Today Ingrid claimed that “Brian McLaren calls hell and the cross is false advertising for God.”
This is her evidence.
Anyone find anything on that page that would suggest this is Brian’s stance? Anyone?Â
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on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Ingrid, Linked Articles, What Can You Say?.
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54 Comments(+Add)
Her evidence is Second Presbyterian Church? That seems a bit light!
I am pretty sure she just got her links mixed up. Hee, hee!
This is a link to the interview:
http://lighthousetrailsresearch.com/brianmclaren.htm
are you people so desperate to prove ingrid wrong that you are now complaining about typos and link mistakes? you guys must really be desperate. I just went to slice and not only is the link fixed, she even has a youtube video of mcclaren saying the cross is false advertising. personally i was disgusted by what mcclaren said. so this wasn’t a claim that ingrid was making this was a fact that she was pointing out and she gave me more than enough evidence to prove her point.
I watched the video. I completely disagree with what Mclaren saying.
God does get “His Way”, and He does get “His vengeance” and He does ask us to forgive, but will “reward each man according to what he has done”. Perfection, Justice, and Mercy is what I think of when I think “God”.
God provided the Way, if men reject that and stuff it in God’s face, what do we think is going to happen? Better than that, what does the Bible say? I mean, I’m not looking to bag on Mclaren, but I completely disagree with his (false logic) premise here.
What Mclaren said, that the cross was false advertising, is just too far for me. That he implied hell was unjust, and the God of the Bible is asking us to ‘do something He can’t do’ is just ridiculous.
I don’t know, kinda scary stuff in that vid.
Joe
I should say….I’m usually pretty moderate on this kind of stuff, but I think what Mclaren said in that video was too far.
Simon,
Maybe a better point would have been made from Ken Silva’s
Shane Claiborne Meet The Facts.
Can you show these “facts” there?
iggy
C’mon, people. Brian McLaren isn’t saying “the cross is false advertising” in the context it’s being portrayed here. He basically said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “if this is the way you view the cross and the doctrine of hell (a type of pay-back for sin), then the cross is false advertising”.
The “if” makes his statement completely different than the way it’s being portrayed. What he’s talking about is a non-violent view of the Atonement, advocated by folks such as Walter Wink. It’s not really new.
I guess I kind of missed that. I wasn’t ‘looking for bad things’, and I haven’t written Mclaren off ahead of time, but if he’s coming across differently from what he meant…then he needs to explain things better for dumb guys like me.
How is hell not a payback for sin? Aren’t sin’s punnished…?
Doesn’t God Judge rightly? And didn’t Jesus die for our sins, to set us free from sin, the penalty of sin, to have victory over Satan, and to restore all of Creation?
Now I’m really confused. Kind of angry too, I’ll admit. I don’t like muddy waters, and if they’re not muddy, but I think they are, and I’m totally missing it, then that makes me upset lol.
Joe
thank you Phil for clearing this up.
One thing I have learned about McLaren. Listen slowly and carefully. Then do it again.
The issue being questioned, in general, is that the cross and hell is all about retribution. Hell is payback. McLaren does not deny hell or the cross. His issue is with how we portray it.
Let’s face it, even as Christians, some of us (me) went around for a lot of years thinking God was going to beat the ______ out of me the next time I screwed up. (Baptist for sin) This is NOT the God of Scripture.
Bruce
Joe,
Brian is not stating that the Cross “IS” a false advertising from God, but that how it is presented “MAKES” the Cross false advertising.
In the traditional view, God only forgives under the condition accepting HIM… yet, the Cross is the very sign of forgiveness….
I think that you are misunderstanding what Brian is stating… again, he is not denying, but is stating, that is what we view of the Cross as taught by some, the biblical view.
I say no… that some teach a very conditional view that God only accepts some and rejects all others and use the Cross in that way. The Cross was the very thing that ushered forgiveness to all mankind. It was the very thing that Brian is getting at, that the God that calls us to forgive, forgave us. To teach that God only forgave some, or that there are conditions one must meet before they can be accepted, is like when Brian states, “WHat kind of God tells us to forgive others, when he does not forgive Himself?”
That is what some teach… and Brian is speaking against.
iggy
Ummm… the wages of sin is not “hell” but death…
iggy
Joe,
I guess I can understand why some would use the term “payback” for hell, but I kind of think that is attributing some of our feelings to God. Even in a human judicial system, a penalty isn’t exactly payback. It’s more like a consquence.
