Multitudes of Christians Find Themselves in a Real-life Milgram Experiment

Among other things, I think the Milgram experiment really proves that human beings were built to trust in authority. Sadly, the authority figures are all sinners too… except for One. But when people think they are really acting independently, they have only substituted one authority for another. Romans 6:16-18

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I agree that a lot of churches do operate like a Milgram experiment. I just disagree with McLaren as to what the nature of it is.

Many of the things he identifies are the simple result of believing the Scriptures and applying a Christian World-view to life. McLaren, typically, casts out a Christian World-view in his attempt to be more “ethical” than the Scriptures, as if that were possible.

I think the great examples that are like Milgram experiments in the church would be cases in which an abusive spiritual leader is followed in violation of Scripture and conscience. That happens far too often.

I think it was simply condescending of McLaren to attribute the biblical response to his innovation to some primal fear, of getting bullied by the establishment.

Far better for him to humble himself a bit (rather than hiding behind a “humble” kind of ecumenical faith), receive the instruction and reproof of Scripture, and get on with preaching the Word rather than the Zeitgeist.

Yes… my point about the slavery thing is that those most loudly declaring their own courage to buck the establishment are usually slaves of the [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist] zeitgeist[/URL] or some trendy subset of it.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.