Generous Orthodoxy Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvini

Generous Orthodoxy Copyright © 2004 by Youth Specialties Youth Specialties Books, 300 South Pierce Street, El Cajon, CA 92020, are published by Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Avenue SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McLaren, Brian D., 1956- A generous orthodoxy : 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 / by Brian McLaren. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-310-25747-6 (hardcover) 1. Christianity--Essence, genius, nature. I. Title. BT60.M37 2004 270.8'3--dc22 2004008614 Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version (North American Edition). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Web site addresses listed in this book were current at the time of publication. Please contact Youth Specialties via e-mail (YS@YouthSpecialties.com) to report URLs that are no longer operational and replacement URLs if available. Editorial direction by Dave Urbanski Art direction by Jay Howver Editing by David Sanford Proofreading by Kristi Robison & Janie Wilkerson Cover design by Mark Arnold Cover and jacket photography by Blair Anderson Interior design by Holly Sharp Interior photography by Ryan Sharp Printed in the United States of America 02 03 04 05 06 07 / DC / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 I am a Christian because I have a sustained and sustaining confidence in Jesus Christ. I've lost and rediscovered that confidence a few times, which is a long and messy story worth simplifying and boiling down to manageable length in these first chapters. I know my original attraction to Jesus came as a young child. In my home and at Sunday school, I heard stories about Jesus. I remember a children's picture Bible that had a simple but beautiful picture of Jesus, seated, in a blue and white robe, with children of all races gathered around his knees. Some were leaning on him. Some were seated at his feet. Some had their arms around him. His arms were opened in an embrace that took them all in, and his bearded face carried a gentle smile a boy could trust. Looking back, I realize the illustration wasn't historically accurate. It was influenced more by a popular Sunday school song that I also loved ("red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world") than by ancient Middle Eastern realities. But in a way the picture was even truer than a historically accurate picture would have been; it probably would have had no red, yellow, black, or white children at all, but only brown Middle Eastern ones. The picture Bible was augmented in my imagination by flannel graph stories about Jesus. Flannel graph was a kind of 1950s high-tech precursor of overhead projectors, laptop video projectors, videos, and DVDs. The teachers were always kind women, sometimes even my own mother. Each would tell stories with an easel behind her. OnMcLaren, Brian D. is the author of 'Generous Orthodoxy Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvini', published 2004 under ISBN 9780310257479 and ISBN 0310257476.