I can’t count the number of times over the past six months that people have asked me: “When are you going to write about the Emerging Church?” That question is almost always followed by: “Have you read Brian McLaren’s books?”

The answer to the second question is Yes. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve read all of McLaren’s books except the one on evangelism (“More Ready Than You Realize” [Zondervan, 2002]). I even used his book “Finding Faith” (Zondervan, 1999) as a required textbook in the course on Christian Thought that I taught at Wheaton College. But I’ve refrained from writing a review of any of them, in large measure due to the developing nature of his thought. In other words, it seems with each new volume another layer of the onion is peeled, revealing something surprising or sad or, on occasion, moderately encouraging. I’ve thus been fearful that no sooner would I write a response than he’d disclose something unexpected and render my comments either obsolete or inaccurate, or both."