April 4, 2024 • 47 mins
As I turned the page on my fourth decade, it was Brian McLaren's voice that echoed wisdom into my evolving understanding of faith. His fresh interpretation of Jesus's teachings, as discussed in "Life After Doom," brought a sense of clarity to the tumult of global crises we face today. Together, we peel back the layers of collective despair that often stifles action, finding instead a call to balanced activism and renewed hope. McLaren's insights challenge us to confront collapses of various kinds, encouraging a shift away from the paralyzing extremes of complacency or despair.
Venturing into the entwined realms of faith, technology, and artificial intelligence, we ponder the legacy we're crafting for future generations. The conversation beckons us to question the pursuit of a machine-like existence as our civilization advances. We wrestle with the theological implications of such a path, considering whether we are mistakenly emulating an omnipotent deity in our technological endeavors. This intricate dance with divinity and intelligence leads us to reflect on our cultural narrative and its impact on the progression of both our spirituality and our society.
Embracing the kaleidoscope of human identity, we celebrate the unity inherent in our shared ancestry. I recount an eye-opening journey through my own genealogical tapestry, revealing the complexities of identity beyond simplistic racial constructs. By honoring the transformative power of understanding our multifaceted natures, we uncover the potential for compassion and kinship in our collective human story. Join us for a profound exploration that transcends self-discovery, inviting us all to find common ground as we navigate the challenges and opportunities of our time.
Life After Leaven is sponsored by Sub:Culture Incorporated, a 501c3 committed to eradicating cultural, social, spiritual, financial, and academic barriers for Black College Students. If you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation toward our work with black college students, you can do that here. Thank you for helping us ensure temporary roadblocks don't become permanent dead ends for students with marginalized identities. You can follow us on Instagram: @subc_incorporated, Facebook: facebook.com/subcultureinco, and Twitter: @subcultureinco1.
Our episodes are written and produced by Tamice Namae Speaks LLC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
What's up everybody.
Welcome back to this episode ofLife.
After Levin, I'm your host,tamise, spencer Helms and y'all,
I got another one from thechapter called the Naughty List
on with me.
Today I have Brian McLaren.
We'll talk all about what he'sdone and who he is for me.
You know that this particularseason is about people who have
significantly impacted me nowthat I'm 40.
I feel like I'm walking intolife very self-actualized, and
(00:25):
so I'm having people on the showthat have been a part of that
process, and so today we haveBrian McLaren.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
How you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I'm so happy to meet you and even happier to
find out that I had an influenceon you without even knowing it.
So I you've made my day already.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
That's so.
It's so true.
So this, the way that I came toknow you at first you were on
what what I call the NaughtyList, which was the list of
books you know as an evangelical, I was told to stay away from
that were slippery slope, butevery time I saw you or kind of
snuck watch something on YouTube.
You never seem to have the sameresponses to people.
(01:04):
There was not as much vitrioland there was not as much back
and forth.
You were just simply laying outsome questions for us and there
was something about that thatwas very magnetic.
So I followed you kind of on myway out of sort of that
expression of Christianity and Ithank you for for what you're
doing for people.
I'm really excited to talk toyou about your new book.
(01:25):
Right, I just finished Iactually just finished, do I
Stay Christian?
When I found out you got a newone coming out.
So I'm very excited to talk toyou about Life After Doom, which
I had the pleasure of having anadvanced read, a copy for, and
I'm loving it.
So could you tell us a littlebit about the book and your
hopes for the book, and I'llread your bio at the end of the
(01:45):
episode.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Sure, well, yeah, well.
To me one way to describe it isback in 2006,.
I wrote a book that that reallystarted changing my life, and
you and I come from similarbackground in many ways In the
evangelical world.
I wrote a book called theSecret Message of Jesus.
That really focused me on,instead of looking at Jesus as a
(02:11):
solution to an atonementproblem or in all the ways you
and I were taught to appreciate,jesus were, the primary thing
he does is get born and die.
And I looked, wanted to look atJesus for what he said he was
about, which was to teach, toteach a message called the
kingdom of God.
(02:32):
Jesus said you know, I camehere to teach and when people
tried to pull him into differentroles, he would keep coming
back to saying I want to teachyou about this radical new
vision of life called thekingdom of God.
So I wrote that book and thenthe next book I wrote was called
Everything Must Change.
(02:53):
I wanted to take Jesus coremessage that wasn't about where
you go after you die, but howyou live while you're alive.
I wanted to say how does thatmessage relate to our top global
crises?
So that book, everything MustChange, was really my attempt to
bring the message of Jesus andkind of interface it with
(03:14):
contemporary crises, and I I hadnever really done a deep dive
into what our contemporarycrises were.
That came out in 2000.
I think it was 2007, might havebeen 2008.
And so here we are, you know,gosh, getting close to 20 years
later, and I wanted to go backand revisit what are our global
(03:37):
crises, what's changed and whatare we going to do about it?
So, and what's happened to alot of people in recent years
who really are paying attentionto what's going on, and even
more those who pay attention tonot just individual areas of
crisis of which there are many,but they look at the inter
integration of those crises, isthey're feeling so overwhelmed
(04:02):
and they're feeling is therereally any?
I mean, are we just?
Is our chance over?
And and I wanted to addressthat feeling of being
overwhelmed because I often feelit too so that's really what's
behind the book.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, I think it is so timely I mean the way I'm
reading it or getting theopportunity to read it right now
, in the midst of all that ishappening in Gaza and Sudan and
what's happening with capitalismin our country.
In this upcoming election, Ijust feel like that it's a very
appropriate time for a book likethis, and I'm really grateful
for it.
There were a couple of themesthat I would love to have you
(04:43):
maybe you know tease theaudience with.
When you talked about that.
There were ways, there weredifferent types of collapse.
It was like four differenttypes of collapse.
Yeah can you talk about that alittle bit more in detail?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Sure.
So something I have observedabout the, about our brains to
me, is that we like all ornothing thinking.
In other words, we like to sayeverything's going to be fine or
we're totally screwed andthere's no hope.
One of the things that thoseboth of those extreme, polarized
(05:18):
, dualistic answers, one of thethings they do for us is they
give us permission to return toour previously scheduled
complacency.
Right, if everything's going tobe fine.
People are solving it,technology will solve it, god
will solve it, prayer will makeit all go away.
If we have a solution like that, we can just go back to making
(05:40):
money and having fun andwatching Netflix, whatever it is
we do, or if forget it, it'shopeless, might as well not even
try.
That also allows us to say well, I can be, I can be selfish, I
can be whatever.
And so what?
As I grappled with the data, Ididn't want to articulate only
(06:04):
two options and I tried to talkabout four possibilities, and
it's really one of the maincontributions of the book.
I think it'll be interesting tosee how people feel about it.
But the four are collapseavoidance, the idea that we can
avoid a civilizational collapse.
Second is collapse rebirth,where there will be a
(06:26):
civilizational collapse becauseof the way we're living in
relation to the earth, inrelation to one another, based
on race, religion, politics andall the rest.
So we could, we may experiencea collapse, but we could pick up
the pieces and maybe learnsomething and begin again.
(06:46):
That's collapse or birth.
Third is collapse survival,which would say some of us could
survive a collapse, but what wewould have on the other side
would not be a new civilization.
We would be pushed way, wayback to kind of start over again
.
