Generous Orthodoxy

I finally got my hands on Brian McLaren's "Generous Orthodoxy". It is hard to put down - which is why I haven't posted much. In fact I have been neglecting other readings I am supposed to be doing. He says things in there that I've been saying for a long time - and he articulates them much better than I could. What is really cool is that maybe a week before I got it Sharon and I were chatting about what does being "saved" really mean. We agreed that much of Christiandom had missed the mark on that one, but it was hard to put into words what it should be. The chapter called "Jesus: Saviour of What?" is a great articulation of this. I have been saying forever that Christianity is more about life here and now than it is about life in the hereafter. In "In the End - The Beginning" Jurgen Moltmann proposes that the language of the hereafter is for the living more than the dead, then the focus on the hereafter in the Church has not been overly helpful in speaking life to the living. There is too much fear in Christianity which is supposed to be about Jesus' perfect love, something that casts out fear. Also I love the idea that there is another way other than exclusivism, inclusivism and universalism. I have leaned towards what I called radical inclusivism, but it doesn't completely satisfy naming my thinking on that because I am convinced that there is something special and unique about the claims of Christ. I'm excited about that - even if it isn't named yet, the fact that other people are unsatisfied with the current categories gives me a lot of hope.

I am going to attempt a series here in the next few days talking about Jesus in relationship with history. I call it Jesus: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Watch for it. In the meantime I have been musing about an Invitational faith in the Freedom Vineyard group, enjoy.