A New Kind of Christianity, by Brian McLaren

When I saw that this book had such sharp reviews from opposing sides of the opinion spectrum, it caught my attention. So, after opening up a Barnes & Noble Nook for Christmas, the first book I downloaded onto it was Brian McLaren's latest book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith.

To start off, I might offer a warning about this book to the theologically mild mannered out there. My own theology has certainly been a place of journeying, reconsidering, questioning, and quite frankly honest struggle. And this book ain't making that business any easier.

Mr. McLaren's basic thesis is that our society is on the verge of another shift in thought and theolgy similar to the Enlightenment or the Protestant Reformation. As post-modernity moves into full swing it is becoming more evident that older schools of thought and theology are having more trouble addressing today's questions. McLaren's prescription: not a different way of seeing our usual faith or belief system, and not an alternate approach to "doing" church or programs, but very much a radical New Kind of Christianity.

McLaren takes issue with modern Christianity's basic approach to reading and interpreting the Bible. He submits that we read scripture backwards, through the lens of Martin Luther, who reads through the lens of the Roman Catholic tradition which reads through Augustine who in turn reads through the eyes of the patristic church fathers and so on all the way back to Antiquity. Instead, McLaren offers that we should reconsider reading the Bible forward, starting from Genesis, moving on to Exodus, through Isaiah and culminating in the person of Jesus. What I mean by this is, What did Abraham believe about God? How did Moses understand the Divine? What was Isaiah prophesying about concerning God's shalom? And how did Jesus fulfill those prophesies ushering in the the Kingdom of God?

You might be thinking, "Well, my church already reads the Bible forwards." And I apologize for my poor attempt at summarizing McLaren's thesis, but, chances are, actually you don't. Rather, like me, you probably read the Bible through what McLaren calls the Greco-Roman narrative. (Sadly, there's not space or time to fully describe this narrative and it's ramifications.) This is the understanding of scripture that took a tight hold and hasn't let go when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire (the same empire that executed Jesus) under Emperor Constantine. Though he didn't say it in these words, McLaren fears that when that shift took place, the essential message of the gospel changed.

The Greco-Roman narrative of Christianity is highly influenced by a Platonic (Plato) view of the world, which says that spiritual things or the unseen parts of the universe are the better, the perfect parts of existence and the material, fleshy, human worldly portions of existence are less, fallen, dirty, changing. Plato's gods existed in the spiritual, the perfect, never-changing realm and we, because things change and evolve in our world, live on the wrong side of the Platonic tracks.

What does all this mean? McLaren thinks it means that the Greco-Roman narrative of perfection, fall, and either redemption or hell forever, is a result of a theology not held by Jews at the time of Jesus. Rather, the good news that Jesus was proclaiming and fulfilling was that prophesied by Isaiah when he preached on a coming era of reconciliation, jubilee, peace, community, and all that lions laying down with lambs mess. a.k.a God's shalom.

Now, depending on your theological acuity you may or may not be hearing the gravity of what McLaren is up to in my limited and honestly poor description. To put it bluntly, McLaren is proposing an understanding of Christianity with a different gospel that most conservative and even not so conservative folks out there. And the reason for this is the influence that the Greco-Roman narrative has had on Christianity for the last 1,600 years.

Now, there's sooo much more in this book that what I've said. Again, it's a book of questions. His topics are God, Jesus, the gospel, church, sex (particularly homosexuality), the future, pluralism (what do we do with other religions) and praxis. However, each topic is approached through a non-Greco-Roman orthodox. And what he comes out with is, if nothing else, extremely thought provoking.

Some of you reading even just my simple review will have immediate strong feelings toward what McLaren is doing. I, myself, am reserving judgment as I need much time to chew on it. There's no doubt McLaren, a pastor for 20 some years, loves God and cares for the church deeply. That no doubt will make it difficult as he has already been branded a heretic by loads of conservatives and fundamentalists. But, honestly, even if you agree with those who condemn his approach, I believe it does no good to simply lambaste him judgmentally and move on. Rather, I'd invite you to perhaps read for yourself and engage what he's saying.

The questions he's asking in this book are not going away, so whatever your response to them or to McLaren, you'd be wise to grapple with them yourself.

As for the technical. McLaren is a gifted writer with a powerful vocabulary. There were times when it took all of my seminary degree just to keep up. He declares at the beginning that his comments on the ten questions of the book are responses, not answers. They will generate discussion, no doubt. I have to give the book the ever coveted Nathan's-two-thumbs-up award. Whether I'm all aboard the B. McLaren express or not, I have to give him credit. I believe he's honestly trying to work for the good, and bravely taking lots of criticism in the process.