And then forth is collapse,extinction.
And you know there's growingnumbers of people who feel that
(07:11):
our chances of avoidingextinction, based on the things
we've already said in motion,are very, very slim.
So those are the four scenarios, and what I try to do in the
book is not say here's thescenario.
What I try to say in the bookis I think we're wise to live
with honest unknowing aboutwhich of these four will unfold.
(07:33):
I don't think the future isthat easily knowable, but if we
can live with that unknowing andrealize that all of those four
are options and, by the way,collapse avoidance everybody
might think that's the goodscenario.
As you know, in the book Ithink there are a short term
collapse avoidance could be along term collapse extinction if
(07:55):
we don't learn the lessons weneed to learn.
So I try to help people facethose four scenarios.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yes, it's absolutely, absolutely wonderful.
And it's so interesting to mewhen I read this because it
feels like sociology, it feelslike you know, it feels pastoral
, it feels theological.
I mean, the ability that youhave to kind of bring all of
those things to bear on whatyou're just inviting us to
(08:22):
consider.
It's just, it's a reallypowerful way to do it.
I think, and I think it's gonnabe really, really impactful.
There are a lot of folks, Ithink, who are spiritually
aimless, if you will.
They know what they don't want,right but they haven't really
necessarily figured out whatthey do want and what to make of
God.
And this is a really, reallyhelpful tool for that.
(08:48):
And as I'm reading it andthinking through it and some of
the other things, like thewisdom of indigenous voices, how
we can kind of create newvalues and beauty that's worth
fighting for, to me I feel likeyou're describing my
decolonization process which wasa little bit different than
deconstruction and it's kind ofmy I guess, my what do you call
(09:10):
it my high horse or my soapbox,because I feel like you know, if
people stop at deconstructionthey probably will end up
spiritually aimless, because,you know, deconstruction that
doesn't deal with whitenessleaves your faith uprooted.
Right, it's not becausewhiteness isn't rooted in any
kind of a place or tradition.
And so hearing you talk aboutall of these avenues and ways to
(09:34):
bring these things to bear uponhow we craft faith now it just
feels like wow, like what he wastalking about, decolonization
and, to be honest, it feelsreally amazing to meet you there
in the book, right, I feel likefor most of my Christian
experience, everybody we readwas a white and male.
(09:54):
Those were the only leaders,those were the only voices that
taught us what it meant to doGod talk and to follow.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And so for you know, for you and you know, I had Pete
and Jared on, I'm gonna haveNeil Douglas Klotz and I wasn't
able to get Dom Cross andRichard Rohr, but those were the
white men that came with mebecause I still was able to find
myself in your writing and Ireally appreciate that.
I think this is a book that cantranslate across what was that
(10:25):
process?
Like I know, in do I sayChristian, you brought up
Trayvon, which also felt verypersonal for me in the Black
Lives Matter movement.
So what kind of pushed you tothat phase?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, well, I mean we could do a whole podcast series
on that, because as a white guyyou know middle class
upbringing I was very muchcocooned in a white, christian,
evangelical, conservative worldand I hope this is changing.
(11:04):
But I think in my generation itwas actually we were.
Apartheid was so effective andpeople could be in their little
cocoons or bubbles that it wasvery easy to go through a lot of
my life without having all ofthose assumptions challenged,
you know.
But a big one for me was I'mold enough that I grew up in a
(11:33):
segregated church.
I grew up in a church wherethere were some nice white men
in suits, very polite, who if ablack person came to the door
they would very politely beexplained where they could find
a black church.
Back then they didn't use theword black, they would have said
a Negro church, you know, 10miles away, where they would be
(12:00):
more welcome.
And my parents thought that washorrible, and my parents I'm
just blessed that I had parentsthat saw things differently.
Part of that is because my dadwas a missionary kid and he grew
up part of his childhood inAngola and part of his childhood
in Zambia, and so his life wasdifferent and his experience was
(12:24):
different, although well,there's another whole subject
there.
So that was a start for me.
But when I went through my ownfaith deconstruction as I was
speaking and I started writingon the subject, I was out
speaking on the subject and Istarted to realize that while
(12:45):
the Protestant Reformation wasgoing on you know, 15, 18, or
whatever it was the same timewasn't very long after 1492.
And then I started seeing thatthe Protestant Reformation was
going on at the same time ascolonization.
And, to bring a too long storyshort to me, so I was.
(13:09):
I had I developed arelationship with a black
theologian from Africa namedMabiala Kenzo amazing, brilliant
theologian.
And once we were in thebackseat of a car somebody was
driving and we're squeezed inthe backseat with some other
people and I said to him Kenzo,it seems to me that postmodern
(13:33):
is postcolonial.
And he said you've got it,you've got it, that's it, you've
got it.
And that was the night that Ihad permission to sort of reach
the conclusion that you reacheda whole lot earlier than I did.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, that's so powerful to me because I think
you know, like I said when Iencountered you back, in the
early 2000s, being warned of you.
It was very much like you hadan ability to even honor other
people's humanity.
I mean even to say I got ablessing from an African elder
(14:09):
theologian to begin to talkabout blackness and whiteness
and colonization.
I mean just even that processalone, I think, demonstrates how
trustworthy I think you are interms of thought, leadership and
theology, because I do see thissort of that elder piece is
(14:29):
really standing out to me.
I saw a tweet this morningwhere someone says I can't think
of a single place where peoplehonor elders and think about God
in terms of creation and beingin community.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And I was kind of like you know which was such a.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
you know it's so symptomatic of the fact that you
know, for most people who aredoing evangelical Christianity,
most of their leadership is anecho chamber of kind of white
normativity and theology.
But what life after doom does,though, I think, is it takes
people who would never pick up abook right by a black
theologian or something likethat.
(15:08):
It kind of brings them in theback way to meet us in the
middle to say, hey, these aresome things we need to think
about in terms of you know, I'musing the term leaven right what
is leavening our Christianity?
And it's so, so powerful to me.
I'm wondering have you had timeto think through technology and
(15:29):
the role that AI plays like inthe future of faith?
I mean, I do feel like you knowyou were in the emerging right,
emerging and emergent era, soyou've always sort of been on
the forefront or on the cusp ofwhat's about to happen.
So what are your thoughts aboutthat?
What are your thoughts aboutGen Z and AI and how that's
gonna affect us in the years tocome?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, so I pay attention to this.
I listen to people who, I think, know a whole lot more about me
than this, but I have to makeit clear I'm not an expert, but
here's my sense.
My sense is, at this juncturein history we need a different
(16:11):
kind of intelligence.
It's not that we need ourexisting intelligence to be
faster and more powerful.
You see, I think our existingintelligence is the problem.
Our existing intelligence isbased on assumptions about what
has ultimate value Veryunhealthy assumptions about what
(16:35):
money does.
I think in many ways, if wesurvive the mess we're in, in a
hundred or a thousand yearsthey'll look back and think for
this period of time we had agroup of people who became, who
were part of a money cult.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Their sense of what's valuable was totally distorted
by this human constructioncalled money, and oh, hold on,
hold on, hold on, hold on, holdon, hold on In this show when I
feel wisdom or like that waspowerful, what you just said,
and I like to just take likewhole space for what you just
(17:15):
said that is powerfullyinsightful.
I just wanna hold space forthat Goodness gracious.
