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• Brian McLaren
• Think Fwd:

A New Kind of Christianity

(Chapters 7-9)

1. Compare your experiences with the Bible to the author’s, and respond to the “messes” he summarizes in Chapter 7.
2. Respond to the way the Bible was used by the pro-slavery forces in American history. Do you see the Bible being used the same way today?
3. The author suggests we typically read the Bible as a constitution, and recommends we rediscover the Bible as a portable library. Contrast what expectations we bring to a constitution and a library, and how you respond to the author’s proposal.
4. Chapter 9 offers a reading of the Book of Job as a model for how revelation happens through Scripture. How did that reading work for you? How do you respond to the idea of being put “in” the text rather than “under” it or “over” it? How has your small group been going so far, and how has your conversation been working as an extension of the biblical conversation?

Additional Questions:

Questions for Reading Groups:

1. What one, two, or three passages or ideas in this chapter did you respond most strongly to? What was your response – what feelings and ideas did the idea(s) or passage(s) elicit? Why do you think you responded in this way?
2. What quotes, points, or questions from this chapter would you most like to talk about with your group? What would you like to ask your other group members about these quotes, points, or questions?
3. How would you complete this sentence: “For me, the most important take-aways from this chapter were …”

A Five-Step Reading Circle:

A convener invites a circle of friends to read the book. The convener proposes how many chapters will be read per week, and when, where, and for how long the group will meet. At each meeting, the convener reads these five steps as ground rules for the group, and intervenes to uphold these ground rules as necessary. The convener may also lead in a brief opening and closing activity – such as reciting the Lord’s Prayer, observing a period of silence, journaling, etc.

1. A volunteer reads a sentence or paragraph from the week’s reading that was important to him or her for some reason.
2. That group member then talks about the passage for an agreed-upon period of time without interruption. (Ten minutes would be a good maximum, but five or seven minutes might be better for groups of more than five people.) He or she shares why the passage is important, what the passage means to him or her, and how he or she responds to it. Other members seek to “listen the speaker into free speech” through their attentiveness. Again, no interruptions are allowed, and periods of silence are fine.
3. That group member invites others to ask further questions about his or her responses to the passage – for the purpose of understanding the group member (not debating, not critiquing, not agreeing or disagreeing – only seeking to understand the group member better). Or that group member may ask a question of fellow members to which they may respond.
4. Another group member volunteers (or is invited by the leader to go next), and the process continues around the circle.
5. If time permits, the group leader may invite each member to reflect on what they have learned or gained from one another during the gathering. The group confirms the next week’s readings and meeting details.

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6 Responses to “Brian McLaren: Q2 – The Authority Question”

1. Ted Seeber Says:
   February 23rd, 2010 at 6:12 pm

   The Catholic answer: From the Apostles on the Faith of Peter, the Rock of the Church, as instituted by Christ.

   We don’t use the Bible for our Authority. It’s more like the recommended reading of the Authority.

2. preachinjesus Says:
   February 25th, 2010 at 10:43 am

   This isn’t a new approach to the Bible. Again, this is simply rehashing modernist thought from the early part of the 20th century.

   The difficulty here is the the entire video is essential two white males talking around the topic without ever actually impacting the topic. Out of the entire video only about 30 seconds actually develop any kind of usable theological thesis. It comes to a head with this: “The questions are still open.”

   This is truly the point. Now I disagree with Pastor McLaren’s point that the Bible is a constitution. I do agree that we can view it as a library. Yet his point shows how he hasn’t really thought this all out. In a library you still have to categorize texts and use a documentation system to find appropriate resources. The Dewey Decimal system has going to area, shelf, group, book…how is this different than a “constitution.”

   What Pastor McLaren needs to talk about here is the idea of developing a new hermeneutic. Yet I don’t think he’s got the theological stones to do it. Essentially this video is talking around the idea of what a new hermeneutic for a post-foundationalist era might look like. Yet he, like all the other Emergents, have yet to offer an innovative reply to their underlying question. The default here is running back to the modernism of the first part of the 20th century.

   Now he does this by saying that we are fallible interpreters. I’m fine with that if we ask him to seriously consider the role of the Holy Spirit in illumining the Scriptures. Yet this isn’t developed.

   Finally, where does the “slavery” argument come in. This is just a default criticism angled against some biblicists on the basis of poor hermeneutics in the past. Nellie Norton is a terrible text that uses extraordinarily bad hermeneutics to arrive at its sad point. How can we use this argument reasonably? How about developing some other ways to consider how we misunderstand the text contemporarily?

   Until then we just witnessed one of the most vapid conversations I’ve seen about an important topic in quite awhile.

   PJ

3. Ben Mordecai Says:
   February 25th, 2010 at 10:04 pm

   2. Respond to the way the Bible was used by the pro-slavery forces in American history. Do you see the Bible being used the same way today?

   The pro-slavery folks that used the Bible in history are guilty of eisegesis. You take a narrow view of something described that is a part of a larger concept and you ignore the larger concept and instead insert your own ideas. For example, the epistles talk about slaves obeying their masters. The context is missing: slavery is not kidnapping someone of another race and putting them in the cotton fields. Slavery in the Bible is the result of debt and it is not forever. Anyway, I digress.

   The big picture from all of scripture is that Jesus will redeem his people by dying on the cross, paying for their sins and breaking the bonds of slavery. But there is a twist. Jesus has sheep that are not of this fold. Throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments we find the declaration, “The Gentiles also!” Hence David sings about God’s glory among the nations. Hence Paul rejects circumcision. Hence in Revelation every tribe has people in Heaven.

   In order to use the Bible to justify slavery, you have to ignore this colossal storyline of the Bible in order to veil your idolatry over love of money.

4. Brian McLaren – Navigating Through A New Kind of Christianity | David Kenney Says:
   February 25th, 2010 at 10:41 pm

   [...] Question 2 – The Authority Question [...]

5. Brian Smith Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 1:44 pm

   Interesting conversation. Frankly, I’m pretty much to the point where I’m sick of the Bible and have been reading other scriptures. Too much baggage with the Bible and too much of the attitude that it is the “Great Big Book of Everything”. I really like the reference to a Constitution. The authors of the letters, stories, parables, poetry, etc. that got rolled up into the Bible were not intending to write a theological constitution.

6. the ongoing human struggle with the divine « words Says:
   June 27th, 2010 at 11:18 am

   [...] approach to the Bible sounds very similar to Brian McLaren’s – which made me a fan of McLaren’s most recent book: We can read [the Bible] as a human testament to the encounter with God, one that evolves as human [...]

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