Thoughts on Chapters 4-9....

I'm really enjoying this book. This is my first book club blog, although i'm wondering if anyone else in the club is going to comment on the book?? In hindsight I should have posted more often as there are a lot of parts I'm going to have trouble remembering all my thoughts. This could be really quick, in almost every instance, I agree with McLaren's perspective on how the bible should and was intended to be read as well as how the mainstream conservative interpretation got to it's current state. I'll highlight thoughts from each chapter

Chapter 4 - The narrative question. My favorite quote refers to the popular 6 line narrative concept "Can we dare to wonder, given an ending that has more evil and suffering than the beginning, if it would have been better for this story never to have begun?" I don't know if I've ever question the legitimacy of the narrative from a scriptural standpoint, however I have certainly struggled for a long time to fully embracing the narrative I've been taught. I was fascinated with the Greco-Roman history / philosophy explanation of how the current popular understanding of the narrative actually developed. It was a great explanation of where the us vs them / and knowledge superiority entered the equation. I agree with the comment after the illustration on page 40 showing the narrative overlapped with other cultural narratives. "By focusing only on one narrative, at that moment, we have effectively marginalized all other cultures to the level of an annoying sideshow standing in the way of the only past, present, and future that really matter, namely, our own."

Chapter 5 - In the beginning......Perfect vs. Good. Amazing how the Plutonic lens influences this story. There is a lot open for discussion here but i'll limit my comment s for the sake of brevity.

Chapter 6 - The narrative in three dimensions - there is a lot of meat in this chapter, probably need to read again.

Chapter 7 - How should the bible be read......for what it is.....I agree. The bible is a collection of writings which tell the story of the Jewish community and culture evolving in it's understanding and relationship with God. The bible is not, nor was it ever intended to be a constitution or a text book with all God's answers to all societies issues. The part on how the Bible has been used over the years to support various immoral and unethical social endures (crusades, slavery...) should be eye opening to anyone who pulls random passages from the Bible to claim they know God's will with regard to their specific agenda. It's amazing how unaware people are of the impact of our culture lens in how we interpret and use the bible.

Chapter 8 - From constitution to community library. The Bible as a whole is much more engaging, thought provoking if it's taken for what it is. If taken as a community library much can be learned from the evolution of the communities faith and how they handled different issues and questions.......including Jesus. The bible read from this prospective should evoke & stimulate conversation and discussion on the issues relevant to a culture and it's relationship with its creator. Thus.....prompting the growth of our relationship with our creator. I don't think the bible was intended to answer all the worlds questions and arm us with every necessary truth to impose on inferior cultures.

So in closing, I think McLaren does an excellent job of elegantly articulating a lot of my pre-existing perspectives as well as give me some new insight on how modern conservative interpretations evolved. I hope somebody has some comments...even if it's just calling me a lib!!! :)

Alerts...yes...kind of

BET - I set up google reader a couple weeks ago for this very reason. I highly recommend this free program to anyone who follows news & blogs online. You tell the program what feeds you want to follow and you have a dash board with all your news in one spot.

Great teacher-ish post. I'll need to digest and attempt a thoughtful response when time allows. Just wanted to let you know about an option of getting alerts.

Alerts?

Does anyone know how to set it so our blog will alert us when a new post is added? Obviously, by looking at the relatively few posts, it may not be all that necessary, but still...

Joe- interesting comments about the church having its doctrinal points settled for 100s of years...but I am not sure I agree. For my schooling, I have been reading (err...forced to read) quite a few books on religion from a sociological perspective, and a few things have really jumped out at me. If you are talking about the Big C Church, and her doctrines about Christology, ecclesiology, soteriology, etc., then I think you are right. However, "our" church, or the modern day American evangelical form (which, consequently, I left happily a few years ago in thought despite my still drawing a paycheck from one..), is relatively new on the scene...about 120 years or so. A few things that are unique about "us." that I think may be fueling your frustration.

Three key thinkers (Finke, Stark, and C. Smith) have argued that churches (or sects) typically align themselves either by engagement (interaction with society as a whole, for example an Episcopalian church in New England, that answers questions about belief/practice/etc exactly the same as the non-churched do...think "liberal" or mainline) or isolation (think Amish). The authors I've grown to love (ahem...) have argued that evangelicals are unique in the sense that we've maintained both extremes- an almost Amish like separation (ie we know who we are by saying what we are not: not gay friendly, not ok with drinking or sex, not ok with "all religions get to heaven," etc.) but are passionately committed to societal engagement. Three reasons for this, says the trio...1. our evangelical spirit viz a viz saving souls, 2. our belief that there is a clearly defined will of God, and 3. (remarkably so) that we know what that is.

The authors interviewed 1000s of religious folks about their views about God's will...and as you would expect many agreed that He (she? ha ha) does have one, but NO other group said that they were the ones who knew it, or at least that they were the only group that did. A staggering 94% of evangelicals did, however.

Furthermore, evangelicals scored the highest (80%, i think) when asked if Christian law/morals should be the law of the land (their argument was typically that since God has a clearly defined will that is knowable, it should be followed, even by those who don't believe in God, simply because it would be "better" for them...). That means that evangelicals are the least likely group to care about offending their neighbor (which we are) because of this parental "take your medicine, it'll be good for you in the long run" mentality.

For a scary book (it is a great read too) read "Kingdom Coming: The rise of Christian Nationalism" by Michelle Goldberg. It's the least academic (therefore least boring) book I've read on the subject. Amazon has it for 5.00 used. She argues that the "there is a will and I know it" thought leads to Christian dominionism: ie Christians have the right (and calling!) to rule non Christians.

Anyways, sorry if this was too "teacher-ish." Not my intention...I'm just fascinated with who "we've" become. No wonder, then, why McClaren and others are hated...

BET

Interesting Article on the death of The Emerging Church

Hello Gents,

Stumbled across an article today that I thought would interest you. The down side is it may make big AL happy. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

http://online.worldmag.com/2010/04/14/farewell-emerging-church-1989-2010/

James

GREAT!!

I'm excited that you guys have signed in.  Woody thanks for the link to the sermons, and Joe thanks for already sharing thoughts on chapter 1.  I'm going to try to finish up chapter one today, and will do what I can to share thoughts on it sometime this week.  I figure keeping the discussion at one or two chapters a week will help keep this from getting too overwhelming.  Obviously feel free to share if/when you have the chance.

I hate that this thing didn't alert me that you guys had signed on.  I just sat down at a coffee shop and found your comments to be a pleasant surprise.

Keep the posts coming!

I'm in

All-

Good to be with you...even if by blog. Count me in for the discussions....I will try to keep up, but my "free reading time" is short these days. I have been following McLaren for awhile now and am a big fan. Plus, a co-worker of mine continually gives me articles from prophesywatch.org trying to prove to me that Brian is a real life heretic...so I'm covered on all angles!

Peace.

BET

Background

I don't have the book yet but I'm enjoying listening to some of his sermons located here...

Mclaren Cedar Ridge Community Church

Eric