Who Moved My Cheese, by Spencer Johnson

My dear sister gave me this book after I mentioned wanting to read it while visiting her Raleigh home two weeks ago. Who Moved My Cheese: An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in You Life is a short book with a tall order inside. I knew I wanted to read it after hearing it recommended by two people whose opinions on good books I respect.

Physician Spencer Johnson tells a little story about two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two small (mouse-size) humans named Hem and Haw. I'll paraphrase it here. Our four characters find themselves ready to take on life. So, they set out in the maze of life in search of cheese (representative, of course, of whatever it is we're after in life). After a great deal of hard work, Sniff Scurry, Hem and Haw find an abundance of Cheese at Cheese Station C. All is well.

Hem and Haw hand up their work shoes and build luxury homes with privacy fences next to the cheese station and get comfortable and complacent. Until, one day, there is no more cheese at Cheese Station C. That very day, Sniff and Scurry put back on their work shoes and venture out again in search of more cheese. They soon find it. What do Hem and Haw do? Well, they hem and haw for a while about being entitled and feeling victimized. Eventually, Haw musters up some motivation, dusts off his old shoes, and sets out back into the now unfamiliar maze. Hem stays behind, blathering and slowly withering.

After some time of wandering and finding small bits of cheese to last him, Haw finally, finally reaches the bountiful cheese storehouse of Cheese Station N. Sniff and Scurry are already there, and sadly Hem will never choose to leave Station C.

Johnson does a good job at making this little story delightful and obviously parallel to life's changes. The last pages of the book are a verbatim account of a helpful discussion group on the book. Various people in the group identify with the different characters' responses when the cheese is moved. It's a good little book that I'd recommend as a quick read with long-term lessons.

After finishing it, I noticed myself more motivated to adapt to the big changes in life when one day they come calling on me. Then I realized, "oh crap! I'm slap in the middle of a huge life change! I've just moved to the other side of the North American Continent to a place where my specific denomination (CBF) isn't even present, where there's no open jobs for full-time chaplains and we don't have any friends or contacts. Where did my cheese go?

So, how am I going to adapt? Well, I've got my work shoes on, and I'm heading out into the maze. I'm calling pastors and chaplains, setting up lunch meetings to talk about ministry opportunities in Anchorage. I've gotten a tour of the largest hospital in the area, and attended a meeting of volunteer chaplains for the police and firemen in the area. I've given out my resume to two HR folks so far. I'm in the maze.

And what is the outcome so far? Well, I don't know if it is a busting full cheese station or not; however, I have accepted an offer to come on as (once again) a resident chaplain at Providence Medical Center (the big hospital) for the next eight months. In that time I will complete two more units of CPE giving me a total of seven. This is in line with one of my long-term goals of becoming a CPE supervisor, and for now it is a paying job during which I will no doubt learn and blog a lot.

Who Moved My Cheese? I don't know, but I'm working on finding it.

Five Hundred

I'm reminded of that game I used to play as a kid. One person would throw a football high into the air toward a group of others trying to catch it. The thrower would yell out a number as s/he threw, and the one who caught the ball would get that many points. The first to reach 500 wins and gets to be the next ball thrower.

Today's the day folks. The day of 500. Today, Heather metaphorically caught the ball.

To become a pharmacist in North Carolina one has to jump through a great deal of hoops including but not limited to strong grades in tough undergrad courses, standardized tests strictly for the pharmacy profession, admission into a pharmacy school which leads to 4 grueling years of hard work with little recompense or satisfaction.

The fourth year of pharm-school is entirely hands on. One of the chief reasons for this is that the governing bodies require students to gain 1500 hours of supervised practice experience before they can take two more tests and be granted a license. Just to be on the safe side, the pharmacy school at UNC-CH arranges for their students to earn 1600 total practice hours before graduating so that they're well prepared to represent the pedigree on their diploma.

The state of North Carolina houses three separate pharmacy schools including UNC, the #2 ranked pharm-school in the nation, and Campbell, a school well respected throughout the Southeast.

The state of Alaska, as majestic as it may be, enacts a different set of guidelines to license it's pharmacists. All of Alaska's pharmacists are from somewhere else, because the state does not have it's own pharm-school (not surprising though, the entire population is under 700k). Alaska requires a new pharmacist to have at least 500 non-educational hours of supervised practice before it will grant a license to a recent pharm-school graduate. This law has been frustrating.

