The Logic of Intersubjectivity. Darren M. Slade

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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 of McLaren’s writings, it has become standard practice to reference his book publications using parenthetical citations.2 His less formal work (e.g., magazine articles, interviews, blog posts, YouTube videos, etc.) will appear in footnotes primarily because there is no standardization for referencing this material. However, researchers will quickly discover that some of McLaren’s books have different page numbers depending on their edition and format (e.g., paperback or hardback). Thus, the page numbers cited in this study are solely those of the book editions listed in the abbreviations section. To help researchers locate material in their version of McLaren’s work, this study will also include (where necessary) a section number (§) immediately following the book’s abbreviation. For example, EMC §6, 45 references Everything Must Change, chapter 6, page forty-five.3 This information will become useful as readers explore the purpose for studying McLaren’s philosophy of religion.

      1.2 Purpose and Need of Study

Rudolph Bultmann once quoted Karl Barth as saying, “There is always the possibility that in one sense or another we may be in particular need of wholly unexpected voices, and that among them there may be voices which are at first entirely unwelcome.”4 By the late twentieth century, many Christians from diverse backgrounds began to recognize the need for a new approach to Christianity, one that accentuates human solidarity and interreligious collaboration. Carol Merritt remarks, “Writers like Brian McLaren put [this] longing into words.”5 Described as a “paradigm shifter” with a “kinder and gentler brand of religion,” Time magazine included McLaren in its top twenty-five “most influential evangelicals in America.”6 To this day, he is considered the most controversial and influential representative of Emergence Christianity, particularly since “a whole sector of professing evangelicals gives considerable weight to his opinions.”7 According to D. A. Carson, McLaren is “probably the most articulate speaker in the emerging movement,” further noting, “Most emergent leaders regard [him] as their preeminent thinker and writer.”8 Not surprisingly, then, McLaren has become the symbolic pastor for newer generations of believers and spiritual seekers.9 The problem is that McLaren’s line of reasoning and philosophical rationale are not apparent to much of his readership.

For example, Scot McKnight once commented, “I want to voice the frustration of many: McLaren’s willingness to muddy the waters . . . goes only so far. Many of us would like to see greater clarity on a variety of questions he raises.”10 This book argues that there exists, in fact, a discernable logic behind McLaren’s belief system, which spans the entirety of his writing career, albeit in an unstructured and veiled way. Nevertheless, his obscure writing style makes discerning this rationale difficult and, thus, is partly to blame for people’s vexation. Therefore, since no resource systematizes McLaren’s philosophy of religion, as expressed across his numerous publications, the purpose of this book is to arrange his line of reasoning into a coherent whole. The study’s objective is to make McLaren’s reasoning plain in order to help future readers decipher his veiled rationale. This book offers the first exhaustive examination of McLaren’s entire writing career to date, which he himself has personally read, reviewed, and ratified prior to publication (see the foreword to this book). Here, the goal is to understand and articulate how McLaren perceives the current shifts within conventional Christianity.

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