Brian McLaren is the guiding light for the "emerging church," a national movement -- he prefers "conversation" -- among mostly young and often progressive evangelicals looking for more relevant, up-to-date ways to live their Christian faith.

Dubbed one of the country's top 25 evangelical leaders by Time magazine, McLaren, 51, can be found these days challenging status-quo Christianity in best-selling books, at church conferences, on TV and radio talk shows, and in the blogosphere. He's also a musician and songwriter.

In his new book -- " Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope" -- he takes issue with both the religious right and the new generation of atheist writers. According to the English professor-turned-pastor-turned-mentor-to-pastors, it's time for Christians to accept Jesus' invitation to lead the battle against poverty, war and the plunder of the planet.

McLaren will bring his message to Charlotte next weekend for a series of talks -- including one in which he'll engage in a "trialogue" with some local Muslims, Jews and Christians. The Observer recently talked to McLaren by phone. Here's an edited transcript.

Q. You want Christians to focus less on getting themselves and others "saved" and up to heaven and focus more on healing the hurts of today's world. So when Jesus said, "As the father sent me, so I send you," he was talking not about conversions but about tackling the world's problems?

Actually, I would put the two together. If we keep recruiting people to evacuate the earth, then every person who gets saved is taken out of the action. It's like going to the bench of people who want to play in a football game and trying to recruit them to leave the (stadium) altogether. A better image would be: What Jesus is asking us to do is go into the stands and recruit some people to come on the field and join us to play. The recruiting of new disciples is really connected to wanting to make a difference in the world.

Q. Poverty, which Jesus talked a lot about, is still with us. But a lot of Christians today want to talk more about other things: homosexuality, abortion, evolution. Why?

I think there's a collusion between political parties and religious communities. So religious communities end up emphasizing issues that political parties can exploit to win elections. As a result, we make a big deal about issues that Jesus said absolutely nothing about. And we say very little about issues that Jesus said so much about.

Q. But some Christians may see the title of your book -- "Everything Must Change" -- and worry that you want to change basic doctrine. For example: Jesus' divinity. Is that negotiable?

I affirm in the book that I am completely orthodox in all of my beliefs about Christ. I affirm all the ancient creeds. But here's where we have to face some deeper issues. The creeds teach us to affirm the deity of Christ. But then we have to say: What does it mean to live out the belief that Jesus was really the word of God incarnate? If we really believe that, then we'll take very seriously what he said about how we treat our enemies. Instead, we often affirm the doctrine in our words -- "Lord, Lord" -- but don't actually do what he said.

Q. Have we domesticated Jesus because we don't like the sting of his real message? Loving your enemies, for example.

I think this is exactly right. It's not that individuals intentionally try to domesticate Jesus. It's that we have centuries of traditions and traditional ways of reading the Bible that keep us from seeing certain things. The net result is that the Jesus in a lot of our churches has bad things to say about other people's sins but not about our own. And he challenges other people to change, but kind of pats us on the back.

Q. Up in Washington, Sen. Charles Grassley is investigating some evangelists who are preaching the "prosperity gospel." Your take?

It's a wake-up call that we're letting an awful lot of shabby stuff go on in the name of Christ. I've been in over 30 countries and the prosperity gospel is spreading like wildfire. And it's very strange to see hundreds of thousands of poor Africans or Latin Americans line up to hear one of these prosperity gospel preachers who has four gold rings, drives a limousine, is wearing a $3,000 Italian suit. And they're coming barefoot and in rags and they're giving him money. There's something about this that is deeply distasteful. At the same time, we have to ask: Why does this message have an appeal to these people? One of the reasons is that the prosperity gospel preacher is talking about poverty. And he's saying that God cares about poor people's situation.

Q. A new group of best-selling atheist writers -- Richard Dawkins and others -- are laying the blame for many global crises at the feet of religion, particularly Christianity.

In my book, I try to respond. A lot of what these new atheists are saying is, "Gosh, it looks like religious people are always for war. They're very concerned about their own wealth, but not concerned enough about the desperately poor. They're very often careless about the environment and use their religion to justify exploitation of the environment." So they're seeing some bad fruit from the religious tree. Their solution is: Cut down the tree. To me, the best antidote to bad religion is good faith.

