Everyday Liturgy: When I started this blog a year and a half ago I did it in part to begin to explore ways to expand my relationship with God.  I had recently graduated from a Bible college and wanted to build on the foundation in Scriptures I had been given.  The evangelical answers, quiet time and prayer cards, no longer seemed capable of leading me further in my spiritual journey.  Bible-software, inductive study, and individual petitions no longer seemed adequate.  What role do you see "Ancient Practices" having in our technological, individualistic world?

Brian McLaren: Thom, I think you've really diagnosed a key dimension of the problem: individualism. I think our spiritual lives languish in a "Jesus and me" isolation chamber, but they become robust and deep when we realize that God calls me into an "us for all of us" way of life. To echo Paul's amazing words in Ephesians 3, I come to know the love of God "with all the saints." Knowledge in this sense is a knowing with - knowing God with people of different periods of history, different cultures, different denominations, and so on. So the ancient practices draw us into a wider, deeper way of knowing God that includes but also transcends my individual experience.

EL: One of the biggest challengers and provokers in my life has been an Eastern Orthodox friend.  Through his entrance into the Eastern Orthodox church a whole new world of spiritual practice has been opened up to him, and I have been able to see glimpses of how he is being shaped in community with God and others.  What role does community play in spiritual practice?

BM: Like your friend, I have been enriched by Eastern Orthodox practices and values. In the book I use an example - limited and flawed, admittedly - to schools of cooking. There are certain flavors that Italian cooking specializes in - and very different ones in Thai or Mexican or Indian cooking. So various spiritual traditions maintain various rich flavors of the spiritual life ... we might even say that different traditions nourish in different ways. When we enter a community, we can learn their way, discover the "ingredients" they specialize in, and be nourished by what they uniquely offer.  This becomes quite dynamic in our time, I think, because we're realizing that if you want to be nourished in evangelism, Evangelicals have a lot to offer, and if you want to be nourished in sacramentalism, you need to go to the Orthodox or Catholics or Anglicans. If you want to be nourished in peacemaking, the Mennonites carry on that tradition in a special way, and if you want to be nourished in deep Biblical study, the Presbyterians excel. I believe the time has come for us to share our treasures and specialties with one another and not try to keep our "flavor" as proprietary. We can have a big banquet and each bring our specialties to share.

More after the break...!

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The buzz in evangelicalism today, thanks to the work of Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren and others, has bee social justice. The Evangelical Manifesto, released yesterday, says this:

We must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness, by promoting reconciliation, encouraging ethical servant leadership, assisting the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the next generation.

Ever heard of Fair Trade? It is a solution to try to bring equity back into the Prosperity System.  The economic world that a devilish mixture of capitalism, greed, technology, and fancy finances has created is out of whack.  The rich get richer off the poor who get poorer.  We need several modern day Robin Hoods, such as Fair Trade, to rise up and return the Prosperity System to a sustainable level.

The final three parts of my five part review of Everything Must Change will deal more with the application of McLaren's theories to our contemporary world and how McLaren's thinking changes our Christian perspective of global crises by changing our interpretation from a modernist/capitalist/American narrative into a King Jesus/Kingdom of God narrative.

For McLaren, the security system is the foundation of the global system and framing story because it allows the other two systems: prosperity and equity, to develop and grow in "peace." ... more

Brian McLaren said a lot of thought provoking things yesterday.  Most I agreed with, some I did not---regardless of my agreement what he said was insightful, simple, and clear.

The thought that keeps playing over and over in my mind is what Brian said about the Holy Spirit:

"Many of the problems that arise in the church today come from too much emphasis on programs and bureaucracy and programs and not enough emphasis on the Holy Spirit."

What was apparent in his discussion at Princeton Theological Seminary and at the Yankee Doodle pub was the deep, overarching significance of the Holy Spirit in his theology, something I had failed to pick up on in the books of his I have read. ... more

Well not really, because that's "dangerous."  I am actually driving down to the event with youth pastor par excellence and Everyday Liturgy/Everyday Journal contributor Tim Ghali (he wrote the article "The Jesus Creed and the Church's Self-Absorption" in the last issue).  We are going to see Brian McLaren speak at Princeton Theological Seminary about his new book Everything Must Change, which even though I have read it in its entirety I have not completely reviewed (part 1: Casting A Narrative: Why Everything Must Change and part 2: The Minimalism of Statistics are linked).  Afterwards we are going to hang out and meet up with some people we know from online and actually see them in person.  Should be a grand affair!  ... more

This is the second part of a five part review of the new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope by Brian McLaren. 

When someone says that everything must change, we all expect that person to back up their plea with mounds of data. In the realm of global politics, reports are issued using tons of data, statistics, percentages, and graphs to visualize what is necessary to make everything change. While John Wilson in Christianity Today laments that McLaren does not have the statistics and data to back up his ideas of how to change the world, I have been learning to applaud McLaren for his minimalism of statistics. Everyone wants to see facts back up an idea---an apologetics for welfare, for gun control, for building that new sanctuary---yet really where have facts gotten us in Africa, in Vietnam, in Iraq? There comes a point when statistics become meaningless before our morality, our ethics, our gospel, and our hope. We have been given such a great salvation, such a great hope, that why can we not fight for everything to change, even when we don't have overwhelming statistics to back us up. We have the light that burns within us, a call to care for the orphan and the widow, the poor and the needy---and statistics will certainly show that those people do exist. And what if we don't know how to be most efficient, or do our jobs the best, or go into Africa with the right mix of micro-financing and development aid? Does that mean we should not try? McLaren certainly doesn't think so. ... more

This is the first of a five part review of the new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope by Brian McLaren.

Like an infomercial full of high hope, restless vigor, and a secret knowledge hidden away---until now!---Brian McLaren has thrown his full force against the all the problems of the world in his new book Everything Must Change. And does he mean everything! McLaren outlines the three major systems that make up our American driven world, the security system, the prosperity system, and the equity system; these systems rule the way of life as we know it, and in order for everything to change, these systems must be reformed, reworked, and reimagined. How will McLaren change everything? The key is in the subtitle: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. McLaren is not like the infomercial pitch-man, though he has as much passion, for he does not see his own ideas as the solution to world problems, he is instead fleshing out the revolution of hope preached by Jesus as the answer to global crises.

McLaren does not try to wow us with statistics, five step plans, requests for donations, or fancy rhetoric. McLaren is neither an economist, a politician, a social advocate, a lawyer, a diplomat, nor a businessman, what he does is instead cast a narrative to answer the questions of global crises. ... more