Just finished reading...

Last week I (Dan) finished reading Brian McLaren's The Last Word, and the Word After That.  It's his third philosophical quasi-novel in the trilogy that began with A New Kind of Christian.  Anyway, I'm a fan of McLaren, as the other books of his that I've read have had an impact on Cathy and me, and on several of our good friends.  When the The Last Word came out a year ago, we snapped it up, but for some strange reason I never got around to reading it.  When we packed out suitcases for South Africa, this was one of the few books that we made room for.  Now I can see that God, in his wisdom, was saving this book for me to read here, where the questions it raises are the same questions that I am confronted with each day:

• how does a nation as rich in resources, culture, and heritage as South Africa also have some of the highest rates of murder, rape, and HIV/AIDS infection in the world?  
• how did a largely Christian population of whites establish and vigorously defend a system of apartheid that denied basic human rights to the majority of the population?
• does the Christianity that we are taught and follow in North America have some of the same elements?
• how do I re-examine my beliefs, to instead follow a Christianity that is truly more Christ-like?
• how do I change the way that I live and work as a result?

Anyway, I don't agree with everything in the book(s), but I do highly recommend it if you are willing to think outside the box, and are interested in Christian church philosophy. 

 

Dan