Brian McLaren, one of TIME magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America," is back, this time to lead readers on a journey that will prove to be as unsettling and groundshaking as it is thrilling and life-changing. Unafraid of controversy or the uncomfortable gray areas of life, McLaren's quest is to find the essential message of Jesus' life - even if it overturns our conventional ideas, priorities, and practices.
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
Average Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars(2.5 out of 5 stars)
2 of 2 Reviews Showing:
1 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by mark hessinger (yuma, az), August 15, 2008
Although a few of the thoughts and passages in McLaren's book, The Secret Message of Jesus, are achingly beautiful, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone but the most mature Christian who is very well-grounded in the Bible. (I'm not sure that even includes me, but too late now!) What's worthwhile is the physical, intellectual, and spiritual challenge to view the Kingdom of God as something more and bigger than just the salvation of individual souls. However, the de-emphasis of Jesus' cross contained herein is the theological equivalent of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater!" This is the fundamental flaw with all of the emerging church works I've read, even though there is something wildly attractive I find in each of them. But heresy is too great a risk to take. There has just got to be a way "to stimulate one another to love and good deeds" and still "preach Christ crucified!" This isn't it, however.
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Steven Pennell (Jupiter, Florida), October 20, 2006
Although I don't think the message of the Kingdom was all that much of a secret, this is still a thought provoking book -well worth reading. I didn't understand McLaren to mean that Jesus' death and resurrection and God's amazing grace were not Good News; rather, that the Good News is not only for some future time in the sweet bye and bye but also for here and now. The Kingdom is here, not out there somewhere. Jesus said, "The Kingdom is in you."
Please don't listen to those who are afraid to think a little. There is nothing here that contradicts salvation by grace. You don't have to agree with everything that is said to benefit from thinking about what is said.
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