Quotes from Brian D. McLaren, Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2022; 262 pp.)

“I spent my entire childhood and young adulthood without hearing a single serious sermon about the social sins of racism and white supremacy, exploitation of the poor, economic injustice, nuclear proliferation, or destruction of the earth, arguably the most serious sins happening during my lifetime on this planet! (p. 37).

McLaren contends that “in most of its institutional centers, Christianity remains and old white boys’ club, a patriarchal religion with a violent past it has yet to acknowledge and address, a haven for authoritarian leaders and the followers who serve them, happy to exploit the labor and enjoy the adulation of women, people of color, and sexual minorities, but defiant against accepting them as equal partners in ministry” (p. 52).

“Make no mistake: it might take decades, perhaps a century, but if the entire human race does not come together to address climate change, sea levels will rise fast and high, reaching catastrophic levels. Droughts, floods, wildfires, and other extreme weather events will intensify. Crops will fail over large areas, causing widespread hunger and economic turmoil. Coastal cities where hundreds of millions of people live will become uninhabitable, causing people to become refugees in unimaginable numbers. A post-climate change world will have more in common with the post-nuclear war world than most people would like to think. In fact, climate change could easily create the conditions that make nuclear war more likely, so we could end up with a compound catastrophe” (p. 72).

At the beginning of Part II, McLaren declares, “An unexamined, status-quo Christianity is not worth perpetuating. I cannot and will not stay Christian if it means perpetuating Christianity’s past history and current trajectory. The only way I can stay Christian is to do so as part of a creative movement forging a new kind of Christianity” (p. 84). [Or maybe he needs to talk about the type of radical Christianity I have long advocated.]

“What do you do when your religion is failing? Do you leave it, like a person running from a crime scene, so you won’t be implicated? Or do you stay, bear witness, and help right the wrongs—if you possibly can?” (p. 141). 

“Will we stay Christian? and Will Christianity survive? are less important questions than these: How shall we humans survive and thrive? What good future shall we strive for? How can we align our energies with the divine energy at work in our universe? (pp. 154-5).

“If you can find a community or organization that desires the good of the planet and all its creatures, the good of all people through just and generous societies, and the good of each individual—including you—with a reverence for the sacred love that flows through all these loves, that is a community in which to invest your time, intelligence, money, and energy” (p. 175).

McLaren explains that “‘the end of the world’ is not the end of the world, but the end of the current world system,” and then asserts that “we have to prepare ourselves to live good lives of defiant joy even in the midst of chaos and suffering” (p. 190).

McLaren writes that “rather than throwing away Christianity—and religion in general—I believe now is the time to rediscover the redeemable, recyclable qualities of Christianity and other religions, to re-consecrate them and appropriately reference them, even as we tell the inconvenient and unpopular truths of their harmful histories. Beneath they obvious flaws there are still treasures, treasures we would be fools to discard’ (pp. 196-7).

“Source of all truth, help me to hunger for truth, even if it upsets, modifies, or overturns what I already think is true. Guide me into all the truth I can bear, and stretch me to bear more, so that I may always choose the whole truth—even with disruption—over half-truths with self-deception. Grant me passion to follow wisdom wherever it leads” (p. 210).

“Spirit of truth who sets us free by the truth, do not let my desire for comfort blind me to truths that will inconvenience me. Grant me resolve to welcome the pain that often comes with wisdom. Help me choose empathy over apathy and courage over complacency, and to abhor the bliss that accompanies ignorance” (p. 211).