Ever wonder what will emerge out of the ‘emerging church movement’? Watching from the very different context of Australia it’s interesting to observe some of the heat Brian McLaren’s new book “The Secret Message of Jesus” is receiving on the very different (and sometimes bizarre and disturbing) landscape of American Christianity.While the title sounds like might be flaky text you’d find in a New Age book store along side crystals and tacky objects exploiting aspects of indigenous cultures, it is in fact one of the best pop communications of some of the most exciting biblical scholarship around.Like many of us, Brian with the title of the book has sought a ‘Mars hill moment’ with all the interest around The Da Vinci Code. Brian also asks Christians to look at the plank in our own eye and consider if the interest in Dan Brown’s book is “an experience in shared frustration with the status-quo, male dominated, power-orientated, cover-up-prone organised Christian religion” and a public expression of a longing for a vision of “Jesus that does him justice”. Let me indulge in a personal story (mid-book review) for just a moment. Earlier this year I was a guest speaker with Australian Peace and anti-nuclear legend Jo Vallentine, (Jo is a joint Nobel Peace Prize nominee so needless to say I was the ‘littler note’ speaker but excited by the opportunity none the less) at an event put on by Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society. After our address and workshop, a well-respected activist approached me to ask:”Jarrod you said, ‘If you’re wanting a Jesus radical enough to transform the world, you wont find it in the pages of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. Gandhi suggests to us that we will, like him, find this Jesus in the pages of Matthew’s gospel.’ So why was this Jesus not found in my experience of church?”To read more of the review click here