Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices
Brian McLaren
ISBN: 0849901146
Thomas Nelson
$17.99

The premise of McLaren's newest book is this: the Abrahamic religions have been carrying on religious practice in the same modes and ways since Abraham first began to practice them.  Over 6,000 years of history in each of the great monotheistic religions has to amount to some value, inspiration, devotion, and usability.  So why are so many American Christians simply not using them?  Or worse, think they are heretical, too Catholic, or Satanic?

McLaren writes this book as an introduction to The Ancient Practices Series, edited by Phyllis Tickle, which will become a collection of eight books, this one being the first.  In the following two years other titles will follow: In Constant Prayer by Robert Benson, Sabbath by Dan B. Allender, Fasting by Scot McKnight, The Sacred Meal by Nora Gallagher, The Pilgrimage by Diana Butler Bass, The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister, and Tithing by Douglas LeBlanc (these titles are listed in their chronological appearance in publication).

This being an introductory book, McLaren spends parts one and two of this book delineating the basics of religious practice: the who, what, where, when, why, and how.  McLaren combines personal experience and a pastoral and literary perspective to how 6,000 year old religious practices such as fixed-hour prayer, the sacraments, and lectio divina should fit into our modern world.  The author takes the Abrahamic genesis of religious practices seriously, and provides examples of these using the Christian Bible.  From time to time McLaren does mention practices that are very similar to Christian practice in Judaism and Islam, yet there is very little explanation of how these are different or how we as Christians can learn to carry out religious practice with as much devotion as they do.  How many Christians look at Islam's or Judaism's set times of prayer with contempt?  These people are actively trying to remove themselves from the patterns of the world---something Paul told us to do---yet we dismiss it as obedience to the law.  McLaren tries to calm the crowd through an explanation of how being disciples must require some discipline (the words are just too similar, and Jesus' Great Commission too direct, to work around this logic).

While Parts 1 and 2 may be tedious for those who know about the ancient practices, Part 3 is a mixture of short-story, memoir, and theology that is helpful to both novice and the more experienced.  McLaren guides us through a "choose your own adventure" type short story to engage us in the way of katharsis (via purgativa), fotosis (via illuminativa), and theosis (via unitava).  He wraps these three ways of practicing communion with God into a phrase called "faithing our practices."  Faithing our practices is different than knowing them, and it's purpose

"...is not to make us more religious.  It is to make us more alive.  Alive to God.  Alive to our spouses, parents, children, neighbors, strangers, and yes, even our enemies.... The end of katharsis, fotosis, and theosis is that we join God in seeing" (182-183).

Part three of this book makes it worth the price as it serves as a type of Rule for the rehabilitation of religious practice in an American Church so disconnected from the foundations of our faith.