Theological Thought

Plato and Aristotle in Brian McLaren's KNOC Trilogy - Part I

I've become convinced that Brian McLaren's New Kind of Christian (NKOC) trilogy has touched on an issue more fundamental to the history of theological thought than any book in decades. This issue can be summarized as the tension between Plato and Aristotle, or, to use philosophical categories, the tension between Being and Becoming.

Don't be intimidated by the philosophical terminology. One of McLaren's gifts is that of making technical terminology more accessible, and the NKOC trilogy is masterful at this. In fact, the NKOC trilogy, read carefully, is a good introduction to some of the key themes of philosophy. So it is important for us to understand the fundamental concepts that McLaren is really getting at here. So, bear with me...

Ken Gets to the Point

Consider this: The greatest Protestant theologian of the 20th century was Karl Barth. The greatest Protestant theologian of the 19th century was Friedrich Schleiermacher. (Any text, liberal or conservative, will affirm this.) To be a Protestant theologian or minister one would need to understand these 2 writers, at a minimum, right? Would a professional in any other field be able to graduate with an advanced degree, much less practice one's discpline, without having a clue what the greatest thinker in their discipline from each of the last 2 centuries thought? That's the case in Protestant Christianity in the 20th and 21st centuries, during which seminaries broke from a rich tradition of theological thought that had equipped ministers well for two millenia.