Thinking About Nature With Brian McLaren

Prayer doesn’t always happen in a church. Sometimes it happens under streetlights or beside old trees. We open with Randy’s simple practice of late night walks and how nature has slowly become the place where his spirituality feels dynamic again. That shift also brings a collision with old religious instincts: the inner voice that says connection is dangerous, that wonder is “worship,” that the world exists mainly to serve us.

Brian McLaren joins us to widen the frame. We talk about childhood experiences of creation, why Genesis begins with the goodness and value of the world, and how Psalm 19 might be less about “the book of nature” and more about wisdom embedded in reality itself. Kyle presses on the honest question: what makes a mountain feel like God instead of just a mountain? From awe to fear, from humility to love, we explore why these experiences can be spiritually formative.

The conversation then turns outward to ethics and survival. We dig into reciprocity versus domination, how capitalism trains us for transaction without relationship, and how Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is often misunderstood. We also unpack pantheism and panentheism in plain language, wrestle with the moral weight of eating and harm, and return to the biblical tension of “till and keep” as both permission and responsibility. Finally, Brian shares why he wrote his sci fi novel The Last Voyage, how climate overshoot and oligarchy shape the story, and why resignation, whether optimistic or pessimistic, is the enemy of faithful action.

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Transcript

Nature As A Spiritual Home

Randy 0:06

I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my friend Kyle's a philosopher. This podcast hosts conversations at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.

Kyle 0:15

We also invite experts to join us, making public a space that we've often enjoyed off-air around the proverbial table with a good drink at the back corner of a dark pub.

Randy 0:24

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walking to a Bar. My spirituality has been shaped and formed and rooted in many ways in nature. I mean, my whole life I've loved nature. I mean, I started golfing in my 20s, not because I love golf, because truth be told, it's one of the most frustrating things I've ever done. I started golfing in my 20s because it's just a good excuse to spend three or four hours outside, right? I've I fish. I love fishing. Not because I'm really good at fishing and slay the fish and eat all the fish, all the things. Nope. I fish because I love being on a lake and a body of water outside in nature. That's just I'm just trying to say this is informed kind of the way I see the world. And recently, I've we talked about this in the prayer con uh conversation that we had. My prayer life really exists outside these days. Um and it exists in solitude and quiet. So I'll have the family go to bed and then I will head out on a walk at night in my neighborhood. And the things that I've been experiencing and the um the way that my prayer life has felt dynamic recently, and I couldn't say that for years now. Um, the way that I see my neighborhood and trees and stars and constellations and celestial bodies and the moon, all the things has just changed and it's inhabited my spirituality in a way that um feels really, really fun to me. You know, um I'm in one of those moments. And I was walking uh months ago just wanting to talk about this stuff, wanting to talk to somebody who has those same experiences. And my my mind went to Brian McLaren because I know that Brian loves nature, loves the earth, and experiences the divine in it. So I just texted him and he was like, Yeah, let's talk about it.

Kyle 2:18

You're one of the few people alive who was able to just oh, I'll text him. Let's do it, let's do it.

Randy 2:22

Yeah, he's a he's a remarkable person and so kind and generous with his time. Yeah. But you and and he also read or wrote recently a novel, which is not like Brian McLaren. He writes a lot of theology, spirituality, rich stuff. But he wrote a different kind of book that you read recently.

Kyle 2:39

Yeah, yeah. It's the first of a trilogy of a sci-fi novels. Uh it's called The Last Voyage, just came out uh this year, and it's all about this environmental stuff. I mean, it it's not like explicitly about that. I kind of is. I guess it's a real sci-fi story, um, but it's very much set against the backdrop of what humans have done to the planet and how we're dealing with it, and also what we've done to you know, economy and each other. Um, and so it was a really good opportunity to talk about both of those things at the same time.

Randy 3:08

Have you read Lewis's space trilogy? When I think hear about what Brian wrote, The Last Voyage, is that what it's called? Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of the space trilogy.

Kyle 3:18

Never once did I think of that trilogy while I was reading it. Okay, but now that you like it does have some superficial similarities. Lewis was up to a very different thing in that trilogy. We could have a whole conversation about that trilogy. Yeah, yeah. I read that at a time when I was still kind of um not fundamentalist, but I was kind of complementarian still in some of my gender thought and kind of just transitioning out of it. And there's a lot of that in that trilogy, and um, it hit me in a way then that it probably wouldn't hit me now. Anyway, what I did think of was uh a book that Brian actually recommended to us one of the times we first times we talked to him, which is a book called The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, which is this tragic, just oh rips your soul out kind of book, but it's about traveling to another planet and making first contact with another species. Uh and the whole time I was reading Brian's book, I thought, oh, this is in the background of this for sure. I hope it doesn't go the same way. Okay, all right.

Randy 4:12

Would you recommend the sparrow for those of us who haven't read it?

Kyle 4:14

It's gorgeous, but you have to know what you're getting into. Okay, all right. Yeah, for sure.

Meeting Brian McLaren

Randy 4:19

Speaking of knowing what you're getting into, here's Brian McLaren. Brian McLaren, welcome back to a pastor and a philosopher. Welcome to a bar. We're so excited to have you back.

Brian 4:45

Thank you. I I wish we could be sitting at a bar together.

Randy 4:49

Tell me about it, tell me about it. Um Brian, we talked about this a little bit just just a moment ago off air, but um I my spirituality has as long as I can remember, but I would say certainly in the last couple of years has been formed and shaped and really rooted in nature. Um that's where I my prayer life happens substantially. That's where um I feel like I slow my inner self down and um become attuned and attentive to even like the divine life. Um and it's become such a spiritually grounding um place and experience for me that I just wanted to have a conversation about that. And I knew I couldn't have it with my co-host here because he's proudly a an outdoors hater. Not a hater.

Kyle 5:45

I just don't like venture out there if I can help it. I tell my wife, my worst, like the worst thing that can happen to me on a trip is a surprise hike. So like if I don't have the right shoes, if I'm not mentally prepared, it's just gonna bring it up.

Brian 6:00

I should tell you, I married someone like you. So yeah. Is that right, Grace? Is like that? My wife grew up in North Jersey, and um what one of our first kind of dates, we we took a uh a hike up somewhere, and she later told me she was terrified she'd never been out in you know the wild before.

Randy 6:20

So and she still married you.

Brian 6:22

It was literally a a a track, uh like a very clear path, you know, that hundreds of people were walking.

Childhood Wonder And Evolution

Randy 6:31

So fun. So take us into your world and your relationship with nature and creation, the environment, outdoors. Um, Brian, was that since you were a kid or is that something you fall fell in love with? Um, can you just take us into your relationship with nature?

