A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey Book

Now, I think I probably rated this lower than others, but here's why.

1. this book was probably much more profound when it came out in 2001, unfortunately, i am reading in in 2011. some of his "innovative" new ideas are not so profound anymore. I'm not sure if that from the influence of this book though or from the influence of the various sources that influenced him.

2. he is not a fiction writer. i think he could have done just fine in a non-fiction format, but he tried to make it a fiction interaction with lots of dialogue. as a result, his character are cardboard and sometimes respond in clique ways and i know way to much about the weather. I do not care about the weather, and i didn't really care about his characters either. the hero of the story "neo" who is supposed to model the new kind of christian i disliked, especially strongly at the start. i think this is not because of his ideas, but because of the writing style. perhaps i've been reading too many classics recently.

3. he has too many ideas so many aren't developed as deeply as they should be and the result is a kind of overwhelming feeling. but it isn't really worth being read slowly because some of the ideas aren't even that great. so there is a whole sludge of good and bad ideas mixed up together. it's like that in real life too, but i real life you feel it's worth wading through the ideas with a person you care about.

4. the sludge is also a bit overwhelming because some ideas sound good, but when you stop to think about them, they are unfounded, dangerous, not so ideal. depending. for example, the author was talking about how we should view faith and was suggesting a spider web analogy. when questions about it arbitrariness he said "well no more arbitrary than a house analogy." this is unsound logic, saying one thing is not bad because another thing is just as bad sounds like good logic, but isn't. (also in this case the fact jesus uses a house analogy in my opinion makes his spider web one more arbitrary than jesus). But this is one example of many. the most dangerous thread this logic keeps dealing in has to do with the place of the bible and biblical authority. you need to think carefully when reading. I'm also not sure about some of this "post modern society" arguments, i need to think about them more.

5. however, he does have some interesting ideas. interactive seminary. thoughts on why a "saved from hell" salvation pitch is dangerous, letting coming to faith in community over as an isolated choice, pointing out the importance of attitude ("wouldn't i rather be a liberal who really cared about God's will than a good conservative evangelical who was smug in my understanding, who had perhaps stopped "hungering and thirsting for righteousness"? - yes, but another logical fallacy, why do i have to be a liberal to not be smug, and why a conservative evangelical who is smug - i would rather hunger after god and not be smug - and is the opinion quoted a "smug" one? one reason i disliked neo was i sometimes found him very confident and smug although trying not to act it).

so all in all, some challenging ideas partially developed, but a lot of bad writing and other partially developed nice sounding dangerous ideas to get through to get it and most of the best ideas have been mentioned now in other better sources.

not worth reading unless you are working through it with someone else who really wants to read it or loves it unquestioningly