The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything by Brian D. McLaren

The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything Reviews

• 
  John

  I do not recommend this book for its Christian Orthodoxy. However, if you want to understand the Emergent Church and the "personalities" within this movement, you unfortunately have to read their material to understand their teachings.
• 
  derek

  While I'm grateful McLaren emphasizes Jesus' ministry to the poor and downtrodden, I'm disappointed that he feels like he needs to sacrifice the main message of Jesus to do it.
  
  He focuses on explaining how Jesus preached the "kingdom of God" as here and now, but for some reason ignores that the Kingdom is also for eternity. Also, it seems like McLaren thinks that establishing "justice on earth" is the ultimate goal of Christ.
  
  Why do we have to trivialize the eternal aspect of the Kingdom- like SALVATION in particular- to emphasize the earthly aspects? to me, the eternal is the foundation upon which the earthly is built.
• 
  Katherine

  Refreshing, as always, to see McLaren’s take on things. This book, he claims, was aimed toward “a broad, nonscholarly, and in many cases nonreligious audience”, and he did a very good job of writing something that can easily be understood and appreciated by Christians and non-Christians alike, something that people at any level of theological interest can reflect upon.
  
  Written in a way that is easy to read and digest, this book shows us another way of looking at the message of Jesus - one that’s not as wrapped up in the more traditional way of understanding, one that shows us more than what we find in the traditional explanation. He goes into the political issues of the time, the different responses to the Roman occupation, showing us how Jesus’ response compares and differs from the other Jewish responses at the time. He also goes into the idea of “the kingdom” being attainable and achievable here and now, if only we would strive to see it be in our lives and in the world. Most of the Christians we hear try to tell us, or at least leave the impression, that the point is gaining our ticket to some sort of exclusive club after this life is over, and it’s nice to see someone saying that such thinking misses at least some of the point of Jesus and his message, which is meant to be applied to *this* life. Not that he seems to be denying an afterlife – but that seems to be beside the point of his main focus, which is to show us how the message of Jesus is meant to be understood and applied in our lives and our faiths in each and every moment, instead of seeing faith as merely a looking forward to a future moment or time.
  
  Whether one is a Christian or not, this side of Jesus and his message is something I would recommend everyone take the time to consider. McLaren is an author I highly recommend to Christians and non-Christians alike. He offers a fresh perspective, and I’m constantly pleased in my exploration of his books. :)
• 
  Michael

  The more I learn about early Christianity, the more convinced I become that somewhere between Constantine's empire and the influence of Aristotle (as well as other Greek philosophers), the whole program went off the rails. This is the third book of Brian McClaren's that I've read, and I think this may be my favorite of all. In sum, the author makes a convincing case that the secret message of Jesus is quite simple: the Kingdom of God is at hand. Not coming after you die. Not some pie-in-the-sky cloud-filled angel fest, but here, now, in front of us if we only had the eyes to see it. And what is this Kingdom? Love God, love your neighbor. Give to the poor. Pray. Work for justice. Be peaceful. Be pure of heart. Share.
  
  Seem easy? Try doing it tomorrow.
  
  McClaren certainly isn't the first to say this, although he is perhaps the most compelling (after Shane Clairborne, who I love). Considering the state of the church these days--dying mainstream Protestantism in the US, more (and more and more...) horrifying Catholic scandals, and a rapidly rising fundamentalism both around the world and here at home, it seems to me that more Christians could use a little history lesson with regard to what Jesus was actually saying, to whom he was saying it, and why.
  
  Here is the money quote: "Faith is not the absence of doubt, but the presence of action." Sign me up.
• 
  Big Mike Lewis

  I don't think his historical background of the people of the day is accurate. I did some research into what he says about the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots.
  
  And throughout the book, he not only misses the mark, but completely obliterates it. His claims about Jesus in Scripture are so generalized and skewed that he makes Jesus sound like a Marxist.
  
