The words crashed through the conference center like a wrecking ball, demolishing a facade that had pretended to be renovation. You are not reimagining Christianity. You are replacing it. Brian McLaren sat motionless on the panel stage. His carefully constructed image as thoughtful renovator of Christianity collapsing under the weight of seven words that exposed what two decades of generous orthodoxy had actually accomplished.
The man who had built his career teaching that Christianity needed complete reimagining for post-modern generations found himself confronting someone who refused to pretend that demolishing foundations and calling it remodeling was anything other than destruction. But to understand how that Washington conference venue became the arena for a collision between deconstruction and historic faith, you must return to the moment when one of the emergent church movement’s founding voices invited a Catholic actor to discuss faith with thousands who had never questioned
whether Christianity could survive having all its distinctive claims removed and replaced with progressive social consciousness. The invitation arrived through channels designed to position Brian McLaren as open-minded leader willing to dialogue with diverse Christian voices. He had spent 20 years at the forefront of the emergent church movement teaching that traditional Christianity with its emphasis on doctrine, biblical authority, and exclusive truth claims needed to evolve into something more suited to contemporary sensibilities. His books had influenced thousands of pastors and countless
churches toward what he called generous orthodoxy, but what critics called abandonment of orthodoxy entirely. The chosen had caught McLaren’s attention as example of how Christianity could connect with culture when freed from what he considered unnecessary theological baggage.
He saw Jonathan Roomie as potential ally who could help demonstrate that Christians could engage artistically and culturally without maintaining rigid doctrinal boundaries. Margaret Collins, Jonathan’s publicist, called with the invitation and a warning that carried unusual urgency about engaging with McLaren’s particular brand of theological deconstruction.
Brian McLaren is extraordinarily influential in progressive evangelical circles. He does not openly deny traditional doctrines the way Rob Bell does. Instead, he questions whether the categories themselves are helpful, whether asking if something is true is even the right question. He has convinced thousands of pastors that holding firm theological positions is barrier to authentic faith rather than foundation for it. Your challenge will be exposing that his reimagining is actually replacing while he claims to be
merely updating Christianity for new contexts. Jonathan listened from his Los Angeles apartment as morning light streamed through windows that framed a city perpetually reinventing itself while losing connection to anything permanent. His grandmother’s crucifix hung on the wall where it had always hung.
silent witness to faith that had endured precisely because it maintained connection to historic truth rather than constantly reimagining itself into irrelevance. What do you know about his actual influence and teaching? The question reflected Jonathan’s consistent approach to challenging encounters. He wanted to understand not just theology but the human being who taught it and what motivated someone to dedicate decades to deconstructing Christianity while claiming to preserve it.
Margaret chose her words with the precision that the complexity demanded. McLaren pastored Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland before transitioning to full-time speaking and writing. His book, A New Kind of Christianity, argued that the entire framework of traditional theology, from the fall to redemption to final judgment, needed rethinking.
He teaches that holding exclusive truth claims is arrogant, that emphasizing doctrine over practice misses Jesus’s point, that Christianity should focus on social justice rather than personal salvation. Progressive Christians celebrate him as prophetic voice.
Traditional Christians accuse him of dismantling Christianity while using Christian vocabulary. He presents himself as someone asking honest questions that threatened establishments suppress. The description revealed a pattern Jonathan had seen repeatedly. Leaders who claimed to be asking questions were actually asserting conclusions who positioned themselves as humble questioners while confidently rejecting 2,000 years of Christian teaching.
Who accused traditionalists of rigidity while being completely inflexible about their progressive convictions. The flight to Washington carried Jonathan through turbulent skies that seemed appropriate for the confrontation ahead. His worn Bible accompanied him as always, open to passages that spoke to the faith once for all, delivered to the saints that McLaren’s deconstruction consistently undermined.
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. The words from Jude captured exactly what was at stake.
Christianity was not perpetual project of reimagining that each generation reconstructed according to contemporary preferences. It was historic faith delivered once, maintained through centuries, requiring defense against those who would replace it while claiming merely to update it. The emergent Christianity conference occupied a hotel conference center in downtown Washington that communicated the movement’s aspirations.
Everything was designed to feel contemporary, relevant, culturally engaged rather than religiously isolated. The aesthetic suggested that Christianity could be cool if only it would stop insisting on outdated doctrines. Jonathan arrived at the scheduled time to find an environment that was carefully curated to communicate openness, diversity, and progressive values.
Rainbow flags mixed with Christian symbols. Social justice language dominated the signage. Everything communicated that this was Christianity re-imagined for people who found traditional Christianity embarrassing. A conference organizer named Melissa Foster greeted Jonathan with enthusiasm that characterized the movement’s public face. Jonathan, we are so thrilled you accepted Brian’s invitation.
Your work demonstrates that Christianity can engage culture artistically without requiring rigid theological frameworks. This panel discussion will show thousands of church leaders that there are different ways to be Christian beyond the narrow categories we inherited.
The framing positioned the conversation as celebration of diversity where multiple valid approaches to Christianity would be honored. But Jonathan recognized that McLaren’s movement treated only progressive approaches as valid while dismissing traditional Christianity as outdated rigidity. Brian McLaren himself waited backstage. His presence recognizable from years of speaking at conferences and appearing in progressive Christian media.