Brian 6:46

Well, very much since I was a kid. I I was born in upstate New York, way out in the country, um south of Lake Erie, and uh south of Lake Ontario and east of Lake Erie. Uh and our little yard had a creek running through the side of it at the border of our yard. And in that creek there were rocks filled with fossils, and under the rocks there were crayfish and and salamanders and and uh you know frogs jumping around. And uh and so my childhood was just filled with nature. One of my very early memories, uh I I think it's maybe my very earliest memory. I was the the winter had ended. There was still snow on the ground, but we got a lot of snow there. And in my memory, there was this giant flat rock out in my yard, a big hunk of slate, and it had uh, or probably it was, I don't know what it was, but it was big gray rock. And and it had melt all the snow had melted on the rock. And I have this memory of being in all my snow clothes, yet it being a little warm. And I went up and climbed up on the rock and I laid on the rock, and I remember feeling the warmth of the sun coming up from the rock, you know. And uh, and I just I I mean, I at the time, obviously I was a kid, I wasn't thinking any of these thoughts, but that memory always stayed with me as if for those few moments I was a creature, you know, uh lying on a rock in the sun. And uh the funny thing was, oh, I don't know, 10 years ago, I went back to where I was born and uh went to look for that giant rock in the front yard, and it was about this big, you know, because my whole body basically fit on it. Um so you know, but but it started very early. And and in many ways, you know, I I grew up in a fundamentalist family, so you there's an awful lot you have to learn. You you're and I was a good student, so I learned all the Bible stories and paid attention in Sunday school and all that sort of thing. But I I remember really at a pretty young age, I'd already come to think that evolution made a whole lot of sense. And um, because I checked out every book in the library on nature, and of course I learned about evolution as a child. And uh I just remember when one of my Sunday school teachers said, Oh, you have to choose. You can either believe in God or evolution. I thought, gosh, evolution makes a lot more sense to me. So um in some ways, it was my first love. I I would say my love for God is really my love for God as I experience God in nature. Um, yeah, so there's a lot more to it, but that's a good good place to start.

Randy 9:38

So what just that last statement you said, your love for God is kind of, it sounds like rooted in your love for nature and kind of moves out of your love for nature, would you say, or is that too much?

Brian 9:49

So uh no, it it's not too much. Yeah, let me say a couple of things about that. First, if we just I mean, we could talk about this from a Hindu standpoint or a Buddhist standpoint or a Jewish standpoint. If we take the Judeo, if we take the Jewish the Hebrew scriptures and and the New Testament together, it the whole thing begins by saying that creation is good. I mean, this is the amazing thing about Genesis 1. Such a tragedy for people who grow up fundamentalists that they're taught to see this as a scientific textbook. This is poetry that's telling you that that light is good and air is good and water is good. And and that word good is a word that says they have value, you know. There's and if this is in sort of a sacred text, it's saying there's this sacred value to these things. And it had it was good before human beings even showed up. And the goodness of this original creation has no temple in it, has no clergy in it, and and the and the meeting place of God and human beings is just walking in the in the forest, you know. Um, so uh so the whole story begins with the goodness of creation. And then, you know, we get all kinds of complexities. And in some ways, I feel this, I've come to feel that the the Hebrew scriptures especially are the written form of indigenous traditions of some indigenous Middle Eastern people who were witnessing the rest of the cultures around them moving from indigeneity where human beings feel they belong to creation, they're part of creation, to uh empire-oriented people who think that creation belongs to them and they can have wars with other people and take their land. And it just you couldn't have two more different relationships. And when I started seeing the Bible that way, all the stuff in the Bible about you know having kings or not having kings, well, suddenly realized, no, this is about these two different ways of being oriented to the world. So I I certainly see it in the Hebrew scriptures. And then Jesus comes along. And what does he do? But he sneaks out every day before everybody's up to get away from the city, to get away from the people, to get away from civilization and to try to be in the natural world. And then when he shows up, you know, in the book of Matthew for his first big sermon, what does he talk about? He says, well, you know, don't be like this the Romans, don't be like the Gentiles, which means the Romans, don't be like the civilization. Look at the birds of the air, look at the flowers of the field. And and I I see, I mean, to me, it's just so obvious that at the root of what we now call organized religion are experiences that people have. And a huge part of that experience, sure, that experience includes human society and human art and human culture and human wisdom and thought, but it also includes the kind of wisdom you see and nature itself. So um, so I think what ends up happening is our sacred texts are books that people write reflecting on their experiences of life, and then we become more interested in the books than life. And uh they sort of replace the actual experience of life.

Psalm 19 And Creation’s Wisdom

Kyle 13:31

Yeah. You mentioned those creationists, it reminded me of uh I used to be really into those debates when I was in college, and uh one of the things that would come up sometimes uh amongst like the old earth creationist crowd arguing against the young earth creationist crowd, and yes, listener, that's a real thing that happens. Um was well, there's really two books that God wrote. They like to use this metaphor, right? There's the Bible and then there's the book of nature. Yes, and they have to be consistent. I'm guessing that metaphor probably rubs you the wrong way a little bit based on what you just said about books.

Brian 14:06

Actually, can I can I get a little Bible nerdy with you guys for a minute?

Kyle 14:09

Please do.

Brian 14:10

Um, so shoot, there is there is a psalm. Let me pull it up here. Randy could probably just quote it. He's a pastor.

Randy 14:18

No, no, I'm not one of those, not one of those pastors.

Brian 14:22

Yeah, so let me get a little bit Bible nerdy with you guys for a minute. There's a psalm, Psalm 19, and it and it's the psalm that they always refer to when they're going to talk about there's the book of nature and the book of scripture. And Psalm 19 goes, the heavens are telling the glory of God, the firmament proclaims God's handiwork, day to day pours forth speech, night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, there are no words, their voice is not heard, yet their voice goes out through all the earth. It's this paradoxical language, beautiful poetry, right? I mean, but it's setting you up to say we're speaking metaphorically here, and we're speaking in a very deep level. It then goes and uses this sort of sexual metaphor that the sun is like a bridegroom coming out of his tent, you know, at the morning after the honeymoon and and sweeping across the sky. And um, and the whole earth is heated up by this sort of hot, virile sun, right? It's it's just incredible, beautiful poetry. And then on verse 7 it says, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise as simple. And I I may have preached a sermon like this for which I repent in Saturn Ashes, where people say, see, the first part is talking about nature, the second part is talking about scripture. But now it's that just looks ridiculous to me in this way. If the whole point is how creation speaks, then I think what the psalmist is saying is a hundred times more interesting than that. I think what he's saying is the actual wisdom of God that is in creation is the law, it is the decrees of the Lord, it is the precepts of the Lord, it is the commandment of the Lord. In other words, the wisdom that we need is written right into the universe. And this, by the way, is almost exactly what the Ta Ti Ching of Lao Tzu, the great text of Taoism, says. And it's it's it's saying there's this order in the universe that if we perceive it, and he's not, I don't think the psalmist, first of all, there was no Bible as we know it when this psalmist would have written the psalm. Um, but I think he's not dissing written scriptures, but what he's saying is their real authority comes, their real beauty and majesty and power and virility comes from being rooted in the logic, the same logic that's written into the universe.

Kyle 16:55

So interesting.

Brian 16:58

Sorry, that was a riff off of what you said though. No, those sermons, yeah, yeah.

Kyle 17:02

So, how much of your guys' experience in nature has to do with the order of the universe, though? Is that a real aspect of how you commune with the divine out there? Well done. I don't mean to sound skeptical, but I've never like I've seen some some crazy stuff, you know, and I've been overwhelmed. I've been awed by nature. Yeah, I've been scared by nature. Yeah, but I've never been I can't say I've ever connected to God in a way that was like instigated by something that happened in nature. And I've heard lots and lots of philosophers describe this very kind of experience, and it always seemed kind of foreign to me. So I'm curious, like what uh what in it seems like God to you rather than just a mountain?

