Brian McLaren Kills Another Cow
God bless Amazon.com and their timely shipping. I received Brian's new book "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.
I am 50 pages into the book. Ladies and Gents one of the cows is down. I repeat one of the sacred cows is down. I started a list in a notebook of the cows that are going to be murdered during the reading of this book.
Today's cow was sitting comfortably, far away in my subconscious. This cow had been established and secure in his home for years now. He was well feed(with my ever-lingering modernist mindset), sitting in the green cozy home along with all of his other friends.
Today's cow was named Creed. No not after the band. I am referring to the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds. I think I should mention that this cow's life was taken before Chapter 1. Mclaren has done and excellent job of giving the reader every opportunity to back out of reading the book. If you are not scared through the foreword, introduction, and the disclaimer titled, "For mature audiences only" you are just as ruined as I. Throughout those first 40 pages I was only shocked once..that is where Creed took a bullet to the head.
Now keep in mind...I re-read the portion several times in order to really grasp what he was saying. Mclaren states that although the new orthodoxy which he is living, consistently, unequivocally, unapologetically upholds and affirms the A & N creeds, it also acknowledges that a number of items many hold as vital for orthodoxy are found nowhere in the seminal creeds. He also states that generous orthodoxy, affirms that scripture itself remains above creeds and that the Holy Spirit may use scripture to tweak our creedal understandings and emphases from time to time, so that new creeds are needed to give voice to the cry of faith today.
Yeah I am still processing through this. So I know that the bible is infallible. I know that our interpretations are not. I guess what I see in my heart is that I held the creeds pretty highly. I guess I liked that the core of my belief system fit into a nice neat package that I could reference to, that I could read to get the warm fuzzies, and that I could sing about in short simple melodies that were energizing.
But there is room for tweaking?!?!?!?!? What the hell?
I am done for now.....
posted by Kat @ 11:21 PM
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