A New Kind of Christian

One of my christmas presents was A New Kind of Christian by Brian Mclaren. This is the first book in a trilogy. I read the third book The Last Word and the Word After That earlier this year (my thoughts on it can be here). I hope to read the second book The Story We Find Ourselves In at some point this year. A new kind of Christian is a good read and opens up lots of questions on how we read the Bible and how so many Christians seem fixated on questions of heaven and hell. It tells the story of a pastor Dan who meets a guy called Neo and there conversations about faith and theology. It tells of how modern Christianity is tied up with modernity and a love of systems and neat boxes and how in a postmodern climate Christianity must let go of some of these boxes and systems. As a novel its not that great, as an introduction to some of the questions facing the Christian faith today its great, although I found The Last Word and the Word After That more refreshing and challenging. This maybe because A New kind of Christian is not that new to me; meaning I've encountered the ideas elsewhere. The books are definitely ones to share with friends, although I guess its presentation of Christianity is a radical one, which some might find hard to agree with, but I guess the book is an account of exactly that kind of conversation.