You can read my review of Book One, A New Kind of Christianity...Here.
So I'm just closing the back cover of A New Kind of Christianity, and Brian's tweak of Luther's introduction and Thesis 1 of his Ninety-Five Theses, could be a synopsis and forecast of future faith conversation and practice...
Out of love for truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following proposal is offered...Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when he said Poenitentiam agite , willed that the whole history of the Christian faith should be repentance, rethinking and quest.
Book Two, ANKoC is titled " Emerging and Exploring " and is broken down into five parts; The Church Question; The Sex Question; The Future Question; The Pluralism Question; The What-Do-We-Do-Now Question.
In the first two parts there really isn't, at least in my mind much new thinking. For those you have followed the emerging/missional church conversation, Brian reinforces much of what has been said in recent years...diversity of forms, structure, practice.
What if the Christian Faith is supposed to exist in a variety of forms rather than one imperial one? What f it is both more stable and agile--more responsive to the Holy Spirit--when it exists in many forms. And what if, instead of arguing about which form is correct and legitimate, we were to honor, appreciate, and validate one another and see ourselves as servants of one grander mission, apostles of one greater message, seekers on one ultimate quest. That, I'd say, sounds like a new kind of Christianity. ( Page 164 )
Again, if you've read " The Emergent Manifesto of Hope " or Ryan Bolger's and Eddie Gibb's, " Emerging Churches ", Brian reinforces the reality that a lot of this has been evolving for the past few years. And the reality, I believe it will continue to play out in the way of Mega churches, fluid and highly small emerging/missional communities...to highly interconnected networks.
My only concern was I thought Brian's question of " What do we do about Church " lacked a critique and vision around leadership, education...and seminaries. He asks the question, " How does spiritual formation in the way of Jesus differ from religious education in the way of Christianity?" He seems to leave it dangling, and intentionally or unintentionally walks away from it. In a " Google " age our access to knowledge is limitless in terms of quantity, and terms of speed it is blindingly fast. To ignore this the church will join the dinosaurs in the ice age...becoming petrified, fossilized left for the digging of future cultural archaeologists to dig up.
The Web has pulled the global village closer together, Skype, numerous forms of social IM services connect us with one click. It is a very pluralistic world, high tech, a highly digital world of telecommuters...almost anywhere, any place from the palm of our hand we are joined. This the rapidly changing landscape of the world in which the church must not only live...but flourish. What kind of leaders can navigate the gospel message through its interconnected maze, and what about seminary training models...are they keeping up with the rate of change? Any kind of a new Christianity must seriously engage these questions. Brian scratched the surface, my hope is new voices will take us on a deeper quest.
Again it is with the human sexuality question, " Can we find a way to address human sexuality?" In the laboratory where I work on certain instruments we have a " panic button " that we cover in a thick gage plastic so it can't be pressed. For much of Christianity, human sexuality is a " panic button " covered secure, and to be avoided at all costs. Or, if it is pressed there is only one outcome...abandonment, cast out, condemnation, and a hell bound future. Brian engages us in an other way forward...
By coming out of the closet regarding their homosexuality, gay folks help the rest of us come out of the closet regarding our sexuality. And that is important, because the longer we hide from the truth of our sexuality...all of its beauty and agony, in all its passion and pain, in all of its simplicity and complexity...the sicker we will be, as religious communities, as cultures, and as a global society.
As in so many areas, we must blaze a new trail into that terra nova beyond binary and reactionary ideals of sexuality repressive funda-sexuality, on the one hand, and sexually unrestrained hedonism, on the other. We must pursue a practical, down-to-earth theology and an honest, fully embodied spirituality that speak truthfully and openly about our sexuality, in all it's straight and gay complexity.( page 189 )
In the question, " Can we find a better way of viewing the future?", Brian moves of beyond the eschatological theory of dispensationalism to a vision of a future that is continually unfolding, expanding, and opening all flow from a generous, creative and liberating God. At every moment, creation continues to unfold, liberation continues to to unshackle us, and the peaceable kingdom continues to expand with new hope and promise. It is the mind boggling reality of " May you Kingdom come, on earth as in heaven ", it is the final emergence of the two becoming one...the Kingdom fully coming into being.
