What if the Christian faith is supposed to exist in a variety of forms rather than just one imperial one? What if it is both more stable and more agile – more responsive to the Holy Spirit – when it exists in these many forms? And what if, instead of arguing about which form is correct and legitimate, we were to honor, appreciate, and validate one another and see ourselves as servants of one grander mission, apostles of one greater message, seekers one ultimate quest? That, I’d say, sounds like a new kind of Christianity.
But what would that one mission, message, and quest be? Around what one grand endeavor can we rally? What one great danger do people need to be saved from and, more positively, what one great purpose do they need to be saved for? Around what melody can we harmonize without trying to homogenize? Of many possible answers, there is one to which I am continually drawn, embarrassingly obvious and simple to understand, but also embarrassingly challenging to do: the church exist to form Christlike people, people of Christlike love. It exists to save them from the great danger of wasting their lives, becoming something less than and other than they were intended be, gaining the world but losing their souls.
Brian McLaren
(from A New Kind of Christianity)
