McLaren talks Homebrewed Christianity

My buddy Chad and his friend Tripp interviewed Brian McLaren this past week for their Homebrewed Christianity podcast.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet but Chad promises it’s great. It’s already 9:19 tonight and I’m debating on downloading it and listening to it before heading to bed or waiting and listening to it on the bus tomorrow.

Here’s the quote Chad pulled out for his blog:

“You know, if people want to say that the gospel of sin management is easy and hopeful, I have to ask myself how deeply they’ve thought about it, because what it really ends up doing is making most of life for most people pretty much meaningless, and yet, to me, the gospel of the kingdom then brings meaning and value into every dimension of life, and it brings value to all people’s lives as well. So, I would say, the good news is 10,000 times better than I used to believe.”

You can listen here or subscribe via iTunes.

UPDATE: I’m listening to the podcast now – this quote grabbed my attention (around 11:30 in the podcast):

I would never want to say this in a harsh way, but in a true way the gospel for an awful lot of people has become the ultimate spiritual commodity and it’s a consumer product. And an awful lot of what we call Christian activity is the marketing of that product and the winning of new customers so that they can remain satisfied customers for life. When you contrast that with the idea of being invited to join God in the healing and on going development and growth and fertility and goodness of the world — the difference is staggering.

Homebrew Christianity (episode 2)

Thought this was super interesting…

The discussion around the table turns to looking at how some various doctrines are becoming more and more attracted to emergent thoughts and ideas (approx 14:30 min into the podcast).

“In the last year I’ve had meetings with three different kinds of Presbyterians who have all said… ‘that’s really Presbyterianism. It’s really good to hear this.’ And the Methodists say, ‘that’s totally Methodist theology that you’re talking about.’ The Episcopalians say, ‘that’s Anglicanism this emergent thing…’ With the Mennonites, ‘that’s what Mennonites say.'” … “I got a call from a Greek Orthodox church who said ‘I’m coming through Minneapolis and I’ve read the Emergent Manifesto of hope and I feel like I’ve found a long last brother. Can we get together?’ There’s something about this thing that all these traditions are saying, ‘That’s us in our best days!'”