Book Review: The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren - Page 2

McLaren keeps on topic by sharing the secret message as a scandal - if they only knew what Jesus was saying, what Paul was writing. Some did know, and some did get it. But along the way we've lost part of that subversiveness and challenge.

And here, perhaps, is the most astounding contrast of all: the peace of God's kingdom comes not through the violent torture and merciless extermination of the king's enemies, but rather through the suffering and death of the king himself. The pax Christi is not the peace of conquest but rather the peace of true reconciliation. The king achieves peace not by shedding the blood of rebels but by — I hope the scandal and wonder of this is not lost because the words may be familiar — shedding his own blood. (p. 99)

Part 3 is aptly titled "Imagination: Exploring How Jesus' Secret Message Could Change Everything" — again, if we're missing anything in the conversations of the emergent church versus those who'd be anti-emergent, it's the idea that if we took Jesus, Paul and the rest of the Old and New Testaments seriously, we would be living out something pretty different from our status quo tendencies. If the "kingdom of God" is only a future place and time after we die and after Jesus' return in glory, then we can probably do whatever we want on this earth as long as we've got "fire insurance" to keep us out of hell. But if there's a "here but not yet" component - if Jesus' message that "the kingdom is at hand" means that the rule of God is being brought to bear right now, that's a whole 'nother thing entirely. We are to live in the kingdom, even as we live on this planet in whatever geographic location we've been planted, and that "secret message" plays out in myriad ways to show Christ real and living and vibrant and meaningful to a world that's dying to know the truth of all that.

I don't think this is McLaren's best work, but it has done something that he hasn't done before. He's taken some of the vague details of his own "doctrine" and given some solid food to chew on. May those with teeth to chew, and ears to hear, begin to chew on what Jesus might be revealing to us.

Article Author: Rick Stilwell

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