Brian on Deck
True to her word, my friend from NY sent me a free copy of Brian McClaren's most recent book: Everything Must Change so that I can review it on my humble blog. Have to say, without opening the book, I like the title :)
This is the busiest time of my semester, and I will have to climb out from under stacks of papers on Emerson (read a very good one today comparing E to punk rock ethics), Hawthorne, Bacon and Plato. But when I do...reading and commenting on EMC (I plan to do more than a simple review, of course) is the next thing on my list. As I told Anne, I am deeply honored, touched and encouraged, and hope to earn the purchase price with the work I put in here (I am not being paid any money, of course, as this is really a very humble blogship).
What is most fascinating is that I have not read a line of BMc. Not a line. I heard about him when this blog was new from Dave T. I was rather shocked, as a Christian newly returning to church of any kind (and faith of any kind) to hear that an emergent church existed, that people were upset and trying to leave the church I was re-entering after such prolonged effort! But in all fairness to those emerging (and is BMc a self-proclaimed emergent or merely scooped up, don't know), I re-entered worship as an Episcopalian and have never doubted that choice, or that accident, as it nearly was. I have written about this before, but I have been a Pentecostal (if childhood counts; I was certainly around Pentecostals), an active Campus Crusader, a Baptist, a Five Point pipe-smoking Calvinist, a Baptist again, a disillusioned critic and skeptic, then nothing. Now I consider myself a liberal Christian. I do not know if I have emerged or not, but I certainly do not believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, which has been for me a critical, critical sticking point most of my life; I have no philosophical pre-issues with a perfect Bible existing; indeed, I would love to have a book straight from the Creator. But what we have in the Bible collection, surely, is not that book. For in whatever manner it was inspired (or not) it came from human authors, and their mucky fingerprints are all over it. Surely the NT writers had extraordinary, even unique, religious and spiritual experiences. And then they wrote about them. But to confuse the written word, or reading the written word, with the experience itself is a grave error. A perfect, gleaming God-sent life-manual is a very comforting myth, but it does not exist. Neither, of course, do I deny the Bible's role, really the NT's role, in bringing me into the faith-fold and keeping me there. But it must be understood for what it is, as it is.
I mention this as I have heard, again very second hand, that BMc is controversial for his views on scripture and on soteriology (salvation). We shall see. If so, he is not the first! I actually think it was C.S. Lewis who said every view has been held by some man in every age. Liberation theologians have been issuing passionate calls to social justice since the 1960's...St. Francis did a similar and even more radical thing in the late twelfth century; we can never forget the social force of Luke's gospel or the Thread that requires protection of the poor and marginal going back to the Law and Prophets. Still, I am not a Crossanite, not yet at least; I do not think social justice is the distilled core of Christ's message...you can see I am chomping to dig in to EMC! I am inventing content based on its catchy title!
Within a month, by mid January, I will have something up here, probably a short series of posts, at the very least the first of those. I do hope the book is engaging. I read somewhere (perhaps the back cover) that BMc used to teach English, then became a pastor. Hah! It was the papers, I tell you! Too many bloody papers. They fry the mind.
***
Other than papers, some of which really are interesting, it is just that there are too many, I am doing pretty well.
Snow coming tonight, our first. I am more and more certain I live in one of the loveliest places on earth; I am also increasingly certain that we want to move when my son finishes high school. Helping my own wife through grad school has been utterly exhausting. She finishes this spring...or so I hear. What will life be like, with her done with school, working full time (for the first time ever) and my son gone...living closer to my campus? Let us hope I am still here, writing about it in three years.
Love to all. Must run. BMc on deck.
This is the busiest time of my semester, and I will have to climb out from under stacks of papers on Emerson (read a very good one today comparing E to punk rock ethics), Hawthorne, Bacon and Plato. But when I do...reading and commenting on EMC (I plan to do more than a simple review, of course) is the next thing on my list. As I told Anne, I am deeply honored, touched and encouraged, and hope to earn the purchase price with the work I put in here (I am not being paid any money, of course, as this is really a very humble blogship).
What is most fascinating is that I have not read a line of BMc. Not a line. I heard about him when this blog was new from Dave T. I was rather shocked, as a Christian newly returning to church of any kind (and faith of any kind) to hear that an emergent church existed, that people were upset and trying to leave the church I was re-entering after such prolonged effort! But in all fairness to those emerging (and is BMc a self-proclaimed emergent or merely scooped up, don't know), I re-entered worship as an Episcopalian and have never doubted that choice, or that accident, as it nearly was. I have written about this before, but I have been a Pentecostal (if childhood counts; I was certainly around Pentecostals), an active Campus Crusader, a Baptist, a Five Point pipe-smoking Calvinist, a Baptist again, a disillusioned critic and skeptic, then nothing. Now I consider myself a liberal Christian. I do not know if I have emerged or not, but I certainly do not believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, which has been for me a critical, critical sticking point most of my life; I have no philosophical pre-issues with a perfect Bible existing; indeed, I would love to have a book straight from the Creator. But what we have in the Bible collection, surely, is not that book. For in whatever manner it was inspired (or not) it came from human authors, and their mucky fingerprints are all over it. Surely the NT writers had extraordinary, even unique, religious and spiritual experiences. And then they wrote about them. But to confuse the written word, or reading the written word, with the experience itself is a grave error. A perfect, gleaming God-sent life-manual is a very comforting myth, but it does not exist. Neither, of course, do I deny the Bible's role, really the NT's role, in bringing me into the faith-fold and keeping me there. But it must be understood for what it is, as it is.
I mention this as I have heard, again very second hand, that BMc is controversial for his views on scripture and on soteriology (salvation). We shall see. If so, he is not the first! I actually think it was C.S. Lewis who said every view has been held by some man in every age. Liberation theologians have been issuing passionate calls to social justice since the 1960's...St. Francis did a similar and even more radical thing in the late twelfth century; we can never forget the social force of Luke's gospel or the Thread that requires protection of the poor and marginal going back to the Law and Prophets. Still, I am not a Crossanite, not yet at least; I do not think social justice is the distilled core of Christ's message...you can see I am chomping to dig in to EMC! I am inventing content based on its catchy title!
Within a month, by mid January, I will have something up here, probably a short series of posts, at the very least the first of those. I do hope the book is engaging. I read somewhere (perhaps the back cover) that BMc used to teach English, then became a pastor. Hah! It was the papers, I tell you! Too many bloody papers. They fry the mind.
***
Other than papers, some of which really are interesting, it is just that there are too many, I am doing pretty well.
Snow coming tonight, our first. I am more and more certain I live in one of the loveliest places on earth; I am also increasingly certain that we want to move when my son finishes high school. Helping my own wife through grad school has been utterly exhausting. She finishes this spring...or so I hear. What will life be like, with her done with school, working full time (for the first time ever) and my son gone...living closer to my campus? Let us hope I am still here, writing about it in three years.
Love to all. Must run. BMc on deck.
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