Friday, January 23, 2009

Everything must change

I started to read Everything Must Change a while ago but got side-tracked with a few other things. As it is, I've started again.

The book is built upon two very basic yet often unasked questions. Unasked because maybe we've tended to focus on one particular answer to every question. I'm thinking here of the way we can sometimes be guilty of presuming that Jesus is the answer without every wondering what the initial question might be. 

On a recent episode of The News Quiz (it's a Radio 4 thing for those who don't know) an expert in some field or another was quoted as having said that the answer to most problems was usually a good night's sleep. Sandi Toksvig, the presenter, commented along the lines of, "Not if the problem is how to fix my dishwasher!"

As an evangelical it's easy to be rather reductionist when it comes to questions and answers, problems and solutions. Brian McLaren doesn't settle for such simple answers.

So, I'll let you know what I make of the book as I go. At the moment I'm enjoying the challenging nature of the read. 

And in case you were wondering, the two big questions are:

  • What are the biggest problems in the world?
  • What does Jesus have to say about these global problems?

With questions like that you hardly going to expect a comfortable read now are you!

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