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well, thanks for that .
No, well, thanks for that,denise, because that's to me
beautiful wisdom in yourpastoral leadership in these
situations is knowing that attimes, yeah, we just need to
stop and take a breath and letthings settle.
So I suppose, well, maybethat's a good place for me to
(17:52):
stop and just see where elseyou'd like to go with it,
because if artificialintelligence is really just
accelerated combination of dataaccording to the algorithms
programmed by people with a setof assumptions, well, maybe
here's a good way for me to sayit.
The great Nigerian philosopher,bio Kamalafe says what if our
(18:17):
the way we respond to the crisisis part of the crisis?
And that is where it seems tome we need a fresh perspective
that that faster machinelearning within our current
limited frameworks will willmake things worse, not better.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay, wow, I have a thing that I've been thinking
about and I'd love to hear yourthoughts on this, as it relates.
I keep thinking about Genesisthree.
I've been thinking aboutGenesis three for like three or
four years now, trying to figureout, you know, as an origin
story.
How is it explaining why we,why we, are this way?
(18:59):
Right, and I keep thinkingabout and hopefully I can draw
this thread, but I keep thinkingabout the ways that God was
described, as you know,omniscient, omnipotent,
omnipresent, and I think aboutwhat our culture of values, in
terms of the progress and, youknow, the acceleration of our
(19:22):
intelligence, is, almost asthough humans are, you know,
seeking to be machines, becausethey think God is a machine.
Right, like you know.
Like you know, because you knowit's about invulnerability,
right?
at the end of the day and to meit feels like that's what's
(19:42):
happening in that garden storyis that there's a situation
happening where people aremisunderstanding what God is
like.
I mean, it feels like that thatserpent story is about a really
subtle twist on what God islike.
In that God is God isinvulnerable.
God knows all, god is everywhere, god is all powerful and that
(20:04):
that desire for God like thatand to emulate a God like that
is why you're saying is whatyou're saying.
It's the way we respond to.
Crisis is a crisis, becausewhat I mean, what are we?
You said something like.
What did you say?
You said a different kind ofintelligence, because it has to
do with what we value and Ithink again now, this
(20:27):
decolonization right of thewhole the great chain of being
and everything like.
Even if you take God out ofthis and you put, you know,
humanity at the top, it's goingto be, you know, western
humanity at the top and then,Western men at the top of that,
and so I think about okay, sowe're measuring everything
against either a white God or awhite man.
(20:47):
And and so then we judge whatprogress is In light of that,
but to me it's like we've beenhere 400 years and we have
already blown a hole in theatmosphere.
Like you know, there arecivilizations that we call
underdeveloped, that have beengoing for centuries right living
(21:08):
off the land, living incommunity, and we call them
underdeveloped.
You know, we say that they needto progress and we are ruining
the planet as we speak.
So it does feel to me likeyou're right, like it has to do
with, like will we extract?
Right, like when you eat fromthis tree, when you violate the
agency of this tree and takefrom it instead of sharing,
(21:30):
instead of learning, like youknow, grasping knowledge instead
of receiving it.
And I think that there's a waythat, like what you're doing,
you know this indigenous ways ofthinking and these ways of sort
of recalibrating how we measurethings.
I think it's spot on and I feellike that's a similar thing.
I feel like, yeah, it seems tome that people are trying to
(21:53):
become machines because we hatevulnerability that much.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I mean what?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Well, I just want to say amen and I just love that
you're going back and looking atthose Genesis stories.
You know, one of the greatgifts you and I got from our
evangelical background was totake the Bible seriously.
One of the great curses we gotwas to take the Bible literally.
(22:25):
I mean, wow yeah, rich, deep,profound text in such a shallow,
superficial, literalistic wayis a tragedy.
But at least we were taught totake these stories seriously
because the stories are.
A rabbi once said to me you know, I don't get you Christians
(22:45):
trying to find out the meaningof a text, and I think that's
what it says.
For us Jews, every biblicaltext is a bottomless well of
meaning.
Isn't that great?
But just just to play with theGenesis story, you know, one of
the blessings of my life is thatI was a lit major.
I was an English major, soliterature has been one of my
passions.
So I went because of myliterary training.
(23:08):
Every once in a while I bymistake would read the Bible as
literature, which is what itreally was.
But so for some people thiswould totally freak them out.
But if you step back and readthe book of Genesis as
literature and you look at Godnot as the God but as a
character in a set of stories.
(23:30):
The character of God seems togrow through the book of Genesis
.
Now, to me, just put us, we canput aside stories of does God
grow, does God change?
I mean, that's a fascinatingstudy and I would encourage
anybody to look into processtheology.
But just looking at it, justlooking at it literally, Think
(23:56):
of it like this.
The character named God says atthe beginning of the story if
you break this, the day you eatof this tree, you will die.
That's a little bit like theparent who says if you write on
the wall one more time, I'mgoing to throw you out the
window.
To her child, you know?
Or his child?
Well, no, you know, you realize.
Well, that was a bit of anexcessive threat.
(24:19):
So what happened on the daythey eat of it?
God does not kill them.
God actually helps them andmakes clothes for them.
So God turns out to be betterthan God promised to be in a
certain.
If you just look at God as acharacter and you trace that
through, god says I'm going todestroy all human life and just
(24:40):
bring out Noah.
At the end, god does them andthinks gosh, I'll never do that
again.
You know, like the characterGod in this in the book of
Genesis is not, is a characterwho learns and grows.
Now people might say, well,that's not as good as our you
know vision of God as omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, all
that.
(25:00):
Well, how about this?
Maybe that God model modelsomething for us?
We ought to be learning andgrowing.
Oh my goodness, just to fastforward to the end of Genesis,
what is God's final solution tothe problem of human evil?
First God threatens capitalpunishment.
(25:22):
Then God says we'll get rid ofeverybody and just select Noah.
And then God says I'll pickthis guy named Abram, not to
kill everybody else, but I'llask Abram and his family and
Sarah and their descendants tobe blessings to everybody else.
So God shifts God's strategyfrom extermination and violence
(25:43):
to the dissemination of blessing.
And you get to the end of thebook of Genesis and this
fascinating character namedJoseph not perfect, makes
mistakes, but Joseph decides notto get vengeance on his
brothers but rather seeks towork for the common good.
I mean, that's a pretty coolstory when you just look at it
(26:05):
as literature and take all ofthe theological absolutes out of
it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
You know it's funny that you brought up process
theology because I was readingMonica Coleman for class and
thinking about the way that sheframes indigenous theology and
like the idea that there's thesupreme being, which, by the way
, I learned today as we talkedabout how I just found out which
tribe I'm from a native tribeI'm from, by the way, they have
(26:35):
a prayer that says all praisesto the creator, who created us
through thought, who makesimpossible things possible.
Like that's the way they addressGod.
And so thinking about that inconjunction with the sort of
this process, theology, I reallydo feel like that supreme being
the way she frames it is,there's a supreme being and then
(26:58):
there's a sort of celestialrealm and then there are these
mythic figures, right, who gothrough their own apotheosis.
But the way that you'redescribing God in the story is
God has an apotheosis experiencewhere God evolves, goes through
on a heroic journey andactualizes in the end.
I mean that feels to me like sosquarely in the framing of what
(27:24):
she talks about as sort of away that the past, the present
and the future kind of convergeon each other.