So Jesus took the consequences of humanity’s sin, and we can accept that or reject it. I don’t hell portrayed in a Scripture as a place where God actively punishes people, but rather somewhere where people are left to face the consequences and judgement of their decisions.
As far as the non-violent view of the atonement, a question to ask yourself is this. Who killed Jesus on the cross? God? Humanity? Satan? Or was it Christ willingly giving up His life for us to show us that true victory only comes through suffering and sacrifice.
Phil, I agree with your comment. What would hell be payback for? Being born a sinner? That’s a little unfair; no one can help it! I think it’s a consequence of choosing not to accept salvation. If one chooses to ignore God, it makes sense that they will be seperated from Him. He can’t just snuff out anyone’s souls; we were created in the image of God and He respects us.
C’mon people, you leave Ingrid alone.
She’s more devoted to God than any of you.
Don’t you know?
Being angry and consumed with fear and obsessing that your totally sovereign, absolute Truth, God actually needs you to defend him is the mark of true faith.
You should just all pack it up, repent and start being angry too.
I wonder why they don’t go after John Stott who has explicitly come out as an annihilationist.
Tim-
Because they take pride in the number of google hits they get. John Stott doesn’t have the same stigma that McLaren has.
that’s not a video. and what does ‘hear the hiss’ mean exactly?
I agree with whoever said about listening to Brian, then doing it again. I listened to it twice and I said to Tim ‘What exactly is he saying’ (it doesn’t help that I am completely a visual learner.) After Tim explained what he’s actually saying, I don’t have a problem with the ‘video.’
I suspect there may be some truth to that.
And I wouldn’t say that we don’t have any problem with it all (in the sense that we agree with it) especially considering that McLaren is disagreeing with someone, as opposed to actually defining a doctrine of hell.
For that matter, why are people not up in arms that J I Packer also “questioned” and took a serious view at annihilationism.
iggy
Phil and Iggy,
Iggy, I know the wages of sin is death, second death. I think this second death is the common conception of ‘hell’. That’s what I mean by ‘hell’. Ok? Trust me, we agree on what hell is.
This is a very reasonable way to put things.
I guess I need to listen more carefully. He’s very hard for me to listen to…I get confused. lol. I see what you guys are talking about. I guess I don’t disagree…
Joe
MacLaren is dangerous, and when you defend him by linguistic gymnastics it dilutes credibility. God’s wrath was poured out upon Christ and if a sinner refuses that atonement then God’s judicial wrath and punishment will be meted out in hell.
Put a gun to my head and I would defend Bell 100 out of 100 times before I would defend MacLaren. It is OK you know to strongly disagree with someone who Ingrid attacks. It seems as if “sides” are sometimes more important than truth. I get discouraged when you guys will not even speak correction to the outrageous things MacLaren says. His words do not have to be explained so we can understand them, they have to be changed so some will feel comfortable.
I contend there is little impartiality.
Rick,
The to question is wrong… and then J. I. Packer, (who is not an annihilationist) is wrong for looking at it also..
Again, I think that you filter McLaren through “modernist” ears and cannot hear what he is stating.
I do have some issue with McLaren, but rarely is it in the areas that most critics state.
iggy
I’ve finally caught up on this one, and I have to agree that McLaren seems to be beyond orthodoxy here in a good deal of the conversation – it is one thing to say that substitutionary penal atonement is just one aspect of Jesus’ sacrifice (per Christus Victor, which I believe has merits as an explanation), but as I read the interview it seems that he completely removes it as an explanation (which Paul DOES use in Romans)…
I’m missing something. When I go to Ingrid’s post I find no link to anything… evidence or otherwise.
Neil
Wow, a voice of dispassionate reason. Don’t worry, on my blog I speak much more forcefull because I do not fear guys like you, I fear guys like MacLaren. His peers do him no service by allowing him to muse about anything without some correction.
She moved it to here.
http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/?p=327
I’m just still confused. I’ll…eh. Regardless of how you spin it, what Mclaren said was pretty shady to me.
Joe – a way to avoid confusion is to avoid MacLaren, the two are related.
That’s how I’ve always felt, but I still have that nagging feeling that I haven’t given him a fair shake. I’ve been guilty of that so much in my life.
Perhaps, at best, his style of teaching and speaking is just not for me. At best.
Joe
Let’s remember the bit on SOL is not in context. It is a sound bite put together by people who have a vested interest in McLaren being proved to be a heretic.
Let’s be clear here…………substitutionary atonement and a literal hell are not deal breaking doctrines by which no one who denies them can be considered a Christian.
One can certainly affirm the blood atonement without affirming the substitutionary atonement. Once can certainly affirm the literalness of hell by subscribing to hell being annihilation.
We must be very very careful here. Heretic is a word that should rarely be used. It is used fr too often today. Remember a heretic is one who is OUTSIDE the faith.
How would this same discussion play out in AD 50?
Bruce
Thanks for the link – but now we have GBA to the point I had to diagram it…
Ingrid gets an e-mail from Cedarville referencing Kallenberg…
Kallenberg is “endorsed” by McClaren…
McClaren says things that are wrong…
Therefore – oh… brain cramp! I just can;t twist my GBA logic that much…
Neil
Kallenburg and McClaren are actually the same person, don’t you know that Neil?
“Let’s be clear here…………substitutionary atonement and a literal hell are not deal breaking doctrines by which no one who denies them can be considered a Christian.”
Sure and also some are not. But one who teaches those things is the word you used. I believe a person can be a heretic (teaches heresy) and still be a believer who may even love Christ but has strayed from the truth. Charles Finney became a heretic and he was used mightily of God and is my favorite revivalist.
Hey Bruce, I’ve been wondering brother…
Can you explain what you mean by “how would this play out in AD 50…”?
I think there’s something to learn from that, but I’m not exactly sure what you want me to think when you say that.
Thanks,
Joe
And let me say for the record, that Brian MacLaren seems like the nicest man you’d ever want to meet while R.C. Sproul seems somewhat pompous. It does matter how we live Christ and it does matter what we teach as well. A growing conundrum, I know.
Rick,
I am no so certain on the heretic issue. A heretic is a schismatic, one who has gone after false teaching. They are considered “outside” the Church. Is a person outside the Church a Christian?
I am comfortable with saying Charles Finney erred in his doctrinal teachings. I would not call him an unbeliever and as such would not say he is a heretic.
I suspect heresy i nAd60 meant something far different than how we use it today. Can’t prove it of course , because the Bible doesn’t give us a heresy checklist.
Sadly a heretic has come to mean anyone who believes differently from me. (which is ALL of you
I think the word heretic is understood in the colloquial sense today as someone who teaches serious error. Of course there is subjectivity in that but I believe many heretics (like Finney) are believers who have strayed. If a man can have sexual relations with his father’s wife and still be saved we can assume that some can stray doctrinally and still be sealed until the day of redemption.
I use the word heretic without the multitude of consellors. If Jesus tarries the word will lose any bite and we will have to invent another. Any suggestions? How about a “doctrinal vomiteer”?
Joe C,
It is a mental exercise I use. I try and mentally take my self back to the days of th early Church. How would they have dealt with this? Would they have dealt with this? On what basis would they have dealt with it? What criteria would they have used?
I like to go back before the printing press, before the systematic theologies, before the Seminaries, before the reference Bibles, before having all the tools we have……..and try and consider how those who walked with Jesus might have dealt with this issue.
Paul left us 2 letters to the Corinthians. The Corinthian Church is a case study on how to deal with schism, division and competing teachings. What we do know is that, with all of their troubles, they maintained their unity. They did excommunicate the man who was sleeping with his stepmother, but it seems he was reinstated in 2 Corinthians.
I am of the opinion that 2000 years of baggage has needlessly encumbered the Church. We are laden down with complex doctrinal formulas that fill thousands of pages of theological books.
I have read thousands and thousands of pages of books ABOUT the Bible. My reading of THE Bible pales in comparison. Seems to me………there is something wrong here.
Bruce
Rick,
Many people live far better than their theology. I knew some guys in the Sovereign Grace movement that were out and out antinomian. They felt to promote grace necessitated antinomianism. Deadly doctrine, IMO but these men were far better “livers” than most people with all their rules, commands, and regulations.
Bruce – make sure you have the Textus Receptus or you’re wasting your time.
Uh-Oh, I am getting tired and along with that comes humor.
Bruce – So there you go. Only God knows who is saved and I do not play the salvation card except for obvious sinners like Chris Lyons. I am beginning to think he is not elected. (how appropriate in an election year)
Joe,
Yet, death and hell are not the same thing… go and read how Jesus holds the keys to death and hades, and later that death and hell are “both” tossed into the Lake of Fire…
The wages of sin is death. Yet, death is tossed into the fire and that is the “Second Death”. Which is a third thing that is different from Hell and death (the first one).
So, when we are talking about “Biblical” hell there is clear teachings on it. Yet, it seems find to smear the lines in one camp and not ok to look at those lines more closely in another.
It is like stating that there is no difference between the Cross and Resurrection and blurring the two together and missing the significance of both.
It is like stating that Jesus was God and then just ignoring His humanity or visa versa.
I wonder why there is no issue in making sure “doctrines” are clearly understood in some areas, yet someone is declared a heretic for asking people to look at the accepted teachings of Hell.
The RCC taught “For it is by grace you have been saved, through penance –and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– ” and a little monk one day came across the Greek which stated, ” For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– ”
What if he said, “Close enough.”?
iggy
I stopped judging the salvation of others a long time ago.
1Pe 4:18,19 And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
I’m trying to speak in common terms man. What do 99% of people think when they hear “hell”. Lots of fire…death…seperation. Well, even metaphorically speaking, the Lake of Fire is described that way. So I’ll say that’s the “real hell “everyone’s thinking of.
We’ve already had this discussion before Iggy. We are in agreement, I just dont see the problem in saying ‘hell’ and meaning the end result in Revelation. And I don’t think your comparisons fit the bill, I think it’s a bit different.
So…the way it seems is…death…and hell…are tossed in to the common conception of ‘hell’, which is the lake of fire. Where is the disagreement? Man, we don’t really need to be talking about this right now because the subject matter is what BMac said.
If you have more to say on it, or I’m missin something, I’d be happy to talk in email. =)
Joe
Brian McLaren is useful in that he challenges me to reassess what I believe and what the Bible teaches. But he does sometimes go too far for me to follow. I’m not sure if that is because of what he says, the way he says it or his habit of using polemic devices to provoke debate and highlight problems on the other side of the argument to himself.
However, I would rather have the error of including too many people like McLaren than the error of excluding too many people as we see in the fundies.
Joe,
I see it as that if we do not make sure we are presenting the Truth, we compromise it. If we fudge on one thing, then we miss other things.
What if we started just saying “Naraka” and make it mean what we want instead of calling it what the Bible states?
I guess to me also, is that I see that some have turned God into another god like Allah and in that we have allowed unbiblical teachings of “Heaven and Hell” which is dualism come into our thoughts. If it is not truth, then it is a lie.
I see that I would rather represent God in truth than by speaking falsehood about God’s truth if I know better.
It is like saying that a Christian can still sin as long as he just confesses it away… using 1 John 1:9 like a bar of soap.
iggy
I’ll barge in and say that I agree with you Iggy. Too many times I hear “hell” used when the greek is Hades or Hebrew Gehenna and the person means the “Greek Hell”. It’s by that method that the rich man (Lazarus and the,) ends up in “Hell” instead of Sheol where Jesus says he went.
Hmmm…
Ok.
I still like you Joe! = )
iggy
Ig,
I still like you too. I just don’t think we disagree…
And I see your point on why we should just be upfront. I just don’t want to be confusing.
It’s kind of like a conversation going like…
“What must I do to be saved..?
“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and make sure you take up your cross and follow Him, but remember you’re not saved by works, but you have to be a disciple of Jesus, but it’s not of works, it’s Grace, and make sure you do…this this this this this and this when you’re a Christian, but remember you’re not saving yourself.”
Too complicated. K.I.S.S.
“Seperation from God is Hell”
Simple enough for most people. That’s all I’m saying.
As an emerging guy, I’d think you’d like that approach. =)~
Joe
Joe,
“Seperation from God is Hellâ€
I just say “seperation from God is eternal death.” It gets the point across just as well and does not add to the confusion.
iggy
“Eternal Death” is a completely abnormal term for our culture Iggy, and it is confusing for the unchurched. “Hell” is vernacular and people get it.
I see your point, but, do you see mine?
I gotta go buddy, you can email me if you wana keep talking.
Joe
Ingrid switched her post on you… so your first link goes to another post now…
Just letting you know.
iggy