All you need is love
brian mclaren
The only way Christianity can become salvageable is by admitting that it is unsalvageable in its present form. The only way it can be saved is to admit that it is lost. The only way it can be healed is to admit that it is sick.
Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren is on a mission to save Christianity — from itself.
The movement Jesus started has lost its way and must be reborn. No longer defined by a set of unchanging beliefs, but by a way of life centered in love, embodied by Jesus.
Belief is the problem. Love is the answer. All you need is love.
So Brian has written another book.
There’s nothing new in his message. We’ve heard it before. Another attempt to reinvent the Christian faith and make it more acceptable to our culture. It’s a faith the world can embrace. But it won’t.
Gone is the one true God revealed in Scripture, and supremely revealed through Jesus Christ. Gone are notions of sin and salvation. Instead we have the god of love as “the Spirit at work in our world for the common good.”
It’s not up to Brian McLaren or anyone else to redefine the Christian faith. God has made himself known in his Word — Old and New Testaments. God has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Sorry but that’s a belief and it’s true. Only by understanding who God is and what he has done through Jesus can we fully know what love is. And yes, if our response is to not love God with all our heart, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourselves — then we have not understood who God is, and what he has done for us.
True belief inspires us to love. True love is defined by the very nature of God revealed in Scripture. Love and belief are not opposites, they are the two sides of one coin.
If you truly believe you will truly love. Love, obedience to Christ and faith are different ways of understanding the same reality of discipleship.
Jesus taught us that God is love, but love is not god. Who God is and what he does in history reveals the true nature of his holy love. Yes doctrines can be used as weapons. Just as the word “love” can be used to undermine the truth of the gospel.
The same Jesus who said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you,” said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by me.”
Related:The future of American Christianity? Or the last hurrah of a bankrupt faith?
