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A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, ... anabaptist/anglican, metho (Emergentys)
by Brian D. McLaren
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Zondervan/Youth Specialties (2006-02-01)
ISBN: 0310258030
EAN: 9780310258032
Dewy Decimal #: 270.83
Paperback: 352 pages
SKU: 112108010
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: ...no markings or highlighting...minor wear on cover
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
By celebrating strengths of many traditions in the church (and beyond), this book will seek to communicate a “generous orthodoxy.”
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Customer Reviews
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A generous orthodoxy indeed
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-12-23
I read this book as a last ditch effort to try to save my faith. I read it at a time where I could no longer stomach the harsh judgements of the mainstream christian voice.
This book gave me hope. This author gave me hope, for a time, that christianity could eventually become something less ugly , less hateful than it has become today.
I lost my faith completely but I think there is still hope in the emerging church and people like McLaren, who are generous in their orthodoxy.
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A Generous Orthodoxy
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-03-27
I can't say that I agree with every single thing Brian McLaren says in this book. How could almost anyone who was raised in the church? A lot of what is said in this book really resonates with me, though. I may not have been a little bit irked by some small details, but I think the overall message of this book is one that all Christians should embrace. We DON'T have every aspect of theology figured out and we're still in a process for getting it figured out that we will never complete. That CHRIST should be the center of our belief system and all CHRISTians should strive to follow Christ. As Christians we need to look beyond the walls of our sanctuaries and look out into the world and look for opportunities to bless the WORLD (after all, in the Lord's eyes, we are all equally wretched human beings). And we need to STOP picking and fighting among ourselves over trivial doctrines and EMBRACE what we have in common and LEARN what we can from other traditions. I think that is really what McLaren is trying to tell us with this book.
I have some general comments about the book. Brian McLaren is a wizard at the keyboard. The writing style here is superb and it is also very readable. In a world where time is getting harder and harder to find, this is important. It is also quite informative in aspect to Church History, which I have never had a good grasp on. It serves as a great overview for someone new to the subject and now that I have a small (but existent!) foundation, I am interested in reading up on the topic more thoroughly. Also, Brian gives tons of suggestions for further reading (with 148 total footnotes) so you definitely don't have to stop here. Lots of books to be read.
A lot of people have dismissed this book as being Un-Biblical. To that I ask, "Are you serious?" Brian cites scripture throughout the book and doesn't say much of anything like "Here's the part where I flush my Bible down the toilet." Anyone who finds this book Un-Biblical simply confuses me, and I've yet to find someone to convince me of that statement. They just convince me that they didn't really READ the book.
A lot of people seem to think that this is some attempt to pull the floor out from under the religious right. This is another argument that simply perplexes me. Almost every single time McLaren uses the words "liberal" or "conservative" they have absolutely NOTHING to do with politics. Usually Brian is talking about two different approaches to interpreting the Bible and how each of them have their own set of problem and we need to look to an alternative that sheds those
Another reviewer accused Mclaren of doubting the existence of Hell. I'm not sure what book they were reading. McLaren just leaves the judgment aspect to God because who are depraved humans to exhibit divine judgment on each other.
I hope not to sound like a complete jerk, but I just SO confused by the negative reviews for this book. I just don't understand. For anyone who found this book to be un-Biblical, or heresy or liberal propaganda, I'd encourage you to re-read it. I think the problem is that people tend to take minor passages from this book that may be slightly provocative (which are really tongue-in-cheek and clever, not meant to be taken too seriously) and they BLOW them out of proportion to the point where they miss out on McLaren's main point. This book is meant to be read with an open mind, so if you're ready for a challenging, thought provoking, book by all means open up your mind and read it. Thanks to this book, I have thought more about what my own version of orthodoxy looks like more than I ever have. I think that if he reads this review, McLaren will rejoice that at least one of his readers has gotten what he hoped out of this book.
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Post-modern Orthodoxy, very relevent....
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-11-24
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
The forward/intro didn't seem interesting.
Chap 1. "The Seven Jesuses I have known" was my favorite part of the book. First I like how he shared his positive experiences with different communities & approaches to Christianity. He discusses theological focuses such as the cross/salvation (conservative Protestant), Holy Spirit/experience (Pentecostal), resurrection/sacraments (Catholic), incarnation/immanence (Eastern Orthodox), living the gospel (ana-baptist), missional (Evangelical), and God of justice & peace (liberal Protestant). That's my "off the top of my head" summary anyway...
It sincerely sounds like he has been committed to believing and living each of these different approaches at different points in his life, and for the last 10 years has been trying to make sense of it all, and "emerge" with a belief system that respects all of them, and perhaps unifies them. In the second half of the book, he discusses the positives he sees in different Christian groups.
