Washington National Cathedral

Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd talks about the emergent church with Brian McLaren, on the topic “Everything Must Change: The Radical Meaning of the Kingdom of God for Today’s World.”

McLaren believes that Christianity undergoes a major shift every 500 years of so. The previous shift occurred between the medieval world and the modern world, and the current shift is an adjustment to the postmodern world. “The story of the last 500 years in many ways for Christianity was the story of colonialism,” he posits. “When you have faith and economic and military power put together, you develop ways of arguing, ways of promoting your beliefs, that were very effective.”

This general trend began to break down in the United States after World War II, a rethinking of colonialism and industrialization, and critique from within of Western civilization. Christianity, wedded to modernity and analysis, faced a challenge. In the 1950s the mainline churches were known for supporting the status quo. When ministers from these denominations began to speak out against the Vietnam War, a break occurred between them and the people in the pews.

Now, in the postmodern world, ways of thinking about religion have utterly changed. If modernity was the era of systematic theologies, people are now rediscovering Christianity as a story. McLaren also detects a strong interest in reuniting two separate aspects of Christianity that should never have been separated: “privatized, personal faith and…a social, institutional faith.”

McLaren talks about the difference between orthodoxy—right beliefs—and orthopraxy—right actions. He believes that the mainline churches have shown a general willingness to change their theology with the times. The evangelical churches, on the other hand, have changed their practices while holding fast to traditional teachings. This trend has favored evangelical churches in recent decades. According to McLaren, the rigidity of both mainline and evangelical traditions is now being challenged.

Faith is far more than a private matter of improving our personal relationships. The church owes a higher allegiance to God than to the status quo, and it needs to rediscover the meaning of the Kingdom of God. The challenges are huge and urgent. McLaren names them as crises of planet, poverty, war, and religion. Christians, especially the young, want to address these crises and expect the church to speak and act.