His style communicated intellectual sophistication mixed with pastoral sensitivity. Someone who had moved beyond simple answers into nuanced complexity. Jonathan, thank you so much for being here. I have watched the chosen with genuine appreciation. You bring such humanity to Jesus.
I think what you are doing helps people connect with him in ways that traditional theological frameworks often prevent. The compliment was strategic. Positioning traditional theology as barrier rather than bridge to encountering Christ. McLaren was suggesting that removing doctrinal distinctives made Jesus more accessible. Jonathan shook hands with a man whose influence he found deeply troubling, but whose platform demanded engagement. Thank you, Brian.
I look forward to our conversation. What neither man fully anticipated was that the next 90 minutes would expose the irreconcilable difference between reimagining that preserved historic Christianity and replacement that demolished it. Between questioning that strengthened faith and deconstruction that destroyed it. Between generosity that made room for secondary differences and revisionism that abandoned primary truths.
The panel discussion would reveal that McLaren’s project was not updating Christianity, but replacing it with progressive ideology that borrowed Christian vocabulary while rejecting Christian content. They took their seats on the panel stage alongside two other speakers who represented various streams of progressive Christianity.
The format was designed as conversation rather than debate with Brian McLaren serving as moderator who would guide discussion toward conclusions that affirmed the emergent vision. The conference center filled with several thousand pastors, church leaders, and Christians who had been drawn to McLaren’s message that Christianity could be liberated from what he characterized as constraining theological frameworks.
Many had experienced wounds in traditional churches and found McLaren’s emphasis on questions over answers deeply appealing. Brian McLaren began with the warmth and intellectual sophistication that had made him one of progressive Christianity’s most effective voices. Friends, we are living in a time when the old categories and frameworks that served Christianity for centuries no longer work for many people.
questions about biblical authority, about who is saved and who is not, about whether Christianity has exclusive claim to truth. These questions are causing people to walk away from faith entirely. I believe we need to reimagine Christianity for our generation in ways that honor Jesus while releasing us from theological prisons that previous generations constructed. The opening established his framework immediately.
Traditional theology was prison. Reimagining was liberation. The task of contemporary Christianity was adaptation rather than preservation. He turned toward Jonathan with a smile designed to communicate that they were all friends exploring together. Jonathan, you have portrayed Jesus in ways that have moved millions.
How do you think about the relationship between staying faithful to historic Christianity and making Jesus accessible to contemporary audiences? The question seemed friendly but contained embedded assumption that faithfulness and accessibility were intention that reaching contemporary people required modifying historic faith. Jonathan recognized the setup and refused to accept its premise.
Brian, I do not think faithfulness and accessibility are intention. The Jesus I try to portray is the Jesus of the gospels. The son of God who claimed to be the only way to the father. That claim is offensive to contemporary sensibilities. But making Jesus accessible does not mean making him inoffensive.
It means presenting him truthfully and trusting that the truth will draw those whom the father is calling. The response rejected McLaren’s framework while asserting that authentic accessibility required maintaining rather than modifying Jesus’s actual claims. McLaren’s expression flickered with recognition that his guest would not simply affirm the progressive vision. He responded with practiced ease.
I appreciate that perspective, but I wonder if we have to ask whether the way previous generations framed Jesus’s claims is the only way to understand them. When Jesus said, “He is the way,” was he making exclusive metaphysical claim? Or was he inviting people into a way of life characterized by love and justice? Maybe the question is not whether traditional interpretations are true or false, but whether they are helpful.
The reframing attempted to make truth claims into matters of usefulness rather than accuracy. McLaren was suggesting that asking whether something was true was less important than asking whether it was helpful. Jonathan leaned forward with intensity that the audience immediately registered. Brian, with respect, I think that move is exactly the problem. You are asking whether interpretations are helpful rather than whether they are true.
But Christianity stands or falls on truth claims. Jesus either rose from the dead or he did not. He either is God incarnate or he is not. His death either accomplished atonement or it did not. These are not matters of helpfulness. These are matters of truth when we make helpfulness the measure rather than truth.
We have abandoned Christianity even while using Christian vocabulary. The challenge struck directly at the heart of McLaren’s entire project. He had spent two decades teaching people to ask different questions that would produce different answers. Jonathan was insisting that the traditional questions about truth were the right questions.
McLaren shifted in his chair with body language that communicated he had not expected this level of direct confrontation in what was supposed to be affirming conversation. I hear what you are saying, but I think you are operating from modernist assumptions about truth that postmodern people cannot accept.
The idea that there are objective truth claims that everyone must affirm that seems arrogant to many in our generation. Maybe what we need is more humility about our theological constructions. The appeal to humility was strategic, positioning traditional Christianity as arrogant, while McLaren’s deconstruction appeared humble. But Jonathan was prepared for exactly this move.
Brian, is it humble to dismiss 2,000 years of Christian teaching because it does not fit contemporary sensibilities? Is it humble to suggest that the apostles, the church fathers, the reformers were all operating from inadequate frameworks that we have now outgrown? You present yourself as humbly asking questions, but you are actually very confident in your conclusions that traditional Christianity is wrong.
