Iraq is worse than ever. So says Andrew White, vicar of St. George's Anglican Church in Baghdad, where he pastors the only Anglican church in Iraq. Since March, 2,100 people have died in sectarian violence. With 260,000 Christians left in the country, where 1.5 million Christians used to live, White works for reconciliation between religious and political factions in one of the world's most volatile areas.
As Beeson Divinity School's Timothy George puts it in First Things, "If Jesus came back to the Middle East today, I think he would look a lot like the Reverend Canon Dr. Andrew White."
That's one reason why White is the newest recipient of the William Wilberforce Award, presented by the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. The organization recognized White with the honor Saturday, May 3, in Virginia for his work and influence in the Middle East. It's also one reason he is called a "prophet" by other supporters in the United States.
White heads the High Council of Religious leaders in Iraq, where he brings together Sunni and Shia Islamic leaders. He is also the president of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. White recently hosted an historic meeting between Israelis, Palestinians, and Iraqis in Cyprus, where he described the attendees as "coming as enemies and leaving as friends." White's most recent book is Older Younger Brother: The Tragic Treatment by Christians of the Jews. Kate Tracy, CT editorial resident, and Timothy C. Morgan, CT senior editor for global journalism, interviewed White several days before he received the award.
Growing up in the UK, did you want to model your life after William Wilberforce?
When I was a student, I lived in Clapham, where Wilberforce lived, and became aware of him. Then, I was ordained and my first post was in Clapham. Every day, I used to pass the house where William Wilberforce lived, and I prayed, "Lord, one day, may I be able to be just a little bit like Wilberforce?" But I never dreamt that I would get an award named after Wilberforce.
If Wilberforce was living today, would he be fighting in the British parliament or would he be on the frontline like you?
Fighting in the British Parliament is frontline. I'm very keen on politicians who take their faith seriously and bring about actual change. When I was in Clapham, I was also elected to the council. I was the only man in the country who was both an elected politician for the Conservative Party and clergy.
Are Iraq and Baghdad better or worse off since the 2003 invasion?
The situation is probably the worst it has ever been. There's a severe, serious escalation in the violence. There's extreme corruption in the government. We don't think anything will really change. Every day in Baghdad, we're having people killed in terrorist bombings.
The church is now surrounded by bomb barricades and you have to go through four checkpoints to get to it. It's almost like being in our own little green zone. It's frequented by so many people because it has a school there. It has a free clinic and patients are treated without charge for medicines and treatment. All tests are free and 95 percent of our patients are Muslims.
Is there no functional Christian community left in Iraq?
There used to be 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Now there are 260,000. Do you know where the most Iraqi Christians are today in the world? Chicago. There are more Iraqi Christians in Chicago than any other place in the world.
Do the Iraqi Christians gain any support from any sector of Iraqi society or are they on their own?
Christians gain support like everybody else gains support, but not a lot, nothing special. It's interesting so many of the Iraqi Muslims say the only people who do anything for them are the Christians through our services and the church office.
Why have so many Iraqi Christians moved north to Iraqi Kurdistan?
It's purely security. The North—Kurdistan—is in essence a different country. Evangelicals go there and say they are missionaries to Iraq, but they are not; they are in Kurdistan. Kurds have their own flag, their own government, their own president and their own language, so it's barely Iraq.
Is there any evidence that Iraq's political leaders value religious freedom and Christians?
The government really does do its part to respect the Christian community. I've got no problems with them at all. Other countries around could learn a lot from the Iraqi government.
Why are you working in Iraq with Jews?
There are six Iraqi Jews in the whole country and I'm their biggest supporter. I look after them. On Friday night, I'm the rabbi and then I go back to being the pastor. Friday night, I make Kiddush with the Jewish community, then I teach them on the Torah reading for the week. [Note: White studied Judaism at Hebrew University in Israel.]
For Muslims, I do reconciliation work between the different tribes and between Shia and Sunni, but recently we had a meeting between Israeli and Iraqi religious leaders—it's never happened in history.
Where do you expect this interfaith reconciliation to lead?
We don't just want to see peace in Iraq. We want to see what we can do to bring about greater peace in the Middle East. Some of my wonderful Christian Facebook friends said, "You must be the antichrist. You're trying to bring about world peace."
