I read this book from cover to cover and wasn't at all impressed. McLaren makes broad sweeping assertions which in most cases are made without any scholarly support. He consistently attacks the straw man of fundamentalist Christianity without any acknowledgement that the vast majority of Christians have most of the same difficulties with that view of Christianity that he does.
Throughout the book he constantly labels those who don't agree with him as being fearful and non-thinking. I found that the arrogance displayed in his writing was extremely disconcerting even when I agreed with him, which I quite often did.
The title of the book is "A New Kind of Christianity" but at no point in the book does he address of the question - who was Jesus. Is Jesus the Jewish Messiah - God incarnate - a prophet - a philosopher or the ancient equivalent of Gandhi? I was left with the sense that his conclusion was the latter which would mean that his new kind of Christianity isn't Christianity at all but either a Jewish sect or something closer to the Rotary club.
There are many writers who are able to use far better scholarship to address the issues that McLaren raises. Two suggestions would be, N T Wright and Marcus Borg, both mentioned by McLaren in this book. Wright provides an orthodox view of Christianity whereas Borg provides a view which is probably closer to McLaren's views.
Everybody is entitled to my opinion.