Do I Stay Christian?
By Brian D.
McLaren
Reviewed by
Geoffrey W. Sutton
“He’s an
atheist now.”
“She came
home from that church in tears.”
“We’re
agnostic. We just don’t know.”
In the past
decade, it seems like young adults have been fleeing church as if there was an
active shooter in the sanctuary. I am privileged to remain friends with former
university students on social media. I see some have left evangelical churches
and some declare themselves atheists. I interact with older friends across the
USA whose adult children have given up their evangelical beliefs. Some felt
welcomed in mainline congregations but others appear to be in some vague
spiritual place that I couldn’t quite locate.
Brian D.
McLaren appears in tune with the times in his 2022 book, Do I Stay Christian. Years ago a friend introduced me to McLaren with a gift of A
Generous Orthodoxy. I liked his idea of inclusivity. I see in Do I Stay
Christian that Brian has moved on. He’d be familiar with my opening quotes
and paragraph. I’d call this book A Generous Spirituality.
Do I
Stay Christian has
three parts. Part I is the opening salvo. McLaren offers us 10 reasons to answer
his question with a solid, “No!” If you just read the list of chapter titles,
you will likely see some familiar reasons to leave a lot of Christian churches.
McLaren echoes the well-honed attacks of the high profile atheists that burst
upon book lists following 911.
Christians
have a sordid past riddled with stories of hateful attitudes, horrifying
torture of dissidents, and murderous attacks on unbelievers spanning centuries.
It’s even worse if we dare to read about Christian violence toward other
Christians who believe differently. McLaren takes on the dominating white male
patriarchy, their unmerciful ideas and acts, their greed, and their toxic
theologies. McLaren is a keen observer. He dubs the mysterious lack of changed
lives into anything resembling the compassionate and justice seeking Jesus as “LTS”
– lack of transformation syndrome. McLaren also gives a nod to the
distressing anti-intellectual and anti-science rhetoric commonly experienced by
me and my colleagues. In his own words:
I see a
similar vigilance regarding science. Where science helps our cause, we trumpet
it. Where it challenges us in any way, we condemn it as godless, as demonic, as
an example of the “philosophy and empty deceit” I was warned about in
Colossians 2:8. In the course of my lifetime, my fellow Christians have
invested a lot of energy in pitting our theology against biology, anthropology,
geology, astronomy, physics, psychology, psychiatry, and sociology. (p. 69).
**********
Readers
will find McLaren’s “Yes” response to his opening challenge, Do I Stay Christian?
in Part II. Brian offers readers several reasons, which may resonate with some
more than others. You get the feeling he empathizes deeply with those who are
pondering a life without faith. He suggests we might stay Christian so we could
make life-enhancing changes, promote a new vision of the faith, consider how the
large group of people called Christians could make the future better for
humanity, and remember the life-giving focus of our founder. I pause here to
reflect on his Jesus thoughts because that’s where McLaren offers his
perspective as a student of literature. He sheds light on the stories of Jesus
woven into a legend. It’s these stories which offer us an image of compassion
and spiritual meaning beyond the stifling literalism and afterlife escapism that
hide down-to-earth life-transforming stories.
McLaren
presents us with an analogy. “We don’t let the assumptions of our ancestors
about anatomy, psychology, medicine, or physics dominate our thinking and work
in these fields today.” (p. 145) Thus, Christians should be free to understand
God in a new way. Christians should be free to leave the old God concepts and
old metaphors behind.
**********
Part III is
Brain’s DIY response full of suggestions on ways disheartened and disillusioned
Christians can remain Christian. He doesn’t preach. Instead, he reassures all
readers of his love and desire to remain friends regardless of their choice
about staying Christian. He suggests some readers may be at a different stage
in their life. They may only need to leave a constricted form of Christianity
on their “journey of growth and development.” McLaren writes about the process
of deconstruction and reconstruction. He doesn’t have the process all figured
out but there are suggestions on removing the “original sin” idea and revising
the harmful images of heaven and hell. He also suggests Christians may follow
the example of “coming out” as a new kind of Christian similar to the way LGBTQ
persons announced their identities.
