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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. McLaren

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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Communities Network Our Persons
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Future Needful Provide Say Urgently
To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Christian Wall Way
To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Generously Mounted Truth Wall
A friend of mine says that in the world of religion we often have ignorance on fire and intelligence on ice.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Fire Ignorance Passion
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

Church Grace Ideas
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

Liberal Orthodoxy Right Thinking
A 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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Admit Christian Claim Orthodixes
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. MCLAREN

Christian God Humble Poetry
At their best, religious and spiritual communities help us discover this pure and naked spiritual encounter.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Community Religious Spiritual
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

More Pleasure Possessions Scared Thing
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?’
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Couple Jesus Swimming
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Art Gay Issues Truthfully
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Church Out Way Work
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

Appreciate Granger Legitimate Mission
You are cleansed from guilt, and you are becoming a cleaner, healthier, more whole person.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Healthier Person Understand
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. MCLAREN

Heaven Message Primarily Purpose
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Humble Thinking Vision
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

Fire Jesus People Postmortem
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

Christian Couple Wall
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Art Faces Jesus
…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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Grateful Thinking Tragedy
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Believe Our Suicidal World
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

Anybody Beauty Change Everything Grasp
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Intelligence Progressive Realization Thing
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?
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Killers Spinning Violence
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

Appear Control Fusion Happen Matter Possible Remote

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.

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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.

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