In these meetings, how do you address the generational anger and hatred?
The Iraqi religious leaders said, "We arrived here, hating Israel and hating the Jews. We never wanted to be here. We only came because you are our friend."
The rabbis said, "In these three days, we can sum up this meeting with three words: "Fear is cancer." The ayatollah said, "We arrived here hating the Jews. Now we love them." They had seen each other and enemies had become friends. So it worked.
The most important thing is that these people saw each other and they had never seen each other really before. I offer this quote, "Who is my enemy? It is the person whose story I have not heard." They met and heard each other's story and suddenly they that were enemies became friends.
Do you have second thoughts about the 2003 invasion of Iraq?
I may have supported the need for the invasion. What happened after was totally wrong and you never go into a country, bring about change and then leave it in total utter mess and that's what America did. They left us in tragedy and violence and in a desperate state and we are now worse than when Saddam was there. We have thousands of dictators.
Seriously, I am not allowed to walk down the street, never.
Because somebody's going to put a bullet in the back of your head?
Yes. All my team, none of us can walk down the street in Baghdad.
Most people couldn't deal with that level of anxiety for more than maybe three minutes and so now you've been in Baghdad for 15 years? One cannot imagine what your therapy bills are. Are you on anti-depressants?
Lots of medication, but only for my MS. This is what I love. When I go round doing my parish visiting, I have hoards of soldiers and police vehicles with guns.
Has anybody ever told you that you are more than a little crazy?
Every day—the thing is that unless you are called you can't do this work. There's no way that a normal person could function this way. It doesn't matter where you are if you are in God's will. That doesn't mean I'm not going to be shot or killed. I might be, but I'm where I'm supposed to be.
What do you say to your wife and sons?
My wife says she has never once worried about me. She has got a gift of God as well. The only time the boys ever worried was when the police came and surrounded our house in England because they were scared that the bad guys might get me even there.
Christians doing ministry in conflict zones sense the Holy Spirit and angels around about them. They see things from the heavenly realm. This must have happened to you many times perhaps?
Every day, all day, I mean incredible things; angels, resurrections, and healings. Nobody would probably believe it if we told what our daily life was like. It is so wonderful.
There are countless Iraqi Christians who fled their homeland. Is there any hope for them to come back?
No chance at all. It will never happen. It's going to become more dangerous for them as Christians and they are settling into where they are now. What's so terrible is that more people have come to America than anywhere else and they can't get jobs. They are faced with serious poverty.
What's the number one thing that American Christians should be doing? Yes, they will donate, pray, and call members of Congress. But what else?
I want them to look after the Iraqi Christians here, in Chicago, in Detroit, in San Diego. That's what they need to do. In Iraq, we can look after ourselves.
We are having to invest money here in the US for Iraqi Christians. We need all the money we can get for there, but I'm having to spend it here for Iraqi Christian refugees. This is where we need help. If you ask me what can Christians here do to help this tragedy in Iraq, look after the Christians who escaped.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Sunday, May 4, 2014
My Wife Has Tattoos: Marriage and New Birth ~ By Spencer Harmon
My Wife Has Tattoos: Marriage and New Birth
Posted: 02 May 2014 10:01 PM PDT
My wedding was last Saturday. And I didn't marry the girl of my dreams.
If you would have told me when I was a teenager that my wife would have seven tattoos and a history in drugs, alcohol, and heavy metal concerts, I would have laughed at you, given you one of my courtship books, and told you to take a hike. My plans were much different, much more nuanced with careful planning, much more clean-cut, and much more, well, about me.
It wasn't my dream to marry a complicated girl. I never dreamed I'd sit on a couch with my future wife in premarital counseling listening to her cry and tell stories of drunken nights, listing the drugs she used, confessing mistakes made in past relationships.
This isn't my dream—it's better.
Many people wouldn't put Taylor and me together. In high school, we probably would not have been friends. She probably would have thought I was a nice, boring, judgmental Christian kid; I probably would have thought she was a nice, lost, party-scene girl who guys like me are supposed to avoid. People like us, with our backgrounds and histories, are not supposed to meet, fall in love, and covenant their lives to each other.