  By the end, McLaren never tells us what Jesus' message really is (because he is so vague) and never points us to a Scripture where we can find this message.
• 
  Laityfamily

  This book completly transformed my way of thinking about Jesus. I went from knowing I needed Him. To really Loving Him.
  After reading the first couple pages of this book, I put it down. It was obvious that this book was going to shake my foundations and I wasn't sure I was ready yet. I did pick it up again after a short amount of time and a deep breath.
  I won't ever be the same.
• 
  Dan Salerno

  Although I enjoyed McClaren's book, it was the Appendix section that made me snap to and really pay attention.
  
  Appendix I asks the question "Why Didn't We Get It Sooner?" (It being Jesus' secret message.)
  
  In this section, McClaren writes about the historical significance of the early church becoming separated from its Jewish roots within a century or two of Jesus ascending into heaven. With much of the social significance of Jesus' message being lost to present day followers.
  
  "Some might argue that the esoteric (doctrinal) arguments (of Christianity) were necessary; otherwise Christian theology would have lost its doctrinal integrity and become a subset of some other ideology. But if it did indeed succeed in saving its doctrinal integrity, one wonders, if it lost its ethical integrity in the process..."
  
  Just as troubling is McClaren's assertion of the marriage of the established Christian church with the political state (or, as what some current social justice writers call "the empire.")
  
  "What we have seen with this alliance between church and empire came an endorsement of the use of violence in the service of the kingdom of God."
  
  Witness the 45th's recent seemingly off-the-cuff declaration to unload "fire and fury" on North Korea if they don't stop trying to be like the US and set up their own nuclear arsenal.
  
  Oh well. (What's that about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery?)
  
  As if to offset the dilemma found in Appendix I, Appendix II offers a host of very practical, do-able and fun activities to promote the spread of Jesus' secret message. Even if you aren't a believer, I think you'd appreciate more than a few of them.
  
  On a bibliographic sidenote, McClaren cites Walter Wink's "The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium."
  
  Sounds like a good one to put on the shelf!
  
• 
  Melanie

  I liked this book mainly because the experience of reading it was a little bit like finding new windows to look through in the walls of the house where you've lived a very long time. McLaren's chapter on the parables of Jesus (Chapter 6: The Medium of the Message) made me think in fresh ways about why Jesus chose to teach in parables. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 6:
  
  Parables entice their hearers into new territory. If the goal is an interactive relationship...a parable succeeds where easy answers and obvious explanations couldn't. With a clear and easy explanation, hearers can listen and achieve understanding and then go on their way independent of the teacher. But when a parable confounds them, it invites them to ask questions...If a parable leaves you confused, you will have one of two responses. You can respond with arrogant and impatient anger...which makes you walk away. Or you can respond with eager and curious humility...which keeps you coming back. In this way parables have a capacity that goes beyond informing their hearers; parables also have the power to help transform them into interactive, interdependent, humble, inquisitive, and persistent people...Human kingdoms advance by force and violence with falling bombs and flying bullets, but God's kingdom advances by stories, fictions, tales that are easily ignored and easily misunderstood. Perhaps that's the only way it can be (45-46, 49).
  
  I also particularly liked Chapter 10 - Secret Agents of the Secret Kingdom and Chapter 17: The Peaceable Kingdom.
  
  I would like to explore more of the authors that McLaren named as influential to his thinking, particularly Walter Wink and John Howard Yoder.
• 
  Christopher Endress

  I would say that this book should be read and used more of as a traditional children's story: Don't take it too seriously and you might end up with a good moral at the end. McLaren's problem is that he neglects everything that disagrees with his perspective - and thus loses out on huge (and I mean HUGE) theological necessities of Christianity. If I were to read this book as a strict theological text, I would have rated it a zero (or given it an 'i' for incomplete).
  However, if you take this book as simply one man expressing a far-out idea for the purpose of proving a point or getting us to shift slightly more to his angle, it wasn't terrible. I disagree with the very idea of making a hyperbolical viewpoint to force a paradigm shift (think "the earth will end in 5 years" scare tactics to get people to do something reasonable like recycle), but McLaren is much more literature-based than he is scientific method-based so I can look past it.
  Long story short, don't take this for what it says. That is, don't take this for what it says if you want to enjoy it at all (without the need to rip your hair out in frustration).
• 
  Sheila

