Mclaren calls chapter one troubling questions about Jesus and early in the chapter he asks, "What if the core message of Jesus has been unintentionally misunderstood or intentionally distorted? What if many have sincerely valued some aspects of Jesus message while missing or even suppressing other, more important dimensions?"...Studying church history seems to answer Mclaren's question in the affirmative. Of course Christians have unintentionally and intentionally distorted the message of Jesus. Mclaren goes on to ask if we wouldn't want to know what Jesus secret message is particularly if "his secret message had practical implications for such issues as how to live your daily life, how you earn and spend money, how you treat people of other races and religions, and how the nations of the world conduct their foreign policies"...and if you aren't convinced how important these questions and answers are than Mclaren attempts to attempts to make his point clear when he says, "it is tragic for anyone, especially anyone affiliated with the religion named after Jesus, not to be clear about what Jesus' message actually was"...Christians have been thinking and writing about the essence of Jesus message and mission since the death of Jesus and throughout the centuries Christians have expressed their opinions in a variety of different ways. Some have expressed it in terms of Loving God and loving our neighbor....others in terms of the Kingdom of God...and some suggest it is all about living in right relationship with God which was made possible by faith in the death and resurrection in Jesus...I applaud Mclaren for asking the question and I do think he is correct to suggest that the church can be co-opted by such things as consumerism and nationalism...and...I would add moralism, political idealism, traditionalism, sentimentalism, and escapism. I am not sure whatever Mclaren identifies as the secret message of Jesus is something radically new and has not been said many times before but I suspect Mclaren probably already knows that to be the case. For me, figuring out the secret message or essence of Jesus teaching has never been the problem but I find the particulars of what that means to my life the real challenge because it most often requires imagination, creativity, willingness to adapt, discipline, and sacrifice, the kind of things that are not generally reinforced in many of our organizations and institutions......I also can help speculating what role experience plays in the matters of the heart. We can read about what Jesus said in this text or that but unless we experience and do what it is we are supposed to do than I can't help wondering if all our talking is a lot of "sound and fury signifying nothing"...I am looking forward to finding out what the "secret message of Jesus" is all about but in the meantime I'll try to follow where my heart leads me in regards to my own little sphere of influence I have in my life....