Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 June 2008 19:15:11
A friend, who so got me and the whole baptism thing, gave me a copy of A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren to read and so was the train reading on my recent trip. Now I've read this exploration of faith in a contempory context before, (and technically owned a copy, although it had been living on a bookshelf the other end of the country for a while now), and so this week was a revisit. It was like a first read though; not sure if it was because I was a bit head mashed, faith wise, last time I went through this book or just 'cause it was a while ago.
Anyway whatever it was a good read, even though in places I didn't find it comfortable. I also found it really useful because it was a book which addressed, indirectly, some of my issues about the baptism but also some of my issues about the big adventure.
It was a book which made me begin to think that rather than being spiritually schizophrenic I might actually just be a product of my time, culture and upbringing. McLaren sub-titles his book "why I am a missional+ evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/ contemplative + fundamentalist/ calvinist + anabaptist/ anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent+ unfinished Christian"; I can kind of identify with that.
In terms of the big adventure McLaren talks about how you can end up doing stuff by accident. He also talks about how theology comes out of experience. As somebody who is currently feeling like they have somehow, almost accidently, blagged their way into a different dimension because they started off wanting to use theology to work out their own experience I so get this. Also I get the fact about merely wanting to contribute to the wider conversation.
Anyway as I say an interesting and worthwhile read and I am so glad that somebody very wise worked out that I just needed that book to be thrown at me right now.