But today, folks, oh today is the day. Today Heather came home from work having completed 502 hours. Tomorrow, we leave for NC, and when she returns to work (hopefully the Board of Pharmacy has processed her paperwork by then) she will be a licensed staff pharmacist at St. Elias Specialty Hospital.

Sk'doosh!

Congrats, Heather! Now you get to be the thrower.

Moving: The Saga

Prepare yourself, this is a long entry. I recently posted on my Facebook status that I hated moving companies and if anyone is preparing to use one for a large move s/he should seek my counsel on how not to get screwed. Here's the story behind it all.

(Note: All names have been concealed to avoid slander.)

Heather's employer generously offered us a moving allowance: a dollar amount we could use to pay for anything related to moving to Alaska (moving Co., travel costs, gas, food, hotels and even first month's rent in a place to live if the money would stretch that far).

During my initial discussion with N, the chief saleslady for Moving Company, I explained our plan to drive cross-country. She said it would take approximately 25 days to ship our things. The plan: we could have our stuff picked up (10/2) a week prior to our departure date (10/10) so that we and our stuff arrive in Anchorage at about the same time. Sounds good.

Also, part of the initial discussion was how much stuff we had. She asked how many pounds of household goods we had. Now let me stop here and ask: Does anybody, I mean anybody, have any earthly idea how much your combined household goods weigh? Answer: no. However, as moving companies bill by the pound they insist on procuring a rough estimate from the shipper (me). Somehow, I'm not really sure though, we landed on about 2,000 lbs of stuff. I was given a price rate based on about 2k pounds. Each additional 100 lbs would cost "x" amount of dollars. Okay, this is how moving companies do it, fine by me. The estimated cost would be about 1/3 of our total moving allowance giving us plenty to travel on.

Standard procedure for a move such as this is for the company to send someone out a week or so before the move to inventory our items and get a better idea of furniture, number of boxes and a more accurate estimate of the weight. However, this company had no one to send so they went with their second option, an over the phone inventory. Fine. I talked with L, chief N's assistant. L asked about all of our furniture, calculating cubic feet and weight. I walked through the house telling her about any items that wouldn't fit in a box. She then inquired as to how many boxes we'd be shipping. Again, having not yet packed, who the *#&% knows!?

I guessed, "Maybe around 45 or 5o boxes."

"Hmmm," she said, "probably not that many just for a 2-bedroom apartment. Usually it's more like 20-25."

Okay, she was the expert, so I deferred to her good judgment. We estimated about 25 boxes. Again, she confirmed that it sounded like it would be 2k pounds or just over. "Good, everything is still looking good," I thought to myself.

Moving Day: The truck driver calls that morning for directions. Upon arriving at our apartment he judges that he can't fit an 18-wheeler into our complex. He informs me he'll have to run and get a smaller truck to transfer our goods from our house out to his big-rig across the street in the grocery store parking lot. Not a problem, they must do this all the time. After all, I don't know many places like this you can actually fit a transfer truck. I'm informed that once our stuff is properly stowed he will hit up a weigh station and find out our exact weight.

The movers begin carrying boxes and wrapping up furniture. They finish up and our stuff begins it's journey to Alaska: the last frontier. For the next week, Heather and I sleep on the floor and say goodbye to our Asheville peeps. Oct. 10th we set out on the road. Day three of our journey, while standing underneath Mount Rushmore, I get a call from R, my contact who monitors our stuff while in transit. He informs me that our stuff has reached High Falls, Montana, where it will be transferred to another truck.

"Great," I replied, "hey, what was the official weight of our shipment?"

He pauses, and spits out, "Right at 5,000 pounds."

Holding back the freak out, I inquire, "So, how much does that change our projected invoice for this shipment?"

Doing some quick math he tells me the new price, which will be just over 9/10 of our entire moving allowance! Queue the freak out.

After a few days of freaking and wonderful traveling I drafted and sent an email to chief N requesting that our rate be adjusted to a rate more suitable for a 5k lb shipment. It seems the gods smiled on my email that day (or at least N did), and I was contacted by N who said she could reduce our invoice to about 7/10 our moving allotment. This was acceptable, but it drastically changed some of our financial plans. It would seem that we would be footing a significant portion of the moving costs.

