Summer of Reading #2 THE SECRET MESSAGE OF JESUS

....by Brian McClaren

This is the softer side of McClaren who seems to be mending any rickety fences between XCore emergent and the thinking Evangelical. I liked this book. As I read it I was encouraged that I am living out the secret message, which is just a euphemism for "parable."
McClaren isn't nearly as radical as Wills (see previous post) in his take on Jesus or nearly as upsetting. While Wills shows his Catholic mindset, McClaren's ideas in the appendix for practicing the secret message are healthy and balanced, expressing the latter's evangelical roots. Each of these men seem to want to hold to the root of the tradition, but do major pruning to the point of below ground. In other words-underground. Sounds like the way of the persecuted third world to me.

There is a lot of grace to this book. Less of McClaren's ambivalence, and more of a simple clarity. He seems to have made a little peace with not having figured it all out: and now just wants to encourage us to move on to the business of tending to the Kingdom.