Re-Defining “McCraney-ism” in Light of The Great News

In the landscape of criticism of Shawn McCraney, the term “McCraney-ism” has been used to label the distinctive teachings and intentions of Shawn McCraney, founder of The Great News Network (TGNN). Coined by local critics such as Jason Wallace in his article “McCraney-ism”, the term attempts to encapsulate the approach to Shawn’s departure from traditional Christian doctrines, and reflects the common position of Christian individuals and leaders who do not like Shawn’s approach. While, yes, Shawn McCraney has definitely departed from traditional Christian doctrines, the term and its connotations significantly misinterpret and reduce the essence of Shawn’s message and the foundational goals of TGNN into a thought-killing cliche. This article is here to clarify.

Establishing Origins and Intentions to clarify “McCraney-ism”

The Great News Network, which houses Shawn’s personal and public exploration of faith, was established with a clear vision: to facilitate a personal and subjective (not relative) understanding of faith, rooted in truth and guided by The Spirit. Shawn’s suggests that this vision acknowledges that while the Bible serves as a historical and cultural text revealing God’s victorious work through Christ, that our modern human capacity to know every single detail and intention of that text is limited, and that even with diligent study that brings us closer to a better understanding, we will disagree on it’s exact purpose and place. Our inability is demonstrated across the entirety of its existence, lending itself to thousands of denominations today. Shawn’s work proposes that in the face of this condition, each believer has the responsibility to seek a knowledge of its context for themselves, while relying on their very personal relationship with God to guide them.

The Misunderstood Claim to Personal Responsibility to God

For Shawn, the appeal to relying on one’s personal relationship with (or, better yet, responsibility to) God comes with common reactions of disregard, which from the perspective of The Great News seem curious. Christians today, Shawn suggests, are confusingly out of touch with the reality that we can and do have relationship with Him; they even go so far as to accuse anyone who claims a personal relationship with God to only ever be doing so toward detrimental or manipulative ends. Further, it’s clear when looking at the criticism thrown at Shawn, thatif a Christian does experience a relationship with God, there is a serious pressure to justify it, both professionally and colloquially, with appeals to accountability to other people, authorities and institutions.

According to Shawn’s study and faith, God has worked personally with individuals across Biblical history. He was directly with Adam and Eve in the garden, He was directly in Christ, and even with the guard of the law across the Nation of Israel, He worked directly with many individuals. Now, in the light of Victorious Eschatology, where Christ has victory over all things, we today especially have direct access through Christ to rely on and commune with our God. But for some odd reason, Christians scoff at the notion! The common hesitations or criticisms usually fall into two categories. They’ll say “it’s how cults start”, or suggest that its “just too easy”. So, let’s unpack these misconceptions and how they are irrelevant when it comes to Shawn McCraney.

cults cannot arise from Individualism

Undoubtedly, people in this world and across history have and still deploy their claim to a personal relationship with God in order to establish heinous control over another person. A reference to this is a handy way for institutions to suppress individual thought. We see this tactic across government, culture, and religion. Because cults exist does not mean that a person cannot have a personal relationship with God; if these were entirely correlated, then the Christian Church probably shouldn’t exist. The probability of cultic coercion or behavior is likely when a person appeals to that distinct claim to a relationship with God in order to collect, structure or demand a system of control over others through that. In fact, The Christian Church itself could be seen through this lens.

The most important aspect of Shawn’s personal faith, work and theological position is the safeguards it promotes. Across every single teaching that Shawn has ever conducted, the most essential root of the personal and theological perspective is that the findings are never imposed on others, and only educational mechanisms to help individuals personally walk with God themself. Shawn encourages individuals to approach life through education, learning, seeking truth and gaining a closer perspective on it. He suggests that we can teach this work, expose and teach it to one another, but imposition, coercion and force are opposed to agape love, the root of The Great News, of God’s victory, and the reason it can function. When a specific material expression of one’s faith is demanded from another, everything about Shawn’s teachings and The Great News is lost.

The term “McCraney-ism” was established to suggest that Shawn not only demands the right to his own personal faith, but that others should follow him, and it simply is so far from the case. Individuals who have attended Shawn’s teachings regularly continue to come in and out, shifting in their opinions and perspectives, and it has always been not only allowed but encouraged, even while it comes with the pain of distance from friends or loved ones. Liberty is essential, and the term “McCraney-ism” is a tactic to draw certain associations with Shawn’s work that are not evident in the daily work and life, publicly and freely available for all to examine.

A Relationship with God is Responsible

In addition to drawing Shawn in association with cult-like behavior, scoffers will also make the excuse that appeals to God directly as one’s authority is just “too easy”… also a curious claim with respect to The Great News. These critics seem to miss the commonly understood idea that compared to trusting in an established, unmoving structural order of a doctrine or institution, the reliance on a living God minute by minute in faith and without certainty is far more difficult. Night and day. When Shawn has proposed and encouraged believers to “look to God”, or when he asserts that that is all he will ever do (especially when provoked to look to authority for accountability) he’s not saying “continue on with your life as you do and just tell people you have God’s support to get them off your back”. That would be something worth criticizing. It’s clear with a look at the long pursuit of Shawn’s work , and resulting fruit in his life thanks to God, that Shawn is suggesting that individuals instead fall on their face and feel the utter pain and humility that comes with seeing ourselves in the light of the Almighty YAHAVAH. That this pursuit will produce an insurmountable humility, and obedience, to the true and living God which no institution or human could ever trump. A relationship with God implies that you are accountable to God. That you are responsible for every single action that you do. That you, every single minute, hour and day sign up to face the pain of the mistakes you’ve made. That, like any genuine relationship, you work with one another to get better. That, in moments, seasons and decades of silence, you remain in service to that relationship in a dedicated faith.

