black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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
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
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
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
…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
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
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
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
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

Baptism Forgiving Guilt
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Country Discovered Gnomon Shadow Sundials
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
Sometimes I have experienced God in extraordinary ways – in dramatic surprises or soul-expanding insights or unexplainable mystical encounters.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Encouragement Inspiration Spiritual
You are cleansed from guilt, and you are becoming a cleaner, healthier, more whole person.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Healthier Person Understand
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
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

Book Feelings Leader
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
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
At their best, religious and spiritual communities help us discover this pure and naked spiritual encounter.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Community Religious Spiritual
Too often we see the Bible through whatever lens we get from our culture.
BRIAN D. MCLAREN

Bible Biblical Lenses
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Brian D. McLaren Quotes