McLaren Presides over Same-Sex Commitment Ceremony

Brian McLaren caused quite a stir in 2010 when he announced in his book A New Kind of Christianity that he no longer believes that homosexuality is a sin. Many people were surprised by the news simply because he himself had called on evangelicals in 2006 to observe a five year moratorium on making moral pronouncements about homosexuality (see here). Yet in the book, McLaren not only made a moral pronouncement, he also chastised conservative evangelicals for their views on the matter.

At the time, it appeared that McLaren’s revisionist views were merely a part of his emerging theological outlook—a postmodern slouch toward theological liberalism. No doubt it was that, as his writings make perfectly clear. But could there have been more to it than that?

The New York Times reports that McLaren recently presided over his own son’s same-sex commitment ceremony. This would seem to imply that from the time McLaren called a “moratorium” to the time that he wrote A New Kind of Christianity, McLaren was dealing with the issue not merely as a detached observer but as one with a deeply personal stake in the matter. I don’t pretend to account for all of the influences over McLaren’s thinking, but it’s hard to imagine that his son’s situation would not have had some sort of an impact on McLaren’s theological revisions.   Continue at Denny Burk