Do I Stay Christian? - A Conversation with Brian McLaren
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2022
- In this episode, we were honored to bring back our friend Brian McLaren to talk about his brand new book, "Do I Stay Christian?"
In this new book, Brian addresses a real question which underlies a startling sociological truth: people are leaving Christianity at a rapid pace. In fact, Pew Research shows that today, about 64% people in the US identify as Christian, after falling rapidly from a high of 90% just a few decades back.
Brian’s book takes an unflinching look at the reasons people might leave Christianity, before spending a lot of time on why someone might choose to stay, as Brian has. But you won’t find any “apologetics” here - rather, Brian looks at staying as part of a broader faith journey - one that can take us out of a simple world of black-and-white into a new “stage” of our faith: one filled with paradox, mystery, and love. In one of the most compelling and memorable parts of the book, Brian asks “What if you’re really trying to change stages, not religions?”
While truly not prescribing any particular path for readers, Brian shows how all people of good will - including those with doubts, questions, and criticisms - can do so much to benefit their institutions and traditions if they choose to stay. We think this book does so much good work to paint compelling reasons for doing so, and to help illustrate a path forward.
Brian McLaren an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” - just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a faculty member of The Living School and podcaster with Learning How to See, which are part of the Center for Action and Contemplation. We’d also recommend going back and listening to Brian’s first appearance on the Faith Matters podcast in episode #67, where we discuss his book Faith After Doubt.
I love Brian's honesty & humility.
He has a wonderful way of expressing his faith.
Excellent! Thank you.
Thank you, Brian. I am in the middle of your book, and it resonates deeply with me. I have found and have subscribed to your podcast and am looking forward to listening to it. And thank you Aubrey and Tim for creating a community of "critical conversation" based on love. I find that my faith has been stripped down to the bone, and its foundation (mixing metaphors, I suppose) I can find only two things: 1) A commitment to learning to love and accept every one of God's children wherever they are and whatever the do and whatever they believe, and 2) A commitment to learning, which I suppose could also be labeled, in a religious context, as repentance. That is all I have left, and I am hoping it is sufficient to get me through. Thank you again Aubrey and Tim, and all who participate at Faith Matters. If it weren't for you, I would just be sitting here feeling lonely and alone. I am sorry (and disappointed in myself) that I didn't attend your conference; I feel just a little too much on the outside. Anyway, I hope you continue to hold them, and even if I don't make the trip to Utah, I am confident that they will be of value to those who do. I send you all the love and gratitude that my heart can hold. -Kevin
I loved loved loved this conversation!!! ❤️❤️❤️ I needed to hear this!
Such a beautiful discussion on the difficulties and complexities of staying in or leaving a faith community.
Thanks so much for posting this. Very thoughtful and honest conversation.
We are sometimes made to feel guilty or inadequate when we ask a difficult question within our faith community. One of my favourite Christian writers, Anne Lamott, has said “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”
Wow! Thanks!
Great discussion thank you, reading your book in our book group now. So glad I found this interview. One politician I am really admiring right now, because he is in the news for being in hospice as he is passing, is Jimmy Carter. Talk about someone who was a real person trying to live a Christian life but was excommunicated from the Christian right for being an honest real man - (Playboy article was used to smear him) who today he is one of the few Leaders that I look to for inspiration.
Brilliant conversation.
Amazing talk! Hans Kung was one of the first ones to question the doctrine of Infallibility in the papacy and wrote a a famous book called Infallible? An Inquiry, and got silenced by the Magisterium immediately as expected. Hans Kung was one the experts at the Second Vatican Council and one of the most important catholic theologians of the 20th century.
Absolutely brilliant and was shocked to see , Young Latter Day Saints facilitating this conversation !!
New subscriber here.
