The Great Spiritual Migration
How the World's Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Christian story, from Genesis until now, is fundamentally about people on the move—outgrowing old, broken religious systems and embracing new, more redemptive ways of life.
It’s time to move again.
Brian McLaren, a leading voice in contemporary religion, argues that— notwithstanding the dire headlines about the demise of faith and drop in church attendance—Christian faith is not dying. Rather, it is embarking on a once-in-an-era spiritual shift. For millions, the journey has already begun.
Drawing from his work as global activist, pastor, and public theologian, McLaren challenges readers to stop worrying, waiting, and indulging in nostalgia, and instead, to embrace the powerful new understandings that are reshaping the church. In The Great Spiritual Migration, he explores three profound shifts that define the change:
∙ Spiritually, growing numbers of Christians are moving away from defining themselves by lists of beliefs and toward a way of life defined by love
∙ Theologically, believers are increasingly rejecting the image of God as a violent Supreme Being and embracing the image of God as the renewing Spirit at work in our world for the common good
∙ Missionally, the faithful are identifying less with organized religion and more with organizing religion—spiritual activists dedicated to healing the planet, building peace, overcoming poverty and injustice, and collaborating with other faiths to ensure a better future for all of us
With his trademark brilliance and compassion, McLaren invites readers to seize the moment and set out on the most significant spiritual pilgrimage of our time: to help Christianity become more Christian.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this challenging book, McLaren (We Make the Road by Walking) shifts his focus from "conversation" to movement. As the title suggests, to survive imminent ecological, economic, social, political, and spiritual crises, Jesus followers need to migrate to a new form of Christianity, one that abandons a punitive deity in favor of a creative god of love and nonviolence. The book is divided into three sections, each with study questions. The first urges readers to move from dogma to a loving way of life; the second continues the theme by advocating for an "integral/literary" (nonliteral) view of the Bible; and the third begins to imagine how a new Christianity might look. Movement functions here on two levels: toward a new kind of faith, and as an organized group phenomenon bringing empowerment and change. MacLaren, as usual, writes persuasively. The book, however, raises metaquestions: since he argues that spiritual leaders must model a less consumptive, more eco-friendly lifestyle, it's perplexing to read a book filled with name-dropping and international travel that's meant to persuade readers to embrace humility and simplicity. Despite the rhetorical issues, however, the book's themes are well worth pondering.
