I received a copy of Paul Metzger’s, Consuming Jesus, and Brian McLaren’s newest, Everything Must Change. I began reading them both. I thought of an interesting connection. If we take Jesus in rather than make of Jesus a consumer culture “everything must change.”

From Consuming Jesus,

I give thanks to the triune God, who has spread before us a banqueting table where we consume Christ, who also consumes us and give us the sustenance and strength to do battle with consumerism in the church and beyond. (p.vii)

All forms of disunity in the church can be traced, in the end, to an absence of practical love, an absence that hinders our outreach to the world. (p.4)

From Everything Must Change,

The couple hundred thousand people who have read my previous books seem to find in them some hope and resonance with things they’ve already been thinking and feeling, including a suspicion that the religious status quo is broken and a desire to translate their faith into a way of life that makes a positive difference in the world. They share my belief that the versions of Christianity we inherited are largely flattened, watered down, tamed . . . offering us a ticket to heaven after death, but not challenging us to address the issues that threaten life on earth. (p.3)