Ep. 181 Brian McLaren - Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart

The world is falling apart. The earth is hotter than it has ever been since we have been recording temperatures, the ocean is heating up. We have polarization that tears us to pieces. We are good at division. There is war over resources and power. What can we do? We need some wisdom and courage to move forward together in a world like ours. And Brian McLaren brings it to us in this conversation. Brian helps us to reframe our stories and perspectives, slow down to appreciate beauty, find wise guides, overcome biases, and respond to issues with compassion rather than fear or complacency. So join us as we find wisdom and courage for a world falling apart.

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a core faculty member and Dean of Faculty for the Center for Action and Contemplation. and a podcaster with Learning How to See. He is also an Auburn Senior Fellow and is a co-host of Southern Lights. His newest books are  Faith After Doubt (January 2021), and Do I Stay Christian? (May 2022). His next release, Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, is available for pre-order now and will release in May 2024.

Brian's Book:
Life After Doom

Brian's Recommendations:
Civil War
The Dao of Civilization: A Letter to China by Freya Matthews

Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.us

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Transcript

Brian McLaren: 0:00

While I was writing this book, I thought maybe the best translation for kingdom of God that was so important, really the key slogan for Jesus whole public ministry, maybe it would be the civilization of God. And then we would be able to put in contrast the civilization made by humans and the civilization made by God. If we can start to do that, I mean, suddenly, almost everything Jesus says, Just feels to me like it glows, you know, you take you take the beatitudes in our civilization. It's the rich and the powerful, who are important. And Jesus begins his first big public discourse by saying, in this civilization of God, it's the poor, who we who we really care about. They're the ones who are the biggest in our, in our minds. They're the ones that we consider blessed and important and worthwhile.

Joshua Johnson: 1:08

Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcasts in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Go to shifting culture podcast.com to interact and donate. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second, and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. It really is that easy. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network, tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Sarah Bessie James Martin and Brian zahnd. You could go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Brian McLaren. Brian McLaren is an author a speaker, activist and public theologian, a former college English teacher and Pastor he is passionate advocate for a new kind of Christianity just generous and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a core faculty member and dean of faculty for the Center for action and contemplation and a podcaster with learning how to see he's also an Auburn senior fellow and is a co host of Southern Lights. His newest books are faith after doubt, and do I stay Christian and his latest release life after Doom, wisdom and courage for a world falling apart? The world is falling apart. The earth is hotter than it has ever been. Since we have been recording temperatures. The ocean is heating up. We have polarization that tears us to pieces. We are good at Division. There is war over resources and power. So what can we do? We need some wisdom and courage to move forward together in a world like ours. And Brian McLaren brings it to us in this conversation. Brian helps us to reframe our stories and perspectives, to slow down to appreciate beauty to find wise guides to overcome biases and to respond to issues with compassion rather than fear or complacency. So join us as we find wisdom and courage for a world falling apart. Here is my conversation with Brian McLaren. Brian, welcome to shifting culture. Really excited to have you on. Thank you so much for joining me.

Brian McLaren: 3:47

Thanks, Joshua for inviting me.

Joshua Johnson: 3:49

So you decided for your latest book Life after Doom to take on a really small, small issue, which is the end of the world. Yeah. What is the state of the world right now?

Brian McLaren: 4:03

Yeah. So first of all, I mean, it's a beautiful world. I'm sitting here I live in Florida and outside today it's perfect weather. And I like to say we humans are a mess. But the birds are being awesome, and the birds and the trees of the oceans. But more and more of us are coming to believe that we are in a condition with our environment. That's called overshoot. And meanwhile, we're at a condition with our fellow humans of increased hostility polarization. And we are experiencing that hostility and polarization while we are creating the most powerful weapons that ever been created. And, and, and then on top of that, we've shifted more and more wealth and power to a smaller and smaller slice of the pie who use that wealth and power to control that media, social media and mass media, which I think makes conversations like the one you and I are having even more important, because these are ways for us to say, to try to speak truth that some places wouldn't let us say, and then maybe add one piece to the puzzle. And that is that we usually trust our religious communities to help us face reality. And to help us develop the virtues and character to do well. And whatever challenges we face. And so often now, it feels like our religious communities are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. And when you put that together, that's why a lot of it that's why I would write a book called Life after Doom, and I would speak of wisdom and courage in a world falling apart. Wow,

Joshua Johnson: 5:48

I think it's that it's absolutely necessary at the moment, we need to have that wisdom and courage because we all feel overwhelmed to feel like, what can we do? Is there any hope left? This is what what doom for you is right. Is this feeling of overwhelm? Yes. What are some of the first steps besides throwing it to the side and saying, there's nothing we could do? So we just give up? Or we say, We're optimistic? A it's going to work out? We don't have anything to do with it. It'll just all work out in the end. It what how are we going to start to walk and face this overwhelming volume of this world? Yes.

