New Kind of Christianity [Hardcover]

I recently went to a conference (Faithworks 360) and heard Brian McLaren talk. While the talk was more concise than the book (obviously) it was just enough to give me a hunger to read more.

I can barely put it down (i'm about halfway through). I don't find reading non-fiction books easy as, with 2 young children, i often only read to go to sleep, yet i've found myself curling up with this book like a good novel. The style of writing is both massively informative and warmly informal, drawing you into a web of hope and challenge.

There are times when it can become a bit 'listy' saying similar things repetitively...but then it is a recognised preaching technique (tell them what you're going to say, say it and say it again) and as i like what he's saying it's not yet got annoying, though i can see how it could do. This same inclination to preach does gloss over huge areas of accademia, but throughout the book this is acknowledged and comprehensive notes at the back give you further scope for reading and exploration.

There's nothing in here, so far, that i haven't felt and explored myself at some time or other. They really are 10 questions i feel compelled to explore and have had niggling at the back of my mind forever...

1. What is the overarching storyline of the Bible?

2. How should the Bible be understood?

3. Is God violent?

4. Who is Jesus and why is he important?

5. What is the Good News?

6. What do we do about the church?

7. Can we find a better way to address the issue of homosexuality?

8. Can we find a better way of viewing the future?

9. How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?

10. How can we translate our quest into action?

Having studied at Bible College for 3 years i know there will be many Christians who will find this book more than challenging and upsetting. For them this will not be a comforting book at bedtime. While i have been labelled both liberal and conservative, depending who i'm talking to, for searching for the reality of God in the midst of difficult questions, others have stuck to what they know and have been taught. Reassuringly, this book does not condemn people for not thinking the same as the author, it encourages continued growth "with the renewing of your mind". McLaren puts reasoned and faithbased arguments to open up the discussion and encourage more debate.

This is not anti-Bible...i've never felt from one author more of a love for the Bible and its reading that i get from reading this. He loves the Bible and just as you love a person, you don't love them in a way you think they 'should' be loved, you love them as they would wish to be loved. He reads the Bible as the Bible demands to be read, not as a legal document with one style of writing but as many styles of writing from a growing, maturing culture in relationship with God.

This is not a book of answers. It is a book of Godly questions to encourage further discussion and enrich, potentially, the global community. Therefore, it is not a history book or a social analysis of where we are today. If it were, i wouldn't have read it and i wouldn't feel stronger and more hopeful in my faith and i am closer to God for that.

I look forward to my nightly read so my trashy novels will just have to wait.

This book was so good I read it through twice, straight off. The first chapters (which constitute the Preface), describing the author's growing discomfort with, and then rejection of, the lobbying, campaigning, belligerant, intolerant, fundamentalist Evangelical church, resonated with me, and crystallised some of my own thinking on the subject. I too find their attitudes far removed from the way Jesus treated people in the New Testament.

Many of his comments on the need to reread the Bible in a different light were very helpful and thought-provoking particularly his analysis of how, historically, Bible-believing Christians came to reject slavery even thought some passages can be(and were) used to support it, and how the same interpretative process maybe needs to be applied to other hot theological issues today.

You do not need to agree with all of his conclusions (I don't - at least not yet) to get a great deal out of this book. It has certainly enriched my thinking and is making me reassess the basis for a lot of my Christian viewpoints (not, I hasten to say, before anybody misinterprets me, any of what I would consider fundamental Christian beliefs).

Other authors I have read over the past two or three years successfully deal with some of the issues Brian McLaren raises (e.g. Boyd, Gregory A., Satan and the Problem of Evil, The Myth of a Christian Religion; Alexander, Denis R., Creation or Evolution - Do we have to choose?; Webb, William J., Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis ), but this book covers more ground and has made me reflect more on a wide range of points.

I thoroughly recommend this book.

I had heard about Brian McLaren and wondered why he was so popular. Having now read one of his books, I know why. This is an honest, no-holds-barred challenge to Christians to re-think their whole faith, and it opens up an exciting new view of Christianiy that is really in touch with the world as it is today. I am convinced this is the kind of Christianity we need now. I mean "for now" in both senses: for now rather than yesterday, and also "provisionally". I am sure McLaren would be the first to admit that his expression is not the definition of Christianity for all time, and future generations (including perhaps himself in later books) will have further thinking to do. An excellent read, and I look forward to exploring his other writings.