Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope
By Brian D. McLaren; Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2007;
327 pages

McLaren’s goal in his book is to provide a better “framing Story” than is currently proclaimed as the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has been on a journey to discover a larger story, with fresh vision about Jesus and his message that could change everything for us and the world we inhabit.(6) The global village is experiencing crises in prosperity, equity, security and spirituality. Three of these issues: the prosperity system, the security system, the equity system make up the society system as they interact with each other. He explains how each of these systems performs a necessary function but each also has a dysfunction that leads to crisis. The prosperity dysfunction is leading to environmental disaster. The equity dysfunction leads to increased conflict between rich and poor. The security dysfunction leads to armed conflict with ever increasing poorer nations or groups turning to terrorism.

According to McLaren, the problem with the current Christian world view is that we do not have a big enough story that can speak into these issues. We have told ourselves a story that allows everything to remain the same. The story goes like this: we can continually increase our prosperity because God has given us the earth to use without limits; there is inequity because we work hard for our money and God is blessing us. If you want in on the blessing you need to stop being lazy; we are a nation that represents good, some nations are evil we need to use violence to stop them. According to McLaren the stories we tell ourselves about our place in the world, needs to radically change. Much of the book is McLaren retelling the story of Jesus as an “emergent messiah” who has come to save the whole world including the environment. (78) Read the rest of this entry

The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why
By Phyllis Tickle; Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2008,
165 pages

Phyllis Tickle is a scholar at large, educated by working at a publishing house trying to make sense out of Christian books. I was highly skeptical, as I read that anyone could paint an accurate picture of history using such a broad brush. She theorizes with conviction that every 500 years western civilization and the church, go through a transition or transformation. During this transition there is turmoil where many things get re-evaluated, reformed, adjusted for the next 500 years. While society and culture are changing so is the church, particularly, the Protestants. The Reformation is highlighted as an example.  Everything was questioned:  The Role of the Church Building, Leadership of the Pope, Priest, Monks, and Nuns and where authority is located (Pope or Scripture?). Debate, conflicts and sometimes even bloodshed happened as the church struggled to find itself in a new world.

I found her discussion on Authority particularly intriguing. “Where now is our authority” is the fundamental of foundational question of all human existence and/or endeavor, be it individual personality or that of the larger social unity.”(72) There are two questions that follow that are subsets of the first. When answered they help transmit the newly establish authority into politics, economics, learned disciplines, cohesive culture, and legal norms into the society as religious institutions and codes. (72) The two other questions needing answers are “what is human consciences and /or the humanness of the human?” and “how can we live responsible as devote and faithful adherents of one religion in a world of many religions?”

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Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others

By Todd D. Hunter; Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 2009;
193 pages

What God desires is to have a renewed humanity who participates in his plan to restore creation. God’s story cannot be reduced merely to the forgiveness of sins. Yes, sin is a big part of the divine-human story, but sin and forgiveness are not the whole story, which is about being the cooperative friends of Jesus, creatively seeking to do good for the sake of others through the power of the Holy Spirit. Todd sums up his definition of a “follower of Jesus” as “cooperative friends of Jesus, in creative goodness, for the sake of others, through the power of the Holy Spirit”. Here is the first problem: that story very rarely produces actual followers of Jesus. At best it produces “forgiven people” -and even then Hunter believes forgiveness is only understood in a very shallow way. People do not merely receive forgiveness of sins so they can go to heaven; but rather, they are forgiven so they can begin a different kind of life, a cooperative relationship with God, a new and eternal kind of life right now (which ultimately includes heaven). As 1 Peter 1 says, Christianity is about “a brand-new life.” This new life does indeed have an unspeakably marvelous future. But that future starts now!

