SAVE THE CHURCH? OR JOIN GOD IN SAVING THE WORLD? – A Conversation with Rick Ufford-Chase & Brian McLaren [LDT095] #Church2B

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Our guests today are Rick Ufford-Chase, the author of Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions

for the Church in a Time of Empire (interviewed in episode 76 of Love in a Dangerous Time) and Brian McLaren, most recently the author of The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian (interviewed in episode 42, which was reprised in episode 72). Russ had a chance to bring them together, after months of scheduling and rescheduling, to talk about the future of Christian church communities, building on the insights in these two books.

The discussion was very, very rich. Rick’s background includes years of denominational- based activism and experience as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2004-5 (the highest elected office). He now serves, with his wife, Kitty, as the co-director of the Stony Point retreat center in New York State. With his deep involvement in the denominational side of Christianity, he came out of that experience with a highly critical view of the state (and the value) of the church today. He is now part of an intentional multi-faith community as well as a local Presbyterian Church.

Brian McLaren is known to most Lovers as the author of many of the books that have defined the Emergent movement and the current progressive explosion in mainline and Evangelical churches. The Great Spiritual Migration is also very critical of the present-day church’s apparent disinterest in creating a future of justice and equality.

Russ says: I’ve been wanting to get these two thinkers together to talk about this topic for a long time. And I think this most thought provoking exchange is an important step in all of us understanding what our “job description,” as Christians who resonate with this sentence in Brian’s book: “Could it be that the Spirit of God is calling the church to stop trying to save itself, and instead to join God in saving the world.”

This program is part of Love in a Dangerous Time’s special series, #Church2Be