The Last Word and the Word after That A Tale of Faith, Doubt, and a New Kind of Christianity

by McLaren, Brian D.

• ISBN13: 9780470248423
• ISBN10: 0470248424
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-18
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

For all those seeking more authentic ways to hold and practice Christian faith, Brian McLaren has been an inspiring, compassionate-and provocative-voice. Starting with the award-winning A New Kind of Christian, McLaren offered a lively, wide-ranging fictional conversation between Pastor Dan Poole and his friend Neil Oliver as they reflected about faith, doubt, reason, mission, leadership, and spiritual practice in the emerging postmodern world. That conversation widened to include several intriguing new characters in the sequel, The Story We Find Ourselves In, as Dan and friends continued to explore faith-stretching themes from evolution to evangelism, from death to the meaning of life. Now, in this third installment of their adventures, Dan and his widening circle of friends grapple with conventional Christian teachings about hell and judgment and what they mean for our relationship with God and each other. Is there an alternative to the usual polar views of a just God short on mercy or a merciful God short on justice? Could our conflicted views of hell be symptoms of a deeper set of problems - misunderstandings about what God's justice and mercy are about, misconceptions about God's purpose in creating the world, deep misgivings about what kind of character God is and what the Christian gospel is for?

Author Biography

Brian D. McLaren is a speaker, author, activist, and networker exploring the intersection of Christian faith and contemporary life. He has written or co-written over a dozen books, including A Generous Orthodoxy, The Secret Message of Jesus, and Everything Must Change. For twenty-four years he served as the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in the Washington-Baltimore area. He was named by Time magazine as one of America's twenty-five most influential Evangelicals. He is a founding member of emergentvillage.com. See www.brianmclaren.net.

About the Leadership Network

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Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Last Word

Something Serious

Flare-Up

Poet in a Trench Coat

Party in the Living Room, Torture in the Basement

Playing Hardball

I Don't Know

The Architecture of the Bible

The First Two Threads

The Third and Fourth Threads

The Scapegoat Factor

Better Than We Realized

Something like a Straight Answer

End in Embrace?

Piano Lessons and Lumpy Hands

You Have a Tough Job

All over the Map

Deconstructing Hell

Proposal, Plan, Implementation

Homework Assignment

The Word After That

How Can I Hurt Him?

Nice Walleye Fishing Charters

Wolves in Lawyers' Tuxedos

Up Toward the Stars

A Colorful Breakfast

A New Kind of Christianity

Second Thoughts

To God, All Are Alive

A Part of Me at the Core of My Mind

The Last, Best Word

Commentary

The Author

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