He (Neo) continued, "What if the real issue is not the authority of the text on this line, but rather the authority of God, moving mysteriously up here on a higher level, a foot above the ground? What if the issue isn't a book that we can misinterpret with amazing creativity but rather the will of God, the intent of God, the desire of God, the wisdom of God--maybe we could say the kingdom of God."
McLaren, A New Kind of Christian, p. 51
The error here is subtle, but it is there.
On the one hand, McL wants to leave open the idea that we can know "the will of God, the intent of God, the desire of God, the wisdom of God...", but on the other, he wants to call into question the authority of Bible, which would be the means by which we would come to know those things.
As such, then, McLaren seems to undermine his own argument. He wants to make it about those things, but in calling in to question the Bible as authoritative, he calls into question whether we can rely on it to be the source for us to know and understand those things.
But then, maybe that's the point, or at least has become the point. The book is, after all, several years old, and McLaren has moved on and into other things, one of them being the current comtemplative and mystical movement.
Whether such statements of his as are above were made intentionally by him to leave the door open to mysticism, or if such ideas left him open to them, at the least that does seem to be where they go--when the authority of the Bible is undermined, then man will look elsewhere for authority. Even into the mystical, which has to be one of the most subjective and dangerous things people can get involved in.
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