Everything Must Change • 5

My notes on chapter four can be found here.

Chapter 5 begins by addressing the issue of millions of young people leaving the church, millions of young people for whom Christianity appears to be a failed religion. The consensus for many is, It has specialized in people's destination in the afterlife but has failed to address significant social injustices in this life. It has focused on "me" and "my soul" and "my spiritual life" and "my eternal destiny," but it has failed to address the dominant societal and global realities of their lifetime: systemic injustice, systemic poverty, systemic ecological crisis, systemic dysfuntions of many kinds. [1]

McLaren points out that when young Christian people become disillusioned with the church, they may or may not continue practicing it, but they will most definitely be less enthusiastic about sharing their faith with friends. [2] He then gives a thorough and understandable explanation for the origins and meaning of the word postmodern. Come to find out, it's not a dirty word after all! I'm not going to recount his explanation--you need to buy the book.

He also connects the word postmodern to postcolonialism. He writes of excessive confidence, which has caused western Christians to mistakenly think they had a mandate from God to conquer the world, no matter what tactics were required. He writes about the framing stories that reinforce our destructive tendencies.

Finally he goes back to his two original questions and asks: Is it possible that at the heart of the life and message of Jesus was an attempt to expose, challenge, confront, transform and replace the unhealthy framing stories of his day? And could there be a resonance between the unhealthy framing stories of his day and their counterparts in our day? [3]

[1] Brian D. McLaren, Everything Must Change (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 33.

[2] Ibid., 34.

[3] Ibid., 39.