Brian 17:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe like uh let me first try to put myself back hundreds of years before modern science, because whatever the psalmist meant when he wrote this, or whatever La Tzu meant in in uh the Da Ti Cheng, you know, they they didn't have all the scientific knowledge we have. But I think this sense that there is non-life and there is life, this sense of this quality that we call life, that is not disconnected to non-life. I mean, every living thing, for example, every animal drinks water, and water is just a liquid mineral, right? So it's it's constantly interacting with non-living, but the this this quality of life has a I think uh a charming, beautiful, wonderful, fascinating, endlessly fascinating quality to it. And and I I suppose for me when I think of whatever we mean by the word God, which I I think one of our problems is that our religious traditions give us way too much definition of that uh in a way that robs any sense of things that are beyond words, like that Psalm began with, you know, there is no speech, there are no words. What we're talking about goes beyond all that, but the sense that our words reach for this awe and beauty and wonder and so on. Um that that would be maybe a primary way I experience it. Um, but I also think you bring up something, um Kyle, that's that's important too. There are scary dimensions to it. Like I remember being maybe 17 or 18 years old and I was way out in the mountains in Pennsylvania one summer night and looked up at the sky, and I just felt I I because of my scientific knowledge, I just felt the vastness of the distances that I was looking at, you know. Um and you know, that sense of vastness, I remember feeling terrified uh uh by it, you know. So, but even there, there's this sense I think I'd be a worse person if I never felt terrified in that way, if I never felt how small and fragile and short of lifespan I am. So all of that would be part of that experience.

Randy 20:17

Yeah, yeah. And I would just say, I mean, um the elegance of nature and the way the universe fits together in the interaction, um, I think I've been drawn in and felt invited into um seeing myself as a part of something that's bigger than myself, which which which is a spiritual experience for me. Yes. Um I've I've felt whether it's seeing the northern lights in the north woods or um just simply taking a walk and hearing the wind in the trees, I've felt this sounds corny and cheesy now, um but I've felt loved on my own by myself with no other life around me except for nature. And then on the opposite side, kind of speaking to what you're speaking to, Brian, um I've been in nature on my own in the quiet and felt a real kind of tiny lonesomeness almost in that I feel a part of a system and an order and a reality that I'm just such a tiny little speck of dust in. It's actually made me feel almost not the opposite of loved, but just insignificant. And I would say that's for me, that actually speaks to my theology and spirituality as well. Um it's not one's bad and the other's good. I think both actually belong to, you know, both inform my view of myself, my view of God, my view of the nature of all things.

Kyle 21:51

Yeah. You know how anytime anybody does a study of near-death experiences, there's like that small percentage of people who just have a bad one. I feel like if I were to have a near-death experience, I'd be one of those people. It's like all these people talking about nature. And then when I have like moments that seem you know quasi-mystical or existential, they're just kind of like scared. Yeah. It's like that's Did you ever see that ridiculous movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once? Amazing. Or there's a scene in it with a rock. It's just like this great visual metaphor of just the utter meaninglessness of the cosmos. My moments are more like more like that. I feel you.

Unlearning Fear Of “Worshipping” Nature

Randy 22:29

I feel you. Yep. Brian, um let me let me just take you into my world and um ask you a few questions. So several months ago, I've I take these nightly walks. I I take walks late at night, I'm by myself, and I just enjoy the elements. I enjoy the weather, I enjoy the trees and the constellations and the stars and the moon and you know different different times of the month bring different things in in the in the night sky, all the things. I just try to immerse myself in it. And usually the way it goes is the first half of my walk is just my I just let my mind go, kind of collect my day. It's nothing meaningful except for the fact that it helps calm me. And then the second half, I try to be present to where I am, and that's nature. And I had this experience where in the summertime, I mean, my neighborhood is just loud. And not loud, you know, I'm a privileged person that I live in a great neighborhood with lots of big, beautiful oak and maple trees and pine trees, and it's quiet, but it was it's loud with all this noise and sound of insects and animals and wind and weather. I mean, it's just o incredible. And I remember there being a moment on an evening of walking where I felt actually can I felt a part of what I was in. Yeah. Right. Now that's not a normal experience for me as a human being because I feel like I've been formed and shaped by both America first and foremost and the church also. And both of those two things tell me that everything that exists around me exists for me. Yeah. Um they tell me that everything that I experience and interact with, everything that comes into my purview, is actually for me to consume or conquer or take. And that's crazy to think that that's my spirituality and how I was formed in the church, but that really truly is.

Brian 24:21

Yeah.

Randy 24:22

But I had this moment where I felt like I'm part of the symphony of sound and I'm part of this ecosystem, actually. Like my science classes started coming back to me, and I felt like I was part of the circle of life. I'm gonna start singing Elton John here soon, right? Um it sounds it sounds like the cheesiest shit I could imagine, but I truly did in that moment just feel like I'm home with my family almost. And that doesn't, and I don't mean that to say I'm gonna move out of my house and you know live in live in nature. I just meant I felt a sense of family and kinship as part as an animal walking through you know this neighborhood, all that stuff. And then it just struck me that I had to kind of um you call you speak to the inner fundamentalist that we all have who grew up in the church. My inner fundamentalist started getting really loud in that moment of of enjoyment and saying, What in the world are you doing? There is one God, and it's not trees, it's not wind the wind, it's not the constellations, it's not all these noisy animals and insects. God is God, and don't don't worship these things. You're a human, don't you know? All that stuff started coming washing back to me. And it just struck me as so unhelpful and so so much stunted my growth spiritually, and really tragic in the way that I've interacted with the earth and with the environment and with the world around me from such an entitled consumeristic point of view rather than a collaborator and curiosity. So, all that said, I want to I'm wondering how many tell us if you have an experience like that, I'd love to hear it, but also how much did you have to unlearn as you were forming this theology of nature and a spirituality rooted in nature?

Brian 26:10

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, oh, so many, so many levels to that. But you know, it's interesting. Years ago, uh uh let me guess, uh 25 years ago, I found a book in the library. I think it was called Protestant Mysticism. Um, and I think the introduction was by the poet Auden. Um and one of the things he described as the product the sort of prototypical Protestant mystical experience was that it was an experience of connection to the universe, connection to nature, connection to life. Um and uh I remember when I read that I thought, oh gosh, I guess I'm a Protestant mystic, because you know that that has been a a frequent experience. And part of my uh, you know, the way I look at those kinds of experiences is that you have these occasional, very intense unitive experiences like this. And in some ways they can't last, especially if they're so intense. Nobody can live with that much intensity, and you know, you gotta get on with your life and pay your bills and stuff like that. Yeah. But the fact that you experience them and they seem good and right, I think something arises in us that says, I would like to find a way to be more naturally and habitually living with that kind of awareness. Yes. Um I'll give an ex a sort of a famous example that probably a lot of us have had a version of it. But Thomas Merton wrote, uh, I think it was in, I forgot which of his books, New Seeds of Contemplation, maybe. I can't remember. But you know, he lived in a monastery, and sometimes he would go to town. I think he he was in Louisville, Kentucky. And uh he's walking down the street uh and and at Fourth and Walnut or whatever the intersection was, he said he suddenly looked around and he just sees all these people who are just going about shopping and everything else. And he just said, he suddenly realized how beautiful each one was. And he thought each of these people is just as conscious as I am, and each of these people has problems like I do. And each of these people had parents who hurt them in some ways and helped them in some ways, and they're all surviving and they're all trying to make it somehow. And he just describes how for a few moments, as he stepped from the curb into the street, he had all of the barriers that were in him. Not I'm not talking about barriers that existed out there in space, but they're in his own thoughts. Between him and other people, they just went away. And I've had those kinds of moments, you know, come over me too. Sometimes not outdoors walking on the street, it's reading a book. I remember when I read um uh My Name is Asher Lev, and it's this book about this hyper-orthodox Jewish boy who grows up with a kind of Jewish fundamentalism, and he happens to be a gifted artist. And as part of his art training, he has to paint a nude, and he's living with this horrible stuff in his mind that my religion would think what I'm doing right now is a horrible sin, and there this is awful. And if there's a God, I'm what horrible thing am I doing? At the same time, he sees the beauty of the woman's body and he's painting the the this beauty, and he knows that what he's doing is good and beautiful, right? And and I I remember when I read that, I had that same kind of experience that we're all just human beings trying to figure out how to deal with what we were taught as kids and what we experience in life and how we fit in in some ways and don't fit in in some ways. It was just this unifying, almost boundaryless experience. And then I think what you hope will happen is that then in your daily affairs, you don't need to feel that ecstasy all the time. In fact, ecstasy can get a little bit tiring and overwhelming. What you want to do is to let you that come to mind when you're in the middle of an argument with somebody or you know, to let it affect your daily life. And uh, but yeah, that those kinds of experiences I think are so much. I mean, that it's not everything, but everything's related to it. So for example, I I remember sitting at a picnic table and this little bug flew down and landed on my hand. And it was this little green bug, and it takes a couple steps and it reaches one of its what do you call it, hands or legs, I guess, up and grabs its antenna and bends its antenna down into its mouth and cleans off its antenna and then it sort of springs back into place. It takes a couple more steps and then it reaches up and takes the other antenna, cleans it, springs it back into place. And as I looked at this bug, I thought, I'm a living creature. I know what it's like to have an itch, or I know what it's like to feel like something I need to brush off. And I remember having this sense that we're just two living creatures here in this world, you know, as part of this unfolding story. And and I think when we become sensitive to these things, I I think what starts to happen, and I personally think, again, whatever the best of what we mean when we say the word God, not the angry old white man sitting on a throne um telling people to vote for Trump, you know, that kind of a stuff. Uh, not that, not that vision of God. Uh but whatever the deepest part of what people mean when they're drawn to pray or say thank you or whatever, I think is to say there is this something that connects us all. And I don't want to orient my life just toward my own self. I want to orient my life to this bigger love and connection. Does that ring true to your experience?

