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Recovering Ancient Church Practices: A Review of Brian McLaren, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices Michael A. G. Haykin Michael A. G. Haykin is Professor of In this introductory volume for a new living in our culture, the book has to be Church History at The Southern Baptist series being published by Thomas Nelson judged a failure. Theological Seminary. He is also Adjunct entitled “The Ancient Practices Series” First, it needs to be noted that stylisti- Professor of Church History at Toronto (that will include volumes on prayer, the cally the book reads well and McLaren Baptist Seminary in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Sabbath, and tithing), well-known author is alert to the latest modes of expression, Haykin is the author of One Heart and and speaker Brian McLaren sounds a call though I must admit some of them grated One Soul (Evangelical Press, 1994), for the recovery of some of the spiritual on this reader. His use of the word “sexy,” Spirit of God: The Exegesis of 1 and riches of our Christian past, in particular for example—“the sexy young word 2 Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian those associated with what are called the spiritual” (19)—is very much in tune with Controversy of the Fourth Century spiritual disciplines. In this regard, his the ways in which that word has come (Brill, 1994), and Jonathan Edwards: book, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of to be used, though I for one have trouble 1 The Holy Spirit and Revival (Evangelical the Ancient Practices, is part of an interest dissociating it from meaning actual sex- Press, 2005). in and fascination with spirituality that appeal. McLaren is also attuned to the is now central to both evangelicalism contemporary interest in discovering how and the cultural ambience of our time. the church functioned in relation to vari- McLaren rightly wants to move beyond ous secular empires that claimed—and the fairly limited range of spiritual expres- do claim—the complete subservience of sion associated with mid-twentieth- their subjects (23). Even the subtitle of century Fundamentalism (his own roots the book is culturally hip, recalling the are described as “mildly fundamentalist,” title of Episode VI of the Star Wars movie 54-55) and evangelicalism. Our riches as series—Return of the Jedi. evangelicals—in the Puritans, Reformers, and the Fathers—are vaster than the clas- Affirming the Spirituality of Islam sical Fundamentalists of the early twen- McLaren first outlines why spiritual tieth century ever imagined. McLaren is practices matter (1-10) and how they are confident that the time is right for “a fresh, vital to “becoming awake and staying creative alternative—a fourth alternative, awake to God” (18). But problems soon something beyond militarist scientific emerge in the heart of the narrative secularism, pushy religious fundamental- about the various practices of piety that ism, and mushy amorphous spirituality” McLaren wishes to recapture. McLaren (5). Does this book deliver that alternative? affirms that Muhammad had a “genuine No. As a spiritually reliable and helpful encounter with God” that led to the move- alternative to the regnant patterns of ment of Islam (22). Even though McLaren 62 affirms his commitment to Jesus—he is, 725 in order to embrace a monastic life- in his words, “at heart a Jesus-y person” style. (31)—his warm embrace of Islam, one of John studied the Qur’ān in the original the “three Abrahamic faiths” (6) along- Arabic, and having known something of side Judaism and Christianity, continues the domination of Islam at first-hand, he throughout the book. Thus he mentions proved to be a deft respondent to Islam, Eid ul-Adha and Eid ul-Fitr, Muslim holy or “the heresy of the Ishmaelites,” as he meals, in the same breath as the Passover called it.3 He isolated two issues central and the Eucharist (26), following Muham- to the self-identity of Islam: its rejection mad is parallel to following Jesus (37), of the Trinity and its denial of the death the way in Islam—deen—leads to peace, of Christ. For Islam, Allah has no son, wisdom, and joy like the gospel (51), and no co-equal associates, and rules in utter the Christian contemplative tradition has solitude. Moreover, it affirms that Christ a counterpart in the Muslim Sufi tradition was not crucified, but was snatched away (92). Given that McLaren wishes to draw before the cross—“God raised him up to heavily on the wisdom of the Patristic himself”—and thus Christ did not see era—the source of the Ancient Practices— death.4 For John, however, if Christ did this completely positive view of Islam not die for sinners and if he is not