And then obviously there arethe ancestors, Do you?
So?
That's bringing me to thisquestion.
I wasn't planning to ask youthis, but have you done ancestry
work?
I mean, I've seen that as kindof a way for folks who are like,
yes, okay, I'm recognizing whatwhiteness is and the damaging
(27:47):
effects of whiteness and I'mlooking for a way out.
And for me I always tell themgo on an ancestry journey, go
find some roots.
Have you entered into thatprocess yet, or what are your
thoughts?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, I have.
First, let me just say I amsuch a huge fan of Monica
Coleman.
I love her work and I'm so gladyou're connected with her.
She not only, I think, has sucha brilliant mind, but her mode
of being as a teacher, hervulnerability, all the rest is,
(28:19):
I just think, such a model andso admirable.
And yes, I actually have beenmy wife.
I think for my birthday present,maybe eight years ago or
something, gave me ancestrycom.
So I've been using that tool totry to learn about my ancestry,
which has been super, superfascinating, and I've managed to
(28:45):
trace what.
My last name is Scottish.
I have a set of Scottishancestors who go way, way back
in Scotland, and as far back asI can go right now is maybe the
1500s, but they're there inScotland and a lot of people
don't realize that Scotland, ina sense they were a set of
indigenous people who werecolonized by the English.
(29:09):
And so suddenly you realize, oh, you know, all of our black,
white typology hides thecomplexity and richness and
drama of a much more complexlayer of nuanced reality.
And then from another set of myancestors are Irish and of
(29:34):
course the Irish were anothercolonized group of people.
And then I have a set ofScottish relatives who were part
of the deportation of Scottishpeople to Northern Ireland, so I
have Southern or the Republicof Irish people and Northern
Irish people, and then anotherstrain of my ancestors goes to
(29:56):
Northern Europe and then all thespreads down through Southern
Europe.
And then I have ancestors inItaly and I have an ancestor in
France in the late 1500s whosename was Mahmood, so he must
have been Muslim.
And so suddenly you find out.
I mean, I certainly didn'texpect that.
So you know what a fascinatingthing and to me, what really
(30:18):
becomes exciting about this.
This is, I think, what DrBarbara Holmes, a dear friend
and colleague, did in her bookRace and the Cosmos.
She helps us say look ourcurrent articulations of race
and the myths of whiteness andall the rest, these terrible
lies, right.
(30:38):
If we keep opening the aperturein space and in time, we see a
much bigger story going on, andthat's something else that I
hope people will get from thisbook.
Life After Doom is this sensethat you know, we're not only
the part of a bigger story ofhumanity, but we're part of the
(31:00):
bigger story of life andevolution on this planet.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
And yeah, yeah, you know, I keep thinking about it.
Someone asked me the other dayyou know, how are you
identifying these days?
And I keep saying tongue incheek, you know I'm wearing a
light jacket of Christianity,but I think about it, as they
asked me the reasons for thatand I keep thinking kind of what
(31:23):
you're alluding to.
I keep thinking it's because Icouldn't stretch it.
Like it wouldn't stretch.
It was like trying to taketrying to like be black, be
queer, be non-binary andChristian who reared in white
evangelicalism was like tryingto fit a, like, you know, a twin
sheet on a king-size bed.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
That's what it felt like.
No.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
And I needed to do something with the rest of this
mattress, right, Like so eitherGod is just this big or there is
more to this, and you know it'sso beautiful to me.
And again, I think what's beenbeautiful is coming into contact
when we were talking about withRace in the Cosmos and Monica
Coleman is that womenists havereally made me very proud and
(32:11):
excited to state that mytradition is the black church
tradition, right.
That my faith is rooted in HushHarbor and in a love and an
admiration for Jesus, that I canclaim that because I found
women is on my way out ofChristianity, right.
(32:33):
Yes, yes yes, the women has kindof met me in this place and I'm
able to it's like what you'redoing with this book I'm just
able to bring it all and in factit feels like bringing it all
was the point the whole time,you know, and so it's been
really beautiful.
It's been a really beautifulprocess and I feel like you are
(32:55):
very, very much responsible forthat process.
I'm indebted to you, I'mgrateful for you in the ways
that you I mean you lifted up,even just in our conversation,
lifted up so many scholars andtheologians of color, naturally,
and I'm not sure, you know, Iknow I have a kind of a mix of
listeners, but I'm not sure ifmy white listeners, who are
(33:19):
deconstructing, know howpowerful and trustworthy that is
, and so I'm just so grateful toyou.
Brian, and you said you hadIrish roots and I was like I was
like I'm gonna tell him I callhim B-Mac behind his back.
I call him B-Mac, like you know, I'm like babe B-Mac, so I just
(33:39):
really feel like Ken you feellike Ken spiritual Ken to me and
I'm so grateful for you.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I mean, when you say that to me and you think what
our history holds, that youcould say that and that I could
feel that and we could.
I mean that is a beautifulthing, isn't it?
When we understand we're Ken.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what aprofound change and what a
victory that is for a broaderand bigger way of thinking.
(34:12):
I'm honored by that and can Ijust say finding out that you
know my work has helped you.
I'm so happy about that.
But let me be very, very honest.
So I'm 60, I'll be 68 in acouple of weeks and so who knows
how many years I'll have leftright.
I'm way closer to the end thanthe beginning.
(34:33):
And you said you're, I thinkyou said you're 40.
So you might say you know mywork has helped you, but my work
will never be finished in mylife and so I'm absolutely.
I'm as dependent on you as youcould.
You know, any dependence youhave me is dwarfed by my
(34:53):
dependence on you, for whateverI'm able to give if it has some
value to you and you carry thaton, and I hope you feel I'm not
just saying that, I mean I feelthat so deeply and that's part
of the thing of we're all Kentoo.
It's we're all Ken, and youcould also say we're all part of
one wave.
You know the fact that we liveat the same time and we're part
(35:14):
of a wave that crashes on theshore and new waves have to come
.
And, yeah, it's pretty coolwhen we stop seeing each other
as competitive units and acapitalistic economy or even in
a Marxist struggle for dominance, we step back and we say no,
there's something way biggergoing on that we get to be part
(35:36):
of together.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Well, my partner is gonna love that.
He's their pacifist and theirfavorite thing to say is like
well, somebody has to put theweapon down first.
You know, like that's the waythey think of it and it feels
like that.
I mean we have to at some point, we have to risk doing it a
different way.
So thank you for leading us inthat.
I'm gonna hit you with thefinal three.
(36:01):
Yes, so we ask every guest threequestions what are you bringing
from the rubble, which thecorpus of work?
I think we know that, but today, what would you say?
And then, what are you bingingRight?
Is there a show or some music,a drink, it doesn't matter.
And what are some words to liveby?
So, in any order and wheneveryou're ready, take stab at those
(36:23):
questions.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Okay.
So what am I bringing from therubble?
Well, many things, but Isuppose there's a verse.
There's a verse in the NewTestament from the off
misunderstood, I think ApostlePaul, where he said neither
circumcision nor uncircumcisioncounts for anything.
(36:47):
And I think with that we couldsay he's saying all of our
religious squabbles and rulesand boundary markers, they're
not the point, they aren't whatreally count.
He says the only thing thatmatters is faith expressing
itself in love.