That is not humility. That is pride dressed in the language of questions. The observation exposed what many in the audience had sensed but never articulated. McLaren’s questioning was not actually humble exploration. It was confident assertion of progressive conclusions while maintaining posture of humble inquiry. The other panelists exchanged uncomfortable glances.
This was not going according to the expected script where everyone would celebrate diversity of Christian expressions and affirm that there were many valid ways to follow Jesus. McLaren’s voice took on edge that his usual warm tone rarely revealed. I think you are misunderstanding what I am trying to do. I am not rejecting Christianity.
I am trying to save it from frameworks that make it unbelievable to thoughtful people. When we insist that people must accept doctrines like substitutionary atonement or eternal conscious torment or biblical inherency, we are putting unnecessary barriers between people and Jesus. The defense positioned McLaren as removing barriers rather than abandoning doctrines. But Jonathan recognized the move as classic bait and switch.
But Brian, those doctrines are not barriers to Jesus. They are descriptions of who Jesus is and what he accomplished. When you remove substitutionary atonement, you change what the cross means. When you remove biblical authority, you lose any stable foundation for knowing who Jesus actually is.
When you remove exclusive salvation through Christ, you make him optional rather than necessary. You are not removing barriers. you are removing Christianity itself while keeping the name. The accusation that McLaren was replacing Christianity rather than reimagining it was more direct than anything McLaren typically faced in sympathetic environments, the audience sat in unusual tension.
Sensing that comfortable affirmation was being disrupted by challenges they were not used to hearing, McLaren stood from his seat, walking to the edge of the stage in movement that communicated both strategic thinking and genuine agitation. Let me be very clear about what I am proposing. I am not asking people to abandon faith in Christ.
I am asking them to hold that faith in ways that do not require intellectual suicide. I am asking them to follow Jesus without checking their brains at the door of the church. I am asking them to embrace mystery and ambiguity rather than demanding certainty about everything. The framing positioned traditional Christianity as anti-intellectual and demanded certainty while McLaren’s approach honored mystery and intelligence. Jonathan recognized the caricature and addressed it immediately.
Brian, traditional Christianity does not demand certainty about everything. It has always distinguished between essential doctrines that must be affirmed and secondary matters where Christians can disagree. What you are doing is not distinguishing essentials from secondaries. You are treating everything as secondary, acting as if no doctrine is worth defending, suggesting that all theological claims are equally negotiable, that is not embracing mystery, that is abandoning the faith once delivered to the saints. The biblical phrase struck at McLaren’s
claim to be preserving Christianity. Jude had written about contending for faith that was delivered once, not perpetually re-imagined. McLaren’s project contradicted that apostolic vision fundamentally. McLaren returned to his seat.
His expression mixing defensiveness with something that might have been recognition that his framework was being exposed in ways it rarely faced. I think we need to ask whether the metaphor of faith delivered once is even helpful. Maybe faith is not a fixed deposit but an ongoing conversation. Maybe Christianity evolves as we grow in understanding. Maybe what worked for first century people does not work for 21st century people.
The response revealed the depth of McLaren’s departure from historic Christianity. He was not just modifying doctrines. He was rejecting the entire concept that Christianity had fixed content that must be preserved. Jonathan’s voice carried prophetic authority that surprised even him. Brian, you just admitted what I have been suggesting. You are not reimagining Christianity. You are replacing it.
You are creating new religion that uses Christian vocabulary but rejects Christian content. When you say faith is not fixed deposit but ongoing conversation, you are contradicting Jude. When you say Christianity evolves, you are rejecting the concept that anything is non-negotiable. You are building something new and calling it Christianity. But it is not.
It is progressive ideology with Jesus language. The seven-word phrase landed with devastating precision. You are not reimagining Christianity. You are replacing it. McLaren had spent 20 years presenting deconstruction as faithful renovation. Jonathan had exposed it as demolition.
The audience erupted in mixed response that revealed how divided even progressive Christianity was about how far deconstruction should go. Some applauded Jonathan’s clarity. Others sat in shocked silence that their theological hero was being challenged so directly.
What came next would determine whether this panel discussion produced genuine reckoning with emergent Christianity’s emptiness or whether McLaren would retreat into defenses that two decades of deconstructing faith had made almost impossible to abandon. Brian McLaren’s hands gripped the arms of his chair with tension that his usual composed demeanor could not conceal.
The accusation that he was replacing Christianity rather than reimagining it had struck at the identity he had spent two decades constructing. When he spoke again, his voice carried defensive edge wrapped in pastoral concern. Do you have any idea how many people I have helped stay Christian who would have walked away entirely? Young people who could not accept biblical literalism.
thinking people who could not reconcile exclusive salvation claims with a loving God. LGBTQ individuals who found no place in traditional churches. I have given them a way to remain connected to Jesus without requiring them to commit intellectual or moral suicide. The appeal to pastoral outcomes attempted to justify theological revision.
