Christianitytoday.com has a nice article written by Scot McKnight on Brian LcLaren. McLaren's theology is especially expressed in his two books The Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change. I very much enjoyed both of these books. I'm using Secret Message in my "Kingdom of God I" class in RMS (as well as Ladd's The Gospel of the Kingdom).
McLaren says that he could only see the kingdom vision of Jesus when he came to a "place of cynically doubting much of what I had been told about Jesus." "To us the words of fellow emergent thinker Peter Rollins, the Northern Irish philosopher at Ikon community, McLaren experienced the "fidelity of betrayal." He had to betray the Jesus and the gospel and the church that nurtured him to become faithful to the Jesus of this kingdom vision."
I doubt McLaren's betrayal was that complete. But I don't doubt this happened. Because in many ways it's happened to me, too. I remain phenomenally indebted to my evangelical roots. They pointed me to Jesus. I'm still in love with Jesus, and this has caused me to want to know and make known the Real Jesus, whose message was about the beautiful kingdom he was bringing in. I see Brian doing that, too.
I'm not with him on everything. But hey, my wonderful wife Linda and I don't agree on everything either. McKnight does a very good job explaining what Brian is doing with Jesus and the kingdom, and offers helpful suggestions for furthering not only the dialogue but the kingdom itself.
