Author, speaker and activist Brian McLaren speaks up for the Earth

During a talk at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, McLaren outlines what the world needs most from Christians today

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

The Rev. Dr. Brian McLaren, the author of more than 20 books, is part of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church’s McClendon Scholar Program. (Photo by Wendy Davis/Wild Artist Photography)

LOUISVILLE — Speaking for the third time this year as part of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church’s McClendon Scholar in Residence Program on Saturday, the Rev. Dr. Brian McLaren shared his thinking on what the world needs most from Christians today.

“My goal is I will give you nothing to feel guilty about,” the author, speaker and activist told people in the sanctuary of the historic PC(USA) church in Washington, D.C., and an online crowd of several hundred people. “The second goal is I will add no pressure to your life. Do I get an amen on that?”

“My goal is to create a safe space to think freely, which is harder than it looks,” he said. A mentor of McLaren’s once said that learning is not the consequence of teaching — it’s the consequence of thinking. “I hope in this space your thinking will get some spark, some carbonation, some caffeine, and come alive — and from that some creativity could arise,” he said. “That would be a wonderful thing.”

McLaren used “world” in the title of his talk in two senses. The first is the Earth, the care of which “is the most urgent issue of our time,” he said. The second sense is human civilization, and McLaren said he’s become “obsessed” with a quote by Father Thomas Berry, which McLaren offered in three simplified statements:

• The glory of the human is the desolation of the Earth.
• The desolation of the Earth is becoming the destiny of the human
• In light of the first two statements, human activities must be judged by the extent to which they foster our ability to get back to right relationship with our home.

Who will help us? “Christians in America are aware all of our religious institutions are on the decline, but we’re still the richest, most powerful religion in the world,” McLaren said. “So many of my dear friends say it’s a sinking ship. They’re giving up. I understand, but my rabbi friends say, ‘Don’t you dare give up. We need you there. Others will use religion to do harm.’ My friends of color say that giving up ‘is an act of privilege for you. You feel protected in other settings. Our religion helped us survive some of the worst atrocities. You’re not setting a good example when you give up so easily.’”

Taking a cue from Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si,” McLaren wondered aloud what the Earth would ask us to do, landing on at least a half-dozen ideas.

• Prepare people for this life in the coming critical decades. “If we don’t make significant progress on climate issues” in the next few years, “every problem will be worse in the foreseeable future,” McLaren said. We must “elicit a vision of enhancing the Earth” and its relationship with those who live on it. “Theologically, that means we shift our focus from the afterlife to this life, and that’s hard for Christians,” many of whom have spent most of their history on the former. “I think the Earth would say, ‘Can you Christians get refocused on getting people to live wisely and well in this decade and the coming decades?’” he said. If “denominational headquarters” don’t give people permission to treat the climate crisis as an emergency, congregations must lead the way. “It’s a bottom up and middle out revolution that’s needed,” he said.
• The Earth might also urge us to prioritize becoming and not preserving. “I have good news on this: All the pieces are in place for the becoming that we need,” he said. “I couldn’t have said that 10 years ago.” We have “more than enough resources and ideas” to mitigate the effects of climate change, but we lack the political will, he said. We also need new ways of thinking about who God and Jesus are. That thought reminded McLaren of what his friend and mentor Dallas Willard used to say: “Most Christians have become vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else.” More than an old man seated on a heavenly throne, God can be viewed as “sacred mystery, unity and source,” he said, and Jesus as both leader and liberator. Our liturgy ought to be “a workout of the people, a set of practices to help us become the kinds of people who can live well and be agents for peace and reconciliation.” The only bad news, he said, is that “almost everything we are doing needs to be updated.”
• For centuries, Western Christianity — especially Protestants — has been focused on worship. The Earth wants our focus to be on “holistic formation,” he said. “Imagine you are the Earth. People are running around on you, giving you a fever, preparing bombs, fomenting wars and racial hatred and all kinds of foolishness and evil.” The planet is asking, “Can you just help people become more loving and responsible and joyful?” McLaren said he’s “all for praising God, but what you worship you become like.” If we worship an angry or transactional God, we become those things ourselves. “Instead of worshiping God, we must embody God,” he said. “I think the Earth would send the trees into applause with their leaves if we could shift our focus.”
• The Earth would also “ask us to announce our difference boldly,” McLaren said. “This is tricky and scary, but we need to admit the word ‘Christian’ means opposite things to different people.” For some, being a Christian means “you hate immigrants.” For others, it means “not caring about the Earth so we can get to heaven and be done with the whole mess.” It’s important “to identify to the public who and what we are. We really are different, and we don’t have to hide that.”
• The Earth might ask Christians “to break out of our silos and become part of multi-level movements.” We can’t solve deep-rooted problems as a single congregation or even as a denomination. With widespread problems, “we don’t have great ways of finding people doing the work elsewhere.”
• Lastly, the Earth would ask older Christians to “embrace a preferential option for the young,” McLaren said, putting a different spin on the expression “God’s preferential option for the poor.” The shift will require investing power and money in young people, he noted.

“If you wanted to be born at a time to have an easy life, that was a few decades ago,” McLaren said. “A meaningful life? You’re alive at just the right time. For the Earth and the human civilization upon it, I hope I have faithfully spoken for what they might say to us.”

Read Presbyterian News Service reports on McLaren’s previous talks sponsored by New York Avenue Presbyterian Church here and here.