McLaren was arguing that keeping people connected to Christianity, even if that Christianity had been fundamentally altered, was more important than maintaining doctrinal purity. Jonathan recognized the move as one that many progressive leaders deployed when challenged, positioning themselves as compassionately helping people, while critics were heartlessly prioritizing doctrine over persons.
His response carried both pastoral sensitivity and theological firmness. Brian, I do not question your pastoral heart. But I want you to consider something carefully. Have you actually kept those people Christian or have you helped them remain connected to a community that calls itself Christian while no longer believing or practicing what Christianity has always meant? If someone rejects the authority of scripture, denies the exclusivity of Christ, abandons traditional sexual ethics, and questions whether Jesus actually rose from the dead, in what sense are they still Christian? The questions forced
McLaren to acknowledge that his reimagining had produced people who identified as Christian while rejecting Christianity’s core convictions. They had Christian vocabulary but not Christian faith. McLaren stood again, this time walking toward Jonathan with intensity that suggested the pastoral mask was slipping to reveal something more raw underneath.
So you would rather have them leave the church entirely than remain connected to Christian community while questioning traditional doctrines. You would rather see them become atheists than help them find a way to follow Jesus. that makes sense in the 21st century. The false choice attempted to make Jonathan seem cruel while McLaren appeared compassionate, but Jonathan refused to accept the framing.
I would rather tell them the truth and trust God with the results than tell them comfortable lies that leave them connected to name Christianity while disconnected from actual Christian faith. Brian, what you call helping people stay Christian is actually confirming them in unbelief while using Christian language.
That is not pastoral care. That is spiritual malpractice. The accusation of malpractice landed with force that made several audience members gasp audibly. Jonathan had just suggested that McLaren’s entire ministry was harming rather than helping those he claimed to serve. One of the other panelists, a progressive pastor named Jennifer Hayes, jumped in to defend McLaren.
I think you are being incredibly unfair and judgmental. Brian has spent decades in the trenches helping real people with real struggles. Who are you to say that his ministry is malpractice? What gives you the authority to decide what is and is not authentic Christianity? The intervention attempted to shift focus from theological content to relational dynamics, suggesting that Jonathan was being mean-spirited rather than truthful.
Jonathan turned toward Jennifer with respect that matched his firmness. I am not claiming personal authority. I am appealing to scripture and to historic Christian teaching. Brian has positioned himself as someone asking honest questions, but he consistently arrives at conclusions that contradict what the church has believed for 2,000 years.
At what point does questioning become denying? At what point does reimagining become replacing? The questions forced the panel and audience to confront what many had sensed but avoided articulating. McLaren’s movement did not actually honor historic Christianity. It systematically dismantled it. While claiming merely to update it, Brian McLaren walked to the front edge of the stage.
Facing the audience rather than engaging Jonathan directly, as if appealing to sympathetic crowd would provide support that theological argument could not. I want to speak directly to those of you who have found freedom through reimagining your faith. You know in your hearts that what we are doing is not replacing Christianity. We are recovering it from centuries of distortion.
We are returning to Jesus’s actual message of love and justice that got buried under layers of Greek philosophy and Roman power dynamics. The appeal to audience sympathy was strategic. But it revealed that McLaren could not actually defend his theology biblically or historically. He could only appeal to feelings and experiences of those who found his message liberating.
Jonathan remained seated, his stillness providing contrast to McLaren’s agitated movement. Brian, that narrative about Greek philosophy and Roman power distorting Christianity is historically inaccurate. The core doctrines you are dismantling, the deity of Christ, his atoning death, his resurrection, salvation through faith in him alone.
These were taught by the apostles before any significant Greek philosophical influence. They are found in the earliest Christian writings. You are not recovering authentic Christianity from later distortions. You are creating new religion that contradicts apostolic teaching. The historical correction dismantled McLaren’s justification for his revisionism.
He could not claim to be recovering original Christianity when he was rejecting what the earliest Christians actually taught. McLaren turned back to face Jonathan. His expression cycling through emotions that intellectual sophistication could not fully control. Let me ask you something directly.
Do you really believe that billions of people who have never heard of Jesus are going to hell? Do you really believe that a loving God would create people knowing they would reject him and then punish them eternally? Do you really believe that two men who love each other and commit to lifelong partnership or sinning? Because if you believe those things, then yes, I am trying to replace that Christianity and I am not ashamed of it.
The confession was more honest than McLaren typically allowed himself to be in public. He was admitting that his project was not merely updating but fundamentally revising Christianity to conform to progressive moral intuitions. Jonathan’s response carried sadness rather than triumph. Brian, you just revealed what I have been suggesting. You find traditional Christian teaching morally unacceptable.
So you are replacing it with teaching that fits your moral sensibilities. But you are not doing this because scripture or church history supports your revisions. You are doing it because you cannot accept what Christianity has always taught. That is not reimagining. That is apostasy.
The word apostasy hung in the air like pronouncement of judgment. It was stronger than anything Jonathan had said previously, and it communicated that what was at stake was not mere disagreement about secondary issues, but fundamental departure from Christian faith. The audience erupted in divided response. Some stood in support of Jonathan’s clarity.
