The Wisdom Of Mr McLaren - Part Seven: Mystical and Poetic

This chapter was a bit of a mixed bag - with McLaren making some interesting claims, and saying a few things that I’ve not really heard that much of. This is one of the few chapters in the book where McLaren is more arguing a point rather than seeking a generous middle ground. He is seeking to see some of the poetry brought back into the church, so have us willing to allow some of the mystery of who God is to replace our Systematic theology which limits what we believe about God.

It’s a hard argument to disagree with. While I do think that McLaren is slightly over-romanticising an approach which can cause as many problems as the way that we tend to think now, there is certainly something in me that says that we are selling ourselves short by trying to explain and understand everything. And to take it a little off track from the point in “A Generous Orthodoxy” - perhaps it is our unwillingness to be a bit poetic about the way we talk about God that stops us from being a little more willing to experience the super-natural. I know that when I’ve brought myself to a place where I feel like I understand what God’s on about have also been some of the driest times. Maybe that’s even why so many people feel so unsatisfied by theological training - they lose the romance, the excitement, the mystery.

You only have to look at the way Christ spoke to see that we are probably trying to understand more than we are trying to experience. Because I think we understand by explaining, but we experience by hearing stories, by allowing for imagination, by letting God be beyond what we can understand. So there it is, from now on my teaching is going to be more poetic. Hopefully.