CharlieDean

If you’ve read my blog or talked to me for any length of time, you know that Brian McLaren has been an influential writer to me.  He, perhaps more than any other writer, has challenged me to think deeply about my faith, and what I believe about the biggest questions regarding God, faith, salvation, heaven & hell, etc.  I haven’t always agreed with what he’s saying, but I’ve always found him provocative, which I think is more important.

In this video, from the Q Conference (a Christian version of TED), Scot McKnight interviews McLaren – and asks some pretty tough questions.  I liked McLaren’s answer to the first question a lot – there are a lot of people out there with their checklists, and they write McLaren off because they can’t “check the boxes” – so they ignore what he’s saying.   But, what was most disappointing about this video was that  in the end, McLaren’s answers are wholly unsatisfying to me.  Given the chance to clear up ambiguities, he responds with more ambiguity.  (I wish the format would have allowed McKnight to ask follow up questions like, “And, where, Brian is Miami?”)  And, while I’ve always admired McLaren’s humility, his answer to the final answer came off a little arrogant to me – kind of like “if you were as enlightened as me you wouldn’t ask those questions, but you’re not, so we’re at an impasse.”

For many of you, this is entirely uninteresting, but if you are into this sort of thing, you can watch the video below – it’s about 18 minutes long.

Q | Conversations on Being a Heretic from Q Ideas on Vimeo.

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