I often hear/read interviews where you're being interviewed by secular journalists. For this interview I have deliberately crafted some questons that I think are important for those of us within "the conversation". In other words, I'm not going to ask you to define postmodernism or Emergent for the one millionth time! Maybe that's a welcome change for you. Anyway, here goes:

In "the Secret Message of Jesus" you make note of promising new developments in the understanding of New Testament eschatology developed by people such as N.T. Wright and Andrew Perriman. I'm wondering if you could share some of your thoughts about the possible implications for a church's sense of vision/mission if these new ideas were to take hold?

Brian McLaren: I think that many of us from Evangelical backgrounds grew up with a sense of hopelessness about human history. We were taught to expect the return of Christ very soon, which entailed the destruction of the earth as we know it, with some new beginning on the other side, a new beginning characterized by radical discontinuity with this history. To care about earth's long-range future, then, became an act of unfaithfulness to God and the Bible. To invest in the earth's long-term survival seemed like a "humanist" thing to do. Thankfully, some Christians found ways to counteract this attitude of abandonment toward the earth and its history even within the "left behind" interpretive framework, but others of us still weren't satisfied.

By getting a fresh look at what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God - not an escape from this world, but the inbreaking of God's will into this world, not the abandonment of earth, but a radical, self-sacrificing commitment to it - we find ourselves being able to gratify desires - Spirit-inspired desires, I believe - to care about God's creation and its future.

Along with a fresh look at the kingdom, a number of people (from a variety of camps, many of which wouldn't agree with each other on many points) are realizing that many of the so-called apocalyptic passages in the gospels and the New Testament as a whole seem to find fulfillment in three related realities: a) the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 67-70, which included the end of the Temple and priestly sacrificial systems, and the continuity of a multi-cultural, Spirit-filled, globally-concerned community of faith. Andrew Perriman finds fascinating connections to the phrase "Son of Man" from Daniel. Taken together, these insights suggest that the New Testament writers looked forward to something that we can look back on ... which, I think, motivates us to get on with the work of mission in a full and integrated sense, so that evangelism and social justice and ecology and the creation of good art and serving the poor and forgotten are deeply integrated facets of our mission. This, for me, adds sacredness and purpose to all of life, and further breaks down the old sacred-secular dualism.

All of this helps us reconnect to a more healthy and robust theology of creation too. Since it doesn't anticipate God discarding creation like a candy-wrapper, it gives us permission to love and cherish God's world - all facets of it - forests, economies, wild animals, weather, history, art, language, architecture, and soil.