I confess that I have a bias here: I am reflexively protective of modernity, as it has produced such marvelous things as technology, capitalism, and most importantly humanism (resulting in the idealization of freedom).
It is valuable to discern how much of modern Christianity is accurate (measured against the Bible), and how much reflects the modern worldview. That's why Fool's Gold is on my reading list, and I hope that McLaren will provide similar insight as I read through the book.
A few criticisms are forming in my mind:
- Inherent in McLaren's understanding of changing worldviews is the postmodern epistemology that truth is unknowable. This is circular reasoning.
- McLaren does not make (so far) a convincing argument that the modern worldview is collapsing. If it is, then technology should cease to function and capitalism should cease to grow. They aren't.
- His progressive view of history does not apply to Christianity. A history of science might be an ever-expanding understanding of the natural world, but not an ever-expanding understanding of God. As the history of ancient Israel demonstrates, man's relationship with God is not a story of constant spiritual growth, but a falling away from and a return to Him.
- His understanding of the transition between Medieval and Modern worldviews is substantially inaccurate. In many aspects (exception: capitalism), Modernism was a rejection of the new ideas of Medievalism, and a return the classical thinking. Modernism was not an inherently progressive movement, but a reactionary one. Humanism: a return to the concept of the nation-state and human liberty was Roman in origin. Reformation: a return to a Biblical and early-church understanding of the Christian faith. Science: the idea that the world is knowable and testable* is Greek. McLaren's model of changing worldviews is inherently progressive, but that isn't necessarily true all of the time.
*Late Greek, and only partially.
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