I heard Brian McLaren the other day - and was impressed...

Here are some notes from a netfriend:

On the ABC 'Local Radio' channel was an interview on "Sunday Night Talk with John Cleary <http://www.abc.net.au/backyard/presenters/JOHNCLEARY.htm?canberra> " with Pastor Brian McLaren (formerly of Cedar Ridge Community Church http://www.crcc.org and still of http://www.anewkindofchristian.com/)

McLaren discussed the "Emerging Church" movement, that has a main web presence at http://www.amahoro.info. The main point of Cleary's questioning was in the context of McLaren's 2004 book, "A Generous Orthodoxy" (Emergent/YS/Zondervan), that is described as "a personal confession and has been called a "manifesto" of the emerging church conversation."

Read about the interview (not transcript): http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s1582978.htm

Listen to interview (MP3): http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s1579552.htm

As an aside, one of the pieces of music played, at McLaren's suggestion, was Bob Dylan's "Every Grain of Sand". Read the words! Get to the text from this fan site (for the song!) http://homepage.eircom.net/~mfarry47/

McLaren's first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, (Zondervan, 1998, rev. ed. 2000) has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry. His second book, Finding Faith (Zondervan, 1999), is a contemporary apologetic, written for thoughtful seekers and sceptics. His third book, A New Kind of Christian (Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network, 2001) further explores issues of Christian faith and postmodernity, and won Christianity Today's "Award of Merit" in 2002. His fourth, More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix (2002) presents a refreshing approach to spiritual friendship. A is for Abductive (coauthored with Dr. Leonard Sweet, Zondervan, 2002) and Adventures in Missing the Point (coauthored with Dr. Anthony Campolo, Emergent/YS, 2003) explore theological reform in a postmodern context, and a sequel to A New Kind of Christian, entitled The Story We Find Ourselves In (Jossey-Bass, 2003), seeks to tell the Biblical story in a new context. He is one of five co-authors of Church in the Emerging Culture (Emergent/YS, 2003).

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