Brian McLaren: 6:29

Well, boy, I love how you frame that Joshua. Yeah, I think you nailed it. The first thing that we have to do is resist the tendency to return to our previously scheduled complacency, by either slipping into a kind of passive optimism, optimism, or a passive despondency. Neither of those are going to be helpful. Here's the irony, whether you're optimistic or pessimistic, if you're passive, you increase the chances of worse scenarios unfolding. Right? So really, the way I structured this book Life after Doom is each chapter in the title of each chapter is kind of a step in a process, I would say. And the first step is welcome to Reality. And reality includes some things that we know with relative confidence, and a whole lot that we just don't know. And one of the toughest realities to acknowledge is, we don't know exactly what's going to happen or when. And, and when we can accept that reality. I think it Well, the reality of what we don't know as well, as well, we know I think that sets us on a course, to learn a lot, grow a lot, and decide how we want to show up rather than be a denial.

Joshua Johnson: 7:55

Actually, we don't need to be in denial. If we are we we can't show up. For even our family. We can't show up for the world around us, our friends, we can't show up for the for creation. How do we start to show up then what does it look like to have an activating love and compassion for the world? I think and hope and despair, you have dualistic thinking, yes. You talk a lot about dualistic thinking and how we need to do away with it. Yes, and move into something different. So I think how do we get out of that into a place of activating love so that we can see the world differently? Yeah.

Brian McLaren: 8:38

Well, I, you know, Joshua, the thing I think we have to do early on is we have to say, well, you know, we're very good at this, when we're dealing with a toddler who hasn't had enough sleep, or who had too much sugar, or hasn't had enough food. We know that toddlers under stress tend to be testy and difficult. And I think we almost have to look at ourselves and say our inner toddler is under stress right now. And and so the way I refer to this in the book is say that we have to mind our mind. And we have to pay attention to our inner ecology, as well as the outer ecology, what's going on inside of me, when we understand that this is going to be difficult, and it's not going to be fixed today or tomorrow. You know, literally now scientists are telling us that every year that we don't take the action that we need to take, we're creating chains of consequences that will not just go on for centuries, they'll go on for 1000s of years. And so what that means is we've got to be in this for the long haul, which means paying attention to ourself, acknowledging the stress that this means for us a lot of other things we could do, but let me mention one more. And that is I think we need to find a couple people who we can trust so that we're not just managing our own stress alone, but we're going through This was some other people, and a lot of us around other people we can't talk to about these things. They're pretty locked into political frameworks. And really, although one of our political parties in the United States is more paying attention to these realities than the other, neither is really facing it as deeply as we need to. So to find people we can process this through really becomes important. If one

Joshua Johnson: 10:27

of the big problems is fossil fuels. Yeah. And there's this this limited amount of fossil fuels out there. And it is, it's basically the the collection of dead life, just in the grounds that we are extracting now for energy that we've never been able to use before. And we're going faster, and we're producing more than we've ever done before. And we have this ecological overshoot. We're going so fast. Is there a way to take off your grip? Yeah, this this fast energy consumption that we have let go and start to go slower? Is the train just moving way too fast? Is it going to like crumble? Is it going to crash into something? Or can we slow down? Yeah,

Brian McLaren: 11:16

yeah. Well, this is this is one of the things I think we don't know. If if enough of us do not raise our voices, it becomes more likely that the train that the runaway train, we'll keep going, even if all of us who are aware, do everything we can it may be that other people and other systems, keep the thing running, that things are going to get way, way worse than they would have to. So we don't know the answer to that question. How do we do it? How do we how do we take steps to make things better? I think that begins for us. We two primary ways. It look, I'm all for recycling, and I'm all for getting an electric car. And I have solar panels right above my head right now as we're talking. But the two most important things any of us can do to to address the deeper sort of momentum of the runaway train, right? One is we have to talk about it with everybody we can, and we have to help other people. So that you might think of it like this, we get our nervous systems part of one network that understands that this is a problem, we help that network spread. And then the second thing is political action, who we vote for matters a whole lot. And so the combination of syncing up and networking, our nervous systems, and then exercising them to vote for the best candidates we can find. And frankly, I wouldn't be surprised, Joshua. If in the next couple of years, we see new candidates come into the, into the public sphere, who are of a new level of quality than we've seen in a lot of time in a long time. It'll be challenging for them to break through our partisan ways of defining the world. But I think we're going to see them, I think they'll be young. And I think they'll be different. And then this will be one of the greatest opportunities of older people like me, move like my life to to get behind some of these new folks. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 13:30