But everything changes when people meet Jesus. He takes rebellious teenage partiers and goody-two-shoes homeschoolers and puts them together in marriage to put something on display much bigger than their own handcrafted, perfectly planned love story.
Right in the middle of the mess of life, Taylor met Jesus, and he planted his flag in her life. She believed in him, and he transformed her. The Taylor who spent her life living from one pleasure to the next died, and a new person was born. A new person with new desires and a new heart that longed to please God, serve people, and treasure Jesus Christ above every other pleasure.
And this is how I see Taylor. She is completely new, completely transformed, and completely clean. This is not because she joined a helpful program or because she really "pulled herself together." It's because God, in his incredible, infinite kindness, took Taylor's dark, crimson life, and made her white as snow. He took all of her sins, placed them on his Son, and then gave her Jesus' righteousness to wear like a perfectly white wedding dress.
In reality, Taylor's story is my story as well. As she walked down the aisle toward me, I was reminded of how much I don't deserve the precious gift she is to me. I've spent much of my life singing a self-centered siren song. Nothing about my life cries for blessings; it calls for curses forever. Yet God has dressed me in white, put my sin upon his Son, and given me a heart that loves him.
I love Taylor with all that I am. She is gentle, kind, patient, joyful, beautiful, and loving. I don't deserve to be married to someone like her. I didn't plan for this, but I'm so glad I didn't get what I planned for.
Last weekend I was reminded of the beautiful reality that God exchanges the sin of our past for the perfect righteousness of his Son. Contrary to popular opinion, our wedding day was notour wedding day; it was a display of the most stunning reality in the universe—that God sent his Son to redeem a people made clean by the blood of his Son.
God's ultimate plan in putting Taylor and me together is to uniquely display his grace so that other people will praise him (Eph. 1:5-6). That's his purpose for our marriage, and that's his purpose in the world at large. Taylor and I have taken part in that display, and we hope you will too.
Posted: 02 May 2014 10:01 PM PDT
My wedding was last Saturday. And I didn't marry the girl of my dreams.
If you would have told me when I was a teenager that my wife would have seven tattoos and a history in drugs, alcohol, and heavy metal concerts, I would have laughed at you, given you one of my courtship books, and told you to take a hike. My plans were much different, much more nuanced with careful planning, much more clean-cut, and much more, well, about me.
It wasn't my dream to marry a complicated girl. I never dreamed I'd sit on a couch with my future wife in premarital counseling listening to her cry and tell stories of drunken nights, listing the drugs she used, confessing mistakes made in past relationships.
This isn't my dream—it's better.
Many people wouldn't put Taylor and me together. In high school, we probably would not have been friends. She probably would have thought I was a nice, boring, judgmental Christian kid; I probably would have thought she was a nice, lost, party-scene girl who guys like me are supposed to avoid. People like us, with our backgrounds and histories, are not supposed to meet, fall in love, and covenant their lives to each other.
But everything changes when people meet Jesus. He takes rebellious teenage partiers and goody-two-shoes homeschoolers and puts them together in marriage to put something on display much bigger than their own handcrafted, perfectly planned love story.
Right in the middle of the mess of life, Taylor met Jesus, and he planted his flag in her life. She believed in him, and he transformed her. The Taylor who spent her life living from one pleasure to the next died, and a new person was born. A new person with new desires and a new heart that longed to please God, serve people, and treasure Jesus Christ above every other pleasure.
And this is how I see Taylor. She is completely new, completely transformed, and completely clean. This is not because she joined a helpful program or because she really "pulled herself together." It's because God, in his incredible, infinite kindness, took Taylor's dark, crimson life, and made her white as snow. He took all of her sins, placed them on his Son, and then gave her Jesus' righteousness to wear like a perfectly white wedding dress.
In reality, Taylor's story is my story as well. As she walked down the aisle toward me, I was reminded of how much I don't deserve the precious gift she is to me. I've spent much of my life singing a self-centered siren song. Nothing about my life cries for blessings; it calls for curses forever. Yet God has dressed me in white, put my sin upon his Son, and given me a heart that loves him.
I love Taylor with all that I am. She is gentle, kind, patient, joyful, beautiful, and loving. I don't deserve to be married to someone like her. I didn't plan for this, but I'm so glad I didn't get what I planned for.
