The Great Spiritual Migration

Book excerpt: Many people experience Christianity as a system of belief, focused on an exclusive Supreme Being who favours some and rejects others, and is defended by a set of change-averse, self-protecting institutions. In The Great Spiritual Migration, Brian McLaren proposes that this conventional understanding of Christianity is ripe for a conversion: from system of belief to way of life, from exclusive Supreme Being to the loving, healing, reconciling Spirit embodied in Jesus, and from an organised institutional religion that supports an unjust status quo to an organising movement-building religion that helps a better world be born. Drawing from his work as a pastor, speaker, ecumenical networker and activist, McLaren issues a call and offers a plan for radical change that can shift the direction of Christian faith to be more in sync with its founder, more life-giving for individual Christians and congregations - and more of a life-giving resource for the whole world.