Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0-7879-5599-X Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 28 March, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 (56 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Mixed review.
Comment: First, let me say that i think this book was very interesting. I also think that it gave some refreshing views on Christianity today. I am very new to the postmodern discussion so it may very well be that my views on this will change with time.
But let me share some of my frustrations:
1) Neo, one of the main characters in the book, believes in evolution. I do not know whether this is McLaren's views or not. First of all, evolution is a fully modern idea. I do not see how it plays out in a postmodern context. Second, if you want to look at it from a modern point of view, I believe that there is a lot more evidence against evolution than for it.
2) The author focuses very little attention on Jesus or the Word of God. It seems to me that if one is going to try to convince those with an evangelical background of the positives of the postmodern view one is going to have to use more scripture to justify one's point of view.
3) Sometimes it seems that the author is preaching humanism. It seems that he is looking strictly at the physical issues that are going on in the world. While I also believe that we need to do that, I believe that first and foremost people need the gospel of Jesus Christ to change their lives. If all we do is take care of one's needs and don't change their hearts, the real battle has been lost.
4) The author puts the Word of God on the same level as experience, community, etc. While I do see the need for experience and community, I believe that the scriptures should always be our main foundation(I know postmoderns don't like that word.)
Anyway, as I said, I am brand new in the postmodern dialogue. As time passes my views might change. Overall it was a very interesting read and I rather enjoyed it. I would recommend it for mature christians.
Rating: 2
Summary: Postmodern Christinaity Not the Answer
Comment: I cannot share the enthusiasm of many reviwers for this book. Though MacLaren does detail some of the problems in the modern church--consumerism, legalism, failure to include social compassion as part of its ministry, a sometimes over-rationalism--he then "throws the baby out with the bath water" in proposing (using the device of his mythic friend Neo) that postmodernism is the great solution to all its problems. Hence the author has created a false dichotomy--which may not matter to a philosophical postmodernist, but will to the average person. For MacLaren it is either modernism and all of its evils--many of which he has falsely identified with Christianity--or postmodernism, which to him loosens those traditional rationalistic bonds that have chained Christians for so long. But this solution has many fallacies. First, historically, modernism is a product not of the Reformation, but of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment downplayed and re-defined Christianiy, even if it did not oppose it in a "pure" form. Orhtodox Christianity in fact would have and does reject much of the Enlightenment agenda, though not all of it. Second, postmodernism is in reality an "anti-system." It appears to be aimed at undermining any "totalizing" truth. But if this worlview prevails, one then has to face the question (not really faced at all by MacLarn): What replaces modernism? Chaos or anarchy in truth? How long could this situation be sustained in any culture, even the Eastern cultures with which the author through Neo has so much sympathy because of their alleged "less rationalistic" approach (not necessarily true either). The point is, postmodernism leads to radical pluralism without any semblance of order in epitemology or life in gemeral. Now many would like this, but, as MacLaren unwittingly tells the reader, even postmodernism is tied often to fragmented "political" agendas. It is "us" against the modernist world, whether that is radical environmentalism, radical ideas of rights for every group, etc. Third, A New Kind of Christian itself is full of the very modernist ideas it purports to reject. Why for example is evolution the only apparent alterntive in terms of the faith/science debate? Was not evolution a long-term result of an Enlightenment worleview--the shift from Newtonian mechanism to a sort of "deist naturalism" (God outside the box, intervening only to establish natural laws) to naturalism and its attendant "scientism" (the exaltation of science, whatever that term means to a person)? Why does Neo (MacLaren) insist on the validity of that worldview of the natural world when it itself is so rooted in modernism? It is as if he wishes to "pick and choose" his favorite theories and practices to fit his particular predilections. Fourth, for a Christian who uses his/her Bible, Neo's answers are simply too facile. Of course the Bible was not written as a systematic theology, but does that mean it then has only the meaning we choose to give it. Is the subject the only one that counts? The postmodernist would tend to embrace a non-objective and very subjective approach to it-if he used it at all as authoritative--but this means in the long run that any and all interpretations must be viewed as correct. Is this a recipe for stability of the faith? Finally, I liked Neo's veiled advocacy of some practices in the church, for example, liturgy and tradition, and also his disdain for evangelism that is not genuine and relational. But once again, he goes too far. What about the other means? Is preaching now to be eviscerated to be replaced by social issues? Is personal sin an anachronism, to be replaced by "social" sin? If people do bad things, why do they do them? Is it only their environment that produces this? If he says yes, he is appealing once again to modernism/Enlightenment worldview. In short, this book can only confuse the true seeker. It may make him or her happy, but is personal happiness the summum bonum of life with God? Even Neo answered no to that question. No, the goal of the "true Christian" (not the new Christian) is to glorify God and love one's neighbor, in that order, because without that order, no one can truly love one's neighbor. THis new kind of Christianity may also stimulate some to become involved in social causes, but for what reason? They cannot truly understand how to love others until they grasp how to love God. If you want to discover how postmodern Christians think, read this book. If you want answers, you will, at best, find only short term ones here.
Marc Clauson
Associate Professor of History
Cedarville University, Ohio
Rating: 1
Summary: This is not orthodox, evangelical Christianity, Beware!
Comment: Song of a "New Kind of Christian"
Are you stuck in a fundamentalist fraternity,
prisoners of your own philosophical modernity?
Then friends, join me, for I have seen the light
and you know what? I think I'm right.
Of course, you too may be right
if the search is within your sight.
It's all a matter of existential wanderings
filled with lofty thoughts and ponderings.
Just follow Derrida's tautology
and you may stumble upon some satisfying theology.
And if truth is not within your reach
so much the better for you to teach
others to have an open mind.
For happiness is in the search, not in what you find.
I reject the fathers of church history
for we can't know truth, it's a mystery.
Don't tell me that the Bible is inerrant
It has good things to say, but we must be tolerant.
God will understand that we have reached a new plane,
one too intellectual and philosophical to explain.
Don't bother me with your jargon and hobby horses.
I would rather follow the novel courses.
One in which I never take a stand
Unless of course it is to help my fellow man.
I am a Christian of the Newest Kind
Searching for something I will never find.
 |
Title: The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0787963879 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 21 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: More Ready Than You Realize by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0310239648 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.99 |
 |
Title: Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel by Brian D. McLaren, Tony Campolo ISBN: 0310253845 Publisher: Youth Specialties Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
 |
Title: Finding Faith by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0310238382 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
 |
Title: Church on the Other Side, The by Brian D. McLaren ISBN: 0310252199 Publisher: Zondervan Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
