Brian Mclaren's Christmas message begins with four bullet points, the first two of which are a pitch for his new book, and the CD that accompanies it with helpful links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the CD project website.

He then goes on to say this:

Consumerism is the notion that the more we consume the better off we will be. As I explain in the book..

In order to reach Brian's Christmas themed informercial, one must pass through the storefront for the book that is entitled, um... ah... oh yes - "Everything Must Change". On that page one can also access the site for the conference series (tickets $109 a pop) complete with links to the corporate sponsors.

When will we get it? When? And when we do, what will we have to do to get our integrity back? Or our dignity? Everything Jesus did had "self-sacrificial love" written all over it and, here we are, writing Christmas messages that are faintly disguised product pitches while bravely taking a stand against consumerism.

There's been a substantial exodus of people from the traditional evangelical church. I meet them everywhere I go, I meet them in the most surprising of places. To a one they are all struggling with church as we know it not because they are rebellious or lacking commitment or spiritually immature but because of they are the exact opposite. Largely, I believe, they've come to a place of maturity and depth in their relationship with Christ and the traditional evangelical church is no longer able to address their needs, to speak their language or to help them take the next steps in their journey. It was out of this profound hunger that the emerging church movement first came into being. This extended conversation of faith has helped some of us make tremendous strides in our journey. It has also helped create some egregious errors in doctrine and practice. Yet it has remained the first serious re-examination of the role of the evangelical church since the Social Gospel movement of 100 years ago. In other words, it brought some of us a great deal of hope. Brian Mclaren has been a prominent voice in that hopeful discussion.

It seems, however, that Mr. Mclaren has crossed a threshold. There's no going back now. In whatever way he sought to contextualize the gospel it's pretty clear now that he's selling stuff. Maybe he's selling ideas; it's more like he's selling himself as the bearer of those ideas. Whatever the case may be it's the absence of self-sacrificial love that is the tell-tale sign of the absence of Christ. Make of that what you will, but what Mclaren's selling this Christmas season I ain't buying. I've already had a stomach full of that tripe, thank you very much.

And yeah, it is just that - tripe.