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 takes his message to Charlotte this weekend for a series of talks -- including one in which he'll engage in a "trialogue" with some 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?

A: 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?

A: 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?

A: 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.

A: 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.

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