Comments
After
reading McLaren’s Do I Stay Christian, I’m wondering about its
effectiveness. I’m pretty sure it’s not for those who are happy in their
Catholic or evangelical congregations. It’s not for those enjoying their
enthusiastic worship in Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. I’m not even sure
it would help progressive Christians—especially those who have moved on from
constricted forms of faith. And I’m not sure if it will help those who’ve
decided to identify as atheists, agnostics, or nones.
So who is this book likely to help?
I think McLaren has a good sense of his audience. To use a church door analogy, I suggest there may be four groups standing by such doors who might find Do I Stay Christian worth a read. One group is saving themselves from the toxic fumes of brimstone altars and may need to know there are cozy homes where Christians welcome all humans and invest their energy in promoting the common good. Second, are those looking out the door of faith and considering walking away for good—perhaps like a couple thinking a divorce is best for both parties. Third, there might be those who have recently left the doors of faith and are having second thoughts. Perhaps they are grieving their loss and missing friends and wonder if they could return to a new home in the same community. A fourth group consists of caring parents who seriously wonder about their children’s spirituality and are interested to learn how they might appreciate the children’s disenchantment with the old time religion and find ways to remain connected or even work together on common purposes.
**********
Those of us interested in the psychology of religion might find his ideas suggest hypotheses related to conversion - deconversion experiences and spiritual struggles. I suggest both topics could be of interest to clinicians and researchers.
Book Reference
McLaren,
B.D. (2022). Do I stay Christian: A guide for the doubters, the
disappointed, and the disillusioned. New York: St. Martin’s.
My copy
was purchased on AMAZON
Author note
I am a retired psychologist and professor of psychology who
writes about psychology and religion.
Links to Related Books
ATHEISTS,
RELIGION, and PSYCHOLOGY
Self-Righteousness and Humility
Our religion can “hell-ify” us by inspiring in us an impenetrable sense of rightness or even superiority. That sense of rightness can inoculate us against humility, infusing in us an excessive confidence or addiction to certainty that keeps us from seeing our mistakes until after the harm has been done—to others (including our children) and to ourselves. McLaren, Brian D. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 14).
Christians Against Jews
...the Protestant Reformation was born. It too perpetuated anti-Semitism with venomous fervor, as exemplified in the bone-chilling words of Martin Luther: Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, they could be lodged in stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues and let whatever escapes be covered with sand and mud. Let them be forced to work, and if this avails nothing, we will be compelled to expel them like dogs in order not to expose ourselves to incurring divine wrath and eternal damnation from the Jews and their lies … we are at fault in not slaying them. McLaren, Brian D. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 17).
Church Blessed Murder of Nonconformists
In 1252, the ill-named Pope Innocent IV issued a document that authorized torture for doctrinal nonconformists, unleashing a wave of heresy hunts (collectively known as the Medieval Inquisition) that spread across Europe, especially concentrated in Spain. Thomas Aquinas, medieval Christianity’s greatest teacher, defended these actions in 1271: “With regard to heretics … they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death.”
McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 25).
Has Christianity Failed?
Christianity has become the world’s largest, wealthiest, most powerful religion. By all obvious measures, it is the most successful religion that has ever existed on the planet. But its apparent success hides its egregious failure.2 The religion has failed to transform surprisingly high numbers of its adherents into Christlike people. Some Christians become vicious, cruel, monstrous, and, like Thomas Auld, all the more dangerous because of their sanctimoniousness. Some become more judgmental and narrow-minded, as Rose did. To twist the lyrics of a beloved hymn, they were blind, then they saw, and then they became blind again in a whole new way. McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 61).
The Untransformed
It’s one of the things that disturbs pastors on sleepless nights: why do so many Christians change so little? McLaren, Brian D. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 61).
There are many other areas where I am alarmed about the effects of Christianity’s biased and constricted intellectualism, not just on Christians but on everyone. For example, when Christian individuals and organizations resist grappling honestly with scientific findings about sexual identity, they end up doing harm to LGBTQ individuals, and straight people too. When they promote shame-based sexual understandings through “purity culture,” or when they uphold gender roles rooted in antiquity (but not biology or psychology), they harm everyone with a gender and a libido. When they resist learning from the best child psychologists, they teach misguided parenting techniques. The more they focus their shame-heavy pseudo-psychology on the family, the more harm they do to both present and future generations. McLaren, Brian D. Do I Stay Christian? (pp. 73-74).