Last weekend I was reminded of the beautiful reality that God exchanges the sin of our past for the perfect righteousness of his Son. Contrary to popular opinion, our wedding day was notour wedding day; it was a display of the most stunning reality in the universe—that God sent his Son to redeem a people made clean by the blood of his Son.
God's ultimate plan in putting Taylor and me together is to uniquely display his grace so that other people will praise him (Eph. 1:5-6). That's his purpose for our marriage, and that's his purpose in the world at large. Taylor and I have taken part in that display, and we hope you will too.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
The False Teachers: Brian McLaren ~ By Tim Challies
The False Teachers: Brian McLaren
A few weeks ago I set out on a series of articles through which I am scanning the history of the church—from its earliest days all the way to the present time—to examine some of Christianity’s most notable false teachers and to examine the false doctrine each of them represents. Along the way we have visited such figures as Joseph Smith (Mormonism), Ellen G. White (Adventism), Norman Vincent Peale (Positive Thinking) and Benny Hinn (Faith Healing). Today we turn to a man who helped lead the Emerging Church and who was once named by TIME as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.
A few weeks ago I set out on a series of articles through which I am scanning the history of the church—from its earliest days all the way to the present time—to examine some of Christianity’s most notable false teachers and to examine the false doctrine each of them represents. Along the way we have visited such figures as Joseph Smith (Mormonism), Ellen G. White (Adventism), Norman Vincent Peale (Positive Thinking) and Benny Hinn (Faith Healing). Today we turn to a man who helped lead the Emerging Church and who was once named by TIME as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.
Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren (born in 1956) studied humanities at the University of Maryland and graduated with graduate and post-graduate degrees in English. Beginning in 1978, he taught college-level English, before founding Cedar Ridge Community Church in 1986. He served this church as its founding pastor until 2006, when he handed off the role so he could focus on writing and public speaking.
In 1986 Zondervan released McLaren’s first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix. This book established him as a leader and thinker in the church at a time when Christians were attempting to grapple with the dawning reality of postmodernism.
However, it was his 2001 work of fiction, a New Kind of Christian, that introduced him to the wider church and earned him Christianity Today’sAward of Merit in 2002. It was the first volume in a trilogy and quickly became one of the foremost texts for what was soon known as the Emerging Church movement. A New Kind of Christian tells the story of Dan Poole, a pastor who finds himself ready to give up on Christian ministry. Increasingly disillusioned, he has become less and less certain about what he believes. When he takes his daughter to a concert he meets Neil Oliver, a high school science teacher, and together they discuss a long list of core Christian doctrines. According to the publisher, “This stirring fable captures a new spirit of Christianity—where personal, daily interaction with God is more important than institutional church structures, where faith is more about a way of life than a system of belief, where being authentically good is more important than being doctrinally ‘right,’ and where one’s direction is more important than one’s present location.” McLaren became known as a Christian leader who was talking about life and faith in ways that seemed new and fresh.
McLaren followed this book with many more—nearly twenty to date. The most noteworthy of his books have probably been A Generous Orthodoxy which he calls “a personal confession and a manifesto of the emerging church conversation” and A New Kind of Christianity in which he offers responses to “ten questions that are central to the emergence of a postmodern, post-colonial Christian faith.”
In 2005 McLaren was named by TIME as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America under the heading “Paradigm Shifter.” They pointed to his ambiguous statements about gay marriage and said that he represented a kinder and gentler form of Christianity. The following year he joined with Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, Richard Rohr, and others to found Red Letter Christians, an organization dedicated to seeing Christianity liberated from both right-wing and left-wing politics in America. Where Christianity has been dominated for too long by discussions of abortion and homosexuality, this movement prefers to look to the words Jesus spoke and focus on issues related to social justice.
McLaren has traveled the world as a teacher, preacher, lecturer, and conference speaker, and has been granted honorary degrees from both Carey Theological Seminary and Virginia Theological Seminary. In September 2012 he made headlines for participating in a gay marriage ceremony for his son Trevor and his partner Owen Ryan. The wedding was officiated by a Universal Life minister, with McLaren leading a commitment ceremony built around Christian themes.
