I have a problem when they ask me this question because it assumes that the primary purpose of Jesus’ coming and the primary message of Jesus was a message about how to get to heaven.
BRIAN D. MCLARENThe Bible is not considered an accurate, absolute, authoritative, or authoritarian source but a book to be experienced and one experience can be as valid as any other can.
More Brian D. McLaren Quotes
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What is dark matter? How did the big bang happen? Why does the speed of light appear to be absolute? Is cold fusion possible? How do you program a TV remote control?
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
The Church has little idea how unorthodox it is at any given moment. If a church can’t yet be perfectly orthodox, it can, with the Holy Spirit’s help and by the grace of God, be perpetually reformable.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
I don’t think we’ve got the gospel right yet.I don’t think the liberals have it right. But I don’t think we have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy.
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I think it changes everything. You can say the same creed that you said before, but now it’s not a creed that grasps God in the fist of the words, but it’s a creed that points up to a beauty that’s beyond anybody’s grasp.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
Ask me if Christianity (my version of it, yours, the Pope’s, whoever’s) is orthodox, meaning true, and here’s my honest answer: a little, but not yet.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
You can’t capture it in a word or a formula. When you get to that humble place where the beauty of God has overwhelmed you,
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
One of the things that’s happening to a lot of us is that there’s this vision of the beauty of God that transports us and that takes us to a new depth and a new height. It’s one of those things about beauty.
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And what if, instead of arguing about which form is correct and legitimate, we were to honor, appreciate, and validate one another and see ourselves as servants of one grander mission, apostles of one greater message, seekers on one ultimate quest?
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
The cross is almost a distraction and false advertisement for God.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
Sometimes I have experienced God in extraordinary ways – in dramatic surprises or soul-expanding insights or unexplainable mystical encounters.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall.
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The scarily brilliant Romantic poet and visionary William Blake dared to say what many of us have perhaps thought but kept to ourselves: “A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there’s more conversation.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
I googled some pictures of sundials to check that it was the tall shadow casting bit (it is) and then discovered that Saint Sulpice in Paris has a rather fascinating large gnomon- which I shall endeavour to see on my next visit to that fair city. Thanks for such a great word, which I shall try to remember.
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We should consider the possibility that many, and perhaps even all of Jesus’ hell-fire or end-of-the-universe statements refer not to postmortem [after death] judgment but to the very historic consequences of rejecting his kingdom message of reconciliation and peacemaking.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN -
The Bible is not considered an accurate, absolute, authoritative, or authoritarian source but a book to be experienced and one experience can be as valid as any other can.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN