The Willard Lecture 2024 | Brian McLaren "Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart"

Rev. Brian D. McLaren notes that the challenge of living well and maintaining resilience in turbulent times requires new ways of thinking, becoming, and belonging. Facing nations, ecosystems, economies, religions, and other institutions in disarray, we are called to a spiritual transformation in our own lives that will express itself in transformation in our world.

[@M00Nature]

I was very impressed with this lecture and look forward to reading McLaren's book. I was glad to see that mainline Christians are now beginning to talk about collapse and to consider how they might help others, as well as themselves, to deal with the crisis. Thank you for sharing this lecture on UA-cam! I now feel like I have a better understanding of how to speak about these topics with my Christian friends.

[@PaulTowlson]

McLaren has many wonderful insights on spirituality & the life of faith. Some comments however give away that he has a political tribe, and this is where there are problems and biases. The enemy seem to be the Charlottesville fascists and the January 6th crowd. Are there no thugs on the left? More important is how do we as people of faith encourage and example conversation across deep divides? That includes left & right, and it includes conversations on climate (on science McLaren is beyond his expertise). Neither climate denier nor climate catastrophist is helpful.
On climate & politics I cannot help but feel McLaren is lacking charity to his "other".