And that idea that the onlything that matters is faith
expressing itself in love, thatis something I bring from the
(37:07):
rubble, something I'm binging.
Well, I always binge theoutdoors, it's what helps me
stay sane.
But when I'm indoors, my wifeand I have been binging K-dramas
.
I have no idea why.
They just feel like a differentplot structure unfolding than
(37:30):
is so typical of American dramas, that it has felt refreshing.
And what's my third?
I forgot.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Some words to live by .
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Some words to live by .
Well, maybe those words fromBioakamalafi.
What if our way of respondingto the crisis is part of the
crisis?
And what I love about that isthe words.
What if?
Invite us to think and imagineand see?
It's not like he's just givingus an idea that we should accept
(38:02):
.
He's giving us an idea thatmakes us think.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Aashay and Aimen.
Thank you so much, Brian, forbeing on the show.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's been awesome Been a beautiful experience for
me and so happy to meet youAwesome.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Thank you for listening.
To paint your money in yourheart is donate to Subquatcher
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What's up everybody.
Welcome back to this episode ofLife.
After Levin, I'm your host,tamise, spencer Helms and y'all,
I got another one from thechapter called the Naughty List
on with me.
Today I have Brian McLaren.
We'll talk all about what he'sdone and who he is for me.
You know that this particularseason is about people who have
significantly impacted me nowthat I'm 40.
I feel like I'm walking intolife very self-actualized, and
(00:25):
so I'm having people on the showthat have been a part of that
process, and so today we haveBrian McLaren.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
How you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I'm so happy to meet you and even happier to
find out that I had an influenceon you without even knowing it.
So I you've made my day already.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
That's so.
It's so true.
So this, the way that I came toknow you at first you were on
what what I call the NaughtyList, which was the list of
books you know as an evangelical, I was told to stay away from
that were slippery slope, butevery time I saw you or kind of
snuck watch something on YouTube.
You never seem to have the sameresponses to people.
(01:04):
There was not as much vitrioland there was not as much back
and forth.
You were just simply laying outsome questions for us and there
was something about that thatwas very magnetic.
So I followed you kind of on myway out of sort of that
expression of Christianity and Ithank you for for what you're
doing for people.
I'm really excited to talk toyou about your new book.
(01:25):
Right, I just finished Iactually just finished, do I
Stay Christian?
When I found out you got a newone coming out.
So I'm very excited to talk toyou about Life After Doom, which
I had the pleasure of having anadvanced read, a copy for, and
I'm loving it.
So could you tell us a littlebit about the book and your
hopes for the book, and I'llread your bio at the end of the
(01:45):
episode.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Sure, well, yeah, well.
To me one way to describe it isback in 2006,.
I wrote a book that that reallystarted changing my life, and
you and I come from similarbackground in many ways In the
evangelical world.
I wrote a book called theSecret Message of Jesus.
That really focused me on,instead of looking at Jesus as a
(02:11):
solution to an atonementproblem or in all the ways you
and I were taught to appreciate,jesus were, the primary thing
he does is get born and die.
And I looked, wanted to look atJesus for what he said he was
about, which was to teach, toteach a message called the
kingdom of God.
(02:32):
Jesus said you know, I camehere to teach and when people
tried to pull him into differentroles, he would keep coming
back to saying I want to teachyou about this radical new
vision of life called thekingdom of God.
So I wrote that book and thenthe next book I wrote was called
Everything Must Change.
(02:53):
I wanted to take Jesus coremessage that wasn't about where
you go after you die, but howyou live while you're alive.
I wanted to say how does thatmessage relate to our top global
crises?
So that book, everything MustChange, was really my attempt to
bring the message of Jesus andkind of interface it with
(03:14):
contemporary crises, and I I hadnever really done a deep dive
into what our contemporarycrises were.
That came out in 2000.
I think it was 2007, might havebeen 2008.
And so here we are, you know,gosh, getting close to 20 years
later, and I wanted to go backand revisit what are our global
(03:37):
crises, what's changed and whatare we going to do about it?
So, and what's happened to alot of people in recent years
who really are paying attentionto what's going on, and even
more those who pay attention tonot just individual areas of
crisis of which there are many,but they look at the inter
integration of those crises, isthey're feeling so overwhelmed
(04:02):
and they're feeling is therereally any?
I mean, are we just?
Is our chance over?
And and I wanted to addressthat feeling of being
overwhelmed because I often feelit too so that's really what's
behind the book.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, I think it is so timely I mean the way I'm
reading it or getting theopportunity to read it right now
, in the midst of all that ishappening in Gaza and Sudan and
what's happening with capitalismin our country.
In this upcoming election, Ijust feel like that it's a very
appropriate time for a book likethis, and I'm really grateful
for it.
There were a couple of themesthat I would love to have you
(04:43):
maybe you know tease theaudience with.
When you talked about that.
There were ways, there weredifferent types of collapse.
It was like four differenttypes of collapse.
Yeah can you talk about that alittle bit more in detail?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Sure.
So something I have observedabout the, about our brains to
me, is that we like all ornothing thinking.
In other words, we like to sayeverything's going to be fine or
we're totally screwed andthere's no hope.
One of the things that thoseboth of those extreme, polarized
(05:18):
, dualistic answers, one of thethings they do for us is they
give us permission to return toour previously scheduled
complacency.
Right, if everything's going tobe fine.
People are solving it,technology will solve it, god
will solve it, prayer will makeit all go away.
If we have a solution like that, we can just go back to making
(05:40):
money and having fun andwatching Netflix, whatever it is
we do, or if forget it, it'shopeless, might as well not even
try.
That also allows us to say well, I can be, I can be selfish, I
can be whatever.
And so what?
As I grappled with the data, Ididn't want to articulate only
(06:04):
two options and I tried to talkabout four possibilities, and
it's really one of the maincontributions of the book.
I think it'll be interesting tosee how people feel about it.
But the four are collapseavoidance, the idea that we can
avoid a civilizational collapse.
Second is collapse rebirth,where there will be a
(06:26):
civilizational collapse becauseof the way we're living in
relation to the earth, inrelation to one another, based
on race, religion, politics andall the rest.
So we could, we may experiencea collapse, but we could pick up
the pieces and maybe learnsomething and begin again.
(06:46):
That's collapse or birth.
Third is collapse survival,which would say some of us could
survive a collapse, but what wewould have on the other side
would not be a new civilization.
We would be pushed way, wayback to kind of start over again
.
And then forth is collapse,extinction.
And you know there's growingnumbers of people who feel that
(07:11):
our chances of avoidingextinction, based on the things
we've already said in motion,are very, very slim.
So those are the four scenarios, and what I try to do in the
book is not say here's thescenario.
What I try to say in the bookis I think we're wise to live
with honest unknowing aboutwhich of these four will unfold.
(07:33):
I don't think the future isthat easily knowable, but if we
can live with that unknowing andrealize that all of those four
are options and, by the way,collapse avoidance everybody
might think that's the goodscenario.
As you know, in the book Ithink there are a short term
collapse avoidance could be along term collapse extinction if
(07:55):
we don't learn the lessons weneed to learn.
So I try to help people facethose four scenarios.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yes, it's absolutely, absolutely wonderful.
And it's so interesting to mewhen I read this because it
feels like sociology, it feelslike you know, it feels pastoral
, it feels theological.