  I enjoyed this book and found some wonderful gems in it, even though the "secret" is not such a secret, that Jesus wants us to make our lives on earth more meaningful by caring for each other. Even though McLaren is not a fantastic writer, his thought process and analysis of the gospels is very compelling and faith-filled. He is humble, yet passionate, and refreshingly modern in his thinking about what it means to be Christian in the real world. His down to earth approach alone makes me a fan. I especially enjoyed his chapter on the Sermon on the Mount. The beatitudes were illuminated in a new way for me, and are now a regular part of my prayer life. I also liked the idea that faith is "practice" with a defined set of exercises which makes me feel better about those moments when my own faith is weak and small. In "practicing" faith, you can strengthen it through action, even when your heart is in doubt.
• 
  Jenny

  Brian McLaren speaks to my heart in a way that no person, novel, or church has in a long time. The only reason this book isn't getting five stars from me is because I've also read A New Kind Of Christianity (same author), and I prefer it. But there aren't a lot of negative comments I can make about McLaren's message. If you, like me, want to believe in Jesus' message and follow his example, but aren't very impressed with the way the church has interpreted the Bible's teachings, I'd highly recommend this and other McLaren books.
• 
  Cody Bertram

  feces
• 
  Lee Tracy

  All my life, I’ve been excited by the Jesus of the Gospels, and thoroughly disappointed by the way those professing to follow him have behaved, and what they have emphasized in scripture. The Jesus I kept encountering in the Bible seemed to be leading in one way, and Christians seemed to be going somewhere else. It seemed clear that Jesus is taking great pains to tell us how to act in the Beatitudes and in the Sheep and Goats parable, for instance, but Christians much prefer to talk about John 3:16. Yes, John 3:16 is important, but the emphasis has always felt wrong. Are we really to believe that the most important thing in our Red Letter bibles is a verse not printed in Red? That doesn’t make sense. And Jesus has always seemed at once much more loving and much more demanding than He comes across in a Church preoccupied with salvation and the afterlife.
  
  While I can see how McLaren is a dangerous figure for many, his argument isn’t that revelatory—it’s rather a common-sense one, in fact—for those of us who have read the Gospels from a position outside of fundamentalist evangelicalism, outside of organized Christianity. And nothing McLaren says really denies anything conservative fundamentalists believe. Rather, what McLaren does is call us to change what we emphasize in the Gospel, and how we try to follow Christ.
• 
  Neil Purcell

  Long and tedious. What was the secret message? The Kingdom of God is at hand. If you didn't think that was a secret, join the club.
  
  McLaren argues that Jesus deliberately hid this message so that we would have to work hard to get it, and benefit spiritually from the effort. This just isn't convincing. Jesus in the Gospels seems on several occasions to tamp down the marketing effort around His ministry, but the motive for managing the publicity seems to have been calculated to allow His movement to grow without sparking the attention of the Roman authorities or their collaborators in the Temple.
  
  Read the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: it is obvious that the message is no secret - the Kingdom is at hand, now, and the Kingdom is about ending the system of dominance and injustice that marked the Roman occupation of Judea, about raising up the poor and oppressed, about sustained peace achieved through non-violence. McLaren is writing two thousand years after the authors of those Gospels. Maybe he thinks it necessary to make an excuse for the obvious fact that today's Christians (especially American white nationalist Christians) seem to have missed the point, but, really, honest-to-God, it isn't a secret.
• 
  Sue

  The book is about the Kingdom of God as understood in the first century, and also relevant today. today. Those who follow Christ are described by the author as ‘agents’ of the Kingdom, our job being to spread the message of Jesus: of peace, reconciliation, and so on.
  
  The first few chapters set the scene in the historical and Jewish cultural contexts in which Jesus lived as a man on earth. The second section looks at how the author sees the message, in contrast to how some fundamentalist churches tend to portray it, and the final section looks at what it means in the 21st century.
  
  The writing is good, the author's views clearly expressed, and there's plenty of Biblical backing. The book covers portions of the ‘sermon on the mount’, for instance, and reminds readers about the meanings of the ‘parables of the Kingdom’, from the perspective of the first century audience.
  