Hunter says that our ignorance of eternal life reminds him of when Paul asked people in Ephesus if they received the Holy Spirit when they believed. They replied that they had not even heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-2). In parallel, maybe we would have said, “Eternal life in this life? No, we have never even heard of it.” God intends to have a people on earth who happily, easily and routinely embody, announce, and demonstrate the rule and reign of his kingdom. Failing to value this overarching story, this wider context, is what betrays most of our thinking about what it means to be a Christian. “How do we annouce this new life?”, asks Hunter. We tell them of the Fall and then we ask them, “what would happen to them if they died today?”.

Hunter proposes a new “four spiritual laws” as an outline for his thoughts as well as to instuct us in the importance of our theology and message. He believes the Christian gospel has been to narrowly focusing on getting “saved” from hell to heaven. This focus is misguided. The question should not be “Do you know what would happen to you if you were to die tomorrow?”, but rather, “What if you were to live tomorrow?” Our faith needs to be about living! The goal of the Christian life is spiritual transformation into Christ-likeness, and that begins here on earth and ends with a renewed cosmos not heaven. This new Christ-like life according to Hunter can be described and evaluated by his four categories: 1) cooperative friends of Jesus (you see the story of you r life within the story of God); 2) who live consistent lives of creative goodness (you join the divine conspiracy); 3) for the sake of others (loving and serving); 4) through the power of the Holy Spirit (continual experiential knowledge that Jesus is with us). (154-155)

Hunter recommends creating smaller “missional communities” who try to act in response to what the Spirit starts in serving others. Outsiders have an increasing dislike for “normal” church but “missional communities” made up of “cooperative friends of Jesus” living for others in a powerful apologetic. Hunter has created a method of helping followers of Jesus develop and maintain their new transformed life in Christ. “Three Is Enough” (TIE) groups are groups of three people together engaging in three simple activities: prayer, growth and service to others. Hunter predicts that a revival of true Christian living will be to the twenty-first-century, what mass evangelism and seeker sensitive churches were to the twentieth. (151) My criticism is that Hunter is more theoretical than practical. He talks as one with little connection to the everyday life of a pastor or the organized church. His solutions reflect his disconnect with “normal” church ministries and practices.

The Shaping of Things to come: Innovation and Mission for the 21-st Century Church
By Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch; Hendrickson Publishers, 2003;
236 pages

Frost and Hirsch co-author this powerful call to missional church planting and disciple making. They believe that it is too late to focus on renewing established churches and it is time to plant new culturally diverse, missional communities.(41) Hope lies in a new breed of leadership, young and feisty, willing to experiment with audacious new versions of Christian communities within the unchurched subcultures. This book is written to new missional leaders to give them vocabulary and legitimacy in their missional work.(88) Their hope is to base discipleship and life in a postmodern world around vital Christology. The church’s mission around an ecclesiology is entirely based on mission. Contrast is made between the old institutional church that is irrelevant, disconnected and sometimes even hostile toward the postmodern context; and a new call to become missional, contextual and incarnational.

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UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity

By David Kinnaman, and Gabe Lyons, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, 2007;

256 pages

In 1996, the Barna group did a study that showed overwhelming approval of Christianity in American culture. They found that 85% were favorable toward Christianity and its role in society but now everything has changed. (24) Though most young Americans have experienced church they have rejected it and feel rejected by the church and individual Christians. It would be hard to overestimate, says Kinnaman, “How firmly people reject-and feel rejected by- Christians”. (19) This new groups of “rejected” are called “outsiders”, made up of about twenty four million between the ages of 16 to 29. An outsider is someone who looks at Christianity from the outside in. This growing group, Outsiders include: everyone who is not a “born-again” church going insider: other faiths, atheist, agnostics, and un-churched adults. Their opinion of Christians’ and how they got that opinion matters. It is one thing for others to not agree with us because of our biblical worldview (unchanging), but it is another for them to not like us because of our attitudes (ever growing in Christ). Kinnaman and Lyons reveal that the great dislike is much more about how a Christian behaves toward others than cherish beliefs and morals. Read the rest of this entry