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 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.
More Brian D. McLaren Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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At their best, religious and spiritual communities help us discover this pure and naked spiritual encounter.
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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.
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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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A friend of mine says that in the world of religion we often have ignorance on fire and intelligence on ice.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN