Edgework

The Great Spiritual Migration; How the World’s Largest Religion is Seeking a Better Way to be Christian, by Brian D. McLaren, Convergent Press, 2016, 262 pages. Reviewed by Jack Heppner.

In a sense, this book is an apologetic for the 25 books Brian D. McLaren has written over the past decade or so which document his spiritual journey from his native fundamentalism toward becoming a “hopeful pilgrim moving forward in the journey of faith.” He contends that, “…what matters most is not our status but our trajectory, not where we are but where we are going.” He claims that within each of our religious traditions there are prophetic voices calling us to “…change, hope, imagination and new beginnings.” He calls on seekers who have left the faith and those who remain in it to participate enthusiastically in “this transforming quest, this great spiritual migration toward a better way of being Christian, and a better way of being human.”

The book is divided into three main sections. The first challenges us to a spiritual migration; from a system of beliefs to a way of life. The second advocates for a theological migration; from a violent God to a nonviolent God of liberation. This is followed by a third section in which McLaren proposes a missional migration; from organized religion to organizing religion.

McLaren says that these three movements are driven by the feeling of many Christians that Jesus has been kidnapped. “His captors parade him in front of cameras to say, under duress, things he obviously doesn’t believe. As their blank-faced puppet, he often comes across as antipoor, antienvironment, antigay, anti-intellectual, anti-immigrant, and antiscience (not to mention protorture, proinequality, proviolence, pro-death penalty, and prowar). That’s not the Jesus we met in the Gospels! That’s not the Jesus who won our hearts!” That is why he calls for a conversion of Christianity; a repentance and radical rethinking of what it means to be truly Christian.

McLaren uses the analogy of the three days of the Easter weekend to illustrate the essential movements or migrations he is advocating.

First, on Good Friday there is a painful death, a letting go. So we too must let go of a “belief system Christianity” which is collapsing around us. “If we are willing to endure the trauma of Good Friday and experience this spiritual migration, we will discover that our faith can be reborn, not simply as a stronger or purer system of beliefs, but as something bigger, deeper, and richer: a way of life, which is the way of love.”

McLaren reminds us that Jesus did not say that we will be known by our right beliefs, theories, doctrines or concepts of God; but it is by our way of love that others will see Jesus in us. For Jesus, love was the greatest commandment. “Love decentered everything else, love relativized everything else, love took priority over everything else – everything.” So McLaren concludes that, “…loving a distant and theoretical God who must be approached through complex belief systems can indeed be tough – even exhausting, mentally and emotionally. But loving the God who is experienced in love for neighbor, self, and creation comes as naturally as breathing.” It is time to take the writer of I John seriously, he says, when he states that “Love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God…for God is love.”

Second, the Saturday following Good Friday corresponds to a time of coming to terms with the loss we have experienced as we shifted our focus from belief systems to love. “Saturday represents a letting be, a sinking to the depths, a descent to a deeper vantage point.” This propels us toward a theological migration in which we begin to shift our thinking from a violent God of domination to a nonviolent God of liberation.

McLaren argues that for the most part Christianity has not yet come to terms with its violent past. The “Doctrine of Discovery” legitimized the atrocities of the colonial period in which Christian mission was defined to be “invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue.” Consequently a deadly mingling of racism, empire and Christianity was the norm. Besides that, the Christian story is filled with antisemitism, the subjugation of women, slavery and a “Doctrine of Domination” that has allowed us to desecrate creation itself in the name of profit. All of this, claims McLaren, is causing many Christians to rethink their understanding of God. We are beginning to “…cut up the genocide and holy war cards in our back pocket once and for all, rejecting hostility and domination, and sign up for a new project of inclusive-we harmony instead.”

But this migration calls for a major rethinking of how we read the Bible. McLaren calls us to move from an Innocent/Literal approach where “the Bible is accepted without question as authoritative and objective and factual meanings are favored” to an “Integral/Literary” approach where the Bible is valued as a multilayered and complex whole and as a potential source of wisdom and guidance for individuals and groups today.” With a better handle on how to read and interpret the Bible, claims McLaren, we will be able to migrate toward disarming the Bible and God and be led toward a better future for Christianity and humanity as a whole.

Easter Sunday, then, corresponds to a missional migration in which we move from organized religion for self-preservation to organizing religion for the common good, all the while sustained and empowered by a joyful spirituality that produces transformation.

This, says McLaren, will require rekindling that beautiful romance between institutions and movements. Both are, in the end, dependent upon each other. It will also require of us to leave behind what he calls “elevator Christianity” which is mostly preoccupied with rescuing people from a world that is collapsing. “Belief-system Christianity keeps us arguing about our beliefs and singing songs about evacuating to heaven while the earth burns.” This orientation, claims McLaren, makes the church a partner in the crime of producing a civilization “…that is unsustainable, conflicted, out of balance, and vulnerable to catastrophic collapse.”

No longer are we proclaiming, “Join my religion or burn in hell forever.” Instead we are inviting everyone “…to join a great spiritual migration to a way of life centered in love, a new regenerative economy, a new ecological civilization characterized by peace, justice and joy.” And for that to happen we will need a renewed spirituality “…derived from the mystical/poetic/contemplative streams within our traditions.” There is no question that this way forward will require that our hearts become broken and that we accept the “cruciform” life of pain and struggle that Jesus demonstrated. And we will joyfully accept, in the words of Richard Rohr, that “Jesus’ wounds were not necessary to convince God that we were loveable (atonement theories); his wounds are to convince us of the path and the price for transformation.”

Readers who have not followed the development of McLaren’s thinking over the years might find this summation of his thinking troubling. But for those of us who have traveled with him during this time, this book helps to bring into focus the faith trajectory we are on together as we seek to be faithful to Christ in the 21st century.