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Summary: More McLaren Brilliance
Review: 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
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Summary: A book for the spiritually curious...
Review: I could not put this book down.
"The Story We Find Ourselves In" might be best approached as a spiritual adventure where readers are invited to imagine God in new ways that restore all that is beautiful, revolutionary and compelling about the Bible story we think we know so well. Some may be put off by the finer points of theology (and science) explored here through McLaren's fictional characters, but I think that would be missing the point. This is a book to *expand* the imagination, to broaden our ideas about God and to deepen our hope that we can have a place in the mystery of who God is...for the good of our world.
Do not miss this book. It is a treasure, a tiny glimpse of how beautiful the story of our life in God can be.
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Summary: McLaren continues "New Kind of Christian" series
Review: 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.
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Summary: provoking, interesting
Review: I had to pause frequently to absorb the initial impact of the ideas McLaren presented. I've grown up as a creationist, but as an adult have thought deeply about the implications of creation and evolution because our responsibilities to a Creator or Evolver may be different. McLaren invites us to consider an alternative that the modern traditional Western church would decry as heresy, and therein lies the value of this book. At no point does Scripture give us permission to say to God, "You must," or "You may not." It does not specify that it is a scientific textbook, as Western readers might surmise... so "The Story" gives us a possibility closer to the Eastern mindset, a provoking jolt that God might see his-story differently than we do. That he might have made things in his own way and that we have not yet grasped how that came about. I'm not convinced by the theory of evolution, but I was aware of my own evolving faith as I read. Thanks, Brian!
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Summary: Big words but no substance.
Review: I only read a few pages because I found this book a little boring. The author appears to be an intellectual with a heart for people, but that doesn't always produce a great thinker and writer. It seems I've read this all before.
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Summary: Ho-Hum
Review: I was urged to read this McLaren book by someone who was really excited about it, but it was disappointing to me personally. To begin with, I found the first-person story format tedious and punctuated all too frequently with unnecessary trivia (generally in parentheses) that seemed to only serve to make the story "folksy" - and superficial. It reads like an eigth-grader's diary. I often bogged down in the seemingly contrived conversations between Dan and Neo, but then would forge ahead again later, waiting eagerly for the wonderful thought-provoking new truths that had been promised. I gave up on it a few times, but eventually did go back and finish the book. Finally, by about page 100, I found some substance and was glad I finished reading it. If you are looking for more than light entertaining reading (listless at that), my advice would be to begin with Chapter 12! Then, if you are one who is still briared in "Fundamental" theology where your Christianity is composed primarily of "Being Saved" and escaping Hell, then you will find McLaren's post-modern views very enlightening and expanding. This is where today's Church is headed and you might was well grasp it now and get onboard. You will be glad you did. My own faith and ideologies, on the other hand, already embrace all of McLaren's "New Kind of Christianity" and beyond, so this book was "ho-hum" to me.
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Summary: Good information, bad format
Review: I'm glad to see someone in the Christian writing field able to put a less "fundamentalized" view of belief into the popular marketplace, so I applaud McClaren's effort and courage. And I agree or at least share parallels with most of his thoughts regarding scripture, creation, eschatology, and the notion of the kingdom/revolution of God. But as I read I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a TV movie-of-the-week. The use of one-dimensional fictional characters to relay this information just didn't work for me. And I felt that too often the various threads or stages of the story ended up with rather simplistic, overly idealistic wrapups. For thoughts/ideas along a similar line in a more poetic yet technically satisfying format, I heartily recommend the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, especially "The Divine Milieu". I find his "vision" better reflects my experience as a modernist with spiritual foundations.
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Summary: Don't miss the point!!!!
Review: I'm surprised to see so many people critique the genre of this book. In my opinion, they have missed the point! Comments about any lack of theological substance would indicate a mode of thinking still permeating Christian thought. As if true biblical theology could be discussed outside of community and conversation, these types of comments indicate that many people are still looking for a definition of God and his people apart from "the story we find ourselves in." This book was a delightful treat, giving human qualities back to the discussion of God and his people. The genre of first person narrative reminds us that our inquiries into this subject matter are in fact reflections on our own personal experiences. Furthermore, if we can't find a forum in which to discuss God that includes the contexts of hospital rooms, airports, or watching turtles have sex :-) (just read the book)!!!! I believe that we have failed to adequately relate our theologies to our truly human condition.
Rating:
Summary: Don't miss the point!!!!
Review: I'm surprised to see so many people critique the genre of this book. In my opinion, they have missed the point! Comments about any lack of theological substance would indicate a mode of thinking still permeating Christian thought. As if true biblical theology could be discussed outside of community and conversation, these types of comments indicate that many people are still looking for a definition of God and his people apart from "the story we find ourselves in." This book was a delightful treat, giving human qualities back to the discussion of God and his people. The genre of first person narrative reminds us that our inquiries into this subject matter are in fact reflections on our own personal experiences. Furthermore, if we can't find a forum in which to discuss God that includes the contexts of hospital rooms, airports, or watching turtles have sex :-) (just read the book)!!!! I believe that we have failed to adequately relate our theologies to our truly human condition.
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Summary: Bold Brushstrokes from a Humble Artist of Faith
Review: 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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