I hope so. I hope we see that. Yeah. You know, I was I was sitting at lunch yesterday, talking to some friends. You know, I mentioned that last year was the hottest year on record, the Earth is is shaky, and we need to do something about it. And they said, Yeah, we do. We need to do something about it. But they have their own biases. Yes. And they have their own agendas. Yes. And so I don't believe everything that has been shared, when we're starting to have those conversations and people are talking about the agenda of the other whoever they are. And there's of course, it's easy to say there's an agenda for an ethereal other. Yes. But how do we get into a place of saying, okay, there may be agendas on every side. Of course, everybody has bias and agenda. Yeah. How do we step in and have a conversation anyways? Yeah, yeah.

Brian McLaren: 14:24

First, let me say in this challenge of communicating with people across difference, a lot of the people who are not quick to care about things that I care about, like, I actually really care about extinction of species, I really care that something over 90% of all mammals in the world are cows, pigs and chickens for us to eat. You know, if you took biome, if you took biomass. I like I think that's not healthy. I think that's dangerous. But a lot of people don't care about those things. You know, I care about coral reefs not going extinct, a lot of people don't care, they do care about money. And I was just given privileged view of a report that I believe is going to come out tomorrow or in the next couple of days in the journal Nature, that's going to give a figure of the cost of ecological breakdown in 2050. And an every year between now and then it will be going higher. And depending on what we do now, it will either keep going higher or not. And let me say it like this, this represents approximately a 20% tax on everything that everybody does, because of the cost of, of what we've taken for granted, that our environment provides. So maybe money will start waking people up. But to your deeper question of how do we communicate, I have found two things helped me one is when someone says something outrageous. If I argue with them, it tends to just get two egos bashing heads, like two rams on a, you know, on a mountainside. So what I found, if I can say to them, wow, I see that differently. And then I don't argue I don't if they ask, Well, what do you mean, I just say, oh, I need you to know that I see it differently. And they said, Well, how do you see it differently? If there are other people around, I always say, you know, I find it's not best to talk about these things in public. If you or anybody else is interested in private and reaching out to me, I'll be glad to explain why I see it differently in private. In doing that, I give them a gift. The gift is if they're curious, they can follow up with me. But I've made it clear that our friendship isn't dependent on them agreeing with me. It's like, if you want to follow it up, you can, I've made my peace. I've said what I need to say. So that's one thing that I think is helpful to people. And then another thing I think that helps me in communicating about this is instead of telling, trying to tell people, facts or judgments, I tell them how I feel, you know, 20 times a day, somebody says how do you feel? And if I say, Well, today, I feel really brokenhearted about what's happening to the earth. Or today I feel really motivated, because I just heard about something you know, or some people doing something wonderful. I try to answer that question in ways that that can get us into a meaningful conversation, but some people aren't ready for it. And yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 17:36

I think that's really helpful. How you write about indigenous wisdom in your book. And I think it's really important that we go back and get this indigenous wisdom. Yes, you also write about how the Bible is indigenous wisdom. And you reframe the way that a lot of people read the Bible. Yes, through indigenous wisdom. I was I thought that was extremely helpful to walk through, why do we need to get back to some indigenous wisdom? Yes,

Brian McLaren: 18:03

well, I quote in the book, a brilliant Nigerian young Nigerian philosopher named bio akamba lafaye. And bio has this statement ever since the first time I read it, it has just stayed with me, he said, What if our response to the problem is part of the problem? You know, I think we've all seen this sort of thing, you've got a father who's very controlling, and is always yelling at his wife and yelling at his kids. And then they, let's say, the wife comes home and says, you know, the way you're hurting me, you're hurting the children, and that he starts yelling at her, it's her fault, or it's the children's fault, we can perpetuate the problem and our way of responding to the problem. And especially as civilized people, we don't realize the degree to which the assumptions of civilization are, are embedded in us. And so we will bring some of those assumptions to our to how we try to solve the problem. Indigenous people are people who didn't like our, our responses to the problem, otherwise, they would have been assimilated. Or, and very often, of course, we know that indigenous people have been destroyed and marginalized and, and, and pushed into concentration camps of various sorts. But if suddenly those of us who are deeply civilized need to find people who have been skeptical of our civilization, so that we can hear, we just need an alternative vantage point and alternative perspective. I'm not saying that anybody has all the answers, but we need to get some logic and wisdom that's different than than what we take for granted. What we call a common sense, could actually be our problem.

Joshua Johnson: 19:53

So even if you take the words of Jesus as he's talking about, the structures of money and the word Have an empire while he was teaching, and then contrasting that to what the kingdom of God is and how we should start to live in this world. How does he contrast those things? Yeah, so that brings a new perspective for us to live into,

Brian McLaren: 20:14

Oh, I'm so glad you bring that up. One of the things that happened to be you know, I wrote a whole book on Jesus sent His message of the Kingdom of God called the secret message of Jesus many years ago, I've been interested in this for ages. And while I was writing this book, I thought, maybe the best translation for kingdom of God that was so important, really the key slogan for Jesus whole public ministry, maybe it would be the civilization of God. And then we would be able to put in contrast, the civilization made by humans and the civilization made by God, if we can start to do that, I mean, suddenly, almost everything Jesus says, Just feels to me like it glows, you know, you take you take the beatitudes in our civilization. It's the rich and the powerful, who are important. And Jesus begins his first big public discourse by saying, in this civilization of God, it's the poor, who we who we really care about. They're the ones who are the biggest in our, in our minds. They're the ones that we consider blessed and important and worthwhile. In the civilizations of humanity, you actually gain power by killing people. I mean, what's going on in Israel and Gaza? This is who can kill people in the way that gets them the most power and security. And Jesus says, Blessed are they who mourn interesting, those who mourn or not just those who said the word mourn is a specific kind of sadness. It's sadness over people who have been killed. And so he's saying it, I mean, you just take the rest of the Beatitudes one after another, they have this same counter civilizational flavor to them that I don't know. I mean, I've always I love Jesus all my life. But I just keep thinking, you know, I know this isn't in any of the Creed's. But my gosh, he is smart. He got it. He got it. Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 22:12

I mean, he is though he is the the one human that has taught us how to live as humans. He is the one who said here, this is the the really real the way to live life here on Earth. And I don't think that, you know, a lot of I know that a lot of Evangelicals I know growing up is like, hey, Jesus saved me. So I could go to heaven when I die. But he actually has something to say about how I live my life. Today, and how we live our life. Here today. What else have you you learned about how to live life? In a destructive world? Through Jesus?

Brian McLaren: 22:52

Yeah. You know, I, I've had the privilege in my life is spending quite a bit of time in Africa. And one of my African friends said, Brian, something you need to understand about us Africans, if you if you give me if I'm a traditional African, and we might say, and more indigenous African, and you give me $300, the chances are by tomorrow, I will have given it away. And you might look at me and say, What's wrong with you? Why would you give that money away. And he said, it's because I understand where I live, that the most security I can have is by investing in my friends. Because if I invest in my friends, and I'm generous to them, we build a bond of trust and affinity and relationship and gratitude. And when I'm in trouble, the banks might fail, and the economy might fail. But if my friends are there, that's way more secure. And I think there's something that happens suddenly, something Jesus said about, you know, wherever two or three of you gather, I'm there as if to say, Look, you just need to make sure you build a little tight group, tight knit group of people, and you're there for each other no matter what, or you think of that wild story that gets mentioned in more of the Gospels than just about any other story. And it's the story of the feeding of a mass of people on a hillside. Jesus tells the people to sit down in groups of 10, as if to say, Listen, if you would self organize in small groups that would give you some resilience through whatever is coming. So I think, I think that's one of the things we can do to help us. One

Joshua Johnson: 24:39

of the things that you you're, you don't explicitly write about you do write a little bit about it in your book, as is your your seven stories, framework and the seven story. Yes. Why do we need to start to tell a different story, a better story to move forward? Because I know that within all those first six Stories, there's so many of them are being told yes to us so that people can accumulate power, wealth, money, energy, whatever it is, yes. Why is it important to tell a better story?

