An Unfinished Life

Einar Gilkyson: You think the dead really care about our lives?? Mitch Bradley: Yeah, I think they do. I think they forgive us our sins. I even think it’s easy for them. Einar Gilkyson: Griff said you had a dream about flying. Mitch Bradley: Yeah. I got so high, Einar. I could see where the [...]

Two Flawed Prophets

The Bible is full of material which challenges simplistic interpretations and this is one of them. It is a tale of two prophets: “the prophet from Judah” delivers a true prophecy that was fulfilled with accuracy more than three centuries later. The “old prophet from Bethel” transmits a lie that trips up the prophet of [...]

The Murky Marriage of Love and Truth

In an interview by Next Wave, Brian McLaren defines the purpose of his book, A Generous Orthodoxy (which I am enjoying and have been responding to over the last few days): In a sentence, A Generous Orthodoxy is an attempt to remarry two things that never should have been divorced — truth and love…. This [...]

My McLaren Colloquy: 4. The Faithful Remnant

Conversing with his friend Samir Vesna on pp 129-130 of A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren writes, Restorationists… often refer to themselves, Samir says, as a remnant…. “We’re not small because we’re ineffective, or lazy, or ingrown, or otherwise unattractive; we’re small because we’re a faithful remnant! Everone else has compromised…. We’re the few, the committed, [...]

My McLaren Colloquy: 3. New fields of opportunity

On page 140 of A Generous Orthodoxy Brian McLaren writes: When I imagine what a generous orthodoxy can become, I realize I must seek to honor both conservative and liberal heroism. And when I do, I want to consider myself both liberal and conservative. I must learn from their mistakes, and when I do, I [...]

My McLaren Colloquy: 2. Restorationism

One of the most fascinating and vigorous sectors of protesting Protestanism has been “restorationism” — a belief held by a succession of groups through church history that, by finally getting the last or lost detail right, they now represent a full-fledged restoration of “New Testament Christianity.” – A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 128 Like Brian, I [...]

McLaren/MacArthur colloquy: 1. Honoring evangelicals

I appreciate the honorable treatment Brian McLaren gives to evangelicals when he writes: (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 119) “evangelicals have a passion that drives them into action: their emotion puts them in motion. And this emotion goes right to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus: loving God and loving others…. That’s why [...]