Randy 32:19

Yes, thank you. Yeah, very much. Um did you have the experience, Brian, of having to, like I said a moment ago, unlearn some of the things that you've been told in order to actually have a more robust spirituality and theology, particularly when it comes to nature?

Reciprocity Versus Domination

Brian 32:37

Yes. Let me suggest uh if I can get nerdy for a minute, but not biblical nerdy. This is a little bit philosophically and economically nerdy, but can this be the last time you ask if you can get nerdy?

Randy 32:49

We like nerdiness, Brian.

Brian 32:51

Yeah, yeah. Uh but uh over the last couple of years, I've become intrigued by this Japanese philosopher economist named Kojin Karatani. And um, Karatani is a socialist, uh and uh uh he sort of merges philosophy and economics. And um he has he wrote this book that is stunning and complicated and brilliant, and and also in some ways very simple idea uh called the structure of world history. And I won't get into all of it. It has to do with stuff he he he he asked the question, why did socialism fail? It's obvious capitalism is one. And but because he thinks, as I do, that capitalism will destroy the world. It it's incapable, it's like a a car that has a great engine and no brakes, and it's incapable of facing its boundaries. And so when when Cartani reflects on this, he talks about he looks at human history as a four-stage unfolding. And the first stage he calls reciprocity, and and it's the the view of ancient people who understood they lived in reciprocity with the earth and reciprocity with each other. And the key word was balance, you have to maintain the balance. And then he says people move from reciprocity to domination, where one tribe dominates another tribe, and then that tribe uses that other tribe as slaves and soldiers, and then they dominate three more tribes. And so then the human psyche becomes twisted away from reciprocity and the desire for balance and becomes intrigued with the desire for power and control. And then he sees that as being sort of the feudal system of economics. And then you get to capitalism, and he says, what happens in capitalism is we have deals without relationships, and he calls that transaction. And um, and then he says, transaction will destroy us, and so we need a fourth way of orienting our lives, but we don't know what it is yet. It it has to take good elements, you know, whatever elements were helpful from the previous modes, it needs to integrate them, but it probably has to get back to reciprocity in some way, to balance in some way, because that's the thing that we don't have. And the reason I bring all that up is that I think when we think of what was harmful to us about Christianity, who knows what Christianity would be if it hadn't been won into the system of domination and the system of transaction. Because when I look at the version of Christianity that I was taught, it's like 70% domination and 30% transaction, and almost 0% reciprocity, and certainly not too much beyond uh that, you know. And I think this is what these experiences are really about. They're these experiences where we feel, oh, there's a different way to look at things. You don't have to look at things, it's me against you, it's us in competition, it's survival. It's so ironic. Survival of the fittest to Darwin meant the opposite of what most people think about it. We could talk about that if you want. But it it's it's it's the sense, oh, there's a a higher way to understand, or I don't know if higher is the best word, but you know, there's another way to understand uh who we are and how we fit in this whole thing.

Kyle 36:24

Yeah. Tell me how survival of the fittest, how how why did we get that wrong?

Brian 36:28

Well, I I uh I wrote about this in a book I wrote on the Galapagos Islands. Um uh uh Darwin, when he used the phrase survival of the fittest, fittest meant those that fit best. Um and uh and that wasn't even his original term. His original term was natural selection. And one of his colleagues contacted him and said, when you use the word natural selection, it sounds like you're saying that nature selects. And this will bring to people to mind the idea of a controlling God. And so now nature becomes the controlling God who intentionally selects. Said, I don't think you should use that. I think you should use the term a survival of the fittest. But what they meant is survival of those who fit best. But you can just totally see capitalists who are shaped by competition between individuals and corporations, and socialists who are are their vision is framed by the competition between classes, interpreted fittest as the fastest, strongest, most aggressive, uh, and so on. And so fittest meant something very different. In fact, a key part of survival of the fittest, for example, is survival of the most cooperative. Um uh and and and and almost nobody thinks of that when they hear the term survival of the fittest.

Kyle 37:54

Yeah. Good stuff, good. You guys are convincing me a little bit. Okay, okay, all right. One thing I really like about it is that um that experience of being part of it, or just being it, you know. I'm not I'm not separate from this, um, gives the lie to a lot of what society has been for. Yeah, which is to convince us that we are somehow safe or somehow distinct from this, or somehow in control of this. We really literally structure our societies, our spaces, our our modes of action uh around this kind of self-deception, which we all know is wrong, right? But yeah, uh it's a kind of psychological comfort, and I'm against those. So I'm a big fan of that part.

Brian 38:37

I wish we all knew it was wrong, but we have so many people who think it's right.

Pantheism And Panentheism Clarified

Randy 38:41

Yes, yes. Brian, um something that has also shaped my theology has been hearing uh Richard Rohr, talk, you know, friend and colleague of yours, yeah, talk about um how we don't have to be afraid of seeing God, seeing the divine in all things. Yeah. Um the pantheism versus pan-entheism conversation. Can we just go there, just open that a little bit? As far as I would say my spirituality has been really enhanced and beautified by seeing the divine imprint in all things. And particularly that happens more easily in nature for me. Um and it's not that that lake or that tree or that constellation is God, but I believe that in I think this is scriptural, I think, especially if you pay attention to the Apostle Paul and the psalmists and other things in the scriptures. Um, we find that I think the incarnation in some mis mystical, mysterious way means that God, Christ, is actually in all things in some way, shape, or form, right? Not let's not turn this into a scientific conversation or um metaphysical, but that God is in all things and loves all things so much that God actually inhabits all things, which is different than saying God is all things or all things are God. You guys are smart people. Can we just uh talk about the the differentiation there and also what that panantheism dynamic of seeing God in all things, what that can do for our spirituality? Yeah. Can you help me out with that a little bit?

