wishful thinking

You're right. I was referring to the fact that most Protestant seminaries fight with vigor the battles of yesterday, largely oblivious to the issues of today, hardly thinking of the issues of tomorrow. They still preoccupy themselves with fight the Protestant Reformation and the liberal-fundamentalist debates. (Somebody tell them those wars are over, OK?)...
Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian, p. 145

This echoes a bit of something written earlier.

...And what about the United Campus Ministries group? Why weren't they invited? I know some of you are thinking, "Because they're too liberal, and we're all evangelical." Well, if I'm right, those distinctions are about to become inconsequential. So I'd imagine that when you plan a joint activity among your various groups in the future, you'd be wise to broaden the invitation...
pp. 40-41

It's a quite common tactic, actually. Heck, one may think that people like McLaren actually believe it. One can see it, for example, in the debates about Creation and Evolution--to the minds of those like McLaren, Evolution is the 'truth', so trying to say anything about Creation is essentially meaningless and a waste of time, we may as well roll over, call the first couple of chapters of Genesis a myth, and try to wring out some of kind of mythical, probably liberal and politically correct, meaning from it. Disbelieve the true God and believe the contradictory 'facts' of men who want us to discard God.

Or, there's the more modern ploy of global warming. Never mind how the facts disprove it, how it's all so obviously a leftist politcal ploy, how it's being used to take away our freedoms. We don't have time to debate it, or to seek the truth, or to find real answers. No, we have to dive head-first into whatever the nincompoops in government put into their legislation, and we have to do yesterday, because we have to tell ourselves we're doing something, even if it's hacking off our own noses and shooting ourselves in the feet.

It's a tactic designed to silence debate, to 'move beyond' what they think we should move beyond. It's a tactic designed to make those who have not surrendered those debates to seem of no consequence.

Now, what has to be asked, is, is the liberal/fundamentalist (or, if I may, conservative) debate really ended? Is there no reason to fight the same battles those during the Protestant Reformation fought?

It's rather amusing, I think, that liberals will say such things, even as they are the ones who themselves are fighting the battles. They will attack, then besmirch those who defend.

So, for example, people like Borg and Crossan can tell us that the Gospels are mostly stories made up by the early church, with barely a smidgen of the real life of Jesus in them. They can tell us that there were no real miracles, that Jesus' body was never buried but was eaten by wild dogs, that there was no resurrection. They can tell us that we should look for truth about Jesus in aberrant Gnostic gospels filled with nonsense.

And then, when people refute their arguments with the truth, they will say that there is no debate, it's futile to continue trying to defnd the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, and "Somebody tell them those wars are over, OK?"

Well, they're not. Or they would be, if poeple like McLaren would surrender their vain imaginations. As it is, they would rather hold to them then not, wanting the respect of men more than of God.