McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy

The rather long subtitle for this book "Why I am a missional + evangelical + post/protestant..." Indicates the main point of his book - conceiving a Christian orthodoxy that includes and goes beyond current or historical boundaries with Christianity. There is much to admire here - who's against going beyond meaningless boundaries? The trouble for McLaren is various readers will have different ideas about what is or is not a meaningful boundary. I'm reminded of Lindbeck's Nature of Doctrine which argues that each group develops it's own dialect of the Christian language. McLaren is right, I think, in suggesting that there is a common language that can found and that there is value in sharing in it. The difficulty is that it is the very nature of communities to be formed with a certain theological dialect and there can be some challenges in maintaining a community when dialect is left behind or changed.
p64-65 Helpful chart of views of Jesus by group
p80 "Has he become ( I shudder to ask this) less our Lord and more our Mascot?"
p85 "Jesus defined his own identity not as being served, but as giving his life in service, and in this way, acknowledging Jesus as master means one voluntarily "takes his yoke" and learns from Jesus how to serve God, plus one's neighbor, plus one's enemy, and so the whole world."
p179 "...the tragedy of consumerism: one acquires more and more things without taking the time to ever see and know them, and thus one never truly enjoys them."
p225 "...the sacrament nature of Catholicism is this: through learning that a few things can carry the sacred, we become open to the fact that all things (all good things, all created things) can ultimately carry the sacred..."
p290 "...the practices of humility, compassion, spirituality, and love--which develop only in community--are more essential to a good and healthy theology..."
p293 "It [generous orthodoxy] is rather to be in a loving (ethical) community of people who are seeking the truth (doctrine) on the road of mission (witness) and who have been launched on the quest by Jesus, who, with us, guides us still."