Brian McLaren: 25:13

Yes. So in almost all of our civilizations dominating framing stories, they're stories of competition, aggression, domination, exclusion, isolation, they're stories that, that make us be obsessed with our conflicts with one another. And we act as if we'll get happiness and success and security and all the things we want. If we could just be in control of enough other people, or have them afraid of us. So we don't have to be afraid of them. There's just a whole set of ways that that kind of a story gets embedded in, in us at a very young age and a very deep level of our psychology. But if we were to say, hey, really the story going on in this world, it's funny, it's kind of the story that you see the first chapter of Genesis, that if we would look at this world, like a garden, and our job is to take care of it. And our job is to take care of each other. Our job is, isn't to compete with each other, our job is to take care of each other and to take care of the earth, if that became the way we framed our daily. So another way of saying that is, if we would just love our neighbor as ourselves, right, we would enter into this world in a very, very different way. I am quite certain that if we get through this mess that we're in, and that we're in the very early, but real stages of it's going to require a deep inner transformation, a deep spiritual transformation. And love will need to matter to us more than money. And that's why you brought up money a minute ago. And, you know, one of the most stunning things Jesus ever said is you will either love God and hate money, or love money and hate God. And and I and I, Look, we all have to use money in this civilization in this world. But I think Jesus is warning us that money makes us value things incorrectly. And we need another vantage point. And I think that's how Jesus understands God, God oriented us to this world with a very different set of values.

Joshua Johnson: 27:27

Well, you just said we needed another vantage point. So when we're thinking about ecological overshoot, we're thinking about trying to live in this world with a hopefully we're going to avoid civilization collapse, that that'd be fantastic. And in a way that doesn't actually bring civilization extinction. Later on, we avoid it in a in a healthy way and learn our lesson. Yes. If we can, can do that. It's going to take a new vantage point, it's going to take new ways of thinking and new ways of living. How do we how do we let go of the problem of because I think when we have a problem, we focus directly on it. And we don't see from different vantage points. So we actually don't know how to solve the problem. So what is a way for us to let go, you'll be able to get back far enough? Yes, you think differently? Yes.

Brian McLaren: 28:23

So interesting. Again, one of Jesus main words was repent and repent, we think means feel sorry for, you know, having a for saying a naughty word or something. But, but repent on a deeper level means rethink everything, rethink your lie life. I think Eugene Peterson, that's how he translated it in his translation of the New Testament, rethink your lives on a deep level, and what that that's not something you do overnight, you know, we're very transactional. It's one of the characteristics of our civilization, we want transactions, transformation takes time. But it begins with a decision to say, the way I'm currently thinking is not just a little bit wrong, it's probably way more wrong than I currently think that I can even understand. I am embarking on a journey where I'm ready to rethink everything. And, and that I think one of the things that that will make us rethink is the idea that everything can be fixed. Sometimes things can't be fixed, they have to be endured. Sometimes things can't be fixed, they have to be understood. And so my suspicion is that the problems that are beginning now are going to take us literally hundreds of years to get through to a better place on the other side. And between here and there. I think there'll be some very challenging times. But look, there have been challenging times in the last 100 years. So, you know, challenging times happen. But I think for us to get in this for the long haul, it will give us a different way. It will give us a different set of priorities for what we want to teach our children and grandchildren. Not just how to fix things, but how to endure things, how to understand things, how to form community to be together, how is family to say, we're going to be there for each other?

Joshua Johnson: 30:19

You just talked about how do we add we teach things to our to our children and our grandchildren? You know, Jesus says, you know, you can't enter the kingdom unless you are like, children. I know, you know, the first episode of your new season of your podcasts of learning how to see. You're interviewing your grandchildren and talking about wonder you're talking about, about nature and the wonder of creation? What do you do children teach us? And in this whole conversation that we're having, about the Earth and about creation?

Brian McLaren: 30:57

Well, I love that question. Because I'm just, you know, reflecting on my conversation with my grandkids about this, and they give themselves permission to love things. They aren't super preoccupied with loving money. Some kids are, I guess, at a young age, but my grandkids are not. But they they really, really love things. And that passion makes them curious to want to learn more. And it makes them want to protect what what they love. I think that's one thing we could learn from, from kids in this another thing that at their best kids know, that they don't know. So they they ask a lot of questions. And they say, instead of jumping to argument, pitting what I know against what you say, I come to other people with a, a posture of humility and curiosity. Those would be a couple of things that I think were are great gifts that kids are waiting to give us if we would pay attention.

