Brian McLaren Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

The Church has little idea how unorthodox it is at any given moment. If a church can't yet be perfectly orthodox, it can, with the Holy Spirit's help and by the grace of God, be perpetually reformable.

Brian McLaren
Why are so many religious people arguing about the origin of the species but so few concerned about the extinction of the species?

Brian McLaren
Our message and methodology have changed, do change, and must change if we are faithful to the ongoing and unchanging mission of Jesus Christ.

Brian McLaren
I must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.

Brian McLaren
This is why I believe that many of our current eschatologies, intoxicated by dubious interpretations of John's Apocalypse are not only ignorant and wrong, but dangerous and immoral.

Brian McLaren
Jesus was short on sermons, long on conversations; short on answers, long on questions; short on abstraction and propositions, long on stories and parables; short on telling you what to think, long on challenging you to think for yourself.

Brian McLaren
That in itself is an act of peacemaking, because we're seeking to align our wills with God's will, our dreams with God's dream.

Brian McLaren
The Christian faith, I am proposing, should become (in the name of Jesus Christ) a welcome friend to other religions of the world, not a threat

Brian McLaren
In the tradition of Julian of Norwich and St. Teresa of Avila and all the other mystics, we can learn to render ourselves vulnerable to the "favors of God" - those indescribable experiences that mock our dualisms and so saturate our imagination with abundance that they transcend our ability to convey joy and wonder. In the tradition of St. John of the Cross, we can learn to survive and derive benefits from the soul's dark night.

Brian McLaren
To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall

Brian McLaren
At their best, religious and spiritual communities help us discover this pure and naked spiritual encounter. At their worst, they simply make us more ashamed, pressuring us to cover up more, pushing us to further enhance our image with the best designer labels and latest spiritual fads, weighing us down with layer upon layer of heavy, uncomfortable, pretentious, well-starched religiosity.

Brian McLaren
I'm sure I am wrong about many things, although I'm not sure exactly which things I'm wrong about. I'm even sure I'm wrong about what I think I'm right about in at least some cases.

Brian McLaren
So we must realize this: the suicidal framing story that dominates our world today has no power except the power we give it by believing it. Similarly, believing an alternative and transforming framing story may turn out to be the most radical thing any of us can ever do.

Brian McLaren
We need not a new set of beliefs, but a new way of believing, not simply new answers to the same old questions, but a new set of questions.

Brian McLaren
Since I was introduced to the practice of God's presence, which in turn led me into the contemplative way, I have nearly always felt so rich, so blessed, so sincerely full of "enough."...I believe it is on this robust, overflowing...contemplative pathway that one gains the joy and serenity to be generous.

Brian McLaren
Accumulating orthodoxy makes it harder year-by-year to be a Christian than it was in Jesus' day.

Brian McLaren
The church latched on to that old doctrine of original sin like a dog to a stick, and before you knew it, the whole gospel got twisted around it. Instead of being God's big message of saving love for the whole world, the gospel became a little bit of secret information on how to solve the pesky legal problem of original sin.

Brian McLaren
I was relaxing in my parents' swimming pool with my brotherI asked him how the engineering business was going, and he reciprocated: 'How's the ministry world going?' 'Okay,' I said, 'except that a couple of weeks ago I realized that I don't know why Jesus had to die.' Then Peter, without skipping a beat, without even a moment's hesitation, said, 'Well, neither did Jesus.'

Brian McLaren
The scarily brilliant Romantic poet and visionary William Blake dared to say what many of us have perhaps thought but kept to ourselves: A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation.

Brian McLaren