It’s not every day you get to hang out with Rainn Wilson (aka Dwight Schrute) …
... and talk spirituality. I think you'll enjoy our conversation on Soul Boom. https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f8cbbc1b-1a98-4f74-97ba-df4dfaa0697a/episodes/facf14c7-c2ab-44c4-9d3f-40b295b33d47/soul-boom-faith-after-doubt-can-religion-evolve-w-brian-mclaren
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Here we are. Four weeks in.
What began at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, on our TV screens for all to see, has been unrolling ever since.
Nearly all Republican politicians aided and abetted it. (Most of those who resisted either resigned or got voted out.)
Democratic elected officials failed to stop it.
And last November, a slim majority of American voters fell for it.
And so here we are. Four weeks in.
You can call what's happening a coup or an overthrow of the US Constitution or both.
After their ugly and sloppy (and deadly) frontal attack in 2021 failed, Trump and his supporters quickly regrouped and began planning a return to power.
They developed a detailed (900 page) written plan called Project 2025. Trump originally denied knowing about, but as is so often the case, that was a lie. In fact, he recently appointed its primary author as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the perfect place from which to implement the plan.
So here we are.
In just a matter of weeks, the forces of MAGA and Project 2025, supported by (or perhaps directed by) "the broligarchy," are dismantling the American democracy that patriotic citizens built over lifetimes.
In its place, they are erecting a neo-feudal right-wing oligarchy. They will hold all the power, and there will be little left in government to hold them accountable.
We've seen Nazi salutes. (In spite of their deflections, we know what we saw.) We have seen expressions of support for Nazi-friendly and Apartheid-friendly and ethnic-cleansing-friendly parties in Germany and South Africa and Israel/Palestine. We have seen capitulation to Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine, and talk of ending the war without even including Ukraine in the negotiations. (As Tim Snyder says, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu.)
We have seen threats to abandon allies and take over Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Gaza ... as if we're deciding that colonialism is OK again.
We have seen the blanket pardons of all the convicted foot-soldiers of the January 6 coup attempt, including Oathkeepers, Proud Boys and the like.
We are seeing a revenge tour (still ongoing) against all in the CIA, FBI, the judiciary, the media, and other agencies or networks who have done their jobs, but have not been active collaborators with Trump, Musk, and their plan.
We have seen purges that would have embarrassed Richard Nixon (or made him proud?), not to mention the reckless annihilation of entire departments and agencies that were built to solve problems for the American people.
We have seen Trump rename the Gulf of Mexico and punish the free speech of any who don't submit to his Orwellian mind control tactics.
Lives will be lost, science will be lost, expertise will be lost, resilience will be lost.
There are legal challenges, of course, but Trump has already announced that nothing he does can be considered lawless. Toward that end, he has made huge gains in purging, controlling, and corrupting the courts. The Supreme Court's "unlimited immunity" ruling last year adds doubt as to whether even this last check and balance to Trump's grasp for complete power will stand up to him, or kneel as to a dictator.
Day by day, Musk and Trump and their team are recklessly destroying what took decades for us to build through our taxes and elected officials. The costs will be greater than the benefits, and the benefits will not go to "normal" Americans. They will go to the mega-rich ... who fly in private jets (so don't need public transportation), who visit exclusive luxury resorts (so don't visit National Parks), who send their kids to elite private schools (so have no sense of the value of good public education), and who can afford concierge medical care (so have no understanding of basic health insurance or public health.)
Wherever there are dictators and the ultra-rich, there are religious leaders providing them moral camouflage.
Thankfully, other religious leaders are standing up and playing the role of the biblical prophet ... like Nathan who confronted King David (2 Samuel 12), or Azariah and the 80 priests who confronted King Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26) or Jesus who confronted the broligarchy of his day (Matthew 18:1-4, Luke 22:25-28).
The results of what is happening now will be devastating, both in the US and around the world ... for people who will die, for people who will suffer, and for people who will watch their children inherit a world that is dirtier, poorer, more angry and conflicted (and armed with more dangerous weapons). And we're only four weeks in.