  I’m puzzled about the idea of it being a ‘secret’ message. This is broadly how I understood the Christian message growing up in an Anglican Church in the UK; it was explored more fully in RE lessons at my secondary school, and is similar to much of what I have read over the years.
  
  Still, this book gives some excellent and thoughtful writing about the Kingdom of God in its many aspects, and much to think about. If it weren't for the title and insistence that this is a 'new' understanding, I'd have given it five stars.
  
  
• 
  Bill Wrabley

  I loved his focus on the message of Jesus. His teaching to create the Kingdom of God here on earth through our actions and how we treat one another. My only complaint was his style of writing. In stead of coming right out and stating the message he hides it throughout the book. Revealing it has the book finishes. I appreciated the foundation he lays through historical background but at times it made me feel like he was trying to interest the page count. I still thought the book was worth reading for its message.
• 
  Marilyn

  This was an excellent choice for our Monday morning Companions group discussion. The weeks leading up to Easter are ripe for questions, observations, introspection, uncovering secrets, etc. McLauren doesn't have the answers nor can he see the end results; but, he is content to accept that Jesus was "more interested in stirring curiosity than in completely satisfying it - in making people hungry and thirsty for more than making them feel completely stuffed. Perhaps that's how it should be."
• 
  Melinda The Opinionated Crackpot

  This book has much food for thought, and was like a much needed breath of fresh air for me. Many people practice their Christian religion in a fear based, judgmental way, whether they realize it or not. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested enough to take their time, and seriously think about what they are reading.
• 
  Cecil Calvert

  Revolutionary way of looking at Jesus' life and purpose.
• 
  John Muriango

  Heretical!
• 
  Rita

  Will read this again!! Lots of 'food for thought'. One of McLaren's best, in my opinion.
• 
  John Martindale

  I've been listening to so many audiobooks about Jesus lately, and likely if I read "the Secret Message of Jesus" earlier in my life I would have liked it a lot more, but alas, most of the content all seemed so old hat to me. Some is influenced by some good modern Jesus Scholarship, which McLaren employs from a confessional perspective, but for the most part I wasn't all that moved with how he expressed it. I have this memory of just loving how McLaren wrote about Jesus in his book "Generous Orthodoxy". So I expected to like this a little more.
  
  With that said, the chapter that was an exception for me, was the one that focused on the nonviolence of Jesus and the called to us to follow in His footsteps. McLaren points out how
  “Confessing “Jesus is Lord” means taking Jesus seriously as Lord, as the authority for the believer: Caesar commands us to kill our enemies, and Jesus commands us to love them. Caesar makes use of torture and chains; Jesus calls us to forgiveness and holiness. So Tertullian asked "Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him to even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs?”"
  
  Crucifixion was a primary means of executions for insurrectionist, anyone opposed to the Roman peace, any rebel, anyone in favor of a rival kingdom, could be crucified. Likely the two hanging on the cross by Jesus were likely such folk. Crucifixion was so feared that few would consider the risk worth taking, that of taking a stance against Caesar.
  Fascinating the cross became the primary symbol of the church.
  
  “For the early church, it apparently meant that the kingdom of God would triumph not by inflicting violence but by enduring it—not by making others suffer but by willingly enduring suffering for the sake of justice—not by coercing or humiliating others but by enduring their humiliation with gentle dignity. Jesus, they felt, took the empire's instrument of torture and transformed it into God's symbol of the repudiation of violence—encoding a creed that love, not violence, is the most powerful force in the universe.
  It's no surprise in this light that the heroes of the early church were not Crusaders, not warriors, not men of the sword but rather martyrs, men and women with the faith and courage to face lion, ax, cross, chain, whip, and fire as testimony to their allegiance—not to the standards of this world but to the standards of the kingdom of God. Like Jesus, they would rather suffer violence than inflict. Like Jesus, they showed that threats of violence could not buy their silence, that instruments of fear could not make them cower."
  
  Love these two quotes he includes in the chapter.
  
  “Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth, through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.” -MLK jr.
  
  “the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world” -Paul
  
  
  
• 
  Harro Medema

  Great book! Different thoughts on scripture and yet so close to its meaning.