Washington National Cathedral

The Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith

The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, host

How is Christianity changing in the new millennium? What questions should Christians ask themselves about their faith in a rapidly changing world? Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III and internationally known author, speaker, and activist Brian McLaren examine important questions facing Christians today.

McLaren has described Christianity today worldwide as being “in trouble” but “pregnant with possibility.”

The bad news: Mainline traditions have aging and dwindling populations. Even in places around the world where churches are growing, beliefs can be shallow, and some churches are afflicted by financial corruption. McLaren says that his own Evangelical tradition is too closely tied to the status quo, favoring war over peace, the rich over the poor, and industrialization over stewardship of creation.

The hope: McLaren describes the value of the Gospel and expresses hope that the church can “rediscover its motivating and inspiring and transforming dynamic, and let that loose again, but maybe without some of the conceptual static that’s really causing us a lot of trouble.” Many Christians approach the Bible with a preconceived notion that it is a “divinely inspired constitution. It’s supposed to do for the Christian religion what the U.S. Constitution does for the nation,” McLaren illustrates.

But the Bible is not a rule book or even a set of laws (although of course it contains laws). “The Bible came together centuries before anything like a modern constitution,” he points out, adding that the Bible contains many different forms of literature.

McLaren proposes that Christians view the Bible as a portable library. A library preserves important arguments, whereas a constitution seeks to eliminate arguments.

To understand the Book of Ruth, for example, it helps to know when in history the book was written. McLaren points out that immigration—a timely subject today—is a major subject of Ruth. The topic of foreign identity is handled very differently in the Book of Ezra. To sort through these contrasting stories about foreignness, McLaren recommends turning to the Holy Spirit for guidance.

McLaren suggests that Christians try viewing the Hebrew Scriptures as leading toward a revelation that comes in the form of a human being, and that Christ’s message flows out in all portions of the New Testament. Christians should not favor one New Testament book over another.

He summarizes three recommendations for Christians: Rediscover the meaning of Jesus’ Gospel of the Kingdom of God; love God; and love your neighbor—especially your neighbor of a different background.

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.