Should I Stay or Should I Go?
A review of Brian McLaren's , Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned (Hodder & Stoughton, 2022) by Keith Griffin
If you don’t know much about Brian McLaren, you can learn a lot by scanning the long list of his publications, which include: Everything Must Change, Finding Our Way Again, A New Kind of Christianity, Naked Spirituality, God Unbound, Faith After Doubt, and now his latest, Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned.
Brian McLaren makes clear that Do I Stay Christian? hasn’t been written with the aim of pushing his readers in one direction or another – leaving or staying. Rather, “I want to think through the question of retaining or shedding Christian identity with you looking over my shoulder.”
This is not a book necessarily to read from start to finish. It’s split into three sections: the first is No: ten chapters of good reasons why people today feel the urge to walk away from their Christian faith, including: Because Christianity Has Been Vicious to Its Mother (Anti-Semitism); Because of Christianity’s Real Master (Money); Because Christianity Is Stuck (Toxic Theology).
The next ten chapters cover reasons for staying under Yes: Because Leaving Hurts Allies; Because…Where Else Would I Go?; Because I’m Human; Because I’m Changing.
Brian McLaren has many years’ experience of teaching, pastoring, speaking across the globe, and most important of all, listening. The book begins with a story about him taking a phone call in a hotel late at night having just fulfilled a speaking engagement in San Francisco. A group of Christian leaders wish to speak with him privately – “We are desperate”, they tell him. Although he has an early flight the next morning, McLaren creates time by agreeing to a meeting at 5.30am.
The third section of the book is called How. It’s a shorter section, but full of wisdom and grace, displaying clearly how the author is still on his own journey of exploration and discovery. Chapters here include: Re-Wild; Find the Flow; Reconsecrate Everything; and Stay Loyal to Reality.
I will confess to not yet having read much of the first section, which includes shocking details of the crimes of what we call our Christian faith, and the institutions which have represented it. Initially, I’ve worked through the Yes and the How, landing on the themes and questions which speak to me at the moment, and happily discovering that Brian McLaren is the perfect guide to have by my side.
Keith Griffin
West Yorkshire
Posted October 2022
Wikipedia's entry about Brian McLaren
A review of Brian McLaren's , Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned (Hodder & Stoughton, 2022) by Keith Griffin
If you don’t know much about Brian McLaren, you can learn a lot by scanning the long list of his publications, which include: Everything Must Change, Finding Our Way Again, A New Kind of Christianity, Naked Spirituality, God Unbound, Faith After Doubt, and now his latest, Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed and the Disillusioned.
Brian McLaren makes clear that Do I Stay Christian? hasn’t been written with the aim of pushing his readers in one direction or another – leaving or staying. Rather, “I want to think through the question of retaining or shedding Christian identity with you looking over my shoulder.”
This is not a book necessarily to read from start to finish. It’s split into three sections: the first is No: ten chapters of good reasons why people today feel the urge to walk away from their Christian faith, including: Because Christianity Has Been Vicious to Its Mother (Anti-Semitism); Because of Christianity’s Real Master (Money); Because Christianity Is Stuck (Toxic Theology).
The next ten chapters cover reasons for staying under Yes: Because Leaving Hurts Allies; Because…Where Else Would I Go?; Because I’m Human; Because I’m Changing.
Brian McLaren has many years’ experience of teaching, pastoring, speaking across the globe, and most important of all, listening. The book begins with a story about him taking a phone call in a hotel late at night having just fulfilled a speaking engagement in San Francisco. A group of Christian leaders wish to speak with him privately – “We are desperate”, they tell him. Although he has an early flight the next morning, McLaren creates time by agreeing to a meeting at 5.30am.
The third section of the book is called How. It’s a shorter section, but full of wisdom and grace, displaying clearly how the author is still on his own journey of exploration and discovery. Chapters here include: Re-Wild; Find the Flow; Reconsecrate Everything; and Stay Loyal to Reality.
I will confess to not yet having read much of the first section, which includes shocking details of the crimes of what we call our Christian faith, and the institutions which have represented it. Initially, I’ve worked through the Yes and the How, landing on the themes and questions which speak to me at the moment, and happily discovering that Brian McLaren is the perfect guide to have by my side.
Keith Griffin
West Yorkshire
Posted October 2022
Wikipedia's entry about Brian McLaren