International Christian pastor, activist and public theologian, Brian McLaren was in debate with Bishop Nick Baines last weekend (October 15th) as part of a regional conference in Harrogate around his latest work, ‘The Great Spiritual Migration.’
The event attracted an audience from across the north of England, keen to hear Brian McLaren’s influential views which include a call to the church to move forward from a religion based on a static belief systems to a way of life and love which is organised for the good of society as a whole.
A leading voice in contemporary spirituality and religion, Brian McLaren was invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to address bishops from around the world at the Lambeth Conference in 2008. He was speaking at St. Mark’s Harrogate as part of a series of conferences organised by PCN, the Progressive Christianity Network introducing his new work and discussing key issues for the church such as religious pluralism and sexuality.
In an interview during the conference, Brian said “I think we are at a moment of challenge to move forward, to not be afraid, to not retract, but to move forward and to continue in our discipleship ..what does it mean to keep following Jesus in the 21st century and a call toward love, a call towards understanding and honouring God as the God of love and reconciliation and liberation and in a call to be engages in the needs of this world.”
He added, “It seems to me that there is something deeper than beliefs that we are called to as Christians and that is to walk the way of love, which is often a way of suffering. If we love we care and if we care we suffer and we have to grow in our virtue and courage”. He added, “As for organised religion, I am a big fan of organised religion – I just hope we can get better organised for better purposes.”
Bishop Nick “I am very happy to endorse what Brian is saying because in this diocese, which we are only just creating our vision statement is loving, living, learning, so we begin with loving God and loving neighbour – it’s exactly what Brian was talking about – and loving your enemy and that has to be communal and social, not just individual.
“The ‘living’ is about ‘how do you create human flourishing for our communities?’ because as Anglicans we are committed to territory, to the people who live in our communities. The learning is that we’ve got to have a bit of humility about this … lets have the humility not to be an institution that dominates, that domineers but is trying to, as Brian says, be organised about the right things.”
Watch a video on YouTube with Brian McLaren and Bishop Nick Baines here.