach of the saint of Avila, it is not in the sincerity of her heart or the assumption that she puts forth that we should have likewise. Instead, it may be simply in the belief that such great wisdom can be birthed from a person living a life in the convents and taken for use among people who live daily in the strain and grime of broken humanity as it exists outside of the cloistered communities of the monastic traditions.

Product Link on Amazon: The Interior Castle

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Therese of Avila,  “The Interior Castle”, translated E. Allison Peers (Radford, VA: Wilder Publications, 2008),Kindle Edition, Location 495

[2]Ibid., Location 509

[3]Ibid., Location 988