Brian D. McLaren (born 1956) is an American pastor, author, speaker, and leading figure in the emerging church movement. McLaren is also associated with postmodern Christianity. Education and career Raised in Rockville, Maryland in the conservative Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, McLaren became attracted to the countercultural Jesus Movement in the 1970s. In the 1970s and early 1980s, McLaren attended the University of Maryland where he received both a B.A. and M.A. He founded Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland, in 1982 while he was teaching English on the college level. In 1986, he became a full-time pastor. The church eventually grew to include 500 members. In 2015, McLaren was recognized by Time magazine as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. McLaren left his position at Cedar Ridge in 2006 to pursue writing and speaking full time. In 2011, McLaren defended Rob Bell's controversial book Love Wins against critiques from figures such as Albert Mohler, who argued that Bell advocated universalism. In 2013, McLaren stated that he did not believe homosexual conduct to be sinful. Personal life McLaren is married and has four children. In September 2012, McLaren led a commitment ceremony for his son Trevor and partner Owen Ryan at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Bibliography The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix (originally published as Reinventing Your Church, Zondervan, March 1998 ) Finding Faith: A Self-Discovery Guide for Your Spiritual Quest (Zondervan, June 1999, ) A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey (Jossey-Bass, January 2001, ) More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix (Zondervan, January 2002, ) A Is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church (co-written with Leonard Sweet and Jerry Haselmayer, Zondervan, December 2002, ) Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel (co-written with Tony Campolo, Emergent/YS, March 2003, ) The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives (Zondervan Emergent/YS, October 2003 ) Leonard Sweet (General Editor), with contributors Andy Crouch, Brian D. McLaren, Erwin McManus, Michael Horton, Frederica Mathewes-Green The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian (Jossey-Bass, February 2003, ) A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN (Zondervan, September 2004, ) The Last