But this is not a future we sit idle-ly for, like pedestrians sitting at a train station waiting for that final glory bound train for heaven. As, Brian beautifully puts it, it is a participatory future...
We could borrow from Hans Kung and others and call it an " improvisational eschatology ". We could also call it " participatory". In a participatory eschatology, when we ask, " What does the future hold? " the answer begins, " That depends. It depends on you and me. God holds out to us at every moment a brighter future; the issue is whether we are willing to receive it and work with God to help create it. We are participating in the creation of what the future will be." ( page 196 )
Or from the words of Eugene Peterson's The Message in Colossians, "He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross." As heirs to the Kingdom, we are called to be co-creators in the building of the new creation. A new kind of Christianity is to live faithfully, actively involved with God in an unfolding future of hope.
And of course, who can look at the future with out having the judgment seat looming big on the center of stage of life's grand finale'. Will it be the elevator to the ground floor, the depths of a burning inferno in hell; or will it be the escalator, up, past the pearly gates, ambient harp music, angels bringing cocktails and appetizers...to heaven.
Brian says, as a first step we must see judgment in our new eschatological context. We must stop defining it as condemnation. God's judgment is far higher and better; it involves " putting wrong things right." It means reconciling and restoring, not merely punishing; healing, not merely diagnosing; transforming, not merely exposing; and redeeming; not merely evaluating.
Whatever the final judgment will be, then, it will not involve God ( please pardon the crudeness of this ) pulling down our pants to check for circumcision or scanning our brains for certain beliefs like products being scanned in a grocery checkout. No, God, will examine the story of our lives for signs of Christ-likeness...for a cup of cold water or a plate of hot food given to one in need, for an atom of mercy shown to one who has been unkind of unthoughtful, for a visit to a prisoner or an open door and a warm bed for a stranger, for a generous impulse indulged and a hurtful one denied, like Jesus. These are the parts of a persons life that will be deemed worthy of being saved, remembered, rewarded, and raised for a new beginning. All the unloving, unjust, non-Christlike parts of our lives...and of our nations, tribes, civilizations, families, churches and so on...will be burned away, counted as unworthy, condemned ( which means acknowledged for what they are ), and forgotten forever. ( page 204 )
A new kind of Christianity's vision of the future...is challenging...it is an eschatology of re-creation, of liberation, of redemption, of restoration, of anticipation, of hope...a future in which we actively participate...Now!
"We wish to have Christians and Muslims come together to proclaim before the world that religion must never be a reason for conflict, hatred and violence."
"...in this historic moment, humanity needs to see gestures of peace and to hear words of hope.""It is urgent that a common invocation be raised from earth to heaven, to implore the Almighty...the great gift of peace, the necessary condition for any serious endeavor at the service of humanity's real progress." ( Pope John Paul II )Nov 18, 2001, at meeting of world's religious leaders, announcing International prayer meeting to take place in Assisi.
peoples of all faiths must shun the path of isolation and division
I use the above quotes from the late Pope John Paul II, to lead us into Brian's question on pluralism, " How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions ?" Brian leads us through the gospel narrative a fresh to help break us free from the checklist, the fragmented reading where we soul-sort...who's in and who's out. It becomes fascinatingly apparent that when Jesus pitched his tent in the midst of humanity, he never did it in the midst of one religious camp. Could it be that Jesus pitched his tent in that liminal, that trans-formative space between all religions. What would happen if the wind of God was moving us in a new direction?
We Christians could offer Jesus ( not Christianity ) as a gift to the world, and we would no longer consider it a requirement of faithfulness to insult other religions and call their founders demonic. We would no longer envision a day when all other religions would be abolished and only our own remain. We would no longer consider ourselves as normative and others as " other." We would stop seeing the line that separates good and evil running between our religion and others. We would be freed from the tendency to always think " insider/ outsider " and " us/ them." We would learn to discover God in the other, and we would discover a bigger " us ", in which people of all faiths can be included.