Others shouted objections that traditional Christianity was the real apostasy. The conference organizers looked alarmed that their carefully curated event had become theological battlefield. Melissa Foster, who had greeted Jonathan earlier, approached the stage with urgency that communicated alarm about where things were heading. Brian McLaren raised his hand to quiet the audience.
His expression suggesting he had made decision about how to respond to Jonathan’s challenges. What came next would determine whether McLaren could defend progressive Christianity against someone who refused to pretend it was merely updated version of historic faith rather than replacement that contradicted it fundamentally.
Brian McLaren’s voice emerged with controlled intensity that suggested he had regrouped strategically during the audience disruption. Jonathan, I want to address your accusation directly. You called what I am doing apostasy. That is an incredibly serious charge. But I want you to consider something.
What if the real apostasy is clinging to theological frameworks that make Christianity unbelievable to honest seekers? What if refusing to evolve our understanding is the actual betrayal of the gospel? The reframing attempted to position flexibility as faithfulness while theological conviction was betrayal.
McLaren was suggesting that adapting Christianity to contemporary sensibilities was more faithful than preserving historic doctrine. Jonathan remained seated while McLaren stood. The physical dynamic creating visual representation of their theological positions. One stable and grounded, the other restless and shifting. Brian evolution in understanding is not the same as abandoning core convictions.
The church has always distinguished between doctrinal development that clarifies what was always believed and revision that contradicts it. When you reject the authority of scripture, you are not developing doctrine, you are rejecting the foundation. When you deny substitutionary atonement, you are not evolving understanding of the cross. You are emptying it of its biblical meaning.
When you affirm sexual relationships that scripture prohibits, you are not being compassionate. You are claiming authority to overrule what God has revealed. The distinctions forced McLaren to acknowledge that his revisions were not developments within Christian tradition, but departures from it. He was not building on foundations.
He was demolishing them. McLaren walked back toward his chair, but did not sit. standing behind it as if the furniture provided barrier between himself and Jonathan’s challenges. But who decides what is foundation and what is negotiable? Who gets to say that their interpretation of scripture is the correct one and everyone else is abandoning the faith? That sounds like the kind of certainty that has led to religious violence and oppression throughout history. The appeal to humility about interpretation was
classic progressive move, suggesting that any claim to know what scripture teaches was arrogant and potentially dangerous. Jonathan’s response carried both patience and precision. Scripture itself distinguishes what is essential. The deity of Christ is not my interpretation. It is what John teaches in his gospel.
The necessity of the cross for salvation is not my preference. It is what Paul teaches throughout his letters. The resurrection as historical event is not one possible reading. It is what the apostles testified to and died for. Brian, you keep acting as if all interpretations are equally valid. But that is not intellectual humility.
That is hermeneutical chaos that makes scripture mean whatever each reader wants it to mean. The observation exposed the epistemological anarchy at the heart of McLaren’s approach. Without stable meaning in scripture, Christianity became perpetual project of individual construction rather than revelation to be received.
Jennifer Hayes, the other panelist, jumped back into the conversation with visible emotion. I have to say something. I am a lesbian pastor in a committed relationship. Traditional Christianity told me I had to choose between my identity and my faith. Brian’s teaching showed me I could have both.
Are you telling me that was wrong? That I should have abandoned my partner or my faith? The personal testimony was designed to make theological debate concrete and to suggest that Jonathan’s position required cruelty toward LGBTQ individuals. Jonathan’s expression softened with genuine compassion as he turned toward Jennifer. I am not telling you what you should do with your relationship. I am telling you what scripture teaches about human sexuality.
The compassionate thing is not affirming what scripture prohibits. The compassionate thing is speaking truth while trusting that God’s design for us is better than what feels right to us. Jennifer Brian has not helped you integrate your faith and your identity. He has helped you reject biblical teaching so you do not have to choose. That is not pastoral care. That is enabling.
The word enabling struck harder than condemnation would have. Jonathan was suggesting that McLaren’s affirmation was actually harmful rather than helpful, leaving Jennifer comfortable in choices that scripture called sin. Jennifer’s eyes filled with tears as she processed being told that the theology that had given her peace was actually harming her.
Brian McLaren moved toward Jennifer with posture of protection as if shielding her from Jonathan’s cruelty. This is exactly what I am talking about. This is why we need to reimagine Christianity because the traditional version requires telling people like Jennifer that their love is sin. That is not the gospel.
That is legalism. that Jesus himself rejected. The appeal to Jesus against scripture was classic progressive strategy. As if Jesus stood in opposition to the biblical texts rather than being revealed through them. Jonathan stood for the first time since the panel began. His movement commanding attention.
Brian Jesus affirmed the Old Testament sexual ethics. He defined marriage as between man and woman. He called people to repentance which means turning from sin. You are creating a Jesus who never calls anyone to repent of anything except maybe being judgmental. That is not the Jesus of the gospels. That is Jesus re-imagined to fit progressive sensibilities.
The accusation that McLaren had created false Jesus rather than following the real one struck at the core of his entire project. Everything McLaren taught depended on claiming Jesus as authority. Jonathan was exposing that McLaren’s Jesus bore little resemblance to the Jesus scripture revealed.
