In my article last week, I expressed annoyance at what I called Brian McLaren's "need for rhetorical control" in A Generous Orthodoxy. I generally liked his view of personal salvation, but lost interest when I saw that he was not willing to be questioned about the implications of what he wrote.

McLaren's point was that Jesus did not come merely to save individuals from hell and take them to heaven, but that he is the savior of the whole world-the planet and all the creatures that live on it. While I wouldn't state the idea as he did, I agree that evangelism needs to be focused on the Kingdom of God, not just on getting people to pray the prayer.

McLaren's priority of being missional comes directly from his concept of salvation. The individual believer is saved so that he or she can be a vehicle of God's blessing to the world. McLaren's definition of the church's mission is (pp 106-107), "To be and make disciples of Jesus Christ in authentic community for the good of the world." (His italics.)

McLaren explains (p 108), "Jesus comes with saving love for the world. He creates the church as a missional community to join him in his mission of saving the world. He invites me to be part of this community to experience his saving love and participate in it."

Then McLaren adds (pp 109-110), "Jesus did not [emphasis original] come to create another exclusive religion-Judaism having been exclusive based on genetics and Christianity being exclusive based on belief (which can be a tougher requirement than genetics!)."

These statements call for questions about whether McLaren is a universalist. He may not be. He raises a good objection to universalism, which is that it offers no justice for the oppressed (p 109). But he not only declines to answer questions about universalism and hell, but disparages the question, "Is everybody in?" as beside the point (p 112).

"Why do you consider me qualified to make this pronouncement?" he asks. I would consider him qualified because the Bible makes pronouncements about whether "everybody is in," and because McLaren knows his Bible.

"Isn't this God's business?" he presses. It is. And God has spoken about his business.

"Isn't it clear that I do not believe this is the right question for a missional Christian to ask?" That he thinks so is clear. What is not clear is why.

"Can't we talk for a while about God's will being done on earth as in heaven instead of jumping to how to escape earth and get to heaven as quickly as possible?" That's a bit of a stretch. Asking questions about universalism implies nothing about escaping our duties in this life.

"Can't we talk for a while about overthrowing and undermining every hellish stronghold in our lives and in our world?" By all means. I was happy to do so. But the way we discuss any topic related to the Kingdom of God is by making distinctions so that we are not misunderstood. That's all I was hoping to get from this part of his book. Some distinctions.

But he's way too busy blessing the world.

McLaren seems anxious to anticipate any possible line of questioning from bigoted fundamentalists like myself. He repeatedly pleads that he is not a trained theologian, that he knows he should get over his attitudes about his conservative upbringing, that he is just trying to apply the law of love and be like Jesus. Almost his entire introduction is devoted to such posturing, apparently as a way of bluffing readers out of asking questions.

A Generous Orthodoxy is an attempt simultaneously to advance a teaching while retreating from accountability. Sectarians and New Age gurus can and do get away with that game-playing. But McLaren aspires to something more-to a renewal of Christianity in missional categories. Writers with such aims who duck basic questions make me wonder whether they're faking it. The probing, questioning nature of theology is not something to apologize for.