Joshua Johnson: 32:04

Yeah, you know, last year, I was privileged to be able to take a sabbatical, we spent some time in the Austrian Alps. And we we went on a on a hike in the Austrian Alps. And it was a guided hike. And, and, you know, I and my son, we were we all just wanted to finish the hike. You know, I'm very, I'm pretty competitive, I wanted to go go go and finish the hike. But our guide, just kept saying you have to go slow, you know, one step at a time. And then she would point out all the small little flowers, he go, oh, this hasn't been here for the last three years. This is the first time this flowers is bloomed in three years and, and saying, Oh, this butterfly only appears in this certain area. And this is why. And she was was showing me the beauty of the small things that surround me. Yes. And I it, it has had a profound impact on my life of being able to slow down and experience the beauty. How do we start to see beauty? And why is beauty in this place? And knowing that beauty abounds is so important to our lives moving forward? Yes.

Brian McLaren: 33:15

Joshua, I feel as you say that, that one of the characteristics of our civilization is this. Hurry and rush. How can I maximize profit? How can I get as much money in the bank, I'll relax later on. I'll enjoy it later on. And then what we find is, gosh, we keep pushing off later on, you know, and, and so your experience of having a guide who set the pace for you. I've experienced that too. And it might on my best days, I hope I can be a guide like that. But it to me, here's the interesting thing, somebody might have thought that the primary thing that that guide was doing was teaching you about flowers, and and the natural life around you, and which is a super valuable thing. But the teaching you have a different pace is probably the most the deepest value of all. And I think this is where we need sages and guides to help us shift our pace. You find someone like that. And it's worth a whole lot. Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 34:27

Yes. To be able to have those guides. How do we find them? Can we find sages for our lives? And we have so much noise? Yeah. In our life and coming at us all the time. How do we have wise guides and how do we help slow down and find them and let them guide and lead us to a different pace?

Brian McLaren: 34:53

I feel terrified by that question Joshua because as soon as you said it, I thought there are probably probably 1000s of people who do not have one of those kinds of people in their circle of friendship. I mean, I just It breaks my heart to say that, but that's the state that we're in. I remember when I started asking some questions years ago, I had found one author who I thought, understood the questions I was asking. And I called the University where he taught and asked his secretary, if he made appointments, you know, to see people who were to students, and she said, Well, he has office hours, and if they're open, I'll be glad to give you one of his office hours, she had no idea that the office hour that I chose, I drove four and a half hours to go for a 45 minute appointment with this person. But that's how worth it was worth it. It was to me to, to get around somebody who is just from his writing, I thought, and this is why many of us go to conferences, and it's why many of us go to retreats, or take classes or listen to podcasts, we're looking for those people. And when we find them, we keep tuning in. And so that's maybe the great thing that one of the great things about where we are right now is they might not be up the street, they, they might not be in our town, we might not be able to find anybody, they might be there, and eventually we'll find them. But it would be easy to find that. But if we look up, and you know, it's been wonderful for me, I you know, as a pastor for 24 years, I've been a committed Christian my whole life, my whole adult life, and but it has been so fun for me to find people who have that kind of wisdom in different traditions, who I never would have listened to before. But when I go for that deep wisdom, I find it Oh, that they've got it too, you know, and I think sometimes the sage that we need, the guide or wise person that we need, might be one that we'd be tempted to reject.

Joshua Johnson: 37:05

So, I think, you know, when, when we're in this, this hard place this overwhelm this doom, there is a sense of, of, like, I want to get back to dogmatic principles, I want to get to authoritative, like leadership and saying, okay, it makes me feel safer. So some people will feel so safe saying, I can't ask any questions. I'm just going to sit in what I have known in the past that and that will keep me safe. Yeah. Is there a way to, to shift that and break out of that box so that people don't isolate into what they have already known? But they can break free from that?

Brian McLaren: 37:49

Yeah. My suspicion is that there are a whole lot of people who will do that no matter what you are, I say, they can't help it. That it's, it's their stress level gets high enough that they desperately need relief. And some authoritarian leader makes them feel better, and they feel relief. He's he's going to solve it for me, she's going to take care of it for me, I'll subcontract my own anxiety to them to their confidence, and they'll, they'll take it. I think a lot of people will do that. And I think one of the things that those of us who see through that have to do is not just spend all our time getting mad at those people, they they would be doing better if they could help it, but they can't help it. Those of us who see that danger. This again, what we want is not one person who solves all of our problems. We want to come together and communities of trust and openness and honesty and curiosity so that we can learn and work these things out together. It's a whole different set of skills.

