Following in the tradition of the early Greek philosophers, McLaren sets up this book as an ongoing dialogue between a close-to-burnt-out pastor and his daughter's soccer coach/science teacher. The pastor is tired of the usual theological and personality battles in the local church and seems disillusioned with the message that he has been presenting. The science teacher also turns out to be a former pastor and left the ministry for some of the same reasons that the current pastor now articulates. The science teacher channels McLaren in this piece as he shares his spiritual journey and the "generously orthodox" claims he had come to hold dear.
p52 "When we let it [the Bible] go as a modern answer book, we get to rediscover it for what it really is: an ancient book of incredible spiritual value for us, a kind of universal and cosmic history, a book that tells us who we are and what story we find ourselves in so that we know what to do and how to live."
p54 "What if faith isn't best compared to a building but rather to a spiderweb? Instead of one foundation, it has several anchor points."
p83 "...we are chosen by God not for privilege but for service..."
p87 "What's the consequence of that..." creation by God
p91 "We are becoming on this side of the door of death the kind of people we will be on the other side"
p97 "...maybe a hundred years from now, the descendants of my fellow evangelicals today will be like the Amish of tomorrow, but instead of maintaining 1850's German culture, they'll perpetuate 1950s American culture."
p98 "One of the most dangerous things in the world...is to redefine sin to suit our own tastes."
p130 "I see a huge contrast between crossing a line in this way, and following Jesus on a journey. It's as if we have taken what is for Jesus a starting line and turned it into a finish line."
p155 "[The church] is about three things: community, spirituality, and mission..."
p162 A misguided view of seminaries and their libraries
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