Brian D. McLaren

My wife grew up in a fundamentalist tradition.  It seemed normal or “the way things are” at the time.  Now years later, after following me to United Methodist Churches over the past ten years, she’s been able to more objectively reflect on that experience.

The first eye-opening experience she told me about after leaving that tradition followed the Easter sermon preached by Rev. John Mollet at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas in 2001.  She noted that up until that time, all the Easter sermons she ever heard before then were really Good Friday sermons.  They focused entirely on Jesus’ crucifixion, not the resurrection; they were about death, not life.

The second eye-opening experience occurred a few years ago following a discussion at our 2nd Thursday St. Simeon Study Group in Wichita Falls, Texas.  Despite all the rhetoric she heard growing up that the preachers were preaching “the Bible,” the “very words of God,” they actually kept preaching the same texts over and over with the same basic theology of “the Romans road” – the things supposedly required for one to be “saved” and go to heaven.  She made this revelation because our study group had been dealing with several Bible passages that she’d never heard before.  They spoke to things that had nothing to do with the so-called “Romans road.”

“They weren’t preaching the Bible.  They were preaching a particular theology, and they chose only the scriptural texts that supported that theology,” she exclaimed!

As I finished reading Brian D. McLaren’s book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith, I was reminded of these insights shared by Sandra of her evangelical experience.  McLaren is a self-professed evangelical, but he has turned off the Romans road onto the way of Jesus with the insights he shares in this book.

Once the pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church, which he founded, he is now Theologian in Residence of Life in the Trinity Ministries and continues to write and speak.  What I had not realized until reading this book is that he has no formal theological training.  He was a college English professor when he felt called to start Cedar Ridge!  Yet, I think this is, in many ways, something positive, for in this book, he approaches important issues facing the church today not simply as a trained theologian using religious talk but an English professor who can really write.  He describes things in ways that are more practical than theological in wording, making the theology all the more easy to grasp and understand.  To be honest, a few of his examples were a little cheesy, and a few he belabored, but they got the point across in such a way that should help any thinking Christian or religious questioner begin to question and hone their own thoughts and beliefs.

Although McLaren is less patently theological in this book, one thing I REALLY appreciate is the fact that he uses a lot of Scripture.  Many other popular progressive, liberal, emergent (insert your own description here) authors have great things to say, but they don’t show that their thoughts and theology can also be found in the Bible.  Thus, the more conservative and fundamentalist people can more easily discount them.  McLaren, though, uses the Scriptures much and well, leaving his detractors the choices of ignoring much of the Bible they claim to preach or opening them to new understandings and theologies in their own Bible.

For me, the two most important issues he tackles include:

• The fact that ultimately, we have recast the Gospel and biblical message in a Greco-Roman philosophy, not keeping these in their Jewish roots; and
• The fact that we have begun to read the Bible as a constitution, not as the library of 66 books that it actually is.

The way he unpacks these problems is eye-opening and potentially life changing.  He helps us put Christianity into it’s original context with its original intent and message – away from later theological additions.

Another important aspect of this book is that he ends with some actual things we can DO.  Many books in this emergent Christianity vein give us some great things to think about without give us something actionable – or they give ideas that are so vague one is left still wondering what to do.  McLaren’s recommendations are solid but also allow for the wiggle room of the different situations folks may find themselves in.  Plus, in his ideas, he is pastoral – looking out for the good of all – giving evidence of how he was able to build a thriving and diverse congregation.

For those who might be looking for a group study book, this would be excellent.  We were using it in study group in Wichita Falls, Texas before moving out here to Maryland.  Plus, there are discussion questions in the back that help get the talking started.

If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it!  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the book as well, so please leave comments below.