Generous means inclusive/unifying these differing Christian ways, while Orthodoxy implies the doctrinal/belief systems of the modern world are adjusted in this post-modern world, with a more simple trust in Jesus as Lord (for both individuals and communities). This generous orthodoxy incorporates doctrines & practices from different denominations, tradition, Scripture, etc. It isnt something he really defines, although he says it wouldnt be pluralistic. I guess the point is that is isnt something set in stone, for which people need to conform. The vision is that post modern people can bring their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences to the Christian table without being shunned.
There are particular beliefs he does speak against, including determinism, pre-destination, inerrancy & infallibility of Scripture, pluralism, authority of hierarchy/papacy, prosperity, "left-behind", and more I cant recall right now; while promoting political activism, environmental activism, mission work, living apart from society (Mennonites, Omish, etc), bible as narrative, small group gatherings, openness to evolution & modern science... In general, I think his beliefs follow the trend of the post-modern Christian populace, so it is fitting to have it written in a book as somewhat of an Orthodoxy.
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An excellent vision of a Christian orthodoxy
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-09-29
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I absolutely loved Brian McLaren's "A New Kind of Christian", a book that opened up a whole new world for me of possibilities of staying within the Christian faith, something on which I had almost given up. Rob Bell's "Velvet Elvis", in a different way, did the same. So I approached this next book by McLaren feeling exceptionally positive towards him and his writing.
I wasn't disappointed. However this book is very different than "A New Kind of Christian". Once you get past the amusingly-titled but a little wordy Chapter 0 McLaren goes on a tour through different denominations and styles within Christianity, highlighting the good points about them (as well as looking at the bad), showing what we can all learn from this part of the church, and taking those good parts in order to build them into a new 'generous' orthodoxy. It's a great idea and it's also good to read a book which is very positive about so many denominations.
Of course there are the negatives, and Brian says that he is from a particular part of the church and so perhaps he gives them a harder time (the conservative evangelical/fundamentalist wing). As this coincides very much with how I feel about that branch of Christianity that's no problem for me but I suppose readers from that tradition might find it uncomfortable reading at times. We're left in no doubt that McLaren is not a big fan of televangelists but he is a strong supporter of the green movement, that he is learning more to value the Roman catholic and Anglican ideas about liturgy and the mystical side of the church.
What works very well is that each of the different elements in the book (missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetical, biblical etc) get their own chapter where he delves into that tradition/idea and often gives the history of the movement which was fascinating for me with many of these. He seems able to see the bigger picture with many of these denominations and, as usual in his style, he is positive about many things within them. It was good to read an upbeat book although there were also parts where, with Brian, I almost despaired. The chapter arrangement meant that I read this book over a couple of weeks, dipping into a chapter here and there, and it gave me time to mull over what he was saying and to think about the overall point.
I salute Brian McLaren for this excellent look at a generous orthodoxy (or at least working towards creating one), a church for our 21st century which learns from the mistakes of the past but also doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater but picks up those good aspects of the traditions and incorporates them into our postmodern world. This was an excellent read, a book I am sure I will return to many times, and of course the author's humble writing style is, as always, appealing.
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a few good bits
Rating  (2)
Date: 2007-08-25
4 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Its hard to pin this guy down. he doesn't seem to want to take a stand on much that is not PC. That does make him controversial.
His point about the Bible being narrative theology was well done, though I've thought about the Hebrew taking of the promise land in quite the terms he described. He seems to be open to evolution as an idea, which may bother some, but he doesn't really dwell on this. At one points he mentions that the substitutionary atonement was not in the original creeds and seems to infer that perhaps shouldn't be among our fundamentals (though he doesn't say this directly). Many others, including myself, see this as one of the very foundations of Christian belief and how one can practice the presence of God (which he calls us to) without experiencing this truth atonement puzzles me. I also am not sure what he has against the Patriarchs in the Bible bt he apologises for the fact that patriarchy is there.
His presentation of the Anabaptists was great. So was his presentation of Pentecostals and contemplatives, two groups that aren't often associated. He does sight the reformed faith as being a creed which led to slavery in the new world or at least justified it. As far as I know, it was the Northern part of America which tended to be of the reformed faith and the south (especially the rich slave owning ones) tended to adhere mostly to the Anglican Church. (I am neither)
I would disagree with one of his presuppositions, namely, that we need to change our message because we live in a dynamic context. I disagree. There is nothing new under the sun. The problems of sin, immorality, evil, depression that faced my parent's (and McLaren's) generation are the same today. Our reaction to them maybe different and our culture may be different, but our problems are the same and we need the eternal gospel preached to us, though perhaps in a different form, we need the same message.
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