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. MCLARENWe 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.
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?
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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,
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The cross is almost a distraction and false advertisement for God.
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I was relaxing in my parents’ swimming pool with my brother, Peter. I asked him how the engineering business was going, and he reciprocated: ‘How’s the ministry world going?’
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…the tragedy of consumerism: one acquires more and more things without taking the time to ever see and know them, and thus one never truly enjoys them. One has without truly having. The consumer is right-there is pleasure to be had in good things.
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I had to face the possibility that the art of living in the way of Jesus was no longer carried on in a holistic way by any single tradition.
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When any sector of the Church stops learning, God simply overflows the structures that are in the way and works outside them with those willing to learn.
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A sacred and almost unspeakable pleasure, but the consumer wrongly thinks that one finds this pleasure by having more and more possessions instead of possessing them more truly through grateful contemplation. And here we are, living in an economy that perpetuates this tragedy.
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A shared reappraisal of Jesus’ message could provide a unique space or common ground for urgently needed religious dialogue – and it doesn’t seem an exaggeration to say that the future of our planet may depend on such dialogue.
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We must never underestimate our power to be wrong when talking about God, when thinking about God, when imagining God, whether in prose or in poetry.
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At their best, religious and spiritual communities help us discover this pure and naked spiritual encounter.
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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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Seventh-Gay Adventists isn’t just a helpful movie, important for the way it can help congregations of any denomination deal graciously and truthfully with the issue of homosexuality.
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Our networks of dialogue and action thus extend beyond Christian communities to persons of all faiths, as well as to communities that are not themselves faith-based. We welcome allies and allegiances wherever we find common cause.
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Baptism is rich in meaning. It suggests cleansing. When you are a disciple, you understand that you are cleansed by Christ. You understand that Christ died in your place on the cross, paying for your sins, fully forgiving you for all your wrongs.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN