Everything Must Change

Acclaimed author and Emergent church leader Brian McLaren states, "More and more Christian leaders are beginning to realize that for the millions of young adults who have recently dropped out of church, Christianity is a failed religion. Why? Because it has specialized in dealing with 'spiritual needs' to the exclusion of physical and social needs. It has focused on 'me' and 'my eternal destiny,' but it has failed to address the dominant societal and global realities of their lifetime: systemic injustice, poverty, and dysfunction."

McLaren asks, "Shouldn't a message purporting to be the best news in the world be doing better than this?" What he sets forth in this provocative, unsettling work is a "form of Christian faith that is holistic, integral, balanced, that offers good news for both the living and the dying, that speaks of God's grace at work both in this life and the life to come, both to individuals and to societies and the planet as a whole."

Brian comments on his book, "This book in many ways is a sequel to The Secret Message of Jesus, although people can begin with either book. It asks two essential questions: What are the world's top crises, and what do the life and message of Jesus say to those global crises? I spent a few years researching the global crisis literature and tried to synthesize the best thinking on the subject. I developed a metaphor to help people understand global crises - a machine with four moving parts, corresponding to the four critical crises that create so much human suffering.

Meanwhile, I was studying the gospels in a concentrated way, seeking to understand how Jesus' original hearers would have heard and understood his message of the kingdom of God. The two pursuits enriched each other in ways that I will probably never fully be able to communicate. This book is by far my most ambitious project yet, and I can't imagine ever writing anything that is more important and urgent."