Brian D. McLaren.  Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned.  New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2022.  Pp. x + 262.  $27.99 hc.  ISBN 978-1250262790.  Reviewed by Benjamin J. BROWN, Lourdes University, Sylvania, OH 43560.

Do I Stay Christian? recapitulates many of the themes for which Brian McLaren has become well-known.  As a leading figure in the emerging church movement, he has been called by some heroic, by others heretical.  The best of both are on display in this latest work as he examines as honestly as he can the problems and positives of the Christian faith.  He invites his audience, those struggling with their faith as he himself once did, to accompany him in his fulsome examination.

The first two parts of the book tackle the major reasons for and against leaving Christianity, respectively.  The third part articulates aspects of a way forward that affirms both the Yes and the No of the first parts.  McLaren has no advice for whether one should or should not remain Christian; he has profound sympathy for both and thinks all must chart paths appropriate for themselves, even saying that he experienced an epiphany while writing the book: “I really don’t care if you stay Christian.”  However, he does think that there are fundamentals of human development that he can elucidate for his readers to help them on their journey.  In fact, in the last chapter he explains that his new kind of Christianity is one good way of being authentically human, but there are others, and the only really important thing is to “remain passionately eager to embody a way of being human that is pro-justice, pro-kindness, and pro-humility.”

            The first two parts contain many good observations.  McLaren points to serious problems in Christian churches as well as real goods.  However, his highest standard is a postmodern, mostly liberal worldview by which he evaluates and then modifies the Gospel to serve this higher principle.  Overly simplistic ideas of equality, freedom, and judgment lead him into cringe-worthy distortions of history, significant omissions, and false dichotomies.  To take just one example, he claims that early Christianity valued “the equality of friendship rather than … hierarchy.”  The “rather than” exposes his erroneous preconception (think of the many scriptural exhortations to be obedient, follow authority, excise the false teachers, etc.).  Virtually all of history is read through the lens of power politics, and thus heresy is merely the brand imposed on non-conformists by the powerful church in order to protect its power and wealth; there is no mention that truth actually matters and that communities have a duty and thus a right to foster unity and the common good.

McLaren’s theology suffers from the Achilles heel of postmodernity: self-contradiction due to abandonment of truth.  While wanting to harmonize everything (harmony is the name of the final stage in his developmental model), he ends up standing for nothing, though that does not stop him from standing inconsistently for many things.  While condemning shaming, he shames his opponents (“crude and short-sighted,” “right-wing Catholic activist,” “violent, exclusive, authoritarian”).  While condemning anti-Semitism, he excoriates the Romans.  While questioning all truths and especially doctrines, he is blindly confident and doctrinaire about other truths.  McLaren might object that chapter 27 is all about staying grounded in reality (i.e., truth): “We must be more loyal to reality than to our current beliefs about reality.”  Fair enough.  However, the vast majority of the chapter is about bias, how difficult it is to know reality, and how we need to get comfortable with not knowing and instead remaining open to new possibilities.  Every sentence in the chapter is true, but on balance and in the context of the whole book, it serves to replace a love of truth with a love of openness and “what if.”  McLaren speaks of certainty always critically, referring to an “addiction to certainty,” but it seems never to have occurred to him that he might suffer from an addiction to uncertainty.  Interestingly, “faith” is mentioned as rarely as “truth.”

Do I Stay Christian? provides a service for many Christians today who are struggling with their faith.  It articulates poignantly the doubts and misunderstandings of many, especially among disillusioned evangelicals, as well as important truths about what Christianity is and offers.  However, because of its many historical and theological errors – that is, because its fundamental answer (despite claiming to give no answer) is ultimately neither true nor Christian – I cannot recommend the book except as a study in the consequences of taking the postmodern road.  Jesus and Christianity are not unlimitedly flexible; one cannot stretch and morph them into whatever one wants and still call it Christian, though that has often been attempted through the ages.  McLaren’s version is looking more like a secular humanism than ever before, though he still wants to call it Christian.  Eventually, I think the moniker will give way to the substance, but he has not yet arrived at that point in his journey.  In the end, the book is a recipe for how to dismantle Christianity and reassemble it in the image of postmodern, politically correct culture.