In 1986 Zondervan released McLaren’s first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix. This book established him as a leader and thinker in the church at a time when Christians were attempting to grapple with the dawning reality of postmodernism.
However, it was his 2001 work of fiction, a New Kind of Christian, that introduced him to the wider church and earned him Christianity Today’sAward of Merit in 2002. It was the first volume in a trilogy and quickly became one of the foremost texts for what was soon known as the Emerging Church movement. A New Kind of Christian tells the story of Dan Poole, a pastor who finds himself ready to give up on Christian ministry. Increasingly disillusioned, he has become less and less certain about what he believes. When he takes his daughter to a concert he meets Neil Oliver, a high school science teacher, and together they discuss a long list of core Christian doctrines. According to the publisher, “This stirring fable captures a new spirit of Christianity—where personal, daily interaction with God is more important than institutional church structures, where faith is more about a way of life than a system of belief, where being authentically good is more important than being doctrinally ‘right,’ and where one’s direction is more important than one’s present location.” McLaren became known as a Christian leader who was talking about life and faith in ways that seemed new and fresh.
McLaren followed this book with many more—nearly twenty to date. The most noteworthy of his books have probably been A Generous Orthodoxy which he calls “a personal confession and a manifesto of the emerging church conversation” and A New Kind of Christianity in which he offers responses to “ten questions that are central to the emergence of a postmodern, post-colonial Christian faith.”
In 2005 McLaren was named by TIME as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America under the heading “Paradigm Shifter.” They pointed to his ambiguous statements about gay marriage and said that he represented a kinder and gentler form of Christianity. The following year he joined with Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, Richard Rohr, and others to found Red Letter Christians, an organization dedicated to seeing Christianity liberated from both right-wing and left-wing politics in America. Where Christianity has been dominated for too long by discussions of abortion and homosexuality, this movement prefers to look to the words Jesus spoke and focus on issues related to social justice.
McLaren has traveled the world as a teacher, preacher, lecturer, and conference speaker, and has been granted honorary degrees from both Carey Theological Seminary and Virginia Theological Seminary. In September 2012 he made headlines for participating in a gay marriage ceremony for his son Trevor and his partner Owen Ryan. The wedding was officiated by a Universal Life minister, with McLaren leading a commitment ceremony built around Christian themes.
False Teaching
As McLaren’s theology has matured and taken shape over time and through his books, he has stepped forward as a leader in a new and revived form of theological liberalism. This displays itself most clearly in his view of Scripture.
In A New Kind of Christianity he insists that Christians have long been reading the Bible through the distorted lens of a Greco-Roman narrative. This narrative produced many false dualisms, an air of superiority, and a false distinction between those who were “in” and those who were “out.” These three marks of false narrative have so impacted our faith that we can hardly see past them. His book attempts to do that, and to reconstruct the Christian faith as it is meant to be.
Leading the way is his view of the Bible. He does not see the Bible as God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. He displays this, for example, in his interpretation of the account of Noah by saying, “a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship.”
He goes on to say, “I’m recommending we read the Bible as an inspired library. This inspired library preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed.” After all, “revelation doesn’t simply happen in statements. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities of people who share the same essential questions across generations. Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements.” He understands the Bible to be a slowly-evolving human understanding of God. “Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment.”
This is nothing less than theological liberalism in twenty-first century, post-modern clothing (which is why Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism offers a rebuttal, though it was written 90 years earlier). Like Fosdick and other liberals before him, McLaren has assumed authority over the Bible instead of placing himself under its authority. His understanding of Scripture frees him to see Christian doctrine as evolving, and himself as an instrument of this evolution. In this way he revisits and reinterprets whatever does not accord with modern sensibilities. He has denied the literal nature of hell along with its eternality; he has denied the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ; he has denied Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father; he has affirmed homosexuality as good and pleasing to God. And he continues to think and to write, meaning that his theological development is not yet complete.
As McLaren’s theology has matured and taken shape over time and through his books, he has stepped forward as a leader in a new and revived form of theological liberalism. This displays itself most clearly in his view of Scripture.
