+++
date = "2017-01-05T21:16:34Z"
title = "the story we find ourselves in"
banner = ""
aliases = [ "/the-story-we-find-ourselves-in-review/"]
draft = true
slug = "the-story-we-find-ourselves-in"
tags = ["the-story-we-find-ourselves-in", "review", "christianity"]
+++

*The Story We Find Ourselves In* (TSWFOI), written by Brian McLaren, is the second in a trilogy of fictional stories about the perpetually busy pastor of Pontmac Community Church, Dan Poole, and his friend Neo. In the second installment, Dan and Neo's interactions with people who are new to the Christian faith serves as a vehicle to explore the reimagining, and more specifically the *retelling*, of the Christian faith in the modern age.

At its shallowest the *TSWFOI* is the simple story of Kerry, a terminal cancer patient, and her teenage son, Kincaid, as they discover the gospel story. At this level, told through the eyes of the character of Dan, the book feels sloppily written. Character's thoughts often uninspiringly meander and narration is frequently punctuated by unnecessary details:  a character's birthdate, the contents of a fridge, or Dan's to do list for the day. These egregious additions to McClaren's prose seemingly only exist to camoflage the bland nature of the host of characters in McClaren's world. His personae all appear relatively immaturely crafted, each struggling to own a defining trait of their own aside from their race, place of origin, or role in the story leaving the reader with an anemic lack of connection to them. As a result, even at its most poignant moments the book struggles to elict emotion. There's much more that could be said about the form of *TSWFOI*: its overuse of cliches, the presumed naiveity of the reader, and the abhorrent and deeply unnecessary shoehorning of certain cultural events into the narrative but such criticism, whilst warranted, would be equally unnecessary. Suffice to say as a free standing story *TSWFOI* sucks.