Author, speaker, and pastor Brian McLaren is a leader of the emerging church movement that considers new ways to express our Christian faith in a post-modern era. http://www.brianmclaren.net/

A review by Anthony Robinson of the recent McLaren book “A New  Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith” highlights some of the issues for us to consider.

The central thesis, to which McLaren returns frequently to indicate its wide implications, is that Christian faith was terminally skewed when it was distilled through the Greco-Roman (imperial) worldview. This worldview resulted in a version of Christianity that was at once triumphalistic and reductive—a Christianity that was mainly about what happens after death. McLaren argues that the central message of Jesus, the kingdom of God and the life it entails, was lost or overlooked. There is important truth in this argument, perhaps especially for the world of American evangelicals, among whom it does sometimes seem that a version of Paul has eclipsed Jesus. I am less sure that it is helpful for the Protestant mainline and liberal Christianity.

The result may be yet another movement that promises that if only we jettison old ways of thinking and believing, which are the source of all our problems, we shall enter into a new time of liberation and meaning. I tend to think that the challenge is not so much to distance ourselves from the past as it is to discover what in our past and inheritance remains of enduring value and has the capacity to transform and renew the church for the world in our time. Yes, we do desperately need to find new ways of being and doing church, ways that are less about church as an institution existing for its own sake and more about church as community, relationship, spiritual practice and service. This may entail less emphasis on our quest and more on God’s quest for us.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 28th, 2010 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Emerging Church, Faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.