We would consider it a matter of faithfulness to show the same respect to other religions and their founders that we would wish to be shown to our own. We would envision a day when members of all religions, including our own, learned to be reconciled with God, one another, and all creation. We would see that Jesus and his message of peace and service were right and true after all, and that Jesus was not a gift to one religion, but the whole world. We would consider all people God's beloved, as neighbors in God's world, loving them, serving them, enjoying them. ( page 215 )
For anyone not familiar with Brian McLaren this might not be the book into which you are first introduced to one another. For me this book was the culmination of a life's journey of a passionate follower of Jesus. It is a mature, radical, revolutionary voice...with a profound sense of urgency. This is the closest I think I've seen Brian come to nailing his theology to the Castle Church door at Wittenberg. He digs deep into the fullness of the Biblical narrative, bringing to fruit the embryonic musings of his earlier book, " A New Kind of Christian " and from the themes of later books. The fruit of many years of listening, thinking, reflecting are fully ripe, ready to be picked, eaten...and digested.
Digestion, indigestion, heartburn, ...there is much to chew on in this book. I found at some points, I felt like a wall plug with too many things plugged into it...almost circuit overload. It's almost as if you sense an urgency in Brian's writing, that the Christian faith is at a tipping point. I think many of us have been living a parallel journey with Brian, and have been living in and out of the same questions. Brian brings them out into broad daylight, for us " all " to wrestle with.
Paradigms and dogma can be defended and enforced with guns and prisons, bullets and bonfires, threats and humiliation, fatwas and excommunications. But paradigms and dogma remain profoundly vulnerable when anomalies are present. They can be undone by something as simple as a question... ( page 16 )
I think of the fictional wise sage in Tolkien's " Lord of the Rings " Gandalf, who Tolkien described " seemed the least, less tall than the others, and in looks more aged, grey-haired and grey-clad, and leaning on a staff" and " the greatest spirit and the wisest ", and so it is with Brian McLaren as he invites us to cross the threshold on an epic new quest. But in the back of my mind, there is anxiety and fear for my friend, I remember all to well what happened to Tolkien's Gandalf..." Yet it is said that in the ending of the task for which he came he suffered greatly, and was slain, and being sent back from death and was clothed then in white, and became a radiant flame."
I have no doubt Brian will face a lot hostility, and over reaction around A New Kind of Christianity...but I think future generations of passionate followers of Jesus will thank Brian for being bold enough to open a door of a deeper quest into the Christian faith...and inviting us to cross the threshold.My friend Al and I have been getting together every week at Spiral Cafe in Vic West, I managed to get a couple of copies of the book to review together. It was decided we would read the book in 2 chunks, Book One and Book 2, in 2 weeks. We would post our thoughts reviewing the book and then get together for coffee, that way we wouldn't be influencing each others thoughts. You can check out Al's review of Book One...here, and Book Two ...here.
Professor Scot McKnight reviews A New Kind of Christianity at Christianity Today... ( Here ). My comment to the review was...
I think this is one of the most challenging and thought provoking books to come out in years. To write this book of is dangerous mistake, to not engage these questions seriously through a new lens...Christianity will continue to erode to being absolutely irrelevant. Brain McLaren has traveled globally meeting, listening to the pulse of what is happening in the space between the church, and humanity. For the New Testament theologian who is processing scripture in the sterile vacuum of academia...to write Mclaren's theology off is a huge mistake. Look around humanity, the church are at a tipping point...this book, these questions may offer a way forward. Brain writes with a sense of urgency, I would hope we would read it with a sense of urgency. Read it once, read it again. We can write the book off...but these questions will not go away. They will haunt us, even long after the church becomes a ghost town. We may not like Brian Mclaren's theology, there is something Jesus in the questions.
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