I note on Brian McLaren’s blog that he’s going to be in Australia and New Zealand between February 15 and March 6 next year.
February 15 - Sydney, Australia
February 20 - Melbourne, Australia
February 24 - Auckland, New Zealand
March 2 - Christchurch, New Zealand
March 6 - Sydney, Australia
It looks as though there’s a bit of movement…
Sydney
Brian will be speaking at an all day conference for the Converse Network, supported by the NSW Board of Mission, Uniting Church in Australia, on Saturday 18th Feb at Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club. In addition, he will speak at a dinner for denominational leaders on Friday 17th February.
Melbourne
Brian will also be visiting Melbourne and speaking at events on Tues 21st, Wed 22nd and Thurs 23rd February. Anyone know where?
Brian McLaren’s written the cover article for the latest edition of Sojourners, on building bridges between extremes of liberalism and conservatism. I like what he has to say. He starts by drawing our attention to the commitment Jesus made to entering the culture he lived in. Likewise he looks at Paul’s call to ‘be all things to all kinds of people’, despite our saying that ‘we can’t be all things to all people’.
McLaren’s hunch is that there are four bridges we have to deal with in our hyper-polarized world today:
1. Religious Right and Secular Left.
“On the one side we have people for whom the good news of Jesus and the policies of George W. Bush are bonded with super glue. On the other side we have people who believe that all religion is superstitious mush and wish we would just dispense with the whole business once and for all and trust science and government instead.”
2. Religious Right and Religious Left.
“More and more supposedly “secular Left” folk are coming out of the closet as people of faith. For them, being anti-war is more important than being anti-abortion for religious reasons, and for them, some form of recognition for homosexual couples is a moral issue based in faith. They want to argue these issues not only on the basis of politics and sociology, but also on the basis of the Bible and theology.”
3. Secular Right and Religious Left.
“I suspect that hiding behind some religious conservatives are some secular conservatives who are manipulating their religious colleagues for a secular, cynical, ideological conservatism. These are the people who have (in the worst sense of the word) a relativist-postmodern conservative ideology, best articulated in Ron Suskind’s article “Without a Doubt,” published in The New York Times Magazine last October. These conservative ideologues are happy for religious conservatives to win support for their policies, but in the end it’s ideology, not theology, that guides them. Ironically, they have less in common theologically with those they have the most in common with ideologically, and vice versa.”
4. Secular Right and Secular Left.
“In spite of the widespread assumption that religion is the new politics, there still are secular forces on both sides for whom a thoughtful Christian (or generically spiritual) voice is seen as stupid for actually believing in such unscientific and impractical things as God, hope, forgiveness, sacrifice, and prayer.”
McLaren says that there is a rising ‘purple peoplehood’ out there - people who don’t want to be defined as red or blue, but have elements of both, and for whom faith speaks to both abortion and war, both sexuality and ecology, both family values and fair, respectful treatment for gay people - then we will need to learn new ways of communication. He finishes with suggestions on how to engage in conversation that takes this complexity seriously.
Over at PostKiwi’s Generations in Conversation I’ve reflected on Don Carson and Brian McLaren and their varying interpretation of the word ‘post’, as in ‘post modern’. I argue that ‘post’ does indeed refer to coming after in terms of time or space. But ‘post’ does not necessarily mean discontinuity. In some cases trends are accentuated rather than left behind. I like the phrase, “This, and more”. It’s what I live by. I am never ultimately defined by any category. I am liberal, and more. I work in literary culture, and more. I am modern, and more. I am Christian, and more.
At PostKiwi I’ve put in themes and variations I used at a multi-media conference two years ago. They’re for post apocalyptic, post bellum, post charismatic, post christendom, post classical, post coital, post colonial, post communion, post diem, post diluvial, post doctoral, post echo, post embryonic, post entry, post Evangelical, and post existence.
Here’s Post Liberal to Post Mortem. What do you think? What would you add to these definitions?
Post Liberal school of theology founded in the 1970s by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, affirmed the decisive significance and the integrity of the biblical narrative.
Post Literary Communication no longer dominated by written text.
Post Lingual Post-lingual hearing impairment is a hearing impairment where hearing loss develops due to disease or trauma after the acquisition of speech and language, usually after the age of six.
Postliminous
Postliminium
The return of a person to his/her own country and privileges - especially a person who has been away in exile. (liminal refers to threshold).
Postlude
(Music) a final or concluding piece or movement2 a voluntary played at the end of a Church service. (As in ‘after game’.)
Postmenopausal of or occurring in the time following menopause.
Post Menstrual
of or occurring in the time following menstruation.
Post Meridian
after noon
in the afternoon or evening
Post Meridiem
ADVERB & ADJECTIVE:abbr. P.M. or p.m. or p.m. After noon. Used chiefly in the abbreviated form to specify the hour: 10:30 p.m.; a p.m. appointment.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin post mer diem : post, after + mer diem, accusative of mer di s, midday.
Post Millennialism
The doctrine that Jesus’s Second Coming will follow the millennium.
Post Mistress
After the Affair
Post-modernism of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes.
Post Mortem
1 occurring after death
2 analysis or study of a recently completed event
February 15 - Sydney, Australia
Brian McLaren’s written the cover article for the latest edition of 
