Change

I face an interesting juxtaposition this morning.

Side 1: Reading reviews of Brian McLaren's new book: Everything must change. He argues that traditional, protestant teaching and theology is deeply flawed and the cross badly misunderstood.

Side 2: Reading Jeremiah 6:

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.
     But you said, 'We will not walk in it.' Jer 6:16 (NIV)

How can a person connect with God? Is it through new understandings, new paradigms or is it the same old way it has always been? That would seem to be the most important question a person can ask or answer.

In reality, there is a little bit of both. McLaren himself calls for reinterpretation of the New Testament, yet he is still going back to that source. On the other hand, even the most traditionally minded reader of Jeremiah is usually not reading it in the original Hebrew—most often they are reading a translation.

It seems to me that while there is a need to stay relevant and to communicate Christ in ways people can understand and appreciate, the greater danger in our time is changing so quickly and so profoundly that we lose connection with the good way. The greater danger is the warning: the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Tim 4:3 (NIV)

As I read McLaren and Jeremiah, my fear is that the former is a living example of the warning of the latter—that those miss God because they look at the ancient path and say, "we will not walk in it."