The Logic of Intersubjectivity

Brian McLaren's Philosophy of Christian Religion

Darren M. Slade

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781725268869, 9781725268845
• eBook ISBN: 9781725268852
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

To survey harsh criticisms against Brian Douglas McLaren (1956?), readers gain the inaccurate impression that he is a heretical relativist who denies objective truth and logic. While McLaren's inflammatory and provocative writing style is partly to blame, this study also suspects that his critics base much of their analyses on only small portions of his overall corpus. The result becomes a caricature of McLaren's actual philosophy of religion. What is argued in this book is that McLaren's philosophy of religion suggests a faith-based intersubjective relationship with the divine ought to result in an existential appropriation of Christ's religio-ethical teachings. When subjectively internalized, this appropriation will lead to the assimilation of Jesus' kingdom priorities, thereby transforming the believer's identity into one that actualizes Jesus' kingdom ideals. The hope of this book is that by tracing McLaren's philosophy of Christian religion, future researchers will not only be able to comprehend (and perhaps empathize with) McLaren's line of reasoning, but they will also possess a more nuanced discernment of where they agree and disagree with his overall rationale.

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Introduction

1.0 Thesis

To survey harsh criticisms against Brian Douglas McLaren (1956‒), readers gain the inaccurate impression that he is a heretical relativist who denies objective truth and logic.1 While McLaren’s inflammatory and provocative writing style is partly to blame, this study also suspects that his critics base much of their analyses on only small portions of his overall corpus. The result becomes a caricature of McLaren’s actual philosophy of religion. The thesis of this book is simple: McLaren is, in fact, a rationalist and empiricist, who utilizes irony, humor, generalization, and ridicule to disturb those expressions of faith common to mainstream, Western institutional Christianity (i.e., “conventional Christian paradigms”). The difference is that McLaren is an abductive rationalist and a phenomenological empiricist, who objects to the Enlightenment’s over emphasis on analytical rationalism because it overlooks ethereal elements such as intuition, mysticism, and personal experience. This “analytic” approach to religion has since created “notional” Christians who focus almost entirely on cerebral and abstract elements of faith while ignoring its real-world impact on daily living (cf. GO §13, 205; SMJ §4, 34). This study will show that what appear to be the musings of an unlearned and unnuanced writer are actually the tactics of a skilled rhetorician trying to expose the limitations (and even impropriety) of an overly analytic approach to faith. Indeed, McLaren’s goal is to establish a robust paradigm through which believers can acquire more than just knowledge; they can live in solidarity with creation and Creator, as well. There will be three main divisions to support this thesis.

1.0.1 Outline of the Study

In the first division, this study will catalog several socio-historical influences that were vital to McLaren’s philosophical development. For example, chapter 2 will detail different biographical experiences, chapter 3 will describe his moral identity crisis, and chapter 4 will trace his intellectual disillusionment with conventional Christianity. The second division will then explain McLaren’s abductive reasoning processes (chapter 5), which he uses to expound upon the implications of the incarnation (chapter 6). Finally, the third division will explore the consequences of his logic: chapter 7 clarifies his deconstruction of conventional paradigms while chapter 8 systematizes his philosophy of religion.

In more detail, chapter 2 (“McLaren the Man”) will reveal how McLaren’s experiences with Christian fundamentalism encouraged him to pursue a new spiritual paradigm. Likewise, chapter 3 (“McLaren the Activist”) will contend that his philosophy of religion is intricately tied to his observations of the Religious Right and dogmatic neoconservatism, which he believes turned Christianity into a tribalistic culture-religion. Chapter 4 (“McLaren the Iconoclast”) will address his intellectual denial of Enlightenment-based paradigms that have caused both liberal and conservative Christians to become intransigent devotees to a bygone era. From these different socio-historical developments, McLaren subsequently established an idiosyncratic line of reasoning with which to approach Christian faith. Chapter 5 (“McLaren and Abduction”) will argue that he employs logical inference-building to emphasize the pragmatic and aesthetic aspects of religiosity. Significantly, however, McLaren often masks his abductive reasoning through deliberate provocations and satirical writings. Chapter 6 (“McLaren and Christology”) will then expose how he applies his abductive logic to the incarnation of Christ, suggesting that McLaren is distinctively attracted to Jesus as the paradoxical Divine Revealer. The result is a stress on divine mystery and the impression that Christianity is a faith-based, suprarational belief in God’s loving solidarity with the universe.

Having concluded that conventional paradigms are ineffective at discipleship (chapters 2‒4) and having, subsequently, inferred certain beliefs about the incarnation (chapters 5‒6), McLaren formed a unique philosophy of religion that he believes can help alleviate many of the problems associated with Western spirituality. Chapter 7 (“McLaren’s Deconstructive Rationale”) will trace his exploration into the legitimacy of institutional Christianity and the church’s articulation of Jesus’ gospel message. He concludes that Neoplatonism and imperialism usurped Jesus’ Jewish manifesto about God’s kingdom, which has since caused Christians to misinterpret the essence of Christ’s message. Chapter 8 (“McLaren’s Existential Intersubjectivity”) will demonstrate how McLaren seeks to overcome this foreign Greco-Roman framework, surmising that Christ’s incarnation demands an existentially intersubjective relationship with (and obedience to) Jesus’ kingdom ethics. Before discussing the significance of McLaren’s religio-philosophy, however, a prefatory word is needed about referencing his many publications in this book.

1.1 Introductory Notes

Due to the large number ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: McLaren the Man
• Chapter 3: McLaren the Activist
• Chapter 4: McLaren the Iconoclast
• Chapter 5: McLaren and Abduction
• Chapter 6: McLaren and Christology
• Chapter 7: McLaren’s Deconstructive Rationale
• Chapter 8: McLaren’s Existential Intersubjectivity
• Chapter 9: Conclusion
• Appendix A: Extended Literature Review
• Bibliography