This will close our summary of Brian McLaren’s new book, Everything Must Change, and I will post a “review” of the book Friday. My next series will be on Paul Louis Metzger, Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church.
“There is one great step,” Brian contends in chp 32, “we can take to dismantle the suicide machine and the framing stories that legitimize it: to stop believing in it, and to believe, in its place, a different story, the story of the kingdom of God” (284).
“For Jesus’ followers, to believe in him meant — and means — not only that we have faith in Jesus, but also that we share the faith of Jesus: that our world is on a suicidal trajectory, and that our lives can make a difference” (286).
Brian (chp 33) believes we must expose the covert curriculum at work in society today. The good news is that we must opt out of the Democrat vs. Republican framing story.
“Another world is possible, available now for all who believe” (303).
So his appeal: “God calls us to reconcile with God, one another, and creation, to defect from the false stories that divide and destroy us, and to join God in the healing of the world through love and the pursuit of justice and the common good” (305).
It involves:
personal action
community action
public action
global action