Joshua Johnson: 38:56

I think, you know, we've been divided so much, you know, even and Protestant Christianity has been divided or specialized, or we specialize in Division, who are really good at it. But something like the problem of the earth. Yeah, civilization collapse, is going to take us as humanity to see each other as fellow humans Yes, as one another as kin. How do we strip away divisions see each other for our God given humanity, and we are together in this to be able to walk forward together? Well,

Brian McLaren: 39:40

I just have to say, Josh, I just think you get it so much. I mean, your question tells me that you get this and and I can feel it and and I think that's what happens in our conversations with other people. We there are some people were around and we just think they they are going going in the direction, I think I need to go and I want to go and we're drawn to them. It makes me think of, you know, the story of the Gospels where Jesus says to the disciples out two by two, and he just says, Wherever you go find a person of peace and hang out with that person. And if the people listen to you keep moving, you know, because there are people kind of who get it and who are ready out there. And, you know, the, the sort of the sociological word for this is, this is movement building, you keep moving until you find the people who are moving in the same direction. And there is an affinity that comes in. And you know, what happened in the early Christian movement is that there were Jewish people who had never really felt that Gentile people could be part of that movement before. And they found each other. And I'm sure it went the other way, as well. And there were people of different races and religious backgrounds and cultures and, and classes and castes, and so on, who said, you get what I get, you know, you know, I'm just remembering when I was probably six, I think I was wasn't 16 years old yet, because I had to get a special work permit from my high school so I could get a job. I worked for this company. And there was an older African American gentleman, who was not highly educated was from Inner City, Washington, DC, I lived out in the suburbs. But we were brought together by this company. And I remember one night, we were waiting for our work to begin. And he started talking to me, and he started talking to me about race. And I had never had a black man talk to me about race. And it just complete ease away of ease. And it was okay to talk about. We didn't have to pretend that there weren't racial issues in our country. And, and I'll never forget that night. He said to me, Brian, skin don't make a man. And I just felt at that moment. I've just found somebody who has some wisdom. I don't have you know, yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 42:09

I think that's so beautiful. That skin don't make a man. I love that as and as we're walking forward, then how do we you talk at the ends in one of your appendix is to talk about, I don't know about 50 different types of biases. It's probably not many, but it's a lot of types of biases that you're you're walking through? How do we is there a way for us individually to recognize our biases? Or do we need community to be able to do that? And how do we then start to, to shape and form things to move forward? What? And we know that we have bias? Yes, on all sides? Well,

Brian McLaren: 42:49

let me give two words for the same thing here, I think one is the word wisdom. I think wisdom is different from knowledge or intelligence, wisdom arises when we become aware of our own ability to fool ourselves, or at our own vulnerability to be fooled by other people. So wisdom isn't just the accumulation of knowledge or information, wisdom only exists where we become aware of our vulnerability to fool ourselves or be fooled by others. And, and that another word for that, along with wisdom is critical thinking. Critical thinking is the set of skills that help us interrogate our own thinking, and the thinking of others to just say, Is this really, really true? Are there are there biases and fallacies and, and vested interests that that are keeping us from really get getting closer to the truth? And, you know, one of the things about wisdom is when you know, you don't have it, you want, if you say, I want it, you pray for it, you, you become you pester people and ask them questions. Because you, when you see a wise person, you're just drawn to them. And, and this is one of the one we were talking about children before. A wise person I know has a saying, he says as the child is to the adult, so the adult is to the sage or to the to the wise person. And I think for all of us who are adults, it would do us well to say, no matter how old I am, I still have a lot to learn. And I want to be looking for people who are wiser than me. And And often those will be people right around us. Sometimes that's what keeps us reading is we're looking to learn from people, and it's what makes us listen to podcasts. We're looking to learn from people who who got some of that wisdom and we we want it

Joshua Johnson: 44:50

and I thank God that you are a learner and one that wants that was that you try to glean from other people that you don't stay up learning and asking questions and you know, someone was seeing me read your book and and they're like Brian McLaren, you meet the Brian McLaren, the prime Clarys? Like, they're like, What do you think of him? It's like, well, he has a lot of hard earned wisdom is that and that's, you know, that's what I think of, when I think of you is that you have you have asked questions. And we're curious for a long time to be able to receive some wisdom from others be able to pass it along. And so I thank you that you have actually stepped into that work. And you are a guide for all of us to be able to say, let us be curious, ask questions, and try to think differently about the way that we think and to step into a new way of living. So thank you for that.

Brian McLaren: 45:50

Well, thanks very much. It might just help us break out of the matrix if we, I hope

Joshua Johnson: 45:55

so. I hope it helps us break out of the matrix. And I think in wisdom, if it's not just knowledge, you talk especially in you know, the very beginning your book, you're talking about grief, but and the importance of poets and artists and sages and, you know, what does poetry do for us in this wisdom game? That's not just pure knowledge, but it just opens us up into a new pathways.

