A taste of living water in the drought of modern-day Christianity - Rated 
My hairdresser recommended this book to me. The relationship one has with one's hairdresser means that you often end up talking about quite deep things and my hairdresser and I, both Christians, have done a lot of talking over the last ten years. He was obviously pretty much in tune with where my thoughts were as he told me about a book I had to read.
"A New Kind Of Christian" is that book. And my hairdresser was right - I really did have to read this book. Why? Mainly because it has given me fresh hope in Christianity in the 21st century when I had pretty much given up hope. Look around you at the people you work with, you travel on the train with. If you stopped one at random to describe what they thought a Christian was they would probably say something like "a nice person, a good person, but also very judgemental, bigoted, brainwashed and a hyprocrite." And I would agree with them. Most Christians I know - well, almost all of them - are really nice people. They can be very hospitable, wonderfully generous, they give up no end of time and money to charity, they want to invite non-Christians to as many events as possible to convert them (for their own good, of course) and they want to live a faithful, good, nuclear family kind of life. However, this worldview seems so out of touch with the real world - not because any of those things are necessarily wrong but because it misses out on a lot of what else is going on in today's culture. Issues of sexuality, scientific study, congruence with the postmodern society that we live in - these are issues that the secular world has a position on and the church is usually far behind. Christians often seem unable to think for themselves but only seem able to parrot the latest words of the pastor/leader, no matter how unloving it may seem to the modern gay person (for example), let alone often requiring belief in things that really shouldn't matter to be a `real' Christian (such as 7-day creation). Young people are often turned off because they feel the church isn't really connecting with them; others are so `into' the church that they don't actually have any real understanding of life outside it, of culture outside it and of issues that affect people deeply every day that they can blithely categorise as `wrong' or `sin'.
Brian MacLaren's book meets these issues head on. Rather than writing a treatise or theology of what he believes he presents his views in the form of a conversation between two people - a Pastor, Dan, who is beginning to wonder if he should become a school teacher as he can no longer preach with the certainty that he used to, and Neo, a school teacher who used to be a pastor. Within the conversations between these two men we read a sermon by Neo, hear of conversations between the pastor and his wife and get a little bit of an idea what it might be like for that pastor who is worried about his calling. And every page of this book just drips wisdom - I found myself constantly thinking "yes, that's exactly it!" and was generally able to only read a couple of chapters at a time as there was so much in them I had to go away and think about what I had read before consuming more.
Brian MacLaren puts his case for a new kind of Christian very strongly. The first half of the book is setting the groundwork to his idea - that the Church is "modern" but the world is "postmodern". The church's choice of the vital tenets of Christianity are often rather of a response to the world we have lived in since mediaeval times - the church needs to respond to the way that the world has moved on in terms of communication, global perspectives on individuals' lives and a right understanding of what Jesus started in his church. The second part of the book looks more at what "a new kind of Christian" would be like - how they might evangelise, how they might live their lives (with a strong focus on financial giving) and how they might live lives as Jesus commanded rather than living the narrow pharisaism of so many Christians.
I was really struck by a small thing in the middle of this book, where Neo quotes from 1 John 1 about heaven, referring to Jesus and saying "We shall be like him". I had been going around for weeks saying to people "if being a Christian means being like these people" - referring to Christians in the media, Christians I have come across in my daily life, who spout bigoted and unloving opinions at the drop of a hat and come across as very judgemental - "I would rather not be a Christian". I found it shockingly easy to say those words because I have become so horrified by the state of Christianity that I have experienced in the UK and US. And yet I was reminded that in heaven we would be like Jesus and I want that, very much. Jesus is the ultimate model of what a Christian should be like, and the vast difference between the character of Jesus and the character of most Christians has highlighted for me where Christianity has gone wrong - not in the essence of the faith but in its expression by people around me. It doesn't have to be like that, and Brian MacLaren's book shows a way in which we might become more like Jesus in today's postmodern world - this is a brilliant book and I strongly recommend it to anyone who despairs of modern-day Christianity, who fears they may be losing their faith, who finds it difficult to reconcile their God-given intelligence with the strange stuff being fed to them from the pulpit. It gives hope again to the message of Jesus, as relevant today as it has always been.
Dissaapointed - Rated 
I have read three other books by Brian McLaren and enjoyed them so for holiday I bought this and it's sequal but did not like them at all. If theology is to be presented as a novel then it ought to be a good novel. I want a plot and a hero and charactors I can relate to. The hero is a guy called Neo who goes round eye-contacting and "relating" to people who all end up coming to his meetings, beginning a spiritual journey and eventually coming to recognise and know Jesus. He's a cross between Polyanna, Mother Theresa and Gandi.The dialogue consists of lists, diagrams, diary extracts and sermon texts. It's slushier than Lassie. I found Neo to be patronising and unkind to those who don't agree with him eg on evolution; he describes them as "very silly" "misguided" and "totally missing the point". I felt that as a piece of literature it was poor. I felt also that it dodged a few big scriptural issues. Generally the theology of it I could agree with but it would have been better presented as a spiritual txt book than creative fiction. Having said that I've ordered the 3rd just for the sake of completeness.
The Church Needs This - Rated
This is one of those books that the church will either totally love or passionately hate! It really pushes the bounders of being comfortable in Christendom, it questions assumptions that have been held by the modern church for decades and are so ingrained in our churches and Christian lives that to question them is taboo.
The book is writing as a narrative and therefore is very easy to read. The story is of a burned out minister walking, talking and sharing life with an older ex-minister, now teacher.
I believe that this book with help a lot of people rethink and maybe bring a new spark to their faith. I read this book and thought this it was talking about all the questions and thoughts I had about my faith but were always too scared to say out loud in fear of being branded a liberal!
A Profound And Important Book - Rated
As a Christian leader and one who has spent over 20 years living as an Evangelical Christian, this book brought tears of joy and hope into my eyes as I read the opening pages. Many (especially those within full time ministry) are concerned about the state we find Christianity and the modern church in. We believe passionately in Jesus, the inerrancy of scripture and are trying hard to walk in step with the Spirit. However, for many there is a growing sense that something isn't quite right. It is not about style, relevance or anything as temporary as that, but the inherent nature of our Christian faith and how this is worked out in Christian community. This book, brings hope, clarity and a way forward and I count it as perhaps one of the most influential books of my ministry so far. Some who read it would think that I am losing both my faith and my mind, neither is the case. What I want to lose is the constraints of not thinking for myself and the desire to be spoon-fed by so-called theologians who think that because the Bible is the inerrant word of God, that they are themselves above contradiction. Allowing others to form your thoughts about the nature of God makes you humble and teachable, not a liberal. This book is full of hope, life, humour and most of all JESUS. If you have faith and feel like you are losing it, read it. If you are looking for faith in Jesus then this book may well lead you to Him.
Real life christianity for real people... - Rated
I can't praise this book highly enough! It is not all that often that a book helps you really change the way you look at things. It's not often that a book really helps you have the confidence to move in the direction that God is leading you - particularly when that direction is a risky one (exciting risky, not foolish risky!) - or allows you to feel that the doubts you feel (about the relevance of the culture you live in when compared to the culture you are trying to reach) are OK thoughts to have and spurs you on to make positive changes for the better. This book looks at the structures, rules and traditions which we Christians tend to build up around ourselves and the comfort zones which we construct and asks whether they are really part of the Gospel at all - in fact, are they Good news or Bad news which only serve to alienate us from those we want to share the Good news with? The book asks whether it is not better to journey with those who are looking for meaning in life, looking to find faith, than to set up the road blocks, hurdles, tests, trials for them to clamber through. In fact it shows that even those who find evangelism hard need not do so if the word, love and Spirit of God enfuse all of our life and we don't separate our spiritual being from our secular lives. The pressure of having to "get the Gospel in" our daily conversations is lifted when we realise that the God's spirit and the Gospel is already written through our lives like "Blackpool" through a stick of rock. The book takes a novel form with two friends exploring their understanding of faith as a device for discussing complex issues about faith religion, culture, postmodernism and how to bring Jesus to the society which we live in now. Incredibly accessible and eye opening. This, and the follow up "The Story We Find Ourselves In" are mind expanding books, in the best and truest sense of the phrase. Jesus tells us that His yoke is easy and his burden is light yet we seem to make the fulfilment of His great commission such a heavy one. This book is for those who wish that they found living and sharing faith less of a heavy burden and feel guilty that maybe the simple love and friendship that they give to others isn't "spiritual" enough to count. Maybe you're already more steps along the spiritual journey than you realise!
|