God, would have been quite disturbing to the then there is no salvation and we have a Fathers. religion that offers no hope of redemption. Take, for example, the man who can For John, the devotee of God the Holy Trin- be called the last of the ancient church ity, Islam can thus only be regarded as a fathers, John of Damascus (c. 655-749), heresy. He would be utterly surprised that whose The Fount of Knowledge is one of the a self-professed believer in “the mystery great systematic theologies in the history of the Trinity and the incarnation” and of the church. John appears to have been “the affirmations of the ancient creeds” an Arab by ethnicity, his family name (33)—like the Niceno-Constantinopolitan being Mansur, a name common among creed that John of Damascus honored as Syriac Christians of Arab descent.2 His an accurate summary of biblical doctrine grandfather, Mansūr b. Sargūn, played a about God—could speak so positively of key role in the surrender of Damascus to Islam without any hint of real critique. the Muslim army of Khalid ibn al-Walid (died c. 641). Early rulers of Syria were Where Is the Cross? tolerant of the presence of Christians, and In an insightful study of McLaren’s John’s grandfather became a key admin- theology, Greg Gilbert has noted that istrator in the Muslim government of the McLaren … seems blind to, or at region. John’s father, Ibn Mansūr, was least relatively uninterested in, the known as an extremely devout Christian most central moment of the entire but also one of the most trusted officials Christian faith—the cross. One of the most consistently puzzling of the Muslim regime. John succeeded things about McLaren’s books is how little space or time he has for his father as a key advisor to the Muslim 5 Christ’s work of atonement. ruler, Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705). After a long life of service in the public Finding Our Way Again is no exception realm, John left his public position around to this pattern. In the whole of the book 63 there appears to be only one explicit refer- will. Rather, he was long-suffering, ence to the cross. This occurs in the con- bore with us, and in mercy he took our sins upon himself. He himself text of the trendy declaration that “Jesus gave his own Son as a ransom for didn’t come to start a new religion,” for us—the Holy One for the godless, he “wouldn’t have been killed simply for the Innocent One for the wicked, the Righteous One for the unrighteous, starting a new religion,” since the Roman the Incorruptible for the corrupt- Imperium was religiously tolerant (34).6 ible, the Immortal for the mortal. For what else was able to cover our Yet, throughout its history, healthy Chris- sins except his righteousness? In tian piety has directed people desirous whom could we, who were lawless of knowing how to draw near to God to and godless, have been justified, but in the Son of God alone? O the the cross. sweet exchange! O the inscrutable For instance, in the New Testament work of God! O blessings beyond all sermon that we call Hebrews, the author expectation!—that the wickedness of many should be hidden in the one emphasizes a number of times that Righteous Man, and the righteous- ness of the One should justify the inner purity—discussed by McLaren in 8 a chapter on the so-called via purgativa many wicked! (151-158)—is found ultimately through Here, as so often happens in Scripture, the blood sacrifice of Christ to his Father theology leads to doxology. In a marvel- (Hebrews 9:14, 26; 10:10, 12, 14; 7:25). And ous, Pauline-like mini-meditation on the it is solely on the basis of this sacrifice salvific work of God for sinful humanity, that human beings can boldly draw near the author has lays out the heart of the to God, confident that the crucified Christ Christian faith. Only then does he tackle has dealt once and for all with their guilt the question as to why Christians are a and shame (Hebrews 10:19-22; cp. 10:1). people of love: All of the spiritual disciplines draw their efficacy from this sacrificial death of God loved humanity, for whose sake that he made the world, and to Christ. Without rootedness in that death, whom he subjected everything in the decisive event in the history of piety, the earth. He gave them reason and they are merely human ritual. intelligence, and they alone have been allowed to look up to him. He Or consider the answer that the late formed them according to his own second-century text The Letter to Diogne- image. He sent his only-begotten tus—anonymous like Hebrews—gives to Son to them and promised them the kingdom of heaven, and he will give the question raised by Diognetus, a pagan it to those who have loved him.

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