The moderator, who had been silent during the increasingly intense exchange, attempted to intervene and redirect the conversation. I think we should take a break and let everyone collect their thoughts. But Brian McLaren waved him off. His focus remaining on Jonathan. No, I want to address this now. You keep appealing to scripture as if its meaning is obvious and unchallengeable.
But scholarship has shown us that the Bible was written in specific cultural contexts, that it reflects the biases and limitations of its human authors, that we cannot simply apply ancient texts to modern situations without interpretation. The appeal to biblical scholarship was standard progressive move, treating academic study as reason to dismiss biblical authority rather than as tool for understanding it better. Jonathan’s response was immediate and pointed.
Scholarship has shown no such thing. Scholarship has revealed that the Bible is more historically reliable than progressive Christians want to admit. Yes, scripture was written in cultural contexts. But that does not mean its moral teaching is culturally relative. The command to love God is not culturally conditioned. The prohibition of sexual immorality is not outdated.
The call to repentance is not ancient bias. Brian, you are using scholarship as excuse to dismiss what you find uncomfortable. That is not faithful interpretation. That is sophisticated rejection. The observation that McLaren used scholarship as weapon against scripture rather than tool for understanding it exposed the bad faith in his appeals to academic study.
Brian McLaren’s face flushed with color that his professional composure typically concealed. I have spent 30 years studying theology and church history. I have read the church fathers. I have engaged with biblical scholarship at the highest levels. Do not accuse me of sophisticated rejection when I am actually trying to be faithful to Jesus in ways that traditional frameworks prevent.
The defensive appeal to credentials attempted to shut down the conversation. As if McLaren’s years of study made his conclusions beyond challenge, but Jonathan refused to be intimidated by appeals to authority. Brian, the issue is not how much you have studied. The issue is what you have concluded from that study. You have concluded that 2,000 years of Christian teaching was fundamentally wrong about scripture, salvation, sexuality, and judgment.
You have concluded that you and your progressive colleagues have insights that the apostles, the church fathers, the reformers all lacked. That is not faithfulness. That is extraordinary arrogance dressed in language of humility. The inversion was complete. McLaren’s humble questioning was exposed as confident dismissal of historic Christianity.
His openness to new understanding was revealed as closeness to what scripture actually taught. What came next would determine whether this panel discussion would produce any movement toward truth or whether McLaren would double down on decades of deconstructing faith while calling it faithful reimagining. Brian McLaren sank into his chair with movement that suggested the accumulated weight of Jonathan’s challenges had become too heavy to carry while standing.
His carefully maintained image of confident guide through theological complexity had given way to something more human and more troubled. When he spoke again, his voice carried vulnerability that his public persona rarely revealed. Do you know what it is like to lose everything because you asked questions? I lost my church. I lost friendships with leaders I had mentored with and been mentored by.
I became persona nongrada in evangelical circles that had once celebrated my ministry. All because I could not continue teaching things I no longer believed were true. The confession revealed genuine pain beneath the theological positions. McLaren had paid real costs for his deconstruction, and those costs made it psychologically difficult to consider that perhaps the deconstruction itself had been wrong.
Jonathan felt unexpected compassion for a man who had indeed sacrificed much, even if what he had sacrificed it for was fundamentally misguided. Brian, I do not minimize what that cost you, but the question is not whether your journey was painful. The question is whether your conclusions are true. Many people have paid high prices for theological positions that were wrong.
Cost does not validate correctness. The distinction between sacrifice and truth was crucial. McLaren wanted his suffering to validate his theology. Jonathan was insisting that suffering could be for error as easily as for truth. McLaren’s hands trembled slightly as he reached for his water bottle.
the physical manifestation of internal struggle that intellectual control could not fully suppress. Let me ask you something. Have you ever doubted? Have you ever looked at the Bible and wondered if parts of it were actually wrong? Have you ever questioned whether the traditional answers you inherited actually make sense? The personal questions invited Jonathan to acknowledge that he too struggled, perhaps softening the stark difference between them.
Jonathan paused before responding, aware that honesty required acknowledging real wrestling while not pretending that wrestling had led to McLaren’s conclusions. Yes, I have doubted. I have wrestled with difficult passages. I have struggled with questions about suffering and judgment and God’s ways. But Brian, the difference is what I did with those doubts.
I did not use them as permission to reconstruct Christianity according to my preferences. I let them drive me deeper into scripture, into church history, into wrestling with God. My doubts ultimately strengthened my faith rather than providing excuse to abandon it. The testimony revealed that intellectual honesty did not require McLaren’s revisionism.
Jonathan had faced similar questions but reached different conclusions because he had maintained submission to scripture rather than asserting authority over it. McLaren stood again but this time his movement seemed less strategic and more desperate as if physical motion could provide escape from internal reckoning. But how do you know your conclusions are right and mine are wrong? How do you know that your submission to scripture is not just submitting to your interpretation of scripture? We are all interpreting.
We are all making choices about which passages to emphasize and which to minimize. The appeal to interpretive humility was McLaren’s last major defense, suggesting that all positions were equally constructed and therefore equally valid or invalid. Jonathan recognized this as the crucial moment that would determine whether McLaren could hear truth or would retreat into the relativism that had protected his revisionism for decades.
