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.
BRIAN D. MCLARENA generous orthodoxy, in contrast to the tense, narrow, or controlling orthodoxies of so much of Christian history, doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is humble. It doesn’t claim too much. It admits it walks with a limp.
More Brian D. McLaren Quotes
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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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Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. Are we learning anything, or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence?
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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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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.
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You are cleansed from guilt, and you are becoming a cleaner, healthier, more whole person.
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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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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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So we must realize this: the suicidal framing story that dominates our world today has no power except the power we give it by believing it. Similarly, believing an alternative and transforming framing story may turn out to be the most radical thing any of us can ever do.
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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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Sometimes I have experienced God in extraordinary ways – in dramatic surprises or soul-expanding insights or unexplainable mystical encounters.
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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?
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The thing I love about The Beatitudes Society is they represent faith and intelligence on fire and there’s enthusiasm and passion and a realization that a more open and progressive approach to faith is something to celebrate.
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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.
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At their best, religious and spiritual communities help us discover this pure and naked spiritual encounter.
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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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN