Books by Brian McLaren


Recent Releases

“As rich and thoughtful as all of Brian McLaren’s work, but with a particular urgency!” —Bill McKibben

“Riveting. Challenging. Brave. Devastating. Hopeful.” —Rabbi Sharon Brous, IKAR, author of The Amen Effect

A deeply insightful exploration of how to live with wisdom, resilience and love in our turbulent times

For the last quarter-century, author and activist Brian D. McLaren has been writing at the intersection of religious faith and contemporary culture. In Life After Doom, he engages with the catastrophic failure of both our religious and political leaders to address the dominant realities of our time: ecological overshoot, economic injustice, and the increasing likelihood of civilizational collapse. McLaren defines doom as the “un-peaceful, uneasy, unwanted feeling” that “we humans have made a mess of our civilization and our planet, and not enough of us seem to care enough to change deeply enough or quickly enough to save ourselves.”

Blending insights from philosophers, poets, scientists, and theologians, Life After Doom explores the complexity of hope, the necessity of grief, and the need for new ways of thinking, becoming, and belonging in turbulent times. If you want to help yourself, your family, and the communities to which you belong to find courage and resilience for the deeply challenging times that are upon us — this is the book you need right now.

Release date: May 14, 2024

Click to download Appendices for Audiobook Listeners and Dear Reader Entries for Life After Doom.

Click here to order Life After Doom

Dubbed “a heroic gate-crasher” by New York Times bestselling author Glennon Doyle, Brian D. McLaren explores reasons to leave or stay within the church and if so how…

Do I Stay Christian? addresses in public the powerful question that surprising numbers of people―including pastors, priests, and other religious leaders―are asking in private. Picking up where Faith After Doubt leaves off, Do I Stay Christian? is not McLaren’s attempt to persuade Christians to dig in their heels or run for the exit. Instead, he combines his own experience with that of thousands of people who have confided in him over the years to help readers make a responsible, honest, ethical decision about their religious identity.

There is a way to say both yes and no to the question of staying Christian, McLaren says, by shifting the focus from whether we stay Christian to how we stay human. If Do I Stay Christian?is the question you’re asking―or if it’s a question that someone you love is asking―this is the book you’ve been waiting for.

Release date: May 24, 2022

Click here to order Do I Stay Christian?

From the author of A New Kind of Christianity comes a bold proposal: only doubt can save the world and your faith.

Sixty-five million adults in the U.S. have dropped out of active church attendance and about 2.7 million more are leaving every year. Faith After Doubt is for the millions of people around the world who feel that their faith is falling apart.

Using his own story and the stories of a diverse group of struggling believers, Brian D. McLaren, a former pastor and now an author, speaker, and activist shows how old assumptions are being challenged in nearly every area of human life, not just theology and spirituality. He proposes a four-stage model of faith development in which questions and doubt are not the enemy of faith, but rather a portal to a more mature and fruitful kind of faith. The four stages―Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony―offer a path forward that can help sincere and thoughtful people leave behind unnecessary baggage and intensify their commitment to what matters most.

Release date: January 5, 2021

Click here to order Faith After Doubt

Brian D. McLaren followed his love of nature (specifically, tortoises) all the way to the Galapagos Islands. There, he paid close attention to the flora and fauna around him but also to what was happening within him, how the natural world awakened his soul in a way that organized religion could not. McLaren’s descriptions of birds and reptiles, fish and flowers sing; he walks in the footsteps of Charles Darwin and grieves that Darwin has been demonized by his fellow Christians; and he reflects on how his own faith has evolved in the years since he left the pastorate.

McLaren writes in the spirit of Aldo Leopold and Wendell Berry, weaving together the spiritual and the material. Even though most readers will never visit the Galapagos Islands, they can travel with McLaren and experience the beauty and fragility of this extraordinary place.

NOTE: The UK title for this book is God Unbound: Theology in the Wild.

Release date: October 1, 2019

For ordering information, you’ll find links here: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9781506448251/The-Galapagos-Islands

If you’re a teacher, pastor, activist, community organizer, public servant, political candidate, writer, public speaker, blogger, or social media user, and you’d like to better understand why it’s so challenging to open minds and hearts to new ideas, this e-book is for you. It will help you understand why the human brain resists challenging new truths and what to do to guide your needed messages around the most common obstacles to understanding and action.

Purchase E-Book $5.99

In this story co-written by Brian McLaren and peace activist Gareth Higgins, and illustrated by Anita Schmidt, a young raccoon named Cory watches as the Old Village is taken over by six stories of fighting and fear. Cory searches for a better way, a seventh story of peace and belonging … and discovers how to make a difference.
In the spirit of classics like Douglas Wood’s The Old Turtle series and Kenneth Graheme’s The Wind in the WillowsCory and the Seventh Story invites kids and adults into conversations about what’s going wrong in the world and what we can do to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
The story we tell about the world shapes how we live. In a fable for grown-ups, presented alongside essays by Brian McLaren & Gareth Higgins, you’ll examine six familiar stories that have repeated through history, which have taught us all how to dominate, fear, or withdraw from the world and the beautiful people in it. There is a Seventh Story, a path of openheartedness toward others, and reading this book will inspire you to look anew at the world and your neighbors in creating it. Facing fear, aggression, and violence with the strength to love, and change your story.

The Christian story, from Genesis until now, is fundamentally about people on the move—outgrowing old, broken religious systems and embracing new, more redemptive ways of life.

It’s time to move again.

The Great Spiritual Migration argues that— notwithstanding the dire headlines about the demise of faith and drop in church attendance—Christian faith is not dying. Rather, it is embarking on a once-in-an-era spiritual shift. For millions, the journey has already begun.

