Brian's Blog
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February 8, 2010
Countdown Day 1
Tomorrow the book releases! Thanks to all who have pre-ordered it, and to all who will venture out to your local Barnes and Noble, Borders, or other bookseller tomorrow ...
We’ve gotten ourselves into a mess with the Bible. First, we are in a scientific mess. Fundamentalism again and again paints itself into a corner by requiring that the Bible be treated as a divinely dictated science textbook providing us true information in all areas of life, including when and how the earth was created, what the shape of the earth is, what revolves around what in space, and so on. (68)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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February 7, 2010
One more on Palestine ...
I'll be focusing on the book release for the next several weeks, but I wanted to include this note I just received:
Rev. McLaren - thank you for your wonderful report/response to your time in the Occupied Territories. Christians have, for too long, been complacent in the treatment of the palestinian people. As a Christian whose circle of friends include several muslims and a future rabbi (as well as having an MA in theology my self and a wife who loves anything to do with the Hebrew Bible) I am very pro ANYTHING that allows the diversity of human beings to work together for peace.
I don't know if you met with them during you time in the territories but can I point you and your readers to Sabeel? Sabel is the 'Ecumenical Palestinian LIberation Theology Center'. It is a training center for clergy and lay people alike to engage in non-violent liberation theology in a palestinian context.
http://www.sabeel.org/Thanks - yes, I am a big fan of Sabeel, and encourage folks to read everything that they produce, especially books by Naim Ateek. I'll be coming back to speech and action on Palestine in the weeks and months ahead ...
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Study Guide for EMC
My friend Alan Ward created a super-helpful study guide for Everything Must Change, which you can download for your group or for individual study here.
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Countdown Day 2
Friends - just two days until the book releases! Thanks for your interest in following these daily quotations.
But my quest for a new kind of Christianity has required me to ask some hard questions about the Bible I love. There will be no new kind of Christian faith without a new approach to the Bible. (68)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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February 6, 2010
Responses to my Palestine posts so far ...
If you have an interest in experiencing what some friends and I experienced in Israel and Palestine in January, I highly recommend you contact my friends Jeff and Janet Wright. Jeff is a Disciples of Christ pastor who has a deep passion for peace in the Middle East, and he knows how to introduce others to what's going on there. You can contact him at wright@frii.com. Maybe you could put together a group of about twenty friends yourself, or maybe you could join another group. I highly, highly recommend this. It's one thing to go to the "Holy Land" and see where Jesus worked and walked in the past. It's another thing to combine that with seeing where the Spirit of Jesus is working and walking in the present, teaching people to seek peace and reconciliation with God, neighbor, and enemy.
I've received a number of positive responses to my recent posts on Palestine, like this one.
A lot of people are noticing what you're writing and your witness. Right now, it's mostly people saying "hey, McLaren seems to be getting it." (That was a comment on your sojourners' piece.) But be ready to be attacked and insulted and slimed like never before... I suspect you've developed a thick skin by now. Just want you to know you're going to need it. And I'll be praying for you.
Of course, some other responses haven't been so positive. I'll include some of them, with my responses, after the jump.
Continue reading Responses to my Palestine posts so far ......
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Countdown Day 3
OK, folks, it's almost time! You can pre-order the book online now, or plan to visit a local bookseller on Tuesday ...
I love the Bible. This love goes back to childhood for me, to warm memories when my parents would read me Bible stories, either directly from a big, black, leather-bound, red-letter King James Version or from a children’s illustrated story Bible…. In my teenage years, I began to read the bible for myself and found treasure buried on every page…. I began journaling my responses to what I was reading, and followed several different schemes for reading through the Bible every year or so. I even memorized long passages, a practice I still cherish…. I’ve never tired of the Bible through all these years. The more I’ve asked of it, the more it has yielded to me. So yes, I love the Bible. I’m in awe of it. At this very moment. (67)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
Here's a little inspiration!
Love Can Change the World - live at Willow Creek from aaron niequist on Vimeo.
On 01.10.10, we sang this song for the first time at Willow. It launched us into reading the Prayer of St Francis, space for reflection, Have Thine Own Way Lord, and a response. Most of the experience is included in this video.
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February 5, 2010
Bob Setzer gets it right on dialogue ...
Here. Quotable:
Long before we can “love” our enemies, we have to learn to talk with them.
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Countdown Day 4
Thanks to all of you who have pre-ordered the book. I just got my copy the other day, and yesterday met the first person who received hers. Awaiting a book release is always exciting and a little bit scary ... My prayer and hope is that all who read the book will find their faith deepened and their love for God and neighbor strengthened.
