John Bohannon » Preaching Church Leadership Calling

Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt seem to prize the Bible more as mystery than knowable, propositional, eternal truths about God and man. If by mystery it means they are acknowledging the glory and ways of God that reigns supremely over mankind’s finitude (Isa 55:8–9; Job 42:2–6), or reacting against the downsizing of God to a mere box of propositions, then fine. But, as Kevin DeYoung’s critique of the movement asserts, if mystery is somehow linked to an “implied doctrine of God’s unknowability,” and used as a way to jettison taking responsibility for the clear truth claims of Scripture, then something has gone awry with how these preachers are interpreting, or to draw from emerging church vernacular, dancing with mystery.

Dancing with Mystery?

For example, Pagitt claims, “Mystery is not the enemy to be [conquered] nor a problem to be solved, but rather, the partner with whom we dance.” He continues, “We are called to show each other the way into mystery.” This may sound postmodern and spiritual, but does it sound biblical? The Apostle Paul, one who proclaimed the words of God (1 Cor 14:37; 1 Thess 2:13), called believers into a meaningful, joyful, hope-centered relationship with God; not by leading them into some vague spirituality or existential maze of mysticism, but rather into the revelation, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of the revealed mystery—the person and finished work of God in Jesus Christ (Eph 1:17–18; 3:1–12; Col 1:24–29).

Get Your Preaching Directives from Jesus

Paul’s teachings did not focus on humanity coming into the way of mystery; Paul’s teachings, according to David Wells, focused on humanity coming to the “knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 2:25; cf. 3:7–8; 4:4). Where did Paul receive such an idea as objective, rational truth, having not lived in the age of enlightenment or modernity? Paul claims to have received his directives from Jesus (Gal 1:12), the full embodiment of truth, who naturally taught truth and established his followers in truth (John 17:17). Jesus himself even ties the believer’s joy to the knowledge of truth: “These things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13, emphasis added).

Preach the Mystery Revealed—Jesus

McLaren and Pagitt, in contrast to Jesus, seem to relish tethering joy to mystery, not knowable truth. Doctrine, dogma, and deliberate truths are out; mystery is in. For both preachers to continue down this postmodern epistemological path, one that Wells claims cherishes a “studied uncertainty,” it might imply (or expose?) that conversing about mystery, as a biblical trait to treasure, is nothing more than an emergent cloak to cover a denial of the knowable “knowledge of truth”—at least as revealed in Scripture and understood (down through the ages) as “God’s perfect knowledge of himself and of all reality.” Mystery is a beautiful thing, but so is mystery revealed, “Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27). From Preaching and the Emerging Church, Chapter 9. Emerging Church Revisionists: McLaren and Pagitt (pgs. 211-214). Get it here.