“I don’t have to choose between staying Christian compliantly or leaving Christianity defiantly. I can stay defiantly, like Sr. Ann and Sr. Jean. I can intentionally, consciously, resolutely refuse to leave … and with equal intention and resolution, I can refuse to comply with the status quo. I can occupy Christianity with a different way of being Christian.” McLaren, Brian D. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 94).
Struggling with Christian Culture
Besides, as Michael Gungor of The Liturgists podcast has said, for those of us in the West, Christendom is the water we swim in, especially here in the United States, whether we like it or not. It infuses our history, our culture, our politics. It’s on our dollar bills and in our Pledge of Allegiance. Even if we leave Christianity, Christianity doesn’t leave us. So we might as well try to challenge it toward positive change. McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 100).
Integrity and Literalism
...I hope you understand that many people, when given the choice between staying Christian and staying honest, feel that honesty requires them to leave literalist Christianity. They simply cannot honestly interpret all biblical stories as accurate accounts. If you demand from them the literalism that means so much to you, you will drive them away from Jesus. My appeal to you is not to let literalism be to today’s Christians what circumcision was in the early church: an option that some make an absolute requirement. McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 114).
Faith and Mental Health
So, going back to the exorcism and swine suicide story, could it be that demons were the best available explanation ancient people had for what we call mental illness today? Could demons be a metaphor for chemical imbalances, genetic disorders, and trauma-induced breakdowns—conditions that “possess” people and alter their behavior? And could the man in the story have been suffering from what we might call paranoid schizophrenia, PTSD, or a severe bipolar disorder with mania and anxiety? Could it be that everyone else in the village saw this troubled man as detestable, even subhuman, so much so that they wanted to lock him up and throw away the key? And could it have been that Jesus met him, saw his humanity, and showed the man extraordinary kindness? Could that kindness have helped restore the man’s mental health (so he was “clothed and in his right mind,” as Luke puts it)? And could it be that as a result, the man was welcomed back into the community? McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 116).
Leaving Literalism- not - Christianity
If literalism is your bridge to Jesus, if it is the only way you access Jesus, then I promise you: I am not trying to take it away from you. I just hope that you will not feel you have to impose your literalism on people for whom it is a barrier, not a bridge, to Jesus. If you feel that literalism chains you rather than liberates you, if you fear that it is part of the mechanisms of domination that have infected Christianity, that only means you need to leave literalism, not Christianity, and certainly not Jesus. McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 120).
On Changing Christianity
Old Christian words have been emptied of their substance, or their meanings have mutated. The old framing story doesn’t fit the reality we experience and feels instead like a conspiracy theory or manic fantasy. We can’t help but feel that the language of Christianity creates a make-believe world, a rabbit hole, an alternate reality, where angels and demons are real but climate change and evolution aren’t. The gap between actual reality and the Christian linguistic reality stretches our credulity to a breaking point. That’s why many can no longer stay Christian, and that’s why many of us who choose to stay Christian must deconstruct the Christianity we inherited—and shake off much of its language. McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 178).
On Coming Out
Their coming out to me eventually led me to come out in my own way: I had to come out as a Christian who no longer stigmatized my LGBTQ friends. I had to announce how and why I had changed. There was a price to pay for that, of course. But the price for staying silent would have been far, far more damaging. (A pastor who recently piloted his church through this process captured it succinctly, after losing many members: “We have been bigger, but we never have been better.”) This idea of a coming out is one of the many gifts the LGBTQ community has brought the world. “Up until now,” a person announces, “you have thought of me in one way. But I have come to understand myself as something different, and I want to let you know.” McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (pp. 200-201).
And this...
"...better to be rejected for who you are than accepted for who you’re not."
McLaren, Brian D.. Do I Stay Christian? (p. 204).
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