Brian McLaren, Tim King – End-Times & New Beginnings

Spencer Burke and Brian McLaren continue their discussion on A New Kind of Christianity – is eschatology catastrophic and in the future? Or might it be fulfilled in an important sense, open-ended for divine-human empowerment? You can see the show notes for this segment and the entire interview here. You can download Brian’s fascinating free bonus chapter on eschatology – dealing with ‘personal eschatology’ and the afterlife – here.

This is a great time to mention an exciting new transition in the life of the Morrell family. I write this perched in the beautiful Black Forest of Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Jasmin, Jubilee and I will be moving soon! (To the Springs, not the Black Forest…I wouldn’t be able to breathe up there!) I’m here with Tim King (whom Spencer also interviewed recently), Doug King, Kevin Beck and families – three-fourths of the all-new Presence team, of which I’ll soon be a full-time member.

I’ve been working with Presence as a consultant since 2006, and beginning this Spring I’ll be with them in a full-time capacity. Presence – along with The David Group and a soon-to-be-announced third counterpart – does amazing work in (what Brian calls) participatory eschatology, personal and communal empowerment, and peace-building work worldwide. I’ll be coming on as a communications jack-of-all trades, assisting in making our social media interaction top-notch as we catalyze further opportunities for collaboration with all people, across class and party lines. Stay tuned!

And…if you’re curious about the core theology and spirituality that animates Presence’s disparate activities, I’d recommend reading two things for starters:

Chapter Eight of Brian’s A New Kind of Christianity

Kevin Beck’s free eBook, This Book Will Change Your World – download it here!

This will be a wild ride…if you’re in Colorado Springs let me know – we should connect!

‘End-Times Remixed’ – This Book Will Change Your World (& It’s FREE)

What comes to mind when you think of ‘the end-times’ or ‘the return of Jesus’? For some, this is a boring subject. For others, it literally defines their lives. For many, ideas about eschatology fuel their passion & faith in God; for still many others, those same teachings have caused untold pain.

From the 1970s – 1990s, books about ‘the end of the world as we know it’ became best-sellers that fueled entire cottage industries. But as the first decade of the 21^st century seems to mirror more & more a real-life apocalypse now, it seems like Christians are questioning their inherited assumptions. At the same time, people of goodwill from all faith backgrounds (or none at all) are questioning the public good of ‘Left Behind’ spirituality. Environmental carelessness, turmoil in the Middle East, and a general attitude of war = end-times progress and peace = the antichrist have caused many journalists, theologians, ministers and ordinary believers to weigh the fruit of these popular ideas. They’ve been weighed and found wanting.

Thankfully there are other resources for faith and practice besides pop-culture interpretations of Revelation. Inquirers have been seeking out Scripture and church history with fresh urgency, to see what Jesus and his earliest followers might have been thinking about ‘the time of the end’ and Jesus’ return.

My friend Kevin Beck of Presence International has written a book exploring just these questions. No dogma remains unwalked; no sacred cow remains un-tipped in his exploration of a better way to tell this Story. Kevin and the folks at Presence have decided that this book is too important to sell – and I agree. Whether you see eye-to-eye with every jot-and-tittle is irrelevant; This Book Will Change Your World lives up to its promise, and deserves to be set free to as many readers as possible.

For this reason, Kevin has enthusiastically agreed to give away a digital edition of this book to everyone who will share it with their friends. You can share it with as few as 3 friends, or you can share it with your whole email address book, which I’m doing.

Kevin wants to share this book with everyone – not to manufacture consent, or tell you what to believe. Rather, his heart is to re-frame a well-worn paradigm and open a conversation, a vital dialogue on what is (spiritually, geopolitically, ecologically – you name it) one of the most urgent matters of our time. To get your free copy of This Book Will Change Your World, go here and click the ‘free e-book’ option. It’ll take you from there. I’m trying to get the word out about this, and I hope you’ll help me. Feel free to post a link to thisbookwillchangeyourworld.com (or my post here) to your blog, Facebook profile, email list, etc…

And let’s discuss it! In the comments here, or on The Ooze.