His response carried both pastoral gentleness and prophetic firmness. Brian, there is a difference between acknowledging that we all interpret and claiming that all interpretations are equally valid. Some interpretations honor what the text actually says. others violate it. When you say that scriptures prohibitions of homosexual practice are culturally conditioned, but its commands to love are timeless, you are not just interpreting.
You are picking and choosing based on what fits your moral intuitions. That is not faithful interpretation. That is making yourself the authority over scripture. The observation exposed the methodological inconsistency at the heart of progressive hermeneutics. McLaren claimed interpretive humility while confidently dismissing what scripture plainly taught whenever it contradicted progressive sensibilities.
Jennifer Hayes, who had been silent since her earlier emotional intervention, spoke again with voice that mixed anger and pain. So, you are saying that I and millions of other LGBTQ Christians are just picking and choosing, that we have not wrestled deeply with scripture, that we are making ourselves authorities over God’s word.
The questions challenged Jonathan to either soften his position or apply it to real people in front of him. Many would have retreated at this moment. Jonathan did not. Jennifer, I am saying that when our interpretation contradicts what scripture consistently teaches, we need to examine whether we are conforming scripture to our desires rather than conforming our desires to scripture.
The church has always distinguished between difficult passages that require careful interpretation and clear passages that require submission. Scriptur’s teaching on sexual ethics is in the second category. Claiming it is unclear or culturally conditioned is not honest interpretation. It is dismissal of what we find uncomfortable.
The response was compassionate in tone but uncompromising in content. Jonathan was not attacking Jennifer personally. But he was refusing to affirm her theological revisionism. Brian McLaren stood between Jonathan and Jennifer, literally positioning himself as protector of those whom traditional Christianity would condemn. This is why your version of Christianity is dying.
This is why younger generations are walking away. They cannot accept that God would create people with same-sex attraction and then condemn them for acting on it. They cannot accept that billions who never heard of Jesus are going to hell. They cannot accept biblical texts that seem to endorse slavery or subordinate women.
You can call my approach replacement if you want. But at least it is Christianity that people can actually believe. The appeal to generational preferences and moral intuitions was McLaren’s final major argument. Christianity had to adapt or die. Progressive revision was survival strategy. Jonathan’s response carried sadness that matched his conviction.
Brian, Christianity that people can believe is not the same as Christianity that is true. Every generation has found aspects of biblical teaching difficult. Every culture has been tempted to modify Christianity to fit its values. The question is whether we will submit to God’s revelation or make ourselves the measure of what is acceptable. You have chosen the latter path while claiming it is the former.
That is not reimagining Christianity. that is replacing it with progressive ideology that uses Christian vocabulary. The seven-word phrase returned with even greater force. You are not reimagining Christianity. You are replacing it. McLaren had been unable to demonstrate otherwise throughout the entire panel discussion. The audience sat in tension that reflected the stakes.
Many had followed McLaren’s teaching for years. Hearing it challenged so directly, and seeing McLaren unable to defend it biblically, was forcing recognition that perhaps they had been led astray by winsome guide, who had no idea where he was actually leading them. McLaren’s expression cycled through emotions too quickly for his usual control to manage.
frustration, sadness, anger, something that might have been recognition that his reimagining could not withstand serious biblical examination. What came next would determine whether this conference panel would end with reconciliation or division. With McLaren acknowledging problems with his deconstruction or doubling down on decades of replacing Christianity while claiming merely to update it, Brian McLaren walked to the front edge of the stage one final time.
His posture suggesting he had made a decision about how to conclude a panel discussion that had departed completely from the affirming conversation he had planned. When he faced the audience, his voice carried weariness mixed with defiant determination to maintain the path he had chosen despite challenges he could not fully answer. I want to say something to everyone here.
Jonathan has challenged me today with traditional arguments that I have heard and wrestled with for 30 years. He believes I am replacing Christianity. I believe I am saving it from frameworks that make it unbelievable. We are not going to resolve that disagreement today.
What I ask from you is to continue the journey of honest questioning. To not let anyone shame you for doubting what you were taught, to trust that God is bigger than our theological constructions. The conclusion attempted to position the disagreement as unresolvable difference of opinion rather than matter of biblical truth versus revisionism.
McLaren was retreating into the language of journey and questioning that had always protected his deconstruction from serious examination. Jonathan remained seated, recognizing that McLaren was choosing comfortable continuence over costly honesty, but he offered one final word before the panel concluded. Brian, I am not shaming anyone for questioning. I am challenging the conclusions you have reached through your questioning.
There is a faith once delivered to the saints that requires defending, not deconstructing. I pray you will consider whether your reimagining has actually been replacement, whether your questions have led you away from truth rather than toward it. The pastoral benediction was both gracious and firm. Offering McLaren continued invitation to repentance while not softening the challenge.
The panel ended with awkward farewells that communicated the depth of division that remained. McLaren and Jonathan shook hands with civility that masked theological chasm between them. They had entered the conversation as acquaintances. They were leaving as representatives of irreconcilable visions of what Christianity should be.
