Brian McLAREN. Faith after Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do about It. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials, 2021. 256 pp. $26.99 hardback. ISBN: 978-1250262776. Reviewed by Steve W. LEMKE, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, LA  70126.

Brian McLaren is a former English professor and pastor now associated with the Center for Action and Contemplation. Faith after Doubt is one in a series of McLaren’s books that critique classical Christianity and offer an alternative new “revolutionary” Christianity. Doubt is an important topic to address because most or perhaps all Christians experience doubt from time to time. Faith after Doubt details McLaren’s own struggles with doubting God, along with a number of anecdotal stories of others who have had profound doubts about their faith. Certainly, even saints of the church have struggled with doubt at times.

McLaren asserts that all believers should go through four stages as sort of a rite of passage toward a “higher” form of faith. McLaren labels Stage 1 as “Simplicity” (just one of the many condescending words he uses to describe people at this state). People at the Simplicity stage see everything in dualities (right or wrong, us or them, etc.). McLaren believes that they despise and hate people who do not agree with them. It is regrettable that McLaren experienced this version of Christianity, but while his description of Christianity may be true of a minority of Christians, it does not resonate with my own experience. McLaren describes Stage 2 as “Complexity,” when persons struggle with difficult doctrines of the faith. Stage 3 is “Perplexity,” in which persons begin doubting everything, including their own beliefs. Perplexity sounds a great deal like Jean-Francois Lyotard’s “hermeneutical suspicion” and “incredulity toward metanarratives.” Stage 4 is “Harmony,” in which the beliefs that doubters doubt are jettisoned in favor of a new beliefless version of Christianity characterized by a newfound faith and love. Indeed, “faith expressing itself in love” becomes McLaren’s mantra for his Christianity II. Commendably, McLaren cites various mystics of the church as examples of Harmony. However, he does not demonstrate that their mystical experiences led them to doubt doctrinal orthodoxy. McLaren expresses that these faith experiences are often experienced through nature, and thus seems to endorse a form of Nature mysticism. McLaren believes that Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and indeed all world religions can attain stage four Harmony, because doctrine doesn’t matter.

However, McLaren’s renewed faith is purchased at a high price. It entails jettisoning key Christian doctrines (any that someone finds problematic) to create one’s own personal version of Christianity “cafeteria style.” McLaren sees doctrine as the enemy. It is not clear exactly which doctrines McLaren desires to jettison, but apparently any doctrine is eligible. He does clearly seem to jettison at least the following beliefs: the necessity for believing in Christ for salvation, the Trinity, Jesus’ death on the cross as a sacrifice for sin, sin as something that might bring punishment, salvation involving any form of afterlife, and the Bible being anything more than a collection of good insights (p. 156). McLaren likens persons who defend orthodox Christian doctrines as “belief-police” and “more like prison guards than good shepherds” (p. 208). Indeed, McLaren so encourages doubt that he asserts, “blessed be doubt” (p. 215). McLaren doesn’t just deal with persons already experiencing doubt; he suborns and encourages doubt. Doubt is a necessary moment toward achieving wholeness and Stage 4 Harmony. The Harmony stage has the amorphous goal of “faith expressing itself in love.” While this sounds good, McLaren’s Harmony seems strangely disharmonious. While excoriating the Simplistic believers stuck in Stage 1, he accuses them (dualistically) of being white supremacists who commit land theft, genocide, slavery, apartheid, and sexual abuse, among many other accusations (p. 83). Stage 4 people never do such terrible things, of course. The Harmony stage, for McLaren, also entails a set of beliefs (McLaren seems completely oblivious to this contradiction) about areas such as the environment, politics, and religion. If one disagrees with some of these ethical beliefs, one is evidently out of Harmony, not one of “us” but of “them.”

McLaren views this “new” theology as being revolutionary, and calls for theologians to fill out the details (difficult to do when there are no standard “doctrines”). He seems unaware that this theology has already been expressed through an amalgamation of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s mystical “feeling of ultimate dependence,” Karl Rahner’s “anonymous Christian,” Walter Rauschenbusch’s “social gospel,” and John Lennon’s “Imagine There’s No Heaven.” Emile Cailliet (of Princeton Theological Seminary), who was the subject of my dissertation, affirmed a “regenerated” form of mysticism. However, he warned against “vague forms of mysticism” that were not grounded in biblical truth (Emile Cailliet, The Beginning of Wisdom, pp. 42, 122, 177). I believe that Cailliet’s concerns were well-taken.

Unsurprisingly, McLaren as a pastor was criticized by persons inside and outside of his church for being in error doctrinally, leading to his resignation as pastor. McLaren nine times in the book uses the word “excommunication” as having been threatened or done to him, although I could find no evidence that any church or denomination actually excommunicated him. While there is no doubt that orthodox Christians would have concern about his orthodoxy, no evidence is provided that he was excommunicated as an unbeliever.

Doubt is a common experience for believers, so McLaren should be commended for addressing it so frankly. I hope that by raising the possibility of faith after doubt, McLaren is able to help lead doubters back (or forward) toward faith again. However, I have my doubts.