Brian 40:16

Well, I I'd love to hear um uh Kyle's thoughts on this too, but I'll I'll just say a couple things. Isn't it interesting that in history we have people who are called polytheists? And of course, if you want to know what a polytheist is, don't ask a monotheist because their first thought is a polytheist is wrong. You know, you have to try to hear from the polytheist how he would describe uh he or she would describe their view. Um, but the idea of a polytheist is that uh when I go in the forest, there's a spirit in that tree. Um, there might even be a spirit in this whole forest. And what a spirit is, we don't really know, but it's probably to the tree what my consciousness is like to my body. Um and there's a spirit in the river, and there's a spirit, and and if there's a horrible flood, the polytheist, uh ancient polytheists might think, uh-oh, we got the river spirit angry and he's do, he's getting, he's punishing us, right? So there's all kinds of harm that comes from that idea, perhaps. But there also is something beautiful. In a sense, you know, long before people knew that there was something called a maple tree, that was a maple tree because all the maples have the same genetic makeup, and there's this thing called DNA that explains why all those maples are similar and explains why sugar maples are similar to red maples or similar to silver maples, but have differences for different reasons. In a way, to say there's a spirit in all those trees with the five-point leaves, um, you're recognizing something uh uh of its of its being, uh, and uh uh you're you're recognizing a pattern that they share in common. Um, so polytheism, I think, has some beautiful qualities to it. Other people said, um, well, but all of those specific uh gods are actually just emanations of the ultimate reality, and God is comprises the ultimate reality. And so instead of calling those people polytheists, we tend to call them pantheists. And then some people looked at all that and they said, No, there's only one God who's supreme. And and I've I've never heard of any group in history who said there's only one God who's supreme, and it's your God. It's always there's one God who's supreme and it's our God. And it seems to me that idea of a supremacist God is very tightly related to the idea of uh of domination that I talked about a few minutes ago. But it also, but even there, there are there are beautiful things in pantheism and polytheism and beautiful things in that kind of monotheism, the sense that the that the universe isn't just a bunch of different spirits who are fighting with each other, that there's some moral and ethical wisdom that really is pervasive in the universe. Um, so then you have monotheism. And I think it's interesting in Christianity, they don't go very long with monotheism before they have to talk about Trinity, which seems to me to be a way of getting a little bit of polytheism mixed in with their monotheism. And the the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is said to be present everywhere. Um, and so there is an active and hovering over creation. So there's a little bit of pantheism there with the spirit. And uh, and so it seems to me each of these views has some that they're all responding to something that's real in experience.

Kyle 43:54

Okay.

Brian 43:54

What happened a couple of hundred years ago? I forget who exactly was the first person who said this. I used to know it, but it's one of the many things I'm forgetting as I get older. But he said, you know, instead of saying God is the universe, he he saw problems with that. Because in fact, in in Hinduism, I forget if it's in the Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita, but there's a place where it says the rapist is Brahmin and the rape victim is Brahmin. Um now Christians say something very similar in a strange way when they say all human beings have the image of God. But and and they Hindus might not have meant something very different when they said that. But people said if God is is in the criminal as well as in the crime victim, if God is in the murderer as well as the murder victim, then morality seems to kind of go out the window. And that was disturbing to people. So what they said is let's try to get the best of monotheism and the best of poly and pantheism by speaking about God as being in all things and all things being in God. Now look, the language of in is geometric spatial language. That's a metaphor. It's not even that kind of technical term is still metaphorical, but it became language that helped people say we're talking about something that tries to integrate some of the good insights from these different traditions.

Randy 45:28

Yes. Yep.

Fishing As Ecological Connection

Brian 45:30

Sorry, I I rambled on there, but hopefully it's helpful.

Randy 45:33

No, but you're a fisherman, you love fishing. Um we've we've spent time on the southwest coast of Florida and encountered some creatures. I mean, I'll I'll be on I had a time where I was on the beach and my son was exploring. My son is full of wonder, loves science. He's exploring the beach, and he just happens to find always the most extraordinary things. And I remember him finding something that we had no idea what it was, and my wife was like, I'll bet you could text Brian and he would know. Texted you, and immediately you knew and got back to us and let us know what was going on. As you're encountering these creatures and learning about these creatures. I mean, you're like my experience with you and time with you has been that you're kind of a bit of an encyclopedia, especially when it comes to history and nature, um, in nature in particular. Can you can you just tell us about that relationship as you're fishing, as you're in the Everglades, as you're in your kayak in the in the coastal waters, um fishing and encountering all of this? What does that do to Brian McLaren? Um what you know, just just tell us a little bit about that internal world that you have when you're in nature.

Brian 46:46

Um, well, you know, sometimes when I'm fishing, I just want to catch a fish. Amen. Uh, but uh, you know, one of the reasons I love fishing is it's an excuse for me to spend the whole day outdoors and to just be observant and to be part of the food chain. And even though I almost always let go everything I catch, but you know, to to be part of that process that I evolutionarily am the product of you know millions and millions of years of evolution to be able to notice things and look for things and try to solve problems and and try to understand things and appreciate the beauty of something. And and there is something about catch and release fishing where you in some way encounter the animal connected by this thin piece of fishing line, and you feel its strength and you have respect for it. And for a very short moment, you can only look at it for a short time. If you hold it out of the water too much, you kill it. So for a very short time, you you encounter its beauty and you let it go. Um, uh I I know it's no fun for the fish, and I've got you know qualms of conscience uh uh about that. Um, but at the same time, it is uh one of the ways that we have connection with uh with uh a fellow creature. Um and and if I can just go beyond that, you're interested in trout, and then you realize, well, trout mostly eat insects, and they eat insects in their larval form, and then in their form when they leave the water and fly in the air. And so then you have to learn about entomology, and then you have to learn about how the minerals get in the water that create the algae that the little nymphs eat. And and suddenly you're connected to the sun and you're connected to you know the weather systems, and you're connected to the four seasons, and every little thing you pick and you notice and you enjoy, you're connected to everything else. And yes, my gosh, that's one of the things that never ceases to delight me. Um just a quick example. I I was in Wyoming a couple years ago, taking a hike with a group of people, and this gifted naturalist was leading the hike. Her name was Susan Thwight, gifted writer. I recommend her books. And she stops and um and we look at a piece, uh, a sagebrush bush. And for the next 10 minutes, she just asked us questions about the sagebrush bush, asked us to notice things about it. And by the time we were done, I think we were all like in awe. You know, that story in uh in the book of Exodus about the bush that was on fire uh and and was like a revelation of God. Well, I it felt like that bush, when she explained it, we understood how it was connected to all the living things in that landscape. And it felt, you know, full of meaning and beauty and import.

Randy 49:53

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So I wanna I'm gonna concede the the rest of the time to Kyle because you just you you wrote a book, um, a not a traditional Brian McLaren book, but a sci-fi book, if I'm not mistaken, that has a lot of these themes intertwined into it. Is that correct? As a segue, Kyle.