Q. This week, we marked the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was a religious person who went out there and tried to deal with the hurts and injustices of the world. Are there models we can follow? King? Mother Teresa?

It's interesting that you mention both Mother Teresa and Dr. King because they represent two important but different models. Mother Teresa represents the model of caring for the poor, being with them as they die and, in a personal and compassionate way, showing the love of God to poor people. Dr. King represents a different approach, which says that we also have to deal with the unjust systems that keep causing people to suffer.

Q. Today, many evangelicals are fascinated with the end of the world. There's the popularity of the "Left Behind" books. Their belief is: Things will get worse in the world; that's part of God's plan leading up to Armageddon.

What a lot of well-meaning, committed evangelical Christians don't realize is that the view of the end times that they believe is biblical and historically Christian is actually a newcomer and an anomaly in Christian history. That view of the end times was never thought of until the 1830s. That doesn't make it wrong, but it does make it suspect.

Q. How, then, do you read the Book of Revelation?

It turns out that Revelation is a classic example of a genre of literature that existed in the Jewish world from about 100 B.C. to about 200 A.D. Modern scholars call it Jewish Apocalyptic and it is not trying to predict the end of the world. It uses bizarre imagery -- often dreamlike imagery -- to describe contemporary politics and to give people encouragement to be faithful in the midst of oppressive political regimes. When you read the Book of Revelation in that way, it comes alive. Instead of being a kind of strange code book that tells us that there's no hope and we should just expect things to get worse, it becomes a call to courage and faithfulness against all odds.

Q. I've been surprised at the antipathy from a lot of Christians toward Islam. Franklin Graham voiced their concerns when he said it was an evil religion, that Allah is not the God of the Bible. What do you say?

I believe there is a form of racism among well-meaning, but misguided and misinformed, evangelical Christians. It's becoming acceptable to create stereotypes of Muslims that are inaccurate. Muslims are just like the rest of us. They're like Christians -- there are wonderful, kind-hearted Christians and there are mean-spirited Christians. One of the messages I'd like to get through to my evangelical brothers and sisters is when we try to practice Jesus' teachings about loving our neighbor toward our Muslim neighbors, we are not being unfaithful to Jesus Christ, we're being faithful. But when we create stereotypes of people and are ready to call a person an enemy and have nothing to do with them, we are being unfaithful to Jesus Christ.

Q. Talk about music in worship. It's obviously important to you.

I often ask people who are worship leaders: "Look over all the songs that you use in your church. How many of your songs mention poverty and poor people? How many mention widows and orphans and vulnerable people? How many mention God's concern for justice? How many mention our responsibility to care for the planet? How many mention our need to reconcile with each other and make peace?" People are usually pretty surprised when they evaluate it. It's a pretty short list.

Q. People are always saying, "If Jesus came back, he'd do this or that." Let's say Jesus did come back. Where would we find him?

I think Jesus would surprise us just as he did in the first century. He would be in so many different places. He would be in Darfur and say, "If you're going to kill these people, you're going to have to kill me, too, because I'm with them." He would be in the inner cities in our own country, with people who are often vilified. He would be with the illegal immigrants. But I also think he'd show up at the halls of Congress and have some words with our national leaders. We'd see Jesus crossing all kinds of boundaries and barriers and inviting everybody into reconciliation with God and with each other.

Brian McLaren
Age: 51.
Home: Laurel, MD
Education: B.A. and M.A., University of Maryland. He also taught English at the school, 1978-86.
Religious background: Grew up in ultraconservative Plymouth Brethren church. Was part of "Jesus Movement" in 1970s. Co-founded nondenominational Cedar Ridge Community Church in Montgomery County, Md. Served as pastor, 1982-2006.
National impact: Starting in mid-1980s, has mentored pastors and church founders as guru of "emerging church" movement. He's among leaders of progressive wing of evangelicalism, along with Tony Campolo and Sojourners editor Jim Wallis.
Books: Best-selling author, his 16 books about contemporary Christianity include "The Secret Message of Jesus," in which he says Christians should focus less on getting to heaven and more on creating a just "Kingdom of God" on Earth.
Web site:www.brianmclaren.net