For anyone who suggest that relying on a personal relationship with God easy or a cop-out, Shawn is probably talking about something very, very different.

Summarizing the Issue

While these criticisms come from very real and existing unfortunate realities in the world, it does not negate that we do, in fact, each have a personal connection to Him. Shawn’s personal experiences with God demonstrate that, when approached with humility, it can be the most effective remedy for our issues. And the disregard of that possibility in Shawn from nay-sayers begs observation of the critic themselves’, along with the state of the faith today. It appears that the common understanding of a relation to God is unable to be powerful enough to maintain as a main source of accountability. This notion unfortunately diminishes God’s hand in our lives, and asserts that the institutions created by man have a claim on authority that needs to also have its’ hand in how we make decisions. Not for Shawn.

From the perspective of The Great News Network, and laced through every single teaching, show, mistake and success of Shawn McCraney, the demonstration is that a personal relationship is 1. extremely difficult, 2. is extremely personal and 3. has no say on anyone else’s.

Shawn McCraney Fights for Our New and Personal Relationship With Authority

A decade ago, the term “McCraney-ism” arose to suggests a rigid doctrinal schism led by Shawn, depicting him as fostering a new “ism” akin to a sect. And, as just explained, this is a fundamental misunderstanding. Shawn’s approach is not about creating a secluded doctrine but about demonstrating and encouraging individual believers that they will experience incredible spiritual growth, fulfillment and joy from the pursuit of a greater personal understanding of Truth. That Truth comes from appealing to context, history, reason and wisdom, and through an understanding of it, believers can to gain liberty from institutional bondage by relying on God directly to guide them in that pursuit. This exploration is based on the belief that every individual can and should forge a path to understanding that is not mediated by institutionalized religious doctrines but is directly informed by the Holy Spirit.

This approach that Shawn has promoted since the start of his ministry (whether with grace or without), ensures that while individuals are encouraged to develop their own “-isms,” these personal perspectives on doctrine are always open to revision and never used to judge or exclude others, prioritizing agape love for God and one another first and foremost. This approach fosters an environment where love, grace, and mutual respect are paramount, transcending doctrinal differences.

Personal Genealogies over demanded authority

The Great News, in turn, takes a different approach to the meaning of authority in our lives today. In traditional Christian frameworks, authority often traces back to some specific connection to the apostles of Christ. Shawn’s teachings, derived from meticulous scripture study and an understanding of Victorious Eschatology, suggest that the authority tied to the apostles is not relevant, and never was, having been fulfilled by Christ. He (along with many under-represented scholars) posit that Christ’s victory allows for God to interact directly with each person who seeks Him.

Critics like to suggest that Shawn doesn’t think authority exists. He has never said or alluded to that. Shawn believes deeply in authority, but in the authority of God directly influencing the believer’s life without mediation. He also consistently suggests that there is so much knowledge and truth out in the world that we can establish as authorities in their distinctive realms. He finds that we can gain significant wisdom, and even suggests that God uses these people. However, he finds that 1. it is severely limited and flawed to suggest that these influences are strictly confined to the modern canon of Christian scholarship, that 2. even if it was confined to that canon, we would never agree on what is correct, as demonstrated by the thousands of denominations, and finally that 3. we are able to mine knowledge, light and authority from God today, in the age of victory, from entities, individuals and work across all industries and sectors, secular and religious.

Shawn’s approach to authority breaks God open into a much larger and wholistic power, opening up the possibility for God to work in much more intimate and powerful ways across our world.

The Bible, a complex and layered text, requires that we approach it with a comprehensive strategy that includes respect for its context, an understanding of the surrounding cultures, and an examination of historical supports—both secular and religious. Furthermore, believers would benefit to consider the lineage of translations and potential manipulations the text has undergone over centuries. Only by considering this whole picture and applying a thorough scholarly approach can we truly grasp its messages. Then, with all this knowledge, the crucial element of faith comes into play, especially in the face of the unknown, making faith an indispensable part of interpreting the Scriptures.

The Best C.U.L.T. 😉

Addressing the criticisms head-on, Shawn has publicly expressed regret for any past statements where his frustrations with traditional religious institutions may have led to expressions of anger or mockery (even literally right in the videos that critics are referring to you can find Shawn’s public apology to all participants for his mistakes). He deeply values respectful and constructive theological discourse and reiterates his commitment to fostering an environment where diverse Christian thought is explored and encouraged. Shawn’s apologies, both past and present, underscore a humility and openness to growth that is central to his teachings.

In response to the criticisms and as a continuation of his teaching approach, Shawn intentionally introduced an online school named Christian Ultra Libertarians for Truth (CULT) back in 2021 that The Great News Network now relies upon as its’ online school. With its provocative acronym, CULT aims to educate individuals on understanding the victorious work of Christ in order to foster the personal spiritual growth in individuals where they might stand on their own two feet in the face of coercion from the cultures and institutional pressures around them.

C.U.L.T. students are encouraged to explore their unique paths in the spirit alongside others, without imposing a uniform doctrinal stance but opening up education on alternative perspectives. Maybe, the result will be their own “-ism”, or even their own personal cult with God, but we can guarantee that if taken in the intention its made, the message will protect and liberate individuals to know a better, greater, more powerful, more intimate and more respectable God.

Find us at www.cult.love.