It’s time to abandon the long experimental project of recasting the Bible in an alien narrative and reframing God in an alien story. It’s time to stop holding God’s people captive in that alien construction. God liberated God’s people from the economic and political concentration camp of the Egyptians and Babylonians; perhaps now it’s time to be liberated from the conceptual tyranny of the Greco-Romans as well. (66)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
"A new reformation is taking place in Christianity. Brian McLaren is one of its leading voices and A New Kind of Christianity is a roadmap for this reformation. This is a very important book." (Adam Hamilton, author of Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White and Senior Pastor, The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.)
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February 4, 2010
Creation Care Liturgy
My friend John van de Laar in South Africa created this liturgy that he offered to make available to others. Thank God for the growing corps of creative liturgists who are helping us celebrate "a new kind of Christianity!"
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Countdown Day 5
Today's quote:
The wild, passionate, creative, liberating, hope-inspiring God whose image emerges in these three sacred narratives is not the dread cosmic dictator of the six-line Greco-Roman framework. No, that deity, we must conclude, is an idol, a damnable idol. Yes, that idol is popular, perhaps even predominant, and defended by many a well-meaning but misguided scholar and fire-breathing preacher. But in the end, you cannot serve two masters, Theos and Elohim, the god of the Greco-Roman philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the violent god of profit proclaimed by empire and the compassionate God of justice proclaimed by the prophets. (65)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
"A New Kind of Christianity is a stellar accomplishment, a combination of hard tack fact and unfettered hope, an overview in delightful narrative of the long way of our coming to this time and of the multiform ways of our arriving. In every way, a dispatch from the front." (-Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence )
Here's the thinkfwd interview from theooze.tv:
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February 3, 2010
Note from Australia ... blindfolded, warped, completely changed
I was struck in this email by strong words like "blindfolded" and "warped." This is how so many people feel. The way of Christ is about seeing and healing, not blinding and warping!
I’m not sure if you will read this, but I have just finished reading ‘the story we find ourselves in’. It really moved me and inspired me and I wanted to tell you Thank you! I have read 2 of your books now and heard you speak when you visited Sydney a few months ago and my thinking has completely changed.
I have been a Christian for a long time and yet I feel like I have been blindfolded and I am only just starting to see clearly and I cant believe how warped my thinking and beliefs have been. So anyway, I just wanted to say Thank you.Thanks so much for this encouragement. Keep up the good work in Sydney!
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Another note from Australia ... Q & R from a Gen Y emerging leader
Three excellent questions (slightly edited) from an emerging leader down under:
I hope things are grand ! I'm excited to read your upcoming book...
My name is ???, I'm a young lawyer in Sydney, Australia, and I met you at the World Vision "Where Faith meets the World" workshop. First, thank you so much for your books, blogs, etc. They have been a huge blessing to me, and those around me :)
During morning tea at the workshop, I shared with you that I wanted to study theology.. but that I didn't know whether I should, or, where I should.
I've always felt I wanted to be a minister of some sort at some stage, and feel ill-equiped at present (perhaps that'll never change!). There were 2 main questions I asked you, both which you asked me to raise during question time - alas, I didnt get the opportunity. So, here goes:Question 1.
Where does a Gen Y-er go to learn how to be a new kind of Christian? - or, be mentored by 'a new kind of' Christian? Is there value in attending an 'evangelical' or other seminary? Are there particular Christian or not Christian think tanks or groups where one could connect to other folk on a similar journey?
Reply and additional questions after the jump ...Continue reading Another note from Australia ... Q & R from a Gen Y emerging leader...
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Countdown Day 6
If you haven't checked out my interview with Bill Dahl, it's here.
Here's today's quote:
Everyone with a vine and fig tree. That wouldn’t necessarily mean a literal return to an agricultural economy for everyone, but it would suggest full employment for all families everywhere, all having some secure place in a healthy, sustainable, regenerative economy. (63)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
"Now and then gifted people emerge who see the situation from a higher and more helpful level. Brian McLaren is one of those seers." (Richard Rohr, author of Everything Belongs and The Naked Now)
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February 2, 2010
Baltimore-Washington Area Friends - please spread the word!
I don't actually speak that often in my home town anymore ... but here's a great opportunity to spend a day and evening together:
St. Mary's Seminary & University/THE ECUMENICAL INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY
A Day and an Evening with Brian McLaren
March 15, 2010
Seminar, 9:00 a.m. – 3:45 p.m. “Public Worship as Spiritual Formation and Preparation for Mission”Lecture, 7:30 p.m. “The Gospel, the Postmodern Conversation, and the Church that is Emerging”
FULL DETAILS HERE AND AFTER THE JUMP ...Continue reading Baltimore-Washington Area Friends - please spread the word!...
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Walls ...
Here's what the Apostle Paul wrote about dividing walls (Eph. 214):
For [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility ... His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
What's Happening
