Ive been working through Brian McLarens latest book, A Generous Orthodoxy. So far I’m getting a lot out of it. I usually find McLaren’s stuff inspirational. I read his book, Finding Faith, in my mid-twenties at a time when I thought I was losing mine. In that book, he nudged me back onto the path, while at the same time giving me room to breathe and explore. Through his writings, he has become a frequent conversation partner on my journey.

In “Orthodoxy,” McLaren lays out a vision for–to use Ken Wilber’s category–”Integral Christianity.” Imagine taking the best elements of what all the different tribes of Christianity bring to the table and integrating them into a larger whole and you’ll get the idea of what McLaren is up to in this book. I find the approach to be very similar to Richard Foster’s Streams of Living Water, which is one of my all-time favorites.

Because I’ve been shaped by and am reacting to a heritage that has been pretty disagreeable with other Christian tribes over the years, I don’t usually pick up a book looking for an opportunity to disagree. This is probably one of my biggest weaknesses as a reader. However, I’m confident there are still plenty of others out there who will take up the slack for me. All in all, I agree with and support McLaren’s overall approach much more that I disagree with or am bothered by any of the particulars.

If interested, a discussion blog has been created for the book.

G. K. Chesterton said there are two ways to get enough: (1) accumulate more and more or (2) need less.

It’s obvious which option we’ve chosen in our culture and the results are disastrous. According to the Christian Science Monitor in 2003:

• The average debt for U. S. families with at least one credit card was $9,025.
• The number of personal bankruptcy filings was 1.6 million.
• The percentage of Americans who believe they will always be in debt: 30. (30 percent of our population expects to die owing money!)

The counter-cultural option is to learn to need less. If you really want to swim against the stream of our culture this is one great way to do it. We talk about wanting to be different from the world around us in our sexual ethic, and the way we do family, and the way we treat other people. Those are all well and good. But if you really want to stick out like a sore thumb in our culture, stop buying things you can’t pay for. Stop going into debt for things you don’t really need. That’s about as counter-cultural as you can get.

Maybe we should do our society a favor and fight for a constitutional amendment banning consumer debt!

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More from Friedman’s “A Failure of Nerve.”

Actually this tendency to adapt to immaturity and to sabotage strength is so often characteristic of chronically anxious systems that a good rule of thumb for leaders who are trying to pull any institution out of regression is that when people start calling you “cruel,” “autocratic,” “heartless,” “hardheaded,” “unfeeling,” “uncooperative,” “selfish,” and “cold,” there is a good chance you are going in the right direction. (pg. 90)

The great myth here is that feeling deeply for others increases their ability to mature and survive; its corollary is that the effort to understand another should take precedence over the endeavor to make one’s self clear. The constant effort to understand (or feel for) another, however, can be as invasive as any form of emotional coercion. (pg. 176)

I believe that the increasing popularity of empathy over the past few decades is symptomatic of the herding/togetherness force characteristic of social anxiety. And I say this knowing that empathy has achieved such inviolable, holy status in the thinking of some that to even question its value would be considered irreverent, if not sacrilegious, as denying the Trinity or cursing the Land of Israel. (pg. 179)

Unaware of my hands
Unaware of my feet
Unaware of my breath
Unaware of my heartbeat

Aware of my unawareness

Hidden when sought
Elusive when grasped
Sink into unawareness
Find God