I was wrong

I have read further through The Secret Message of Jesus, and now it seems to be to be more utterly brilliant and original that it was upon my first observation. Instead of NT Wright for dummies, think NT Wright meets Henri Nouwen meets Eugene Peterson. Or, if you are more comforable with a blue-collar title for a book, think Christian mysticism for anal retentives.

There is a lot to say about the book, but it is interesting how far McLaren takes the "secrecy" metaphor of living as a disciple of Christ. And in doing so, in typical humble and self-effacing fashion, McLaren slowly deconstructs American Christianity's love affair with wealth, fame, and success as measures of faithfulness.

He talks about how Jesus was born in an out of the way place. How he speaks in parables that people have to work to understand. How Jesus carries out signs and wonders that inspire more questions and answers then and now than they do answer questions.

Don't think for a minute that with this metaphor for secrecy McLaren is trying to convince us to be secretive and unopen about our faith. He talks about faith being an open secret...and our responsibility to share our faith with others. Although he does point out how Jesus teaches spiritual disciplines of secrecy, such as giving to the poor, prayer and fasting, etc.

But all in all, the secrecy metaphor is all about how the gospel of Christ defies our attempts to try and define it and control it. Faith is something that needs to be lived. And to live by faith in the God of the Bible, we will always be subversive secret agents, misunderstood mystics, countercultural advocates for love, compassion and non-violence. And that this will be true especially for disciples that are embedded in a Christian culture. When we are faithful to Jesus we will always be on the verge of failure, always being surprising people, always being revolutionaries against the status quo of the world. And the church.