Kyle 50:12

Yes. It's funny, you're you're transitioning to that, but I want to talk more about the other stuff. Oh, okay. Oh, Jesus. No, that that's fascinating. So my main interest in this book, Brian, was that uh kind of environmentalist um strain. Before I have a couple questions about it before I asked that, something you said um made me earlier and then it just came up again, made me think of Jainism, weirdly. And um, like I don't know much about this religious faith, but like uh this I want to call it a reverential or loving uh focus they have on the tiniest aspects of of what we would call creation as Christians, you know? Uh to the extent that they, you know, as I understand it, take care to not harm any living thing. Yes. Um and I'm curious about your perspective on that, and particularly has the more time you spent in nature increased because you you made a joke a moment ago, but I I think it's kind of serious. Like when you pull a fish out of the water and you know it's not in in qu quote unquote enjoying it, right? You know that that's for you, really, that experience. Um it's not reveling in your beauty, presumably mutual admiration, you're not sure. Um and you said, Yeah, I've I have a little qualm about that, but do you really? And um, do you think it would be appropriate to have a qualm about that? And like, where are the boundaries on on that? Are you a vegetarian, for example? Um, like what do you have any sense of um where those boundaries should be drawn? And has your experience of that changed the more familiar you get with it? Because I'll be honest with you, there's a little piece, you know, I study a lot of ethics, and then I have a lot of friends who have become vegan for ethical reasons, and I'm not, and but I can see the strength of their arguments. And um I just I've always had this nagging feeling that if I spent the time studying it that they have, that I might find some things that I wouldn't want to find, because that's happened in pretty much every other area of my life. So uh just curious about your take on that.

Brian 52:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for asking. Um so I am not a strict vegetarian, but I eat very little meat, and um and you know, that's increased probably every year of my life for the last 25 or 30 years. So um, so that's the direction uh I'm certainly going. I prefer not to eat meat, but I also my desire is more systemic than it is moral. I think I uh um so and it relates to the larger issue of the role of human beings in the world. And and uh and so maybe what I could say ethically about this is we're creatures and we for us to live, other things die. Um even if we're vegetarian, you know, if there's gonna be a field of chickpeas, then a whole lot of other plants can't grow except the chickpeas that I'm gonna eat. And a whole bunch of animals would have lived on that plot of land if we didn't have to plant those chickpeas. So anything we humans do has a cost. I heard someone say recently that if you took all of the biomass of animals in the world, all of it and and compared it to a human body, human beings and domestic animals, uh our our cattle, our sheep, our chickens, and our pets would make up the entire body except one arm.

Kyle 53:48

And then if we And that arm is 95% beetles.

Brian 53:53

And and and if we wanted all of the wild animals, you know, it would be like the mammals that we think of, it would be one finger. Um, and so we humans have taken up the biomass on on Earth. And the problem is, you know, for for that to change is going to require a systemic change, just as climate change is going to require deep systemic change. And I think we need that deep systemic change. So so feeling those ethical qualms to me makes a lot of sense. I will say one of the things, one of the outcomes would be not only loving trout fishing, but I love to hike and I love to kayak. The fact that I enjoy these things gives me a sense of reciprocity. What I enjoy, I have to want to protect. So the more enjoyment I get, I feel I owe the more protection. And to revert to getting to being, you know, Bible nerdy for a minute. It's so interesting in Genesis chapter two, the second creation story, which it tells us a completely different story to give a different meaning. Um, the creator says to Adam, uh, I'm putting you here to till the earth and keep it. And and it's so interesting that the Hebrew, the two Hebrew words uh till means, you know, farm it, and keep it means conserve or protect it. And it's just so interesting that that balance is there. Um you're allowed to be a creature here, you're allowed to eat. You're you you have a place here among other creatures, but you're supposed to protect the earth from you and your fellow humans too. It has to be kept, it has to be protected. And it's we we've been in sort of the drill baby drill and till baby till mode rather than the drill or the till and keep. And this keep part of it, uh, I feel like any of my enjoyment of creation obligates me to its protection in some way.

Randy 56:06

Yeah, yeah. And go figure that out of those two creation stories, we can hu humans till and keep the earth, or humans are metaphorically priests in a temple that God's filling with with God's presence. Instead, we we fixate it on the word subdue. Oh my. Oh my. Yeah. What does that do to us and to the earth and to our spirituality? Yeah. Yeah. So about this book, Kyle.

Kyle 56:33

Yeah. No, that's a really good segue, actually, because yeah, I feel like this is a question. Um, the way I wrote it down is is the abuse of nature what led you to write this book? Because it feels like it is. Yeah, I should say the book is called The Last Voyage, your first novel. Is that correct?

Brian 56:51

Uh I I wrote a trilogy of novels uh 25 years ago. Forgive me for not knowing that. Yeah. Your fourth novel. No worries. But um my first science fiction novel.

Kyle 57:01

Yeah, and in it, like it felt honestly, it felt a little angry to me at certain points. I don't know if that was intentional. Uh, there were other moments that were, you know, light and there's uh levity in there, and I can feel you winking at me a couple of times, but a lot of it feels really angry, uh, and mostly around the way that we're destroying the planet. Um, so where did it come from? Am I right in in picking up on that or not?

Brian 57:23

Yeah, no, you're you're definitely right. Uh, and we are destroying the planet. So, and that should make us angry, I think. So um uh and angry to motivate us uh to action. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. And uh maybe in a deeper level, one of the things that I'm getting to play with in this novel is this idea that we've talked about that we humans have have created this alternative reality that we call civilization. And this is where we feel human beings and civilization is our thing, and then and we own the planet as resources for our civilization. Um, and this is so deeply embedded in us. But uh I think people who take this seriously and and you know study this issue that more and more people are aware of climate change. And climate change is horrible enough, but it's really the tip of a melting iceberg of something bigger called overshoot, this relationship to the earth where we take more than the earth can replenish and we pump out more waste products than the earth can detoxify. And and it's just you know, plain common sense that the longer we do that, every new generation of children who are born inherit a poorer, sicker earth. And you know, that's not a good long-term uh survival strategy. So um, so the I actually, this is the truth. It it's not a this is not metaphorical. I started writing The Last Voyage the day after the election in 2016 because when I realized that we were electing a billionaire, and and that this billionaire represented a wealthy man, maybe not as wealthy as he claimed to be, but he's getting there now. Uh, a very wealthy man who who was not satisfied with being wealthy. He also wanted to be wealthy and be in control of the political system. And and the word for that is oligarchs. And I just remember whatever it was November, November 5th or 6th, 2016. I woke up and I thought, I want to write a science fiction novel about what happens when oligarchs rule the world. So that really was the framework for Yeah.

Mars Dreams And Human Meaning

Kyle 59:48

Well, that leads right into my next question because there are some not-so-veiled references to contemporary oligarchs in there. I think you maybe mentioned Trump by name at one point. Um Musk, I didn't hear his name, but he was very obviously featured. Um so the descendants of those folks play an important part of the story. I don't want to like be spoilery at all, but you know, they're still around and they're doing terrible things. Um right now, so I read this a few weeks ago. Right now, very coincidentally, I'm just reading a book uh by the French economist Thomas Piketty. Uh it's a book he wrote about equality. Very famous French economist, very influential among progressive types. Um, and he goes through the history of equality, brief history of equality is the name of the book. Um, and he's very precise and rigorous and realistic and data-driven about the problems that exist with equality, right? Um points out their causes, makes strong arguments about what can what why they exist and what we can do to fix them. But he's very optimistic, uh, maybe in a way that a lot of folks reading a progressive on this might not expect, uh, about the progression towards equality historically. So this is a guy on the very progressive end, but you can find this kind of take on other ends of the spectrum as well. Maybe the most famous would be Steven Pinker. Like things are getting progressively better, and with greater equality comes the opportunity for greater attention to things like the health of nature, you might say. Um when I read your book, it did not seem optimistic. And so I'm curious how much of what is pictured in your book reflects your own actual convictions about where this might be going or where it's come from, uh, versus you know, you're just painting a good story. What do you what do you make of that kind of optimistic take? Yes, there's a lot of work we have to do, but my God, it's better than it used to be.

