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Title: The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0-7879-6387-9 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 21 February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: More McLaren Brilliance
Comment: Another great title by McLaren. Explores a meta-narrative to live by, and includes some tthought provoking points to reflect on and stew over.
Don't bother with this book if you dont have an open mind. It is challenging, and can at times take a couple of reads of a sectionto really embrace it. If you dont read this book in the way it was meant to by read, in the spirit that it was meant to be view in, then chances are you will hate it.
As for me... I love it, if you are looking for inspiration, go right ahead
Rating: 5
Summary: The Story Continues
Comment: I enjoyed meeting Pastor Dan Poole and his friend, Neo in the pages of A New Kind of Christian, and highly recommend it as a starting point for those interested in exploring the new cultural paradigm facing Christianity in the 21st century.
Brian McLaren's second book, in what is likely to be a multi-book series, spends less time talking about the modern-postmodern shift and spends more time unpacking the new theology that flows from it. Once again, a fictional setting is used to provide the stage. In the preface to The Story We Find Ourselves In McLaren writes: "The more I have written about postmodernity (and so on), the more I have wanted to get to the point where it no longer needed to be written about so much. I wanted to start writing about the Christian gospel itself, from a vantage point within the emerging culture, without always having to defend the vantage point." In this work, McLaren begins the process of describing the "new" ideas, theological frameworks and viewpoints that paint the backdrop for the unfolding drama we are living.
The Galapagos Islands provide the setting for a discussion of creation and evolution and the origins of the universe. Once again, Neo is the prime expositor of the "new" ideas. In this case, his conversations with Kerry Ellison, a biologist working on the islands to study and preserve wildlife, allow Neo to unpack ideas about a Christian's concern and care for the planet.
Other areas of discussion are the authenticity of miracles and Christ's work on the cross. Neo's leadership of a weekly gathering on the yacht, La Ventura, sounds like the kind of church that I would like to join. The unfolding relationship between Neo and Kerry mirrors Kerry's unfolding relationship with God.
I liked the storytelling in Story a little better than the first volume. In New Kind of Christian I sometimes felt that the essay overpowered the story. In Story I think McLaren's skills as an author have given us a book that is as interesting for its plot as it is for its information.
I have a big appetite for stories that tell of the beauty and mystery that moves people toward faith. And for that reason, I recommend The Story We Find Ourselves In. Be prepared to expand your ideas about the Story that God has written for each of our lives.
Rating: 5
Summary: Bold Brushstrokes from a Humble Artist of Faith
Comment: It's interesting that the tone of some reviews of McLaren's work stands in bold relief compared to humility brought by McLaren to his works, and the humility that he insists upon from people who agree with him. There is alot in this book to engage as a reader, and thoughtful readers will refrain, as McLaren does, from wholesale endorsements or rejections of complex works such as this. In fact, the only basis for wholesale rejection is the rejection of storytelling, which McLaren clearly stands behind. So allow me to defend McLaren's craft of creative nonfiction below.
Many writers in the postmodern Christian "tradition" call for a turn from abstract theology to theology as story, from the apologetics of argument to the apologetics of storytelling. Few, chief among them McLaren in this book and John Eldredge in Sacred Romance, are actually telling stories. Stories are by there very nature disarming. Perhaps that's why Plato wrote in stories, to be able to say exactly what Socrates was saying, but without being persecuted for it. Stories also enable the storyteller to experiment with ideas without offering endless caveats and "quotation marks" to properly distance himself from his proposal. Finally, stories reflect our day-to-day interior worlds, our thought lives, and are thus much better able to engage us than abstract claims of the Kantian or Schleiermachian ilk.
The most intriguing episodes in The Story We Find Ourselves in are, to me, the creation account given by McLaren and the break that occurs with the medieval synthesis of Christianity with Greek philosophy. It is indeed difficult to think of the creation story without the extraBiblical dualism of material vs. spiritual.
Finally, I think an interesting result of this book, or of the 3rd in the series, would be for others to continue the story that McLaren has begun. I think many would love to work through their questions via the medium of Neo, Dan and the rest.
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Title: A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 078795599X Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 28 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel by Brian D. McLaren, Tony Campolo ISBN: 0310253845 Publisher: Youth Specialties Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: More Ready Than You Realize by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0310239648 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.99 |
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Title: Finding Faith by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0310238382 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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Title: Emerging Church, The by Dan Kimball ISBN: 0310245648 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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