Brian McLaren's DC Book Talk: A NEW KIND OF CHRISTIANITY

To help promote a new Emerging Christianity "conversation" in mid-city DC, Brian McLaren will be giving a book talk with DC Theology Pub. He will addressing the following questions: what role will Christian spirituality play in our lives and North American society in the coming decades? Is the Christian faith a spent force in the world—totally irrelevant to our lives—or has its true message been misunderstood and its transformative power for good gone untapped? Will Christian spirituality be used to promote injustice, division, and narrow-mindedness, or will it inspire a world where justice, transformation, and wisdom flourish? Brian McLaren will take up these and other questions while introducing us to the hopeful, challenging perspectives of the Emerging Christianity movement! (At the end of Brian's talk, we will be passing around a sign-up sheet for folks interested in participating in a new Emerging Christianity "Conversation" in DC starting in 2011.)

Certainly a lot of people are weighing in on this question of what the future identity of Christianity will look like; we’ve all read the commentators battling it out on the pages of newspapers and magazines. It’s a question that has significant social as well as faith implications. One of the most insightful answers to this question comes from author, justice activist, and progressive pastor Brian McLaren in his new book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith (2010). He suggests that Christianity should move from a religion of dogmas to one of significant questions, from a faith that has a backward-looking orientation to one with a future orientation.

Through his innovative writings and ideas, Brian McLaren has become one of the leading theorists and spokesmen for two important movements in contemporary Christianity—the emerging Christianity and missional movements.

While McLaren agrees that faith communities should conserve “what is precious and good from our past,” he rejects the notion that they should always look backwards. Rather, he urges Christians to see themselves “at heart as creative, prophetic, progressive, emergent, missional, and forward-looking people on a quest. A quest orientation challenges us to retain all our memories from the past, but then turns our focus towards the future, a future we hope not merely to endure, but by God's grace, to help create.” Such a reorientation of faith identity means we carve out ample space in our lives for asking, and re-asking, some big, fundamental questions.

McLaren goes on to explain that, “A quest orientation unleashes for us the transformative power of questions. Instead of seeing ourselves as a community bound together exclusively by age-old answers, we see ourselves as a community animated by what humorist-philosopher Garrison Keillor calls (with a wink) ‘life's persistent questions’ - the questions that each generation struggles with and then passes on to the next generation to become their own.”

In order to think about how Christianity might be re-envisioned in the 21st century, he writes on ten fundamental questions: These questions related to envisioning new ways to understand the ignored underlying theme of Biblical stories, the forgotten purpose of the church, and the joyful definition of the gospel in today’s society.

Event is free to the public and sponsored by An Emerging Christianity Conversation in DC & DC Theology Pub.

About Parking:
Parking is available after 5PM at the Reeves Government Center for $10 - the entrance to the parking is on U Street between 14th and 15th. Street parking is also available - best times for street parking is early in the evening on 14th Street or V Street - it is free after 6:30PM and on Weekends all day.

About the nearest Metro connection:
Busboys is 2 blocks from the Metro Green Line - U Street Cardozo stop

I hope you can join us for a great conversation with Brian Mclaren on December 14th!