The people in our churches, whether they will come out and say it or not, believe that people from other faiths will be in heaven with us even if they don't believe the Gospel or are hostile to it. He also states it in the way that the people in our churches would say it. We need to understand where our people are at if we are to minister effectively to them.
Could you clarify here?, it doesn't make sense.
I meant that there seems to be a lot more people who believe other faiths will be in heaven in our churches than we want to admit, and McLaren is one of those people. By hearing him say it, and by looking at some of the Statistics that Barna I believe it is has done recently, it appears that the problem is much more widespread than we'd want to think and therefore we need to address the issue. McLaren, in some way, should open our eyes to this belief that may be held among some in our very own congregations.
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Well it's interesting to hear your point of view. Again I respectfully think you're nuts!! ( if there's a respectful way to say that:)) Sorry but that's what I think - and that's what I think about my associate pastor too. Unfortunately he's been deceived with McLaren and he has told me that he agrees and relates to Mclaren that the gospel is a bigger thing then we've all learned and known in the last 500 years and other things. Not sure if he (McLaren) says this in Generous Orthodoxy, but McLaren says this in A New Kind of Christian and other places. All the "good" stuff you are seeing from McLaren is a deception and it's "clouding" all the kooky stuff and theology that he's presenting.
Well enough said.
The good that McLaren points out does seem to make the silly stuff in his books not seem as "bad" (not in my eyes though). His stuff is littered with error, but we can't rely on the critiques to tell us this. Some of the critiques overlook things, and the critiques only point out the glaring errors. Some of the more "hidden" errors can only be found by reading. That is why I commend you for actually doing the reading. As I said before, too many people rely on the critiques rather than the original source.