The aftermath revealed how deeply Jonathan’s challenges had unsettled progressive Christianity’s comfortable assumptions. Conference attendees split into visible camps. Some rushed to affirm McLaren, thanking him for continuing to ask questions despite pressure from traditional voices, but others lingered in troubled silence, processing the recognition that their theological guide had been unable to defend his positions biblically when seriously challenged.
More significantly, dozens of pastors and church leaders approached Jonathan privately over the following hours and days, describing how the panel discussion had forced them to acknowledge that emergent Christianity had not updated historic faith, but had replaced it.
Some confessed they had followed McLaren into theological territory they now recognized as departure from Christianity rather than development of it. Brian McLaren released a statement through his website 3 days after the conference. The statement acknowledged that Jonathan had raised important challenges but maintained that progressive Christianity represented faithful evolution rather than unfaithful revision.
McLaren doubled down on his conviction that traditional theology made Christianity unbelievable and that reimagining was both necessary and faithful. But something had changed beneath the confident public messaging. Those close to McLaren reported that he seemed less certain, more defensive, more aware that his framework could not withstand serious biblical examination.
The phrase, “You are not reimagining Christianity, you are replacing,” it had apparently lodged in his consciousness in ways that comfortable affirmation never challenged. Six months after the conference, McLaren published a blog post addressing some of Jonathan’s critiques. The post did not announce reversal of his positions, but acknowledged that perhaps he had been too confident in dismissing traditional teaching, too quick to assume that difficulty meant error, too certain that progressive instincts were reliable guides to truth. It was partial recognition rather than full repentance.
But it represented cracks and foundations that had seemed unshakable. More importantly, the confrontation became catalyst for broader reckoning within progressive Christianity about whether deconstruction had gone too far. Thousands who had followed McLaren’s teaching began questioning whether they had been deconstructing towards something true or simply demolishing without knowing what to build.
The phrase replacing rather than reimagining became rallying cry for those challenging progressive Christianity’s revisionism. McLaren’s inability to demonstrate that his theology preserved historic Christianity while updating it had exposed what critics had long argued emergent Christianity was not faithful development but fundamental departure.
Jonathan received hundreds of letters from people who had been influenced by McLaren’s teaching. Many thanked him for providing clarity that helped them recognize they had abandoned Christianity while thinking they were evolving it. Some were angry that he had disrupted their comfortable progressive faith.
Others were grateful that someone had cared enough about truth to challenge beloved teacher directly rather than merely criticizing from distance. One letter came from a seminary student who had been planning to enter ministry within progressive Christianity movement. The student wrote that watching McLaren, unable to defend his positions biblically, had forced recognition that progressive theology was built on foundations of preference rather than revelation.
The student was now reconsidering whether to pursue ministry at all or to find tradition that actually maintained connection to historic faith. Jonathan added these testimonies to his growing collection. Recognizing that the impact of confronting false teaching could not be measured in immediate conversions, but in seeds planted that might bear fruit over years and decades.
Sitting in his Los Angeles apartment on the anniversary of that Washington conference, Jonathan watched evening light paint familiar shadows across his grandmother’s crucifix. The photograph of his father stood nearby. witnessed to a journey that continued revealing how thoroughly contemporary Christianity had replaced historic faith while claiming merely to update it.
He had never sought to become challenger of emergent Christianity or defender of historic orthodoxy against progressive revision. He had simply tried to portray Jesus faithfully and speak truthfully when reimagining became replacing. When questions became denials, when evolution became revolution, outside his window, the city hummed with its eternal restlessness. Thousands had watched him confront Brian McLaren about replacing Christianity while claiming to reimagine it.
But the impact that mattered could not be measured in conference attendance. It lived in letters from Christians who had been liberated from progressive theology that promised intellectual honesty while demanding intellectual suicide, who had discovered that historic faith was wiser than contemporary revision.
Who had learned that faithfulness required defending what was delivered rather than deconstructing it endlessly. Progressive Christianity persisted because it told people what they wanted to hear. That they could be Christian without submitting to scriptures authority. That they could follow Jesus while rejecting his claims.
That they could maintain Christian identity while abandoning Christian content. But McLaren’s inability to defend those claims when seriously challenged had exposed the emptiness at emergent Christianity’s core. Brian McLaren remained influential but less certain.
Still teaching deconstruction but haunted by the recognition that perhaps he had replaced rather than re-imagined, demolished rather than renovated, led people away from faith while claiming to preserve it. And that uncertainty, slight as it was, represented progress. Jonathan bowed his head and offered the prayer that had sustained him through every significant encounter. Grant me wisdom to speak truth and grace to speak it with love.
Whatever comes next belongs to you. The prayer rose toward heaven. Joining countless others from believers throughout history who had learned that Christianity delivered once required defending. That reimagining often masked replacing. that faithfulness meant contending for the faith rather than endlessly reconstructing it.
McLaren was still learning those lessons, still deciding whether defending progressive theology mattered more than submitting to historic faith, still choosing between comfortable revision and costly orthodoxy. The wrestling continued in him and in thousands he had influenced and perhaps in that wrestling return to truth remained possible that certainty and error had prevented. Perhaps that was enough for now. Thank you for following this story.
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