What’s the Story Jack? or The Narrative Question

by The RevNo Comments
This is the first of ten posts on Brian McLaren’s, “A New Kind of Christianity”. As we begin this little quest of ours I want you to know that I am not commenting on the introductory chapters and just diving into the “red meat”, so to speak. Also, I cannot reproduce the book in these posts. I will do my best to summarize without being overly simplistic or reductionistic. Each post will be two parts. The first will be a summary of McLaren’s discussion and the second will be my reflections.Without further ado… The Narrative Question: What is the overarching storyline of the Bible? For us to make sense of any book we must come to some conclusion about what is its main idea. We do this so that we can make interpretive decisions regarding a text’s finer details. To answer this question McLaren contrasts two ways of understanding the overarching storyline. The first way is that of the “Six Line Diagram”:This...
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A New Kind of Christianity

by The RevNo Comments
I have been reading Brian McLaren’s newest book, A New Kind of Christianity. It has totally engaged me. My mind is wrestling through the challenges that he has laid out. I am about half way through the text and I am very frustrated that he end-noted instead of foot-noted, I have a callous now from marking my place at the end-notes (OK not really, but you get my point). I am going to write ten more posts on the book and in each one I am going to interact with the question that McLaren proposes.Here’s your chance to look into the future: What is the overarching story line of the Bible? How should the Bible be understood? Is God violent? Who is Jesus and why is he important? What is the gospel? What do we do about the church? Can we find a way to address human sexuality without fighting about it? Can we find a better way of viewing the future? How should the followers of Jesus relate...
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