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When Brian McLaren began offering an alternative vision of Christian faith and life in books such as A New Kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy, he ignited a firestorm of praise and condemnation that continues to spread across the religious landscape. To some religious conservatives, McLaren is a dangerous rebel without a doctrinally-correct cause. Some fundamentalist websites have even claimed he's in league with the devil and have consigned him to flames. To others though, Brian is a fresh voice, a welcome antidote to the staleness, superficiality, and negativity of the religious status quo. A wide array of people from Evangelical, Catholic, and Mainline Protestant backgrounds claim that through his books they have begun to rediscover the faith they'd lost or rejected. And around the world, many readers say that he has helped them find-for the first time in their lives-a faith that makes sense and rings true. For many, he articulates the promise of what is being called "emerging Christianity." In The Secret Message of Jesus you'll find what's at the center of Brian's critique of conventional Christianity, and what's at the heart of his expanding vision. In the process, you'll meet a Jesus who may be altogether new to you, a Jesus who is... Not the crusading conqueror of religious broadcasting; Not the religious mascot of partisan religion; Not heaven's ticket-checker, whose words have been commandeered by the church to include and exclude, judge and stigmatize, pacify and domesticate. McLaren invites you to discover afresh the transforming message of Jesus-an open invitation to radical change, an enlightening revelation that exposes sham and ignites hope, an epic story that is good news for everyone, whatever their gender, race, class, politics, or religion. "Pastor and best-selling author McLaren revisits the gospel material from a fresh-and at times radical-perspective . . . He does an excellent job of capturing Jesus' quiet, revolutionary style." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Here McLaren shares his own ferocious journey in pondering the teachings and actions of Jesus. It is McLaren's lack of salesmanship or agenda that creates a refreshing picture of the man from Galilee who changed history." --Donald Miller, Author of Blue Like Jazz "In this critical book, Brian challenges us to ask what it would mean to truly live the message of Jesus today, and thus to risk turning everything upside down." --Jim Wallis, Author of God's Politics and editor of Sojourners "Compelling, crucial and liberating: a book for those who seek to experience the blessed heat of Christianity at its source." --Anne Rice, Author of Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt… (more)
User reviews
1. Brian McLaren has toned down the controversial aspects of his writing.
2. I’ve grown more comfortable with the controversy.
Maybe it’s a mixture of both. I started reading McLaren’s New Kind of Christian books and was challenged, outraged, and enlightened.
This book is full of good material about Jesus and his agenda. McLaren situates Jesus in his culture, painting him as a Jewish revolutionary. If you’re new to this way of understanding Jesus, McLaren’s book serves as a quick introduction to some of the major ideas.
If, on the other hand, you’ve read N. T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann, and Dallas Willard, you’ll find nothing new here: just a popularizing of their ideas.
[One last thought: does the socially-conscious Protestant church really need to venerate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the way the Roman church venerates Mary?]
"Believing untrue things, however sincerely, can have it's own unintended consequences."
"This carpenter's son from Galilee challenges every existing political movement to a radical rethinking and dares everyone to imagine and consider his revolutionary alternative."
"So here, "eternal life" means knowing, and knowing means an interactive relationship with the only true God and with Jesus Christ, his messenger."
"Kingdom of God... Let's render it simply an extraordinary life to the full centered in a relationship with God."
"A parable renders its hearers not as experts, not as know-it-alls, not as scholars... but as children."
"We will understand neither signs and wonders in particular nor the idea of the kingdom of God in general if we try to shrink them into our restrictive universe. We have to meet these phenomena in their natural habitat."
"God, the good King, is present, working from the inside. The King is in the kingdom, and the kingdom is among us here and now... for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The King is present in the mess and chaos of everyday life on earth, bringing healing, sight, perception, liberation, wholeness, wholesomeness, movement, health, fullness, nourishment, sanity, and balance. The incursion of the kingdom of God has begun. We are under a gentle, compassionate assault by a kingdom of peace and healing and forgiveness and life."
"For Jesus' secret message of the kingdom to be realized, it must first expose the evil of all alternative kingdoms or regimes or systems of ideologies. And, for that evil to be exposed, it must be drawn out of the shadows, where it hides in secret."
"When Christianity sees itself more as a belief system or set of rituals for the select few and less as a way of daily life available to all, it loses the "magic" of the kingdom."
The first few chapters set
The writing is good, the author's views clearly expressed, and there's plenty of Biblical backing. The book covers portions of the ‘sermon on the mount’, for instance, and reminds readers about the meanings of the ‘parables of the Kingdom’, from the perspective of the first century audience.
I’m puzzled about the idea of it being a ‘secret’ message. This is broadly how I understood the Christian message growing up in an Anglican Church in the UK; it was explored more fully in RE lessons at my secondary school, and is similar to much of what I have read over the years.
Still, this book gives some excellent and thoughtful writing about the Kingdom of God in its many aspects, and much to think about. If it weren't for the title and insistence that this is a 'new' understanding, I'd have given it five stars.