Brian 1:01:39

Yeah, I I'm always surprised by Pinker, and uh I'm surprised that uh by that from Pinkity because I suppose it's a it could be a little bit like Thelma and Louise out on their, they're having a great time. You know, they have some problems on their joy ride, but you know, they're driving toward the cliff and they're having a great time. And they could look back and say, nothing's happened to us so far, we're having a great time. And when you can see the cliff, it seems to me suddenly it makes you do a couple of things. It it makes you say, Wow, we can travel faster than we did a few years ago. But it it seems to me past performance is no guarantee of future performance. And and uh especially when you can see uh some some scary consequences. But I'm not saying I'm pessimistic. I'm just saying I think that the current indicators are that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Kyle 1:02:40

Yeah. And they will eventually get better because we'll die, right? We'll go extinct and then the earth will recover. Like worst case scenario, you know.

Brian 1:02:49

My worst case scenario is that things keep going better for us until we create such a monstrosity that we not only make ourselves go extinct, but we make more and more of the life on this planet go extinct.

Kyle 1:03:01

So which would not be the first time that happened.

Brian 1:03:03

So human extinction is not the worst thing that I could imagine. Yeah.

Kyle 1:03:07

Which, you know, to a lot of Christians, that sounds like nonsense. Just what you just said. Human extinction is not the worst thing I can imagine. Yeah. That's incoherent to the kind of Christian that I used to be. Yeah. What else could there be?

Brian 1:03:19

Yeah, yeah. It's human beings are all that all that matter. Yeah.

Kyle 1:03:23

So that so back to the previous kind of conversation we were having, but still inspired by the book. Um, there's a moment in the book where, so I don't think it's giving anything away, some people go to Mars. Yeah. That's that's kind of the the main idea of the trilogy as I understand it. People are leaving the planet and they're colonizing Mars for interesting reasons and some weird stuff is happening. Um, the moment that they leave, there's this really interesting moment where uh one of the main characters who is a theologian has everybody lay on the ground, whoever that's going on the ship, they're about to step on the ship, and they lay on the ground and they go through this kind of meditative exercise where they um feel the weight of the earth's gravity on their body, and they kind of try to come to terms with being a part of this and I'm never gonna see it again, right? Um so, in the sense of uh maybe somewhat analogous to those Christians I just mentioned who couldn't conceive of anything that made sense Christianly if it weren't if humans didn't exist, right? Yeah. What does it mean to be human apart from the planet that we evolved in? Right? Do you do you what do you think all these billionaire bros who are or not even them, just like genuine, like sincere scientists who want to figure out how to get to other planets for whatever the reason might be? Like what do you think of that attempt? And this are we leaving does it make sense to be human on another planet? What does that even mean?

Brian 1:04:45

Yeah, and and what do we mean by human? Because if what if what we mean by human is people who destroy one planet and then have to go find another one and they'll bring the same destructive mentality to the next planet, and then when they destroy that one, they'll need to go to another one. That sounds a lot more like a disease than it does uh uh you know uh being a blessing to another planet. Um so those are the kinds of issues that I'm grappling with in the book. Um uh and and I should say this is fiction. Um, anyone who really understands what it would be like to live on Mars knows it is not a high probability. Like any like I know a lot of people think Elon Musk is really, really smart. And all I'll say is you can be really, really smart in one thing and really, really stupid in some other things.

Kyle 1:05:37

I'd just like the listener to see the the shaky, grimace face I'm making right now. Yeah. He's not, he's actually not.

Brian 1:05:43

Yeah, right. He's rich, and that doesn't make sense.

Kyle 1:05:45

He fooled a lot of people.

Brian 1:05:47

Yeah, exactly right. So um, at any rate, yeah, uh and part of what is this there's all kinds of ironies in the whole uh framing of this book, but one of the ironies. Is that the people who are leaving Mars understand how precious the Earth is, and um and their experience on Mars is going to make them understand it even more.

Kyle 1:06:12

Yeah. Okay. I like that. I think I like that. But that moment in the book kind of got me. I was like, oh, okay. Maybe I should go outside and lay on the ground.

Brian 1:06:22

Yeah. Well, I I'm I'm glad that that touched you in some way because as I recall then, what E what Eve, this character, does is she says, okay, I want you to now think about the sun that's giving light to this earth. And there'd be no light here on earth if it weren't for the sun. And then helps them think, well, we're going to another planet that is warmed by the same sun. And in one sense, this is the positive side, I think, of the dreams of people to visit other planets, to understand we are part of this earth. And this earth is part, you know, scientists call it the heliosphere, this the sphere where the the sun's gravity and light uh production create a certain environment. Um and we're part of that. You know, we're we're not just part of the earth. We're we wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the sun. So we're part of that. And then the sun has its own story, and and uh so yeah.

Kyle 1:07:25

You know what I thought of when I read that part was Nietzsche, because he never leaves with the back. Tell me about it. Well, he had parable to madman, right? Very famous uh poem. Like there's this part where he says, What were we doing when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? And he goes on in that. And and like if they had been going further, if we set this novel further in the future and they're leaving the solar system, then what was the metaphor that she would have used? Or if they were leaving the galaxy. You know what? Like, there's always a next beyond, you know?

Brian 1:07:57

Yeah, and it seems like and I and I don't know if someday we will lose the uh if someday we'll find out that the Big Bang model isn't valid, it sure seems to be pretty trustworthy at this point. But even that, the sense that we're all part of this one unfolding, uh, and we can argue, well, I don't think we can even know if if we're the only one or if we're one in a succession, or if there's a multiverse with lots of other ones going on right now. Um, but all of us in this uh universe that we're able to uh to to in some way see evidence of and and try to understand, we do have, I mean, the evidence is telling us we're all part of one expansion. So yeah.

Randy 1:08:46

Brian, we um just speaking to the optimism versus pessimism, particularly towards the earth and the environment. We just spoke to, recently spoke to a political commentator, expert, uh conservative, political operative who helped form the Lincoln Project and is a never Trumper. Fascinating fascinating stuff. But we're speaking to the political violence that we see in our country today. And he said something to the effect of um we're going to get over this. You know, we we Americans are we'll figure this out. We always figure it out. We just are late to the game. It'll it'll it'll get really bad before it gets better. And I've heard similar logic when it comes to the environment and the earth. Um and I've actually this this kind of thought is uh has been appealing to me, and I'd just be interested in both of your takes. The take that says humans you can put in Americans, but let's just say humans, we have a high amount of capability to fix the stuff that we mess up. We don't do it until things get really, really bad, and then we get really serious and start figuring it out, right? Now, and I can anticipate the answer of like, well, when do we think things are getting serious? Because I literally just read an article a couple weeks ago in the paper about how there's this huge, huge current going from, I think, you know, uh Western Africa up to northern Europe. And it's a current of warm water and it keeps the climate in northern Europe what it is, and it actually is is cooling as we speak. It's it it it seems like it's going away, scientists would tell us after decades of observation. And they're saying if this current, if this warm water current goes away that connects the the con the the earth, northern Europe could experience a second ice age. And Iceland is actually taking steps calling it a an existential crisis and trying to take literal steps to to plan for a second ice age. That seems really serious and far along. But this I idea that humanity will fix what we've effed up. Once it gets really, really bad, we'll figure it out and it'll be okay. What are your thoughts on that take?

Kyle 1:10:57

You want to go first, Kyle? Sure. Uh I think they'll they'll the moment is when it becomes materially significant to the rich. Yes. Okay. Um and I I have a great deal of optimism in our ability to figure it out, actually. Um I also recently read Ezra Klein's book about abundance, you know. Um and a whole lot of that book is about um technical innovation uh and how really good we are at figuring out things quickly when we have to and when we remove the guardrails um for good reasons.

