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New kind of Christian: An Emergent voice

Brian McLaren’s two most important books—A New Kind of Christian and the recent A Generous Orthodoxy—both open by raising the specter of an evangelical pastor leaving the ministry or the church altogether. The fictional lead character in New Kind is poised to abandon his ministry until a wise new friend initiates him into the ways of postmodern Christianity, rehabilitating his ministry and life. Orthodoxy reaches out to the disaffected in first-person plural: “So many of us have come close to withdrawing from the Christian community.