What was it about Brian McLaren's book that struck you?

by JD
(N. VA)

Nice page with good info about the emerging movement. Great articles at the Christianity Today link.

I do have a question though, what is it about the book "A Generous Orthodoxy" that struck you? When you say you've been thinking about it ever since, what is it that you are thinking about? You didn't really go into that.

I've heard of the book and plan to read it myself, one of these days ..

Editor's Reply:

Thanks JD, good question. I thought about expanding on that in the article, but it's not really a simple thing to explain so it would really bog down that page.

Anyway, I'll try to answer your question here. Let me say that was several years ago and so actually what I remember now may be different than what I really was thinking then. But, it's the best I can do.

First, no one picks up and reads a book like McLaren's by accident. Well, almost no one. Certainly not me. I had long been having questions about my faith that were never answered to my satisfaction. Actually that's still the case.

But, anyway, I have a fundamentalist christian background and remember as a teenager asking questions of my mom about issues I found in the bible that seemed to question its inerrency. She told me to write to a fundamentalist baptist pastor friend she knew. I wrote him and never heard back.

I asked the same questions other times over the years and never got good answers (in my opinion anyway).

So, it was with that background that I stumbled on McLaren's book and found that he had experienced a spiritual journey similar to mine and that it was ok to have doubts and questions and maybe even good (there's even a verse in Romans i think that talks about how challenges to your faith are good things).

The big thing I think McLaren does for me in Generous Orthodoxy is take head on the issue of how each faith and tradition thinks they have THE answer; they are THE right one; all others are wrong, etc. That doesn't really make sense to me.

McLaren basically says they are all right and all wrong; good and bad from each.

In fact the cover of the book says:

"Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/Protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian."

And, that says so much to me because what it really says is that God is bigger than any of us. Bigger than all of us. And, it's a mistake when we try to fit him into a tiny box of beliefs established by a particular group of men. None of us have all the answers or understand entirely the bible, God or Christ.

And to me that's liberating because it means we don't need to and indeed can't have all the answers -- at least not while on earth.

I also like that McClaren never claims to have all the answer or to have completely "worked out his faith." That's the journey we should all be on our whole life.

McLaren raises more questions than he answers and to me that simply means he's thinking things through and ultimately beginning to grasp how little we really know. In the end all we can do is try to be loving, understanding, affirming; try to share God's love and trust God for the rest.

Anyway, there's some thoughts about A Generous Orthodoxy. Bottom line is it was just very encouraging, maybe liberating?, for me to find out that someone else thought a lot of the same things as me and somehow he had still held on to his faith, even if it was changed.

Just a few thoughts. Thanks again for the question.