I mean, the ability that youhave to kind of bring all of
those things to bear on whatyou're just inviting us to
(08:22):
consider.
It's just, it's a reallypowerful way to do it.
I think, and I think it's gonnabe really, really impactful.
There are a lot of folks, Ithink, who are spiritually
aimless, if you will.
They know what they don't want,right but they haven't really
necessarily figured out whatthey do want and what to make of
God.
And this is a really, reallyhelpful tool for that.
(08:48):
And as I'm reading it andthinking through it and some of
the other things, like thewisdom of indigenous voices, how
we can kind of create newvalues and beauty that's worth
fighting for, to me I feel likeyou're describing my
decolonization process which wasa little bit different than
deconstruction and it's kind ofmy I guess, my what do you call
(09:10):
it my high horse or my soapbox,because I feel like you know, if
people stop at deconstructionthey probably will end up
spiritually aimless, because,you know, deconstruction that
doesn't deal with whitenessleaves your faith uprooted.
Right, it's not becausewhiteness isn't rooted in any
kind of a place or tradition.
And so hearing you talk aboutall of these avenues and ways to
(09:34):
bring these things to bear uponhow we craft faith now it just
feels like wow, like what he wastalking about, decolonization
and, to be honest, it feelsreally amazing to meet you there
in the book, right, I feel likefor most of my Christian
experience, everybody we readwas a white and male.
(09:54):
Those were the only leaders,those were the only voices that
taught us what it meant to doGod talk and to follow.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And so for you know, for you and you know, I had Pete
and Jared on, I'm gonna haveNeil Douglas Klotz and I wasn't
able to get Dom Cross andRichard Rohr, but those were the
white men that came with mebecause I still was able to find
myself in your writing and Ireally appreciate that.
I think this is a book that cantranslate across what was that
(10:25):
process?
Like I know, in do I sayChristian, you brought up
Trayvon, which also felt verypersonal for me in the Black
Lives Matter movement.
So what kind of pushed you tothat phase?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, well, I mean we could do a whole podcast series
on that, because as a white guyyou know middle class
upbringing I was very muchcocooned in a white, christian,
evangelical, conservative worldand I hope this is changing.
(11:04):
But I think in my generation itwas actually we were.
Apartheid was so effective andpeople could be in their little
cocoons or bubbles that it wasvery easy to go through a lot of
my life without having all ofthose assumptions challenged,
you know.
But a big one for me was I'mold enough that I grew up in a
(11:33):
segregated church.
I grew up in a church wherethere were some nice white men
in suits, very polite, who if ablack person came to the door
they would very politely beexplained where they could find
a black church.
Back then they didn't use theword black, they would have said
a Negro church, you know, 10miles away, where they would be
(12:00):
more welcome.
And my parents thought that washorrible, and my parents I'm
just blessed that I had parentsthat saw things differently.
Part of that is because my dadwas a missionary kid and he grew
up part of his childhood inAngola and part of his childhood
in Zambia, and so his life wasdifferent and his experience was
(12:24):
different, although well,there's another whole subject
there.
So that was a start for me.
But when I went through my ownfaith deconstruction as I was
speaking and I started writingon the subject, I was out
speaking on the subject and Istarted to realize that while
(12:45):
the Protestant Reformation wasgoing on you know, 15, 18, or
whatever it was the same timewasn't very long after 1492.
And then I started seeing thatthe Protestant Reformation was
going on at the same time ascolonization.
And, to bring a too long storyshort to me, so I was.
(13:09):
I had I developed arelationship with a black
theologian from Africa namedMabiala Kenzo amazing, brilliant
theologian.
And once we were in thebackseat of a car somebody was
driving and we're squeezed inthe backseat with some other
people and I said to him Kenzo,it seems to me that postmodern
(13:33):
is postcolonial.
And he said you've got it,you've got it, that's it, you've
got it.
And that was the night that Ihad permission to sort of reach
the conclusion that you reacheda whole lot earlier than I did.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, that's so powerful to me because I think
you know, like I said when Iencountered you back, in the
early 2000s, being warned of you.
It was very much like you hadan ability to even honor other
people's humanity.
I mean even to say I got ablessing from an African elder
(14:09):
theologian to begin to talkabout blackness and whiteness
and colonization.
I mean just even that processalone, I think, demonstrates how
trustworthy I think you are interms of thought, leadership and
theology, because I do see thissort of that elder piece is
(14:29):
really standing out to me.
I saw a tweet this morningwhere someone says I can't think
of a single place where peoplehonor elders and think about God
in terms of creation and beingin community.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And I was kind of like you know which was such a.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
you know it's so symptomatic of the fact that you
know, for most people who aredoing evangelical Christianity,
most of their leadership is anecho chamber of kind of white
normativity and theology.
But what life after doom does,though, I think, is it takes
people who would never pick up abook right by a black
theologian or something likethat.
(15:08):
It kind of brings them in theback way to meet us in the
middle to say, hey, these aresome things we need to think
about in terms of you know, I'musing the term leaven right what
is leavening our Christianity?
And it's so, so powerful to me.
I'm wondering have you had timeto think through technology and
(15:29):
the role that AI plays like inthe future of faith?
I mean, I do feel like you knowyou were in the emerging right,
emerging and emergent era, soyou've always sort of been on
the forefront or on the cusp ofwhat's about to happen.
So what are your thoughts aboutthat?
What are your thoughts aboutGen Z and AI and how that's
gonna affect us in the years tocome?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, so I pay attention to this.
I listen to people who, I think, know a whole lot more about me
than this, but I have to makeit clear I'm not an expert, but
here's my sense.
My sense is, at this juncturein history we need a different
(16:11):
kind of intelligence.
It's not that we need ourexisting intelligence to be
faster and more powerful.
You see, I think our existingintelligence is the problem.
Our existing intelligence isbased on assumptions about what
has ultimate value Veryunhealthy assumptions about what
(16:35):
money does.
I think in many ways, if wesurvive the mess we're in, in a
hundred or a thousand yearsthey'll look back and think for
this period of time we had agroup of people who became, who
were part of a money cult.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Their sense of what's valuable was totally distorted
by this human constructioncalled money, and oh, hold on,
hold on, hold on, hold on, holdon, hold on In this show when I
feel wisdom or like that waspowerful, what you just said,
and I like to just take likewhole space for what you just
(17:15):
said that is powerfullyinsightful.
I just wanna hold space forthat Goodness gracious.
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Well, thanks for that .
No, well, thanks for that,denise, because that's to me
beautiful wisdom in yourpastoral leadership in these
situations is knowing that attimes, yeah, we just need to
stop and take a breath and letthings settle.
So I suppose, well, maybethat's a good place for me to
(17:52):
stop and just see where elseyou'd like to go with it,
because if artificialintelligence is really just
accelerated combination of dataaccording to the algorithms
programmed by people with a setof assumptions, well, maybe
here's a good way for me to sayit.
The great Nigerian philosopher,bio Kamalafe says what if our
(18:17):
the way we respond to the crisisis part of the crisis?
And that is where it seems tome we need a fresh perspective
that that faster machinelearning within our current
limited frameworks will willmake things worse, not better.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay, wow, I have a thing that I've been thinking
about and I'd love to hear yourthoughts on this, as it relates.
I keep thinking about Genesisthree.
I've been thinking aboutGenesis three for like three or
four years now, trying to figureout, you know, as an origin
story.
