Monday 19 January 2009

Listening to Brian McLaren (2)



More from 24 hours with Brian McLaren

Before you read my thoughts, take a moment to read Brian's meditation on this inauguartion week - Inaugural Week Meditation: So Happy

Let's keep on praying for Obama and the USA.

Brian McLaren on the Biblical Narrative
Brian holds that Western Christianity (i.e. Northern Europe and North America) is not the religion of Jesus but a synthesis of Judaism and Greek-Roman philosophy. In particular the Biblical narrative many of us have grown up with is flawed by this influence. Our received Biblical narrative is in six parts: Eden, Fall, History, Redemption, Heaven, Hell. This narrative pattern is read in terms of Platonic/Aristotelian ideals. Brian suggests that the Exodus provides a more Biblical narrative shape: Creation – Liberation – the Peaceable Kingdom. The question then is what happens to Jesus and the message of Jesus when we read it in this narrative shape? The characteristic message of Jesus about the Kingdom of God suddenly takes a more central place than in the received six line Biblical narrative in which the Kingdom is pushed forward in to Heaven.

I am grateful to Brian for this challenge to think more deeply about the received shape of the Biblical narrative which is so prevalent within our evangelicalism. However, Brian is very anxious to remove the Fall from his narrative shape and I would prefer he spoke more clearly about what we call Redemption. Even if we talk about Liberation on what basis is someone liberated and what about those who resist or reject any offered liberation? We might not like the answers Brian gives, but if we are to hold onto this traditional form of understanding the Biblical narrative we can’t do that because this is the way it has always been, we have been challenged to articulate a more meaningful and Biblical reason for reading the Bible in this way.

No one reads the bible without prior influences or presuppositions. It is time to be honest about this. What are our presuppositions as we approach the bible? How does our cultural background influence our reading of Scripture? These questions have been brought with increasing force before us over the past 30 years or so, it is time to work out some answers.

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