Brian McLaren – a New kind of Christianity
Brian McLaren’s new book is about to be released. It’s good … I got to read it a while back and wrote some recommendations for it. Brian is particularly good at identifying those issues within religious expression where the cultural accretions mask what’s good about spirituality – so much so that the religious epxression of Christianity can even end up contradicting what it claims to believe. This book is not so much a critique of the Church, but ten suggestions as to how Christian practice might be re-shaped into something that keeps its integrity. Well worth a read.
7 Responses to “Brian McLaren – a New kind of Christianity”
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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Glad to have your opinion of the book, maggi. I’m following the countdown to publication on Brian’s facebook page and the excerpts there have been tantalising. I’m looking forward to reading the whole thing in a few days time.
Can we get a “Buy from your local bookshop” pointer as well as the Amazon link, please, Maggi? Even better from my point of view, a “Buy from your local Christian bookshop” link?
Wesley Owen and SPCK weren’t the only ones out there…
Selection of buttons and banners available!
Hi Phil – thanks for this link, I’ll work out how to embed it for future posts!
Phil, thanks for that – I see there is a Christian bookshop near me that I didn’t know existed!
It’s also worth checking out what Brian McLaren has to say in The Ordinary Radicals documentary: http://www.theordinaryradicals.com/