How is it explaining why we,why we, are this way?
(18:59):
Right, and I keep thinkingabout and hopefully I can draw
this thread, but I keep thinkingabout the ways that God was
described, as you know,omniscient, omnipotent,
omnipresent, and I think aboutwhat our culture of values, in
terms of the progress and, youknow, the acceleration of our
(19:22):
intelligence, is, almost asthough humans are, you know,
seeking to be machines, becausethey think God is a machine.
Right, like you know.
Like you know, because you knowit's about invulnerability,
right?
at the end of the day and to meit feels like that's what's
(19:42):
happening in that garden storyis that there's a situation
happening where people aremisunderstanding what God is
like.
I mean, it feels like that thatserpent story is about a really
subtle twist on what God islike.
In that God is God isinvulnerable.
God knows all, god is everywhere, god is all powerful and that
(20:04):
that desire for God like thatand to emulate a God like that
is why you're saying is whatyou're saying.
It's the way we respond to.
Crisis is a crisis, becausewhat I mean, what are we?
You said something like.
What did you say?
You said a different kind ofintelligence, because it has to
do with what we value and Ithink again now, this
(20:27):
decolonization right of thewhole the great chain of being
and everything like.
Even if you take God out ofthis and you put, you know,
humanity at the top, it's goingto be, you know, western
humanity at the top and then,Western men at the top of that,
and so I think about okay, sowe're measuring everything
against either a white God or awhite man.
(20:47):
And and so then we judge whatprogress is In light of that,
but to me it's like we've beenhere 400 years and we have
already blown a hole in theatmosphere.
Like you know, there arecivilizations that we call
underdeveloped, that have beengoing for centuries right living
(21:08):
off the land, living incommunity, and we call them
underdeveloped.
You know, we say that they needto progress and we are ruining
the planet as we speak.
So it does feel to me likeyou're right, like it has to do
with, like will we extract?
Right, like when you eat fromthis tree, when you violate the
agency of this tree and takefrom it instead of sharing,
(21:30):
instead of learning, like youknow, grasping knowledge instead
of receiving it.
And I think that there's a waythat, like what you're doing,
you know this indigenous ways ofthinking and these ways of sort
of recalibrating how we measurethings.
I think it's spot on and I feellike that's a similar thing.
I feel like, yeah, it seems tome that people are trying to
(21:53):
become machines because we hatevulnerability that much.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I mean what?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Well, I just want to say amen and I just love that
you're going back and looking atthose Genesis stories.
You know, one of the greatgifts you and I got from our
evangelical background was totake the Bible seriously.
One of the great curses we gotwas to take the Bible literally.
(22:25):
I mean, wow yeah, rich, deep,profound text in such a shallow,
superficial, literalistic wayis a tragedy.
But at least we were taught totake these stories seriously
because the stories are.
A rabbi once said to me you know, I don't get you Christians
(22:45):
trying to find out the meaningof a text, and I think that's
what it says.
For us Jews, every biblicaltext is a bottomless well of
meaning.
Isn't that great?
But just just to play with theGenesis story, you know, one of
the blessings of my life is thatI was a lit major.
I was an English major, soliterature has been one of my
passions.
So I went because of myliterary training.
(23:08):
Every once in a while I bymistake would read the Bible as
literature, which is what itreally was.
But so for some people thiswould totally freak them out.
But if you step back and readthe book of Genesis as
literature and you look at Godnot as the God but as a
character in a set of stories.
(23:30):
The character of God seems togrow through the book of Genesis
.
Now, to me, just put us, we canput aside stories of does God
grow, does God change?
I mean, that's a fascinatingstudy and I would encourage
anybody to look into processtheology.
But just looking at it, justlooking at it literally, Think
(23:56):
of it like this.
The character named God says atthe beginning of the story if
you break this, the day you eatof this tree, you will die.
That's a little bit like theparent who says if you write on
the wall one more time, I'mgoing to throw you out the
window.
To her child, you know?
Or his child?
Well, no, you know, you realize.
Well, that was a bit of anexcessive threat.
(24:19):
So what happened on the daythey eat of it?
God does not kill them.
God actually helps them andmakes clothes for them.
So God turns out to be betterthan God promised to be in a
certain.
If you just look at God as acharacter and you trace that
through, god says I'm going todestroy all human life and just
(24:40):
bring out Noah.
At the end, god does them andthinks gosh, I'll never do that
again.
You know, like the characterGod in this in the book of
Genesis is not, is a characterwho learns and grows.
Now people might say, well,that's not as good as our you
know vision of God as omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, all
that.
(25:00):
Well, how about this?
Maybe that God model modelsomething for us?
We ought to be learning andgrowing.
Oh my goodness, just to fastforward to the end of Genesis,
what is God's final solution tothe problem of human evil?
First God threatens capitalpunishment.
(25:22):
Then God says we'll get rid ofeverybody and just select Noah.
And then God says I'll pickthis guy named Abram, not to
kill everybody else, but I'llask Abram and his family and
Sarah and their descendants tobe blessings to everybody else.
So God shifts God's strategyfrom extermination and violence
(25:43):
to the dissemination of blessing.
And you get to the end of thebook of Genesis and this
fascinating character namedJoseph not perfect, makes
mistakes, but Joseph decides notto get vengeance on his
brothers but rather seeks towork for the common good.
I mean, that's a pretty coolstory when you just look at it
(26:05):
as literature and take all ofthe theological absolutes out of
it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
You know it's funny that you brought up process
theology because I was readingMonica Coleman for class and
thinking about the way that sheframes indigenous theology and
like the idea that there's thesupreme being, which, by the way
, I learned today as we talkedabout how I just found out which
tribe I'm from a native tribeI'm from, by the way, they have
(26:35):
a prayer that says all praisesto the creator, who created us
through thought, who makesimpossible things possible.
Like that's the way they addressGod.
And so thinking about that inconjunction with the sort of
this process, theology, I reallydo feel like that supreme being
the way she frames it is,there's a supreme being and then
(26:58):
there's a sort of celestialrealm and then there are these
mythic figures, right, who gothrough their own apotheosis.
But the way that you'redescribing God in the story is
God has an apotheosis experiencewhere God evolves, goes through
on a heroic journey andactualizes in the end.
I mean that feels to me like sosquarely in the framing of what
(27:24):
she talks about as sort of away that the past, the present
and the future kind of convergeon each other.
And then obviously there arethe ancestors, Do you?
So?
That's bringing me to thisquestion.
I wasn't planning to ask youthis, but have you done ancestry
work?
I mean, I've seen that as kindof a way for folks who are like,
yes, okay, I'm recognizing whatwhiteness is and the damaging
(27:47):
effects of whiteness and I'mlooking for a way out.
And for me I always tell themgo on an ancestry journey, go
find some roots.
Have you entered into thatprocess yet, or what are your
thoughts?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, I have.
First, let me just say I amsuch a huge fan of Monica
Coleman.
I love her work and I'm so gladyou're connected with her.
She not only, I think, has sucha brilliant mind, but her mode
of being as a teacher, hervulnerability, all the rest is,
(28:19):
I just think, such a model andso admirable.
And yes, I actually have beenmy wife.
I think for my birthday present,maybe eight years ago or
something, gave me ancestrycom.