Thank you Brian I'm 61 just about Grandma and LGBT I think you've handled this very well It's a hard reconciliation you have to do with theology but do I stay Christian I don't know how to be anything else. And I'm LGBT grandma now and I had to be honest with my family in order to teach them not to lie We shouldn't be afraid of the truth if the truth is what we know we're going to go to God and face God with that truth not man So I follow Jesus I like Jesus Jesus seems to be the best way. We rediscover Jesus and quit worshiping Paul. To support some of our beliefs. Took me a long time to reconcile my theology though It's hard but God did change me and let me see a different way than I had looked before and what you see it you can't unsee it and David p Gushee
And all of you pastors that helped us through this in the last 10 years thank you Thank you very much and I pray that God bless us all. 🙏😇🏳️🌈🇺🇲❤️
At 37:30, when Aubrey asks "what would you say to a Latter Day Saint"? I couldn't help but think of The Clash.
"Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble,
And if I stay it will be double.
So you gotta let me know....
Should I stay or should I go?"
th-cam.com/video/xMaE6toi4mk/w-d-xo.html
After just having a 'strong ' conversation with my mum (in her 80s) this is so helpful. So much of my family (father was a Presbyterian minister) have very FIXED views. They are RIGHT. Everyone else is wrong. This thinking is very problematic. It's causing all kinds of fractures in the family.
Where is he placing Jesus Christ if he were not Christian. I have heard Fr Richard Rohr on video saying that he has appointed Brian MClaren as his successor since his illness is causing him to have others continue for him. If he Brian were no longer Christian, would there be no affiliation with the Catholic Church after Rohr passes, a Catholic Priest?
Sorry for commenting, this is my thought blurb: Bryan makes the statement 9:25 "In ancient religious traditions, that continue to today, you prove that something was trustworthy by claiming that it never made a mistake." Which is not a true conclusion. If we are talking about ancient times, how people knew something to be true was the process of testing and proving prophecies. We know there was false prophets because their prophecies never came to pass, and we know there was God's true prophets that spoke God's true word because their word came to pass into reality. I'm sorry Brian, but you lost me on that one; because I agree a person can say anything, but claiming something is true doesn't make it true. Truth is always in conformity with God's design and will, which is why we see God fulfill so many of His prophecies throughout the Scripture.
A few decades back was in the 1950s in a post-WWII, post-McCarthyism Cold War time when you either had to line up as a Christian OR be seen as a godless communist so, of course, people adopted a C&E form of Christianity that has been dwindling ever since. I notice Christians never cite their abysmal ATTENDANCE figures, although the *47% church member figure* that came out last year sort of leans that way. I wasn't "changing stages" when I opened my mind to see the utter irreconcilable problems in the bible, the purposeful mistranslations and twisted interpretations that "support" Christian doctrine, the ignorance of first century Jewish culture. And then there was the "voting" on the bible books, and the power bloc that formed in the 4th century. Add to that the brutal and bloody history of Christianity as it took foothold in Europe and beyond, the forced conversions, the oppressive "tithe bills", 14 MILLION people tortured and murdered as "witches", primarily women, in some of the most creatively grotesque ways ever devised, the snatching of children away to boarding schools in Scotland and the PacNW to school their heritage out of the people in a generation. The white-washing of the entire American global south as now "Latin" effectively erasing accomplished Mayan, Aztec, Incan, and other cultures. The brutality of Christians in the trajectory of the United States can't be overlooked as simple "Oh, that was then, this is now." No, when you allow yourself out of that Christian Information Silo, it's a journey of deprogramming, not some next mystery layer of Christianity to embark on. Yeah, you'll get some of the woo-woos for that, but anyone with any type of reasoning skills - LEAVES.
You did not say one word however, about Jesus Christ. The original name for the Catholic Church was "Christ Church" that's all there was to it. To be a Christian is to be one with Christ just as he said "I and the Father are One." In Quincy, Massachusetts, some of which was originally Braintree, the St John the Baptist Church burnt down twice but the first structure was one of the first Catholic Churches in the USA. Certainly not thousands of years ago but the name of it was originally "Christ Church" -