Like most publications, we receive more letters than we have space for in the magazine. Many of these are thoughtful responses. In this week and in coming weeks, we will be posting a selection from those letters.

A New Kind of Christian

I really enjoyed Brian McLaren's final essay on his book ["Faithfully Dangerous," May/June]. One line especially stood out to me, "Such emerging voices, hopeful for a new Christian ethos, may well be the target of critical blasts less charitable than Dever's restrained critique - blasts intended to frighten them into silence." My focus was on the word ethos, which is usually translated from the Greek as "custom." One of the major social questions of the Roman Empire in the first century was whether it was better for societies to grant citizenship to those who are of different ethnos, "race", and different ethos, "customs" (as the Romans did) or whether a society should not do so and honor their specific customs and heritage (as did the Greeks and the Jews). The Romans did open their society up to foreigners because they needed soldiers for the army. The Greeks did not, and once their teenagers were killed in battle, they had no more army. Consequently they were no longer a world power. The Romans, however, were able to expand their empire to the whole known world. This discussion about the proper political and social constitution continued into the first century CE. Historiographical literature such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus' Roman Antiquities and Flavius Josephus' Jewish Antiquities debates the Romans' social experiment.

Luke-Acts deals with the same issues, ethnos and ethos. In the speeches in Acts, the accusations against Stephen, Paul and others are that they change the ethos of the Jewish religion (see Acts 6:14). Luke is picking up on the social themes of his period and agreeing with the Romans. The kingdom of God is not a matter of ethos or ethnos. This view comes to fruition in the salvation of Cornelius, who is called an allophuloi in Acts 10, the same word used for the Philistines in the LXX version of 1 Kings. Cornelius is outside the bounds of the ethnos and ethos but still receives salvation and the Spirit.

We should remember Luke-Acts' view on the nature of the kingdom of God in this period of cultural upheaval. A new ethos for the postmodern church will eventually arise as it has in so many other eras. As Luke points out, the kingdom of God is not beholden to a certain ethos. It supersedes them all. "What do you mean circumcision is not linked to salvation? It is a sign that the kingdom of God has come upon you!" How silly such a statement seems to us today, and how silly some of our statements will seem to believers in the future! Luke-Acts argues the question is not whether to change ethos but whether one will become an obstacle to change. As has already been seen in some parts of the church, those who attempt to construct this new postmodern ethos will be dealt with in the same way as the believers in Acts - executed socially, politically, and occupationally.

Luke-Acts points to a different way of understanding a change in ethos.

• Thom Rowe
  Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University
  Ft. Worth, Tex.

Brian McLaren says he wrote A New Kind of Christian for Christians "who find themselves increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo of modern American Christianity." I am one such Christian, so when I read Andy Crouch's article about the book ["Let's Get Person," January/February], I bought a copy. I was disappointed and frustrated. As Neo (McLaren's alter ego) himself says, his statement of the problems of modern American Christianity is a gross oversimplification. Yet he proceeds as if he had a solid basis for his views. He blames all those problems on this thing called modernity (which he doesn't define well) and then offers another thing called postmodernism (which he also doesn't define well) as an all-purpose cure for whatever ails us.

I am disappointed because McLaren tries to deal with the problems, the cause, and the cure as package deals. He has neglected careful thinking and the work of making distinctions. In each of his discussions, I can find some ideas that are right on and some that are at best muddled. Yet, based on that vague muddle, he wants us to change the content of the modern evangelical message in unspecified ways. That is not helpful.

I am frustrated because sometimes McLaren can be quite helpful. For instance, his discussion of what it means for God to be in control when we don't use a mechanistic world view was very insightful. He is also right that we should read the Bible looking for the wisdom and authority of God rather than a rulebook.

On the other hand, his discussion of other religions fails to make a crucial distinction. Certainly Christianity must reform, and it can do that by making Jesus and his teachings the standard instead of the traditional common practices of Christianity. Other religions have no valid basis for reform because they reject that standard.

McLaren is right that modern American Christianity should be open to change toward whatever God wants us to be, and he does have some feel for the problems. But vague, sweeping generalizations are not much use. Contrary to one of Neo's assertions, secular postmoderism is NOT changing our culture. It is dying out because it has nothing constructive to offer. I hope McLaren can do better in the future.

• Wayne Shockley
  Brooklyn, Wisc.

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