 |
| |
| |
|
The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything
|
|
|
Average Rating:  out of 144 Reviews
|
Price: $14.99
|
|
Sale: $5.46
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Paperback
|
|
Author: Brian McLaren
|
|
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 291
|
|
Publication Date: 2007-04-03
|
|
Reading Level: 288
|
|
|
| |
|
Description: When Brian McLaren began offering an alternative vision of Christian faith and life in books such as A New Kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy, he ignited a firestorm of praise and condemnation that continues to spread across the religious landscape. To some religious conservatives, McLaren is a dangerous rebel without a doctrinally-correct cause. Some fundamentalist websites have even claimed he's in league with the devil and have consigned him to flames. To others though, Brian is a fresh voice, a welcome antidote to the staleness, superficiality, and negativity of the religious status quo. A wide array of people from Evangelical, Catholic, and Mainline Protestant backgrounds claim that through his books they have begun to rediscover the faith they'd lost or rejected. And around the world, many readers say that he has helped them find-for the first time in their lives-a faith that makes sense and rings true. For many, he articulates the promise of what is being called "emerging Christianity." In The Secret Message of Jesus you'll find what's at the center of Brian's critique of conventional Christianity, and what's at the heart of his expanding vision. In the process, you'll meet a Jesus who may be altogether new to you, a Jesus who is… - Not the crusading conqueror of religious broadcasting;
- Not the religious mascot of partisan religion;
- Not heaven's ticket-checker, whose words have been commandeered by the church to include and exclude, judge and stigmatize, pacify and domesticate.
McLaren invites you to discover afresh the transforming message of Jesus-an open invitation to radical change, an enlightening revelation that exposes sham and ignites hope, an epic story that is good news for everyone, whatever their gender, race, class, politics, or religion. "Pastor and best-selling author McLaren revisits the gospel material from a fresh-and at times radical-perspective . . . He does an excellent job of capturing Jesus' quiet, revolutionary style." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Here McLaren shares his own ferocious journey in pondering the teachings and actions of Jesus. It is McLaren's lack of salesmanship or agenda that creates a refreshing picture of the man from Galilee who changed history." --Donald Miller, Author of Blue Like Jazz "In this critical book, Brian challenges us to ask what it would mean to truly live the message of Jesus today, and thus to risk turning everything upside down." --Jim Wallis, Author of God's Politics and editor of Sojourners "Compelling, crucial and liberating: a book for those who seek to experience the blessed heat of Christianity at its source." --Anne Rice, Author of Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
Customer Reviews
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
Review Summary: Provocative |
Date: 2009-01-05 |
|
| |
Details: The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything by Brian McLaren is a book that assumes the church did not understand Jesus' `secret message." McLaren argues that when Jesus said "the kingdom of God is here now," He meant it literally. McLaren wants us to live this word by being peacemakers and trying to love each other.
There is a beautiful new book about Jesus, God , faith and what you will do after death entitled "The Enlightenment, What God Told Me After One Million Prayers: A Message for Everyone," by John H. Eagan. I just finished it. It's really great and deals with God, the creator, Jesus' teachings, and His Passion. It brought me to tears. I think the readers of McLaren's book will really enjoy The Enlightenment.
|
| |
|
Review Summary: Political Jesus |
Date: 2008-10-22 |
|
| |
Details: I recently read Brian McLaren's bold and challenging book: The Secret Message of Jesus, which was generously provided to me by the publisher in order that I might write about it on this blog.
Let's start with points of agreement. We can affirm much of "the secret message" that McLaren "recovers" in this book. Okay... forget the hyped-up title for a moment (the title sounds more like something from the Gnostic Gospels, or a new Da Vinci Code). If you can get past the McLaren's implicit claim to be just now, after 2000 years, recovering the original message of Jesus, you might just find a lot to agree with.
I appreciate the emphasis McLaren puts on the Kingdom of God as a central component to the gospel. This is missing in many evangelical presentations of the gospel, and its omission is glaring once we read the Gospels in their original context. McLaren is right to bring us back to the idea of God's reign and Christ's lordship as being central to the gospel.
I also affirm the aspects of the gospel that transform life on earth here and now. McLaren does a terrific job of reminding us that Christians should be working to see life here and now look more and more like life in the new heavens and new earth. He challenges us out of complacency to begin working to bring that future into the present. He rightly corrects several mechanistic views of "heaven" and shows how the biblical portrait of God's presence is so much greater than what we have settled for.
