This was a phenomenal book. I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to imagine what faith will look like in the future. I genuinely believe if every church read this and took it to heart in the world would be changed and wonderful and profound ways.

This book is amazing. If you are disturbed by leaders of the Church supporting things that they should be standing against, you need to read this book.

YES! Every book I've read by Brian McLaren I've finished and thought: This is the book I wanted to write.

This volume is no different!

Brian McLaren is a favorite author and although this isn't my favorite book of his (mostly because the issues he addresses are less relevant to my life), he is so full of wisdom that you can't help but find wonderful ideas. This book seems more personal about how he went from a conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist Christian to someone who is helping to redefine Evangelical Christianity in the US today. He is open about harm the church has done in society and tries to refocus us on what Christianity is all about, rather than just a system of beliefs. One chapter is entitled "From a Violent God of Domination to a Nonviolent God of Liberation," which gives you a flavor of his themes. Here are some favorite quotes from the book:

Of the many radical things said and done by Jesus, his unflinching emphasis on love was most radical of all. Love was the greatest commandment, he said. It was his new commandment, his prime directive—love for God, for self, for neighbor, for stranger, for alien, for outsider, for outcast, and even for enemy, as he himself modeled. The new commandment of love meant that neither beliefs nor words, neither taboos, systems, structures nor the labels that enshrined them mattered most. Love decentered everything else; love relativized everything else; love took priority over everything else—everything.

Many of us suffer the shame of self-hatred or self-rejection, while others suffer from self-centered conceit or pride. Both inner maladies spread like an infection, and both can be healed when we learn to love ourselves for God’s sake.

The primary concern for many of us Christians is our churches. We see how they’re wrinkling and shrinking, how they’re aging and experiencing numerical decline. We know how important church has been in our lives and we want to save our churches from going the way of the phone booth, cassette tape, or landline. But whenever I find myself in conversations about ‘saving the church,’ I can’t help but recall Jesus’s words: if you want to save your life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it. Jesus’s words make me wonder: could our desire to save our precious religious institutions and traditions actually hasten their demise? Could it be that the Spirit of God is calling the church to stop trying to save itself, and instead to join God in saving the world? Could pouring out itself for the good of the world be the only way for the church to save its own soul?

Insightful and critical perspective of Christianity’s past and present. I learned a lot about Christianity and what progressive Christians are attempting to change moving foreword.

“Christianity, we might say, is driving around with a loaded gun in its glove compartment, and that loaded gun is its violent image of God. It’s driving around with a license to kill, and that license is its Bible, read uncritically. Along with its loaded gun and license to kill, it’s driving around with a sense of entitlement derived from a set of beliefs with a long, ugly, and largely unacknowledged history.”

“Confession: Imagine if love, not law, was the standard by which we learned to examine ourselves and confess our sins against God, neighbor, and the earth we share. Imagine if each week we were guided into the kind of self-examination that helped us name and turn from our unloving acts in recent days. And imagine if, along with confessing our sins, we confessed or named our hurts, the places where others have wounded us, so that we could process our pain and then respond in a way that doesn’t give in to resentment or revenge.”

Although I only have two other books listed here on Goodreads, I have been reading McLaren for many years. I refer to him as a Christian gadfly. McLaren seems to be always pushing Christians to be better to actually read the Bible and follow Jesus. He is often critical and that is why I use the term gadfly. I hope that he would take that as a compliment.

My husband and I went to hear McLaren speak at January Adventure (http://www.januaryadventure.org/). This was my first time at that event and I think McLaren and his co-speaker, Dr. Wil Gafney, were a good introduction to this program. It is a series of lectures – all of which were interesting and thought provoking. I wish we had gone with others so we could have had more of a discussion.

This book elicits some consideration of where we Christians are and where we should be. For too long, in McLaren’s mind, Christianity has used law rather than love to encourage people to join the faith. If that ever worked well, it certainly isn’t working now. The world does not need violence, it needs grace, compassion, mercy and love.

I appreciate McLaren’s words and will try to take them to heart.

McLaren offers characteristically compelling stories alongside fresh models for interpreting faith. I especially enjoyed the reflections on the impact of "movements" on "institutions."

Brian McLaren is by far one of my favorite authors, and has been instrumental in opening my eyes to other traditions, views, and has provided new insight into the Christian faith and spirituality. "A Generous Orthodoxy", and "A New Kind of Christian" were both pivotal and transformative for me, prodding me onto a new path and a new journey in my faith. So, I was eager to read another one his books, "The Great Spiritual Migration".

I read about 1/4 of the book and quickly came to the conclusion that it contains the same message McLaren has been espousing for at least a decade. Namely, that the current form or brand of Christianity (mostly the conservative kind, but not exclusively) is bad and actually counter to the teachings of Christ. That there is a new and better way. And, that he (and we) should set out upon a new journey that looks a bit more like Jesus. And, here is what I believe it looks like.

While I certainly applaud McLaren for this message and one that I fully agree with it, it is the same message but packaged just a little bit differently than what is found in most of his books. In other words, I wasn't able to really glean anything new from what I was reading. Perhaps this is a result of my own journey and how my faith has evolved. Maybe I've moved on past McLaren, that his message has already resonated and settled well with within me, and now my journey has moved beyond it.

Nevertheless, McLaren's message is a good one, and it is again found in, "The Great Spiritual Migration". If you haven't read any of McLaren's other books, then this one will settle well with you, if not, it will really challenge your faith and make you think on some things. If, however, you are not new to McLaren's writings, then you will likely not be moved much from what is presented in this book.