Interacting with Brian McLaren Ten Questions in A New Kind of Christianity: The TheOoze Interviews

First let me admit that I am still in the process of reading A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren. Overall so far, I find it a thoughtful and thought provoking book and, I think that the questions are very necessary. In fact, a few years ago, I began to look at essential questions that would help recover the apostolic doctrine spoken of in Acts 2:42.

I am especially interested in the narrative question coupled with the authority question but, I see them as interlinked and interlocked. In the above interview with Spencer Burke on TheOoze Brian explains that the narrative as we understand it today is a foreign narrative and I believe that he is correct there. I do not have to rehash what he said as you can watch it for yourself and I suggest that you do several times.

What I would like to suggest is that rather than starting the narrative with Abraham… the rabbis have done that and... the new perspectives on Paul has done a lot of good work on changing the narrative… at least to a degree. But, I would actually like to see us begin our understanding of the narrative from Jesus perspective. Since we are Christians, followers of Jesus, then, what he taught about the narrative and biblical authority should in my view, be the driving force in determining our narrative.

One of the places where Jesus differed from the rabbinical line of thought about the narrative was in the definition of the word of God. In the New Testament writings He defined the word of God as the gospel of the kingdom and his followers defined it as either the gospel or Jesus himself. This gives the narrative a solely redemptive purpose. I am interested in what all of the critics of McLaren think about the totally redemptive focus that Jesus taught. Certainly, there is plenty of room for asking the questions and it would seem to me that the critics would be interested in the answers.