Drawing from his work as global activist, pastor, and public theologian, McLaren challenges readers to stop worrying, waiting, and indulging in nostalgia, and instead, to embrace the powerful new understandings that are reshaping the church. In The Great Spiritual Migration, he explores three profound shifts that define the change:

 Spiritually, growing numbers of Christians are moving away from defining themselves by lists of beliefs and toward a way of life defined by love
 Theologically, believers are increasingly rejecting the image of God as a violent Supreme Being and embracing the image of God as the renewing Spirit at work in our world for the common good
 Missionally, the faithful are identifying less with organized religion and more with organizing religion—spiritual activists dedicated to healing the planet, building peace, overcoming poverty and injustice, and collaborating with other faiths to ensure a better future for all of us

With his trademark brilliance and compassion, McLaren invites readers to seize the moment and set out on the most significant spiritual pilgrimage of our time: to help Christianity become more Christian.

The study Way of Life will help groups approach and engage the spiritual, theological, and missional proposals in Brian McLaren’s book The Great Spiritual Migration. The Leader Guide contains everything needed to guide a group through the four-week study including session plans and discussion questions, scripture, prayer, opening activities as well as multiple format options. You’ll find a video and additional information here.

“The quest for aliveness is the heartbeat that pulses through the Bible . . . It’s why we gather, celebrate, eat, abstain, attend, practice, sing, and contemplate.”

Based on his book We Make The Road By Walking, Brian D. McLaren presents a 52-week devotional to inspire and activate you in your spiritual journey. If you’re a seeker exploring Christianity, if you’re a long-term believer feeling downtrodden, if your faith seems to be a lot of talk without much practice, here you’ll find a reorientation from a fresh and healthy perspective.

Brian D. McLaren shows everything you need to explore what a difference an honest, living, growing faith can make in your life and in our world today. Through 52 weeks of thoughtful readings, SEEKING ALIVENESS gives an overview of the message of the whole Bible and guides you through a rich study of interactive learning and personal growth.

Brian’s 2014 release, We Make the Road by Walking, offers 52+ chapters that give an overview of the biblical story and a fresh introduction or re-orientation to Christian faith. Each chapter is written to be read aloud in ten to twelve minutes, and is accompanied by a set of Scripture readings, reflection/discussion questions, and liturgical resources – so the book can be useful in a variety of ways for classes, small groups, new faith communities, and churches. And of course, it’s an inspiring and formative read for individuals too.

The title comes from one of Brian’s heroes, Brazilian educator/activist Paolo Freire. He used this title for a published dialogue between Freire and another seminal educator/activist, Myles Horton, who was an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Freire may have derived the quote from the great Spanish poet Antonio Machado:

“Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar.”Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road– Only wakes upon the sea. ― Antonio Machado, Campos de Castilla

The title suggests that Christian faith is still “in the making” (as Dr. John Cobb has put it). It continues to grow, evolve, learn, change, emerge, and mature … in and through us. What we will be as Christians in the 21st century, for better or worse, will surely change what Christian faith will be in the 22nd century and beyond.

You can see several short videos about the book at Brian’s Vimeo page.

And this 20,000-word “author’s commentary” is available free for download in pdf format here:

wmtr commentary

You’ll find the lectionary (list of Bible passages) used in the book, along with additional resources, here.

And here’s a Facebook Page with resources for using the book, including youth resources.

Also, Hanna Zuring-Peterson, a generous reader, developed and field-tested this wonderful resource – a study guide that goes deeper into the recommended Scripture readings for each chapter. It’s available to you and your group for free download:

Study Guide to We Make the Road by Walking


When four religious leaders walk across the road, it’s not the beginning of a joke. It’s the start of one of the most important conversations in today’s world.

Can you be a committed Christian without having to condemn or convert people of other faiths? Is it possible to affirm other religious traditions without watering down your own?

In Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World, Brian McLaren proposes a new faith alternative, one built on “benevolence and solidarity rather than rivalry and hostility.” This way of being Christian is strong but doesn’t strong-arm anyone, going beyond mere tolerance to vigorous hospitality toward, interest in, and collaboration with the other.

Blending history, narrative, and brilliant insight, McLaren shows readers step-by-step how to reclaim this strong-benevolent faith, challenging us to stop creating barriers in the name of God and learn how affirming other religions can strengthen our commitment to our own. And in doing so, he invites Christians to become more Christ-like than ever before.


“A rich, brilliant and important book: wonderfully readable and personal, filled with insight and wisdom, it invites us into practices that can transform our lives.” —Marcus J. Borg, author of Speaking Christian

“Brian McLaren is a bridge builder. In these simple yet profound spiritual practices he perfectly marries his evangelical heart and contemplative soul, and we are all richer for the union.” —Cynthia Bourgeault, author of Centering Prayer and The Wisdom Jesus

In the same way he revitalized our faith in A New Kind of Christianity, church leader Brian McLaren reinvigorates our approach to spiritual fulfillment in Naked Spirituality—by tearing down the old dogmatic practices that hamper our spiritual growth, and leading us toward the meaningful spiritual practices that can help transform our lives.


We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the church. Not since the Reformation five centuries ago have so many Christians come together to ask whether the church is in sync with their deepest beliefs and commitments. These believers range from evangelicals to mainline Protestants to Catholics, and the person who best represents them is author and pastor Brian McLaren.

In this much anticipated book, A New Kind of Christianity, McLaren examines ten questions facing today’s church—questions about how to articulate the faith itself, the nature of its authority, who God is, whether we have to understand Jesus through only an ancient Greco-Roman lens, what exactly the good news is that the gospel proclaims, how we understand the church and all its varieties, why we are so preoccupied with sex, how we should think of the future and people from other faiths, and the most intimidating question of all: what do we do next? Here you will find a provocative and enticing introduction to the Christian faith of tomorrow.

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