But it's here that McLaren swings the pendulum too far... way too far. McLaren's passion for seeing the Kingdom at hand, in the here and now, leaves hardly any hope for the hereafter. You won't find much here about hell or judgment or God's wrath. Instead, you will find an agenda for social action to make our world a better place. Not to say that this advice is useless, but McLaren's social agenda divorced from personal conversion through faith in Christ as the means of salvation leads us to the same cliff as last century's social gospel liberalism.
McLaren frowns on the evangelistic mentality that focuses on "saving souls from hell" because it conflicts with his embrace of inclusivism, which oozes out of this book at every point. Notice how many times he mentions Jesus' "inclusiveness." Not to say that he is altogether wrong when he speaks of Jesus' building bridges to outsiders. Evangelicals can too easily build walls between us and the people we're called to minister to. And in this sense, our exclusivist attitude is an affront to a loving God.
But if inclusiveness means embracing and accepting anyone (including Muslims, Hindus, and Jews) as part of God's Kingdom, we are far from the biblical picture that demands allegiance to the King (Jesus).
McLaren is delightfully counter-cultural when it comes to our capitalistic, consumerist, Western-soaked mindset. He shows how our worldviews fall short of the biblical picture. That is why it is so frustrating to watch him then capitulate so quickly to postmodern culture by refusing to preach Jesus as the world's True Lord and the only way to God. Where's the counter-cultural claim that Jesus is Lord and that His lordship is exclusive? Where's the counter-cultural biblical teaching on human sexuality? McLaren is counter-cultural in some ways and woefully culture-embracing in others.
Also troubling, he redefines repentance as "discovering you may be wrong." Is that it?
I thoroughly enjoyed much of McLaren's book, but I kept wanting him to say more, to be bolder in confronting our pluralistic, postmodern worldviews, not just the comfortable evangelical ghetto we inhabit.
That brings me to my final critique. The church and her role in salvation history is completely missing in this book. McLaren rightly condemns church abuses in the past and how Jesus' followers have botched His message. But McLaren never comes around to speak of the importance of the local church for God's Kingdom. McLaren advocates small group discussions of his book. But nowhere does he direct his readers to the broken, fallen, but nevertheless divinely commissioned followers of Christ found in churches all across the world.
I come away from this book saddened. Does theology have to be "either-or" all the time? Is there anyone who can effectively bring together the present implications of Jesus' message without neglecting its future implications? Is there anyone who can counter both evangelical culture's love affair with modernist assumptions and our world's blind leap into postmodernism's arms? |
| |
|
Review Summary: False teaching |
Date: 2008-10-15 |
|
|
| |
|
Details: What a louzy book. There is no secret message of Jesus. What Jesus has to say is completely found in God's Word, the Bible. It is the message of repentant faith found solely in the Savior, Jesus-- only one way for salvation. McLaren is very misinformed and trusts humanistic/ecumenical ideas and reinterprets sola scripture. Stay away from this book. It is completely flawed. God to God's Word. It alone is sufficient! |
| |
|
Review Summary: Too safe by far |
Date: 2008-09-08 |
|
|
| |
Details: This is the type of book that spiritually immature readers will castigate as they will perceive it as being anti-Christian or even anti-Jesus. In reality, it reads as a harmless, non-threatening, sermon.
Clearly, the author is frustrated with the current state of Christianity, and the world at large, and is trying to get his readers motivated enough to make changes. He correctly states that Jesus came to change the world, but regrettably, and owing to his own theological presuppositions, the author does not face up to the Big Lie of the Church - that Jesus came to die for our sins.
Honesty is what is now required from Christian leaders. Not more of the same. The forced and myopic interpretations of the past no longer wash. Honesty is the absolute prerequisite before any meaningful transformation can occur anywhere. But the author skirts around all the essential issues. Without a rejection of the manipulative and misleading concepts about Jesus himself, then Jesus' message can never be understood and will always be subject to confusion. |
| |
|
Review Summary: Great Introduction to the Kingdom of God |
Date: 2008-06-15 |
|
| |
|
Details: This book is written on a level that is very accessible and easily understandable. Therefore, I would recommend it if you haven't read much on the Kingdom of God and/or Jesus' message before. You may find McLaren's writing to be somewhat less "loaded" or profound than other writing on similar themes (take, for instance, that of N.T. Wright or Donald Miller). However, it still strikes some very relevant chords and makes some inspirationally "radical" observations. The thematic strands are very well laid out and easy to follow. A good read, all around. |
| |
|
| |
Similar Products
|
| |
| |
Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope
|
| |
| |
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
|
| |
| |
The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
|
| |
| |
A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey
|
| |
| |
Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality
|
|
| |
This Product is similar to and may be found in the Following Categories:
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
