Washington National Cathedral

The Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith

The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, host

Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd talks about the emergent church with Brian McLaren, on the topic “Everything Must Change: The Radical Meaning of the Kingdom of God for Today’s World.”

McLaren believes that Christianity undergoes a major shift every 500 years of so. The previous shift occurred between the medieval world and the modern world, and the current shift is an adjustment to the postmodern world. “The story of the last 500 years in many ways for Christianity was the story of colonialism,” he posits. “When you have faith and economic and military power put together, you develop ways of arguing, ways of promoting your beliefs, that were very effective.”

This general trend began to break down in the United States after World War II, a rethinking of colonialism and industrialization, and critique from within of Western civilization. Christianity, wedded to modernity and analysis, faced a challenge. In the 1950s the mainline churches were known for supporting the status quo. When ministers from these denominations began to speak out against the Vietnam War, a break occurred between them and the people in the pews.

Now, in the postmodern world, ways of thinking about religion have utterly changed. If modernity was the era of systematic theologies, people are now rediscovering Christianity as a story. McLaren also detects a strong interest in reuniting two separate aspects of Christianity that should never have been separated: “privatized, personal faith and…a social, institutional faith.”

McLaren talks about the difference between orthodoxy—right beliefs—and orthopraxy—right actions. He believes that the mainline churches have shown a general willingness to change their theology with the times. The evangelical churches, on the other hand, have changed their practices while holding fast to traditional teachings. This trend has favored evangelical churches in recent decades. According to McLaren, the rigidity of both mainline and evangelical traditions is now being challenged.

Faith is far more than a private matter of improving our personal relationships. The church owes a higher allegiance to God than to the status quo, and it needs to rediscover the meaning of the Kingdom of God. The challenges are huge and urgent. McLaren names them as crises of planet, poverty, war, and religion. Christians, especially the young, want to address these crises and expect the church to speak and act.

About Brian McLaren

Brian McLaren is an internationally known author, speaker, pastor, and leader in the emergent church movement. He is founding pastor of the nondenominational Cedar Ridge Community Church outside Washington, D.C., and author, most recently, of Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope.

He is a frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs. He has appeared on many broadcasts including “Larry King Live,” “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly,” and “Nightline.” His work has also been covered in Time (where he was listed as one of American’s 25 most influential evangelicals), Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, and many other print media.

Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). His academic interests included Medieval drama, Romantic poets, modern philosophical literature, and the novels of Dr. Walker Percy. In 2004, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree (honoris causa) from Carey Theological Seminary in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

From 1978 to 1986, McLaren taught college English, and in 1982, he helped form Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, nondenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region (crcc.org). He left higher education in 1986 to serve as the church’s founding pastor and served in that capacity until 2006. During that time, Cedar Ridge earned a reputation as a leader among emerging missional congregations.

Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980’s, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer at seminaries and denominational gatherings, nationally and internationally. His public speaking covers a broad range of topics including postmodern thought and culture, Biblical studies, evangelism, leadership, global mission, spiritual formation, worship, pastoral survival and burnout, inter-religious dialogue, ecology, and social justice.

McLaren’s first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry. His second book, Finding Faith, is a contemporary apologetic, written for thoughtful seekers and skeptics. His third book, A New Kind of Christian further explores issues of Christian faith and postmodernity, and won Christianity Today’s “Award of Merit” in 2002. His fourth, More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix, presents a refreshing approach to spiritual friendship. A is for Abductive (coauthored with Dr. Leonard Sweet) and Adventures in Missing the Point (coauthored with Dr. Anthony Campolo) explore theological reform in a postmodern context, and a sequel to A New Kind of Christian, entitled The Story We Find Ourselves In, seeks to tell the biblical story in a new context. He is one of five co-authors of Church in the Emerging Culture.

His 2004 release, A Generous Orthodoxy, is a personal confession and has been called a “manifesto” of the emerging church conversation. The conclusion to the A New Kind of Christian trilogy was released in 2005, entitled The Last Word and the Word After That.

The Secret Message of Jesus explores the theme of the kingdom of God in the teachings of Jesus. “This book was written for a broad audience,” he explains, “from the spiritual-but-not-religious to Christian pastors and leaders. Everything I’ve written to this point has been a preparation for this book.”

His books have been or are being translated into many languages, including Korean, Chinese, French, Swedish, Norwegian, and Spanish. He has written for or contributed interviews to many periodicals, including Leadership, Sojourners, Worship Leader, and Conversations.

He serves as a board chair for Sojourners/Call to Renewal (sojo.net), and is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, a group of communicators seeking to broaden and deepen the dialogue about faith and public life. He is also a board member for Orientacion Cristiana. He has taught or lectured at several seminaries in the U.S. and abroad.