A Generous Orthodoxy By Brian D. McLaren Zondervan, ISBN: 0-310-25747-6
Review by John Goddard
This book would be worth the cover price for the title alone. A Generous Orthodoxy is a personal confession and an offer of hope to those who are struggling to relate our Christian faith to the challenges of the postmodern, post-critical, post-Christendom world.
Brian McLaren, a respected writer and speaker within the emergent church networks, outlines what a new kind of Christianity might look like in our new world – a Christianity beyond the conflicts of conservative and liberal, based on the generosity of God’s grace within the integrity of traditional creedal orthodoxy. The term generous orthodoxy was coined by Yale theologian Hans Frei, who once commented that “Generosity without orthodoxy is nothing, but orthodoxy without generosity is worse
than nothing.”
McLaren begins by describing why he is a Christian, before going on to explain what kind of a Christian he is. This second section of the book unpacks the outrageous subtitle of this book: Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/calvinistic + anabaptist/anglican + methodist + catholic + green + incarnational + epressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian. Put briefly, generous orthodoxy seeks a place beyond conflict where we might celebrate diversity – a place beyond the family infighting that has sadly characterised Christianity for too long. A place of generosity…
This book will upset many, and will be important because of that. Like Dave Tomlinson’s The Post Evangelical and Steve Chalke and Alan Mann’s The Lost Message of Jesus, McLaren will be accused by his conservative friends of betraying the evangelical cause, and fifteen years ago I’d have held their coats whilst they picked up the stones. But today I suspect that A Generous Orthodoxy is saying what many are feeling – myself included. This book is not the answer, but please don’t miss the significance of the questions. Highly recommended.
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