Edgework

Ever since Brian McLaren published his first book, “The Church on the Other Side” in 1998, I have followed his writings with keen interest. I felt a unique kinship with McLaren because, again and again, I found that he gave voice to issues I was wrestling with.

One of the things I appreciate about McLaren is that he doesn’t claim to have all the answers and so always asks for dialogue. I am taking him up on this challenge and so will be publishing a series of essays in which I interact with McLaren about the content of “A New Kind of Christianity,” published in 2010. I see this book as a summation of most of what he has said in previous books so that it becomes a natural starting point for my public responses.

I have been an Anabaptist for most of my adult life. I think it is providential that Stuart Murray’s summation of Anabaptist theology in “The Naked Anabaptist” also came out in 2010. Both Murray and McLaren are representative of many Christian thinkers now giving Anabaptism a more positive review than writers before them. So we have a lot to talk about.

I will begin in this first essay by comparing my story with that of Brian McLaren’s story.

In his writings, McLaren repeatedly refers to his upbringing in a conservative context which simply did not provide the answers he was looking for as a sincere follower of Jesus. I found this matched the experience of many other writers I was reading; such as, Philip Yancey, Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Kathleen Norris, Madeleine L’Engle and Robert Corin Morris, among others. All of them document their journey to a wider place in the world of faith. Looking back over my own life, I can see that this has been my journey as well. Hatched in the embrace of fundamentalism, I have moved ever so slowly to find a place to stand in the wider world of faith.

In his first chapter, “Between Something Real and Something Wrong,” McLaren states that he never planned to become a controversial religious leader (3). Neither did I. My first brush with open criticism came after a series of sermons I presented at the Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference (EMMC) convention in Winkler, Manitoba in 1980 where I spoke passionately about “The Kingdom of God.” Some declared that I had fallen prey to liberalism, while others were willing to give me a second chance. After all, I had just graduated from seminary. I came away from that experience somewhat shaken. It had dawned on me that if I wanted to explore a radical approach to faith I might have to do it more privately.

Another controversial event happened in 1999 when I was addressing the same convention, this time in Morden, Manitoba. My topic was, “A Faithful Church in a Changing World.” I suggested that modernism, with its focus on triumphalism, rationalism and individualism, had infected the church. I declared that the age of modernism was coming to a cataclysmic end and suggested that the church will have to make major adjustments to survive in the post-modern era. There was no open revolt, as in 1980, but I could tell that I had been pointing in a direction most listeners were not prepared to go. I was deeply discouraged, feeling that my voice had been sidelined.

McLaren speaks about the spiritual crisis he faced when he realized that he needed to go on a spiritual quest to find new answers (6). I have had a number of spiritual crises in my life, but the most significant one began in the fall of 2002 when I experienced burnout in the context of my role as Conference Minister for the EMMC and Editor of The Recorder. In July of 2004 I began posting regular essays, book reviews and sermons on edgework.ca. In these postings I began reflecting seriously on faith and life issues from outside the institutional box. At present I post regular essays on mySteinbach.ca. So while McLaren was writing books I was writing essays and often we were on the same page. I am indebted to McLaren for, in some ways at least, being my “mentor” during all those years.

McLaren speaks about the fear of speaking out about what one is discovering for fear of public backlash. I understand this all too well. While employed as a college professor and at the Conference, I felt I needed to be ever so careful because I was representing institutions to which I was committed, and who generally were not willing to think outside the proverbial box. Once my personal crisis had propelled me into early retirement, I felt a new freedom to wrestle more openly with controversial issues.

Now I find out that McLaren and I were reading many of the same authors at the same time, writers like Brian Walsh, Stanley Grenz and Leonard Sweet (9). So it appears we were scouting around in the same territory for new ways of thinking and doing theology.

Of the two historical perspectives about church history McLaren mentions, I think the one proposed by Harvey Cox is perhaps more helpful than that of Phyllis Tickle (11). I think both have merit, but Cox’ view parallels that of the Anabaptists more closely. Ever since the time of Constantine, Christianity became a system of beliefs which one had to adhere to under threat of punishment or even death. We desperately need to recover a more dynamic version of Christianity more akin to that of the first three centuries. I think Cox is right to call the next age, the “Age of the Spirit.”

So, although McLaren and I have never met personally, I feel like we have been brothers on a pilgrimage together. And in this series of essays, I will attempt a public conversation with Brian McLaren. Perhaps you would like to join the dialogue.

For On-going Dialogue:

1. In what ways do you see your faith journey as being similar to or different from that of Brian McLaren’s journey?
2. Have you ever felt pressure not to ask difficult questions or to speak about controversial issues openly? How did that feel?
3. What do you think of the historical perspectives about faith offered by Phyllis Tickle? What about Harvey Cox (11)?
4. Name some of the persons who have accompanied you on your faith quest to this point. How have they helped you?