Brian McLaren: 46:23

It makes me think of your guide walking with you along the Austrian Alps. In one thing, the things that poetry does, it slows us down, you know, you don't speed read poetry? Or if you do, you show that you don't know what poetry is. And it slows us down. And it at it invites us to say, I have no idea what they're talking about. Why did they say that? Why did they use that comparison? Does he mean this literally, or is this to point us to something deeper? And, and ironically, at that moment, we're reduced to that childlike wonder and curiosity. And when we have gifted poets, and we become gifted to read poetry, it often brings us to those moments of awe and wonder. And those moments of grief there, you know, all of us have come across a line of poetry that just takes our breath away and makes us feel grief that we, we had forgotten about, you know, I'm thinking about this, because in just in recent days, we've had around the United States and Canada, this amazing Eclipse, spread a shadow across the, the continent. And I was watching a few friends of mine on their YouTube channel or on their Instagram account. And they were in real time showing them not only showing the clips, but showing their face. And what was so amazing was the joy on their faces. One woman who I follow on Instagram, I don't think she's a religious person. Not I've never seen any indication that but she's a very wise person. And she just, she sort of is holding the camera to show her face as she's looking at the clips. And she says, I will never forget this moment for the rest of my life. And I thought she couldn't even put into words probably what it was, but it was the sense. I am part of something great and big and beautiful and deeper than I normally realize. That's That's what I think that's the feeling of humility that draws us toward curiosity and wisdom.

Joshua Johnson: 48:33

That's really beautiful. And skin. If you have a thing to say to your readers of life after zoom, what would you hope that they would get from this book?

Brian McLaren: 48:43

Yes. I hope they will understand that we're in trouble. And that, and that we don't know how bad the trouble will be because we are part of the first responders to actually deal with the trouble. And depending on how we and others respond. We can't know now what the trouble will be. But even though we don't know what the trouble will be, we we can decide how we want to show up. And more than anything I hope that people will feel from reading the book. I've got a clearer idea of how I want to show up. I know how I want to show up for unknown scenarios ahead. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 49:24

that's really good. Reminds me of the story of the Good Samaritan. Actually, as the Samaritan comes across and sees somebody bleeding Yes, that's and then he patches the wounds puts them on the donkey that's the first responder right like so we're gonna actually have to patch some wounds of the Earth at the moment and then put it on track and then set it to the end. give out some money in says a if you need anything else we're gonna we'll take care of it but then that long term care starts to come. That's that's beautiful that first responding their aspect. I love that. All right, I've A couple of questions I'd like to ask at the end. Yes, one, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?

Brian McLaren: 50:06

Oh my goodness, what advice would I give to my 21 year old self? I would say, try to treat yourself with a little more compassion because I spent my 20s and 30s being super, super tough on myself. I

Joshua Johnson: 50:22

had such good wisdom for all of us. Give ourselves some compassion. Yeah, anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend,

Brian McLaren: 50:31

oh, my goodness, I Well, I just last night saw the movie civil war. And it is very disturbing. And it is not. It does not give you any positive message in your face. But it stays with you and makes you think about a lot of things. I just read one of the funnest books of philosophy that almost nobody else would like, but it's by an Australian philosopher named Freya Matthews called the Tao or Tao of civilization. I just eat it up. I, I hope people feel about my book. So I felt reading that book. That's

Joshua Johnson: 51:04

fantastic. How can people connect with you get your book? Where would you like to point people to?

Brian McLaren: 51:09

Well, if you go to Brian McLaren dotnet. That's my sort of main website, and you can connect to my social media. And there's links to where you can buy the book, you can get the book anywhere. Yeah, perfect.

Joshua Johnson: 51:19

O'Brien, thank you for this conversation, I really hope that people start to get that we are in trouble that there but there is a way forward that is with wisdom, and courage and strength that we could actually see one another, that we are all humans in need of a new earth, a new way and a new way of thinking and living and learning together. So that we can hopefully give a world that is here, yes and not not destroyed. But we could give a world to generations and generations to come. So thank you for the wisdom that you've shared here. Thank you for this conversation. I really, really enjoyed it. Well, thank

Brian McLaren: 52:01

you. I am honored to have someone asked me questions who has so deeply understood the book already so thank you.

Joshua Johnson: 52:10

You are welcome.