Randy 1:11:27

But it happened but the trigger is the wealthy people in the world. I think so.

Kyle 1:11:31

He didn't say that, but I yeah, that's my pessimism. But but yeah, when it when it becomes important to the people who pull the levers, then we'll fund it and then the innovation will happen.

Randy 1:11:42

What are your thoughts, Brian?

Brian 1:11:44

Um Well, you know, the scientists who study the climate have identified about nine major tipping points. And when you cross one of those tipping points, it's not like you can, you know, it's like saying, well, you might fail first grade, um, and then you might fail second grade, and then you might fail third grade, and at some point you fail enough grades, you are never going to college, you know. Um and uh or I I've had a lot of experience in my life uh in my years as a pastor working with people in addiction, and you'd be with people who you'd watch they lose their job and they lose their marriage and they lose their custody of their kids and and they lose their health, and you think maybe they're gonna hit bottom, and sometimes they do, and then they change, you know. Um, and sometimes they don't and then they die. So I don't feel any guarantees that we're gonna get this right, especially because this current challenge with us is pitting us against a whole value system that measures everything by money. And I feel that we have been that not only the rich, but all of us have been sucked into the system where we don't even see the value of anything unless we put a dollar value on it. And I think you're right, Kyle. I don't think things will change until the rich, the high, and not just the rich, but we're talking about the super, super, super rich who uh have in enormous power to keep the system going. Um, because they not only have the power to reward, but they also have the power to punish. And and if their punishment of you that they can inflict on you is worse than the natural consequences of whatever you're experiencing, you're more afraid of them than you are of any other reality. And this to me is the horrible thing about authoritarianism and this turn toward authoritarianism. So I would say all of my fears about climate change pale in comparison to my fears of authoritarianism, because the conditions of the climate will make authoritarianism even more uh even more of an option um for for more and more people. So um, but I I am not, I don't think we're smart enough. Uh and I don't think anyone can know the future. I think the future is full of surprises. And so I think it's a mistake to be sure that we're gonna make it and to be sure that we're not, because both of those lead to a kind of resignation. And the one thing I'm sure of is if we have a resignation, we will not have the best outcomes.

Randy 1:14:38

Thank you. Last year you were giving a talk at Theology Beer Camp. We went, it was in Denver, I believe, right? And um I honestly, Brian, I couldn't tell you exactly what the talk was about. I think it was about the environment in some way. But what you finished it with was this excerpt from a book. And I don't remember who the author was. You'll tell us, I'm sure. I don't remember what the book was, but the the excerpt was this man talking about how nature was actually inviting him into a bigger story, is the way that I would put it from a year you're out in a fuzzy, you know, 47-year-old memory. Um could you, if you have access to it, could you read that for us and our listeners just to kind of settle us into the end of this conversation?

Brian 1:15:22

Sure. I'm so glad that you found that quote intriguing. I did as well. I don't know the the book. Um, it's by someone named Paul Fleischman. I heard it on a podcast, actually, and I was so intrigued. I kept hitting pause on the podcast while I copied it. And I someone uh contacted me and said, it's in such and such a book. And I bought that book and read it from cover to cover, and it wasn't in that book. But Paul Fleischman is an author and a poet and a novelist, and this is uh uh uh his passage. On the mythic day of Armageddon, when the world is destroyed and every sinner stands naked and unsupported in the void to face fate in accordance with his or her deeds. I imagine that the tribunal judging us won't consist of winged angels or horned devils, but will be a black-capped chickadee, a lynx, and a birch tree. They will know as clearly as you and I do that one predator species has cut down every virgin forest, killed as many plants and animals as he could get away with, spoiled every source of fresh water, and fouled every ocean on the planet. Who can you and I bring forward as our character witnesses? Right now, I'm cultivating friendships with black bears, a woodlot, and a Canadian river. I'm not saving nature. I'm letting nature save me. The Red Poles, these are uh finches, a kind of bird, who fly south from the Arctic in winter to eat thistle outside my windows, are missionaries to the savage that I am. I'm letting them convert me. I offer them food so they will fly and sing on my behalf in a peaceful world. Whether humanity turns away from dysplastic or cancerous growth toward peace or not, I have and you have the option to live the best possible life. The inner peace is already within you, waiting to be open, and cultivating it will make you happier, more resilient and practical, able to face the difficulties of your personal death and human confusion head on. It will open you to realizations that exceed the pragmatic, so that you will enter that stream of peace that is always flowing in and around you. Engaged in the world most helpfully, you will then become an internal habitude of a place beyond the wind, an abode of peace. Yeah, I just think it's and I love that image of that nature is the missionary coming to save me.

Randy 1:18:13

Yes. Yeah. I was just gonna ask you to just frame up why you had to search for that. You know, you heard that excerpt in the in the podcast and it just grabbed you like it grabbed me. What about that speaks deeply to you? Just a moment, Brian.

Brian 1:18:26

Well, you know, a lot of people, rightly so, are troubled with the idea of divine judgment and being sent to hell and and so on. If we were to give ourselves permission, even for five minutes, to not take that story literally, but to say what is the psychological and social uh intent of a story like that. Of course, one intent could be authoritarians would use it to make people be compliant. But another story, another use of that story could say that every human being, including those authoritarians, has to face the reality that we that we we have to be accountable, if to nobody else, at least in our own minds, um, accountable for the kind of lives that we live. And I think Paul Fleischmann in describing humans as a predator species that has cut down every virgin forest and killed as many plants and animals as he could get away with and spoiled every source of fresh water and fouled every ocean on the planet. I mean, that's a pretty intense indictment that it seems to me would call for uh us to have a pretty serious and deep look at what we um at what kind of a future we desire and whether it's just the continuation of the present or whether we could imagine a very, very different path going forward. And um, and of course, to me, that kind of rethinking is worthy of uh ancient biblical word like repentance. So many people use repentance as this sort of manipulative, make you feel guilty um thing. But if if what's really needed is a a very radical paradigm shift, the kind we were talking about before, where it's instead of seeing ourselves as owning the world, we see ourselves as being part of the world here to given permission to till it, but also responsibility to keep or protect and conserve it. Yeah, that's that that's a deep kind of repentance.

Kyle 1:20:29

Yes.

Brian 1:20:30

And and it it has social ramifications. How do we treat each other? How do we treat people who are different from us? How how do those of us who have a lot uh treat those who who have so little? So yeah, it's um yeah, and I know that accountability is actually good news in a way. The good news is you don't have to wait to reap all you've sown. You can you can forecast what kind of consequences you're building up and you can change your your current behaviors.

Randy 1:21:00

Yeah, and perhaps even we can be redeemed and healed by the nature around us that we're we've been killing and dead set on killing for a long, long time. That actually there's this beautiful redemption found if we just pay attention to the stuff that we've ignored our whole lives. Um, I love that idea.

Repentance As A New Relationship

Brian 1:21:23

Suddenly, that little phrase in the Sermon on the Mount consider the birds of the air, consider the wildflowers in the field, those little phrases stop seeming like a cute little Hallmark card, and they seem like this prescription that goes to the heart of our disease. Absolutely.

Randy 1:21:41

Brian McLaren, it's been a delight as it always is. Thank you for sharing yourself with us and uh telling stories.

Brian 1:21:48

Well, thanks for inviting me, and good to be with both of you again, and good to be talking about such an important subject.

Randy 1:22:10

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Kyle 1:22:24

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Randy 1:22:31

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Kyle 1:22:39

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