Everything Must Change

Holidays are a great time to finish reading books.

I got stuck in the middle of Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change. Not that it's a difficult book to read, just that there is only so much of Brian's writing I can take at the one time.

Everyone should read this book and think deeply about the issues Brian raises. The picture of the suicide machine is very powerful and well used to describe the system and processes that are ruining our environment, communities and relationships.

I'm just not convinced that Brian's analysis of how Jesus is the answer to the suicide machine is radical enough. The Jesus presented in this books reads a bit like a very clever social analyst who has offered a very profound answer to a complex problem. Brian, correctly, identifies God's Kingdom as the solution to the suicide machine, but I'm not clear about what he thinks Jesus role in God's Kingdom is? Is Jesus a teacher of the way to God's Kingdom or is Jesus the way? Is Jesus the divine King in God's Kingdom or a human subject of God's Kingdom?

These criticisms should not deflect from the powerful call to change, the challenge to step outside of the destructive systems that are entrapping us and enslaving our discipleship to serve a suicidal system.

Everything must change, but change begins when we submit to Jesus as Christ, the King in God's Kingdom who alone is the Way we can enter this new, subversive Kingdom of God.