After arriving in Anchorage I contacted R (transit monitor) letting him know we're here and asking how soon our things will arrive. He doesn't know, but reminds me that it typically takes 4-5 weeks for this kind of move. Funny, how I was initially told 25 days (3.5 weeks) and now suddenly the norm is 4-5 weeks. Grrr. Okay, no matter, because we didn't yet have apartment for our stuff to go into.

In the mean time, Moving Company had sent the primary invoice to me and to the hospital who was paying for the move. However, days later, I received a call from the hospital to inform me that they had received a second bill from Moving Co. for an additional $1200. This was news to me, because it was made clear that everything regarding billing would be sent to me and the hospital. This second invoice was itemized as follows:

1) Small truck for small apartment street: $700.00

2) Packing of 15 boxes $500.00

There are so many problems with this, I don't even know where to start. But here goes. First, we agreed that we would do all the packing, which we did. The movers didn't have to pack a single box of stuff. What they did pack were things like mattresses, box springs, large mirrors and a painting. However, packing of those such items is already included in our primary fee to Moving Co. Second, even if they did pack 15 of our boxes of stuff, where do you get off charging 500 friggin' dollars to pack 15 boxes!?! Next: yes they had to acquire a smaller truck for our apt., but I can go down the road to U-Haul and rent a truck for the day for only $50 bucks. Where do you get $700?

I told the hospital not to pay anything till this was resolved. I called Moving and couldn't get a hold of N. Left a message. No returned phone call. I called the next day. I sent an email: nothing. I called the next day and got R who sometimes helps with matters of billing when N is busy. Now, Moving Company subcontracted our move out to Second Moving Company. They are the actual company that picked up our stuff, because Moving Co. didn't have people in our area. Whatever. R informed me that they had received a second invoice from 2nd Moving Co. for the small truck and that they have to pass this bill along to us. That's where the second bill came from.

In this conversation I also mentioned that the $500 packing fee was bogus, that we'd already paid for that service. R's response was, "well we've got the movers saying they packed some boxes and you saying they didn't. It's your word against theirs. How do we know who to believe?" This infuriated me. However, after that conversation, a 3rd adjusted invoice was mysteriously sent. It was only for the $700 small truck fee. The $500 packing fee had magically disappeared, and no one on their side said a peep about it again.

I wanted to know how this $700 for a small truck was itemized, broken down. Richard didn't know. So, I called 2nd Moving Co. and started inquiring. The first lady was pleasant but couldn't answer, so she suggested I talk to their manager, D. (Note: Now I am talking with the subcontractor company, doing leg work that should be done by Moving Co.) When I spoke with D, I asked why it costs $700 for a small truck. His polite response, I kid you not was, "I don't know anything about $700 dollars, we invoiced Moving Co. for $552.20, that's all."

It is now clear to me that Moving Co. was trying to screw us royally. They somehow added a $150 markup to this already outrageous bill?! Nathan mad. Heather was literally ready to violently destroy somebody.

I tried to get a hold of N, because she seems to be the only one that can make things happen, but with no avail. Once again I spoke with R. I asked him how $552 turns into $700. He said, "Well, we've got to make some money somehow."

I responded politely. But what I was thinking was, "You're already making your profit in the large amount from the first invoice. This second markup is just ridiculous." It now felt like they were trying to scam us.

Not to mention, by this point it had been 5 weeks and we still had no word on our stuff getting delivered, and R had no idea where it was.

After several more days and attempts to talk with N, I drafted another lengthy email requesting that Moving Co. pay all or the majority of this $552.20 invoice. I was polite, firm and persuasive. Too long to post here, I simply spelled out how we had been misled, ignored and how the bills were bogus, over priced and much of it should be covered in our initial payment to Premier. The story concludes several days later when N, finally like a ray of warm sunshine, contacts me. She said nothing in direct response to my email; however, she said they could reduce this second invoice down to $176 dollars. By this point I was ready for it to be over. I can handle $176 for an extra truck rental and a bit more labor on their part. Whatever. We agreed and the final invoice was sent for the last time.

Somehow, through persistence and downright nagging, I managed to turn a bill for $1,200 into $176. Magic! This makes me wonder how many people just go ahead and pay whatever invoices get sent to them by this company. I imagine they get away with these rip off scams all the time. I'm just glad we were careful and smart enough to know what we were paying for.

As for our stuff, it was picked up on Oct. 2nd and delivered 6.5 weeks later on Nov. 16th. A far cry from their first estimate of 25 days.