Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Thank You Brian McClaren!

There has been a lot of hub-bub about the Emerging Church of late. We are having a some conversation at PTS next week with Dr. John Franke. Some days it seems elitist and embittered and I do not want to be connected with the angry Christian superstar syndrome that sometimes looms there. Other days after good face to face conversation or reading someone's blog I feel as though I have drank deep from life giving water and been with Jesus. Brian McClaren is one person who always makes me feel the later. He is gentle, humble, Biblical, pastoral, passionate, prophetic and wise. He has done it again in a post from Leadership Journal on homo sexuality that you must read.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i read this piece several days ago. my sister called me, told me that she felt as though she "spent the day with brian" because she became very addicted the volley of comments that opened up in the blog attached to brian's article. so i read his article, and i thought that it was indeed "pastoral." blessings to him. but perhaps being pastoral is brian's role and not my role... not the role of some others. like brian, i am interested that we resist the wind of right and left... but i hope we stay relevant. i hope we don't ignore the wind. and my role may be to assert... to say with enthusiam that i extend my welcome to anyone gay or straight, ackowledge them as my brother or sister, and celebrate their sexuality.

John said...

I think McLaren is raising the question whether homosexuality IS a sin. Is it the way some people are created? Can that be a sin? I don't know. Scripture is pretty clear, but that doesn't solve the relational problem for those struggling. Hence the need for a pastoral solution that Brian M. calls for. And hence the need for a lot more thought from that pastoral perspective.