Big publishing news …

In our final deepshift newsletter (you can read it in full after the jump), you’ll find information about my upcoming publishing projects. An excerpt:
“… September 1 of this year, The Justice Project will be released by Baker. I am joined by co-editors Ashley Bunting Seeber and Elisa Padilla to present a book with chapters by Christians engaged with justice issues from around the world. If I could bring together about thirty of my favorite people and give each of them the chance to share with you their insights and experience working for justice, and then condense their stories and messages into a book … it would be The Justice Project.
“Then, around March 1 of 2010, my next major book will be released by my new publisher, HarperOne. The tentative title is A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith. In all my books to date, I feel that I’ve been excavating, scraping away layers of debris, trying to get to the core issues that need to be courageously addressed in our lifetimes. This is the book where I feel I’ve gotten down to ten bedrock issues – which, as the subtitle suggests, I’ve articulated as ten transformative questions: What is the shape of the biblical narrative? What is the Bible and what is it for? Why does God seem so genocidal in some biblical passages? What does it mean to say Jesus is the way? What is the gospel? What future does the church have? Why are Christians so preoccupied with sexuality? How should we relate to people of other religions? How should we view the future? Where do we go from here?”

Dear friends,
It’s been a year already – a year since the Everything Must Change tour came to eleven cities around the US. When Linnea Nilsen Capshaw and I began dreaming and planning the Everything Must Change tour, we didn’t simply want it to be a one-time event, so we decided to keep in touch with folks for a full year after the tour. So – this will be our last monthly Deepshift.org newsletter.
A year ago, we couldn’t imagine how the issues we considered on the tour would so soon become the key issues in the daily news:
The crisis of the planet – a dysfunctional prosperity system that can’t stop growing beyond environmental limits
The crisis of poverty – a dysfunctional equity system that facilitates the growing gap between the rich minority and the poor majority
The crisis of peace – a dysfunctional security system that uses violence to fight violence, and thus increases violence.
The crisis of purpose – a dysfunctional spirituality system that fails to provide a framing story capable of healing the previous crises.
While there are growing signs of “getting it” regarding the first three crises in both the secular and religious communities, I am still deeply concerned about the fourth crisis.
Many of you will remember the two lists I talked about on the tour – the list of intramural religious debates in the Christian subculture hanging on one wall, and the list of global crises hanging on the other. A year after the EMC tour, it’s clearer to me than ever that many if not most Christians in the US remain focused on the “religious arguments” list. In one Q & A session after another since our tour, I’ve watched the conversation be pulled away from Jesus’ gospel of the reigning of God in relation to life-and-death global crises, and turned toward controversies and inquisitions about doctrinal opinions and “theological correctness.” Some nights, I didn’t even realize what had happened until I went back to my hotel room and just wanted to cry.
But in the light of a new day, all this leaves me highly motivated, highly energized, and highly determined to help Christians who have open minds and hearts to question their inherited framing story and explore a radically different understanding of Jesus and his message. That’s why I’m thrilled to announce the titles and release dates for my next two writing projects.
First, September 1 of this year, The Justice Project will be released by Baker. I am joined by co-editors Ashley Bunting Seeber and Elisa Padilla to present a book with chapters by Christians engaged with justice issues from around the world. If I could bring together about thirty of my favorite people and give each of them the chance to share with you their insights and experience working for justice, and then condense their stories and messages into a book … it would be The Justice Project.
Then, around March 1 of 2010, my next major book will be released by my new publisher, HarperOne. The tentative title is A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith. In all my books to date, I feel that I’ve been excavating, scraping away layers of debris, trying to get to the core issues that need to be courageously addressed in our lifetimes. This is the book where I feel I’ve gotten down to ten bedrock issues – which, as the subtitle suggests, I’ve articulated as ten transformative questions: What is the shape of the biblical narrative? What is the Bible and what is it for? Why does God seem so genocidal in some biblical passages? What does it mean to say Jesus is the way? What is the gospel? What future does the church have? Why are Christians so preoccupied with sexuality? How should we relate to people of other religions? How should we view the future? Where do we go from here?
So, the EMC tour and its year of follow-up are officially over, although its effects will last a lifetime for many of us. Now a new adventure begins, and I hope you’ll stay connected and involved. I hope to stay in touch from time to time by email, and in between, I hope you’ll keep up with my work by checking in frequently with my website (brianmclaren.net). You can also continue to be involved conversing with others about these issues through the Deep Shift Dialogue Forum.
One last time, I want to thank Linnea Nilsen Capshaw, Tracy Howe, Eric Haines, Denise Van Eck, and Jo Burgess – what an amazing team I had the privilege to work with on the tour! And we all want once more to thank our hosts and volunteers in each city, and all the wonderful people who participated … and all of you who have stayed in touch this year through these monthly emails.
Everything is changing!
Joyfully – Brian