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A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith
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$ 21.99
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| Item Number |
886398 |
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Item Description...
Overview
Examines ten questions facing Christianity today, including questions about authority, God, Jesus, how to articulate the faith itself, and the nature of the gospel, and lays out a vision of what the church will look like for its next five hundred years.
Publishers Description
"Wherever the willingness to rethink has been squelched, wherever that sense of quest has been buried under convention and complacency, the Christian faith in all its forms is in trouble. But even there, something is trying to be born. Even now, right here, among us, inside you, inside me. You may feel it as a curiosity, a desire for better answers than you inherited so far. You may experience it as frustration, knowing that there must be more to faith than you currently know. You may know it as hope, hope that God is seeking humble people whose hearts and lives can be the womb of a better future. . . . In you, your family, your faith community, and circles of friends, among people of peace and faith everywhere, something is trying to be born."
—from A New Kind of Christianity We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the church. Not since the Reformation five centuries ago have so many Christians come together to ask whether the church is in sync with their deepest beliefs and commitments. These believers range from evangelicals to mainline Protestants to Catholics, and the person who best represents them is author and pastor Brian McLaren. In this much anticipated book, McLaren examines ten questions facing today's church—questions about how to articulate the faith itself, the nature of its authority, who God is, whether we have to understand Jesus through only an ancient Greco-Roman lens, what exactly the good news is that the gospel proclaims, how we understand the church and all its varieties, why we are so preoccupied with sex, how we should think of the future and people from other faiths, and the most intimidating question of all: what do we do next? Here you will find a provocative and enticing introduction to the Christian faith of tomorrow. |
Item Specifications...
Pages 306
Dimensions: Length: 1" Width: 6.25" Height: 9"
Weight: 1.05 lbs.
Binding Hardcover
Release Date Feb 1, 2010
Publisher HarperOne
ISBN 0061853984
EAN 9780061853982
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Availability 6 units.
Availability accurate as of May 24, 2012 12:57.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | A New Voice in the Wilderness May 27, 2010 |
Brian McLaren's book A NEW KIND OF CHRISTIANITY is the newest of a number of voices about what's been wrong with Christianity. Strained by the template of the old 'might makes right' Greco-Roman world that birthed and weaned Christianity into its human feature (a 'treasure in earthen vessels') McLaren's ten questions and reflections help us discern how Jesus's message and mission get lost in the power center of the institution that became Christianity. Others may label this book as 'liberal', but I regard it has getting us 'back to basics' in our thinking - to the message Jesus intended for those who would carry forward the mission he lived and died for. McLaren's fresh interpretation of Scriptures helps me remove the cobwebs of churchy literalism and fundamentalism that often muck up the dynamic, transforming Word of God. McLaren's Scriptures come alive so that we can be grounded in the now as Jesus was.
His book invites conversation and questions that are fresh and thoughtful and open and guiltless -even when people disagree. When fear guides those who gather around the community of faith, there is neither community or faith. Jesus was a 'where two or three are gathered' sort of guy, often drawing anger from those who wanted the institution to draw swords rather than beat them into plowshares. His mission theme might be 'Can we talk?'
Each of the ten questions transforming faith today are very much worth asking ourselves and one another. It seems we've a lot to unlearn about Christianity so that we can liberate Jesus to be the liberating presence of God he intended to be. Giving him back his lost identity seems like a worthwhile journey for any who wish to see some viable future for communities of faith. | | |  | Good Read! May 24, 2010 |
| A New Kind of Christianity is a good book that everyone should read, but especially every believer! It gets you out of the religious box, and really looking at your relationship with God & Christ, with other Christians and especially with all people & relationships. McLaren brings some strong questions to the forefront, that many people ask themselves but never come out and ask others. It's a great conversation starter and can get someone thinking on a healthy level. I highly recommend this book to everyone. | | |  | Dispensations for Dummies May 3, 2010 |
Two books for the price of one! The first is a Christian treatise on seeing Jesus from the point of view of the Old Testament. The second is a how to book on being progressive politically correct.
McLaren embraces the ideas of historical dispensations, but rejects that the age of dispensations ends with the millenia. If that was all he had to say, I would be giving this a five star review. Without referring to the laws of Adam and Noah and etc, he does a great job of reviewing the forms of the law as given to different ages of man. One of his first theses is that man did not fall from grace with the sin of Adam, but that we have been on a long slide from hunter-gatherers (the garden) through agriculturists and so on. His thesis in the first part of the book is that Christianity has been corrupted by classical Greek philosophy and first century Roman imperialism. Hardly new stuff, but eloquently written.
But then the horrible second half. McLaren lays out some points that political progressives say makes you a fit human being. Then he says that Christians who don't follow those precepts are those who disagree with his ideas on Christian orthodoxy. Hold on there, Brian. What about relations with God and other people like you developed in "More Ready Than You Realize"? Though he admits that God forms relationships with man at any stage of development, McLaren ultimately says that only his ideas lead to fully formed humanity. Then he pulls that punch, and grdgingly admits that the next dispensation may look back on us as being primitives. I'm probably reading too much into what he says. But it seems to me that "A New Kind of Christianity" is belittling those who do not swallow Mclarens arguments hook, line and sinker.
Political progressives of any religious affiliation will love this book. Non-progressives may reject the good ideas on Christianity because of the goofy ideas on politics. My suggestion? Read this book for fun. Read McLaren's "A Generous Orthodoxy" for more fully fleshed out ideas. | | |  | I believe the premise is flawed May 2, 2010 |
I am not a Calvinist. Like Mclaren I am charismatic and non-Reformed. I gave it 2 stars (instead of 1) because I felt the book, like Tim Keller's "Reason for God", addressed good and valid questions that people are asking today. I gave it 2 stars because I believe the premise of the book is faulty. Please let me explain:
Mclaren basis the entire book on one historical premise: that the Church, at the time of Constantine, imported neo-Platonism into Christianity and Christian faith has been defunct ever since. He says that Platonist ideas such as atonement, hell, just-war theory, a literalistic view of the Bible and the exclusivity of Christ are all ideas foreign to Christianity but were Greek and Roman ideas brought in by Constantine and others. Throughout the book he refers to traditional Christian belief as the "Greco-Roman story line" which he contrasts with his version of Christianity which he presents as true Christianity.
IF Mclaren's understanding of history is correct, then this really is a revolutionary book. Everything I have ever read and learned about this epoch of Church history however, leads me to believe that Mclaren's premise, and therefore all of his conclusions which he extrapolates throughout the book, are incorrect.
Now, that could mean that all the book I have ever read on the subject are wrong. But if that is so, then Mclaren needs to write a much larger book just to establish his premise is valid. The book does not attempt to explain why other branches of Christianity which grew up outside of the Roman empire or outside of the range of Greek thought (Ethiopian, Syrian, Indian, etc) also held to these beliefs. He also needs to explain why the early church fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, who lived before Constantine, also embraced many of the views which Mclaren says is foreign to Christianity. These are questions Mclaren does not address in great, if any, detail which he should if he hopes to convince those who are historically minded.
Outside of his premise he then address relevant questions about God and violence, pluralism, the authority of the Bible, etc. He promotes an idea in which the view of God "evolves" through out the Bible from primitive to advanced. For example he writes of Noah and flood in chapter 11, "a god who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief, much less worship". Mclaren sees God's judgments on humanity as "violent" and therefore primitive. In order to maintain his evolutionary view he then tries to take the violence out of the of the book of Revelation saying that it's not about Jesus coming back to punish the wicked but it is rather an allegory about pacifism triumphing over militarism by turning the other cheek. That is an exegetical long shot. I do not think he gave it enough time and space to make me think that it is a possible or a valid reading of the book.
As in other books, he does a good amount of evangelical bashing, though he usually does it in a way that seems nice. Yet, when he is done I can not help but want to think of conservative evangelicals as redneck idiots.
| | |  | No Kind of Christianity Apr 20, 2010 |
| I found this 'flimsy whimsy' from an angry wealthy post-grad middle-aged-emergent white male liberalist on the attack against the Bible God not just questions transforming the faith. It whiffs of a superior skeptical attitude of questionings transplanting foreign tissue into what some people presume is the faith. The devil deceived Eve into similar questionings: "Did God really say so? Come on. Not!" It's a rotten banana nourishing only to fruit flies. Challenge: read what the apostles taught in the Book of Acts that was the Kingdom Gospel of Jesus turning the world upside down. Compare to this ex literature professor's questionings and malpractice transplant surgery on the Bible. Which of the 2 diametrically opposed dogmas will save your soul from the wrath of God on Judgment Day when King Jesus returns to reward the righteous-by-faith and punish the unrighteous-by-unbelief? What kinda Christianity do you have? "Anyone who does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar...Who is the liar? That man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is antichrist - denying the Father and the Son.." | | | Write your own review about A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith
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