So I've been using that tool totry to learn about my ancestry,
which has been super, superfascinating, and I've managed to
(28:45):
trace what.
My last name is Scottish.
I have a set of Scottishancestors who go way, way back
in Scotland, and as far back asI can go right now is maybe the
1500s, but they're there inScotland and a lot of people
don't realize that Scotland, ina sense they were a set of
indigenous people who werecolonized by the English.
(29:09):
And so suddenly you realize, oh, you know, all of our black,
white typology hides thecomplexity and richness and
drama of a much more complexlayer of nuanced reality.
And then from another set of myancestors are Irish and of
(29:34):
course the Irish were anothercolonized group of people.
And then I have a set ofScottish relatives who were part
of the deportation of Scottishpeople to Northern Ireland, so I
have Southern or the Republicof Irish people and Northern
Irish people, and then anotherstrain of my ancestors goes to
(29:56):
Northern Europe and then all thespreads down through Southern
Europe.
And then I have ancestors inItaly and I have an ancestor in
France in the late 1500s whosename was Mahmood, so he must
have been Muslim.
And so suddenly you find out.
I mean, I certainly didn'texpect that.
So you know what a fascinatingthing and to me, what really
(30:18):
becomes exciting about this.
This is, I think, what DrBarbara Holmes, a dear friend
and colleague, did in her bookRace and the Cosmos.
She helps us say look ourcurrent articulations of race
and the myths of whiteness andall the rest, these terrible
lies, right.
(30:38):
If we keep opening the aperturein space and in time, we see a
much bigger story going on, andthat's something else that I
hope people will get from thisbook.
Life After Doom is this sensethat you know, we're not only
the part of a bigger story ofhumanity, but we're part of the
(31:00):
bigger story of life andevolution on this planet.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
And yeah, yeah, you know, I keep thinking about it.
Someone asked me the other dayyou know, how are you
identifying these days?
And I keep saying tongue incheek, you know I'm wearing a
light jacket of Christianity,but I think about it, as they
asked me the reasons for thatand I keep thinking kind of what
(31:23):
you're alluding to.
I keep thinking it's because Icouldn't stretch it.
Like it wouldn't stretch.
It was like trying to taketrying to like be black, be
queer, be non-binary andChristian who reared in white
evangelicalism was like tryingto fit a, like, you know, a twin
sheet on a king-size bed.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
That's what it felt like.
No.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
And I needed to do something with the rest of this
mattress, right, Like so eitherGod is just this big or there is
more to this, and you know it'sso beautiful to me.
And again, I think what's beenbeautiful is coming into contact
when we were talking about withRace in the Cosmos and Monica
Coleman is that womenists havereally made me very proud and
(32:11):
excited to state that mytradition is the black church
tradition, right.
That my faith is rooted in HushHarbor and in a love and an
admiration for Jesus, that I canclaim that because I found
women is on my way out ofChristianity, right.
(32:33):
Yes, yes yes, the women has kindof met me in this place and I'm
able to it's like what you'redoing with this book I'm just
able to bring it all and in factit feels like bringing it all
was the point the whole time,you know, and so it's been
really beautiful.
It's been a really beautifulprocess and I feel like you are
(32:55):
very, very much responsible forthat process.
I'm indebted to you, I'mgrateful for you in the ways
that you I mean you lifted up,even just in our conversation,
lifted up so many scholars andtheologians of color, naturally,
and I'm not sure, you know, Iknow I have a kind of a mix of
listeners, but I'm not sure ifmy white listeners, who are
(33:19):
deconstructing, know howpowerful and trustworthy that is
, and so I'm just so grateful toyou.
Brian, and you said you hadIrish roots and I was like I was
like I'm gonna tell him I callhim B-Mac behind his back.
I call him B-Mac, like you know, I'm like babe B-Mac, so I just
(33:39):
really feel like Ken you feellike Ken spiritual Ken to me and
I'm so grateful for you.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I mean, when you say that to me and you think what
our history holds, that youcould say that and that I could
feel that and we could.
I mean that is a beautifulthing, isn't it?
When we understand we're Ken.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what aprofound change and what a
victory that is for a broaderand bigger way of thinking.
(34:12):
I'm honored by that and can Ijust say finding out that you
know my work has helped you.
I'm so happy about that.
But let me be very, very honest.
So I'm 60, I'll be 68 in acouple of weeks and so who knows
how many years I'll have leftright.
I'm way closer to the end thanthe beginning.
(34:33):
And you said you're, I thinkyou said you're 40.
So you might say you know mywork has helped you, but my work
will never be finished in mylife and so I'm absolutely.
I'm as dependent on you as youcould.
You know, any dependence youhave me is dwarfed by my
(34:53):
dependence on you, for whateverI'm able to give if it has some
value to you and you carry thaton, and I hope you feel I'm not
just saying that, I mean I feelthat so deeply and that's part
of the thing of we're all Kentoo.
It's we're all Ken, and youcould also say we're all part of
one wave.
You know the fact that we liveat the same time and we're part
(35:14):
of a wave that crashes on theshore and new waves have to come
.
And, yeah, it's pretty coolwhen we stop seeing each other
as competitive units and acapitalistic economy or even in
a Marxist struggle for dominance, we step back and we say no,
there's something way biggergoing on that we get to be part
(35:36):
of together.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Well, my partner is gonna love that.
He's their pacifist and theirfavorite thing to say is like
well, somebody has to put theweapon down first.
You know, like that's the waythey think of it and it feels
like that.
I mean we have to at some point, we have to risk doing it a
different way.
So thank you for leading us inthat.
I'm gonna hit you with thefinal three.
(36:01):
Yes, so we ask every guest threequestions what are you bringing
from the rubble, which thecorpus of work?
I think we know that, but today, what would you say?
And then, what are you bingingRight?
Is there a show or some music,a drink, it doesn't matter.
And what are some words to liveby?
So, in any order and wheneveryou're ready, take stab at those
(36:23):
questions.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Okay.
So what am I bringing from therubble?
Well, many things, but Isuppose there's a verse.
There's a verse in the NewTestament from the off
misunderstood, I think ApostlePaul, where he said neither
circumcision nor uncircumcisioncounts for anything.
(36:47):
And I think with that we couldsay he's saying all of our
religious squabbles and rulesand boundary markers, they're
not the point, they aren't whatreally count.
He says the only thing thatmatters is faith expressing
itself in love.
And that idea that the onlything that matters is faith
expressing itself in love, thatis something I bring from the
(37:07):
rubble, something I'm binging.
Well, I always binge theoutdoors, it's what helps me
stay sane.
But when I'm indoors, my wifeand I have been binging K-dramas
.
I have no idea why.
They just feel like a differentplot structure unfolding than
(37:30):
is so typical of American dramas, that it has felt refreshing.
And what's my third?
I forgot.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Some words to live by .
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Some words to live by .
Well, maybe those words fromBioakamalafi.
What if our way of respondingto the crisis is part of the
crisis?
And what I love about that isthe words.
What if?
Invite us to think and imagineand see?
It's not like he's just givingus an idea that we should accept
(38:02):
.
He's giving us an idea thatmakes us think.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Aashay and Aimen.
Thank you so much, Brian, forbeing on the show.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's been awesome Been a beautiful experience for
me and so happy to meet youAwesome.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Thank you for listening.
To paint your money in yourheart is donate to Subquatcher
Inc Inc.
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