Review
Everything Hasn't Changed
An apocalyptic Brian McLaren strives to reframe Jesus and discipleship.
John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture | posted 1/16/2008 09:11AM
George Lakoff, a distinguished cognitive scientist trained in linguistics, came to prominence several years ago as an unlikely guru among Democratic Party strategists. In books such as Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Lakoff highlights the "frames and metaphors" by which Americans organize their perceptions. Why, Lakoff asks, did many conservatives accept President George W. Bush's foreign policy despite abundant evidence that it was badly misconceived? Simple. Conservatives interpreted the Bush Administration's decisions via the "strict father morality" that helps frame their understanding of the world. "Map this onto foreign policy, and it says you cannot give up sovereignty. The United States, being the best and most powerful country in the world—a moral authority—knows the right thing to do. We should not be asking anybody else." In his books, Lakoff systematically contrasts "conservative" frames with "progressive" frames, urging progressives to understand conservatives, and then reframing debates in a way to persuade conservatives to see the light.
In Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (Thomas Nelson), Brian McLaren—one of the two or three most influential figures in the "emergent" movement—pursues a similar project, though one even more ambitious than Lakoff's. McLaren attempts nothing less than a reframing of what Jesus taught and what it means to follow him on the Way.
McLaren contrasts what he calls "conventional" frames ("frequently defined as 'orthodoxy,'" he writes) with "emerging" frames. So, for example, in the emerging view, "Jesus came to become the Savior of the world, meaning he came to save the earth and all it contains from its ongoing destruction because of human evil."
McLaren intends to correct an overemphasis on Last Things in the "conventional" view of salvation. Instead, he stresses "the privilege of participating in [Jesus'] ongoing work of personal and global transformation and liberation from evil and injustice."
McLaren sets this discussion in the context of an apocalyptic global crisis. Whereas Lakoff writes with urgency inspired by what he sees as a "radical revolution" brought about by American conservatives, McLaren speaks of our global civilization as a "suicide machine."
Well. That's a lot to chew on. Much that McLaren says here reminds me of conversations I've had with fellow Christians in the last decade, and in fact, while I disagree with him on many points, I share his dissatisfaction with aspects of the "conventional" account of Jesus' Good News: McLaren's reference to "emerging views" is not mere wishful thinking. But here are some preliminary issues—preliminary, that is, to any serious wrestling with his thesis.
When I brought McLaren's book home to read, I placed it atop a teetering stack that included, about halfway down, a book by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Fogel, The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2000: Europe, America, and the Third World. To talk about global crisis—and in particular about global poverty—and not take into account the evidence for rising expectations laid out in books such as Fogel's strikes me as inadequate. The actual picture is considerably more complicated than McLaren presents.
How do the life and teachings of Jesus direct us to approach "the most critical global problems in the world today": "global poverty, environmental destruction, and increasing violence"? McLaren suggests that no piecemeal approach will work. Rather, we must address "our deeper ideological sickness." So, for instance, we must address our "addiction to war."
January 2008, Vol. 52, No. 1
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