In A New Kind of Christianity he insists that Christians have long been reading the Bible through the distorted lens of a Greco-Roman narrative. This narrative produced many false dualisms, an air of superiority, and a false distinction between those who were “in” and those who were “out.” These three marks of false narrative have so impacted our faith that we can hardly see past them. His book attempts to do that, and to reconstruct the Christian faith as it is meant to be.
Leading the way is his view of the Bible. He does not see the Bible as God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word. He displays this, for example, in his interpretation of the account of Noah by saying, “a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship.”
He goes on to say, “I’m recommending we read the Bible as an inspired library. This inspired library preserves, presents, and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed.” After all, “revelation doesn’t simply happen in statements. It happens in conversations and arguments that take place within and among communities of people who share the same essential questions across generations. Revelation accumulates in the relationships, interactions, and interplay between statements.” He understands the Bible to be a slowly-evolving human understanding of God. “Scripture faithfully reveals the evolution of our ancestors’ best attempts to communicate their successive best understandings of God. As human capacity grows to conceive of a higher and wiser view of God, each new vision is faithfully preserved in Scripture like fossils in layers of sediment.”
This is nothing less than theological liberalism in twenty-first century, post-modern clothing (which is why Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism offers a rebuttal, though it was written 90 years earlier). Like Fosdick and other liberals before him, McLaren has assumed authority over the Bible instead of placing himself under its authority. His understanding of Scripture frees him to see Christian doctrine as evolving, and himself as an instrument of this evolution. In this way he revisits and reinterprets whatever does not accord with modern sensibilities. He has denied the literal nature of hell along with its eternality; he has denied the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ; he has denied Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father; he has affirmed homosexuality as good and pleasing to God. And he continues to think and to write, meaning that his theological development is not yet complete.
Followers and Adherents
McLaren has long been a leader in the Emerging Church, and almost all of those who “emerged” with him have known his influence. So too have many of his fellow progressive Christians. He continues to have a broad speaking platform and to write popular books.
McLaren has long been a leader in the Emerging Church, and almost all of those who “emerged” with him have known his influence. So too have many of his fellow progressive Christians. He continues to have a broad speaking platform and to write popular books.
What the Bible Says
The Bible insists that it is the living and active Word of God, breathed out by God himself. It is not a man-made document subject to error, evolution, antiquation, or reinterpretation. Jesus himself spoke clearly about the authority and relevance of Scripture, and showed no hesitation in unfolding its meaning and faulting others for misunderstanding it. In Mark 12:24 “Jesus said to them, ‘Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?’” He declared “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
Where McLaren casts doubt on the idea that we can ever really confidently know and understand the Bible, Christians have long held that God spoke and inspired his prophets and apostles to write because he actually intended to be heard as saying something, and that the message would be carried on and be understood forever after (see 2 Peter 1:16-21). This is why Jude calls it “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), and why Paul is so emphatic with Timothy that he “guard the good deposit entrusted to [him]” (2 Timothy 1:14). Kevin DeYoung says it well inTaking God at His Word: “The Bible is an utterly reliable book, an unerring book, a holy book, a divine book. … There is no more authoritative declaration than what we find in the word of God, no firmer ground to stand on, no ‘more final’ argument that can be spoken after Scripture has spoken.”
The Bible insists that it is the living and active Word of God, breathed out by God himself. It is not a man-made document subject to error, evolution, antiquation, or reinterpretation. Jesus himself spoke clearly about the authority and relevance of Scripture, and showed no hesitation in unfolding its meaning and faulting others for misunderstanding it. In Mark 12:24 “Jesus said to them, ‘Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?’” He declared “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
Where McLaren casts doubt on the idea that we can ever really confidently know and understand the Bible, Christians have long held that God spoke and inspired his prophets and apostles to write because he actually intended to be heard as saying something, and that the message would be carried on and be understood forever after (see 2 Peter 1:16-21). This is why Jude calls it “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), and why Paul is so emphatic with Timothy that he “guard the good deposit entrusted to [him]” (2 Timothy 1:14). Kevin DeYoung says it well inTaking God at His Word: “The Bible is an utterly reliable book, an unerring book, a holy book, a divine book. … There is no more authoritative declaration than what we find in the word of God, no firmer ground to stand on, no ‘more final’ argument that can be spoken after Scripture has spoken.”
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