If you have children and grandchildren, these first weeks of the Trump regime have already guaranteed that their futures will be more tense, less peaceful, more conflicted, less stable, hotter, sicker, poorer.
If you voted for this regime, you may already be having second thoughts. But probably not. Because you listen to Fox News and similar echo chambers, you will probably not have second thoughts or engage your critical thinking skills until things get much, much worse for you. When that time comes, the rest of us will gladly welcome you back into the reality-based community. We understand. We're all human beings, and human beings are easily deceived.
If you want to follow trustworthy people who are detailing this, I would recommend you start with The Contrarian and Letters from an American and The Ink and Tim Snyder and Ezra Klein. There are many other thoughtful and trustworthy sources too, of course.
I believe we all need a simple, five-fold strategy in these times.
- Guard your heart ... guard it from exhaustion, anxiety, overwhelm, and "preemptive surrender." Guard it from becoming a mirror image of the monster you're trying to fight (referencing a famous quote from Nietzsche). Guard it from bitterness, and flood it with mercy - toward yourself, toward others, including your opponents, toward animals and plants and soil and water. Deepen your inner life through contemplation, prayer, and the serious practices of both grieving and joy. Get outdoors more often. Enjoy the sunlight and breeze. Be brave. Be kind. Be honest. Be strong. Curate your own inner life.
- Find your people. If you have a good church or synagogue or other faith community, go ... and support it. If you don't, find one. If you can't find one, start a little "circle of sanity" by inviting some people over and talking about how you can support one another. Get together more often than necessary ... practice "social nearness-ing."
- Educate your mind. This is a time to develop wisdom ... which includes critical thinking, fairness, literacy, examination of biases, and a sense of who is trustworthy (with a "trust but verify" mindset). Those grasping for power have spent billions over many years to try to dumb us down. Don't conform to the though patterns of group-think. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Read things longer than a slogan. Listen to people who know a lot more than you. Listen to people's stories. Determine to get smarter, not stupider, during this time.
- Do What You Can. If you can protest, protest. If the time comes for civil disobedience, do so. If you can call or write (or email) your senators, do so. If you want to engage with people on-line or in person, do it -- skillfully, if possible! Whenever you can befriend people who are in danger -- and help them practically, even in the smallest of ways, do so. If you can financially support honest journalists, brave and good politicians, and honorable religious leaders, give generously. If you reach your limit, take a break. Do what you can ... and don't feel guilty for not doing everything.
- Survive another day. Survival is underrated in times like these. You know how it feels when you've had a long, long series of storms, and days upon days of cloudy skies? There will be moments when there's a break in the clouds, and you'll see sunlight and blue sky. In the same way, as we endure tough times, we begin to get a vision for a better day ... not a return to a past that is gone, but a pilgrimage to a future that is waiting to be born.
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The Last Voyage (my new sci fi novel)
Order now: Bookshop, Barnes & Noble
It's 2056 and international oligarchs have pushed the world to the precipice of ecological, economic, and nuclear catastrophe.
But two philanthropists have teamed up to establish a viable outpost on Mars.
Could this daring outpost be the next chapter in the story of the human race? Or will its brilliant team of scientists and engineers repeat the folly of humans on Earth?
When the project's founders on Earth discover that Mars Base has been keeping a terrifying, multi-layered secret from them, they recruit an unusual crew for a last voyage. Will these young voyagers bring what's needed for the fledging community on Mars to flourish?
In this first volume in a thrilling new trilogy from Brian McLaren, you'll explore the limits of technology, the deepest needs of the human spirit, and the abiding questions that energize humans wherever they live ... on Earth or elsewhere in space.
Available in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.
Orde Now:
We encourage you to support a local bookstore by ordering through Bookshop or Barnes & Noble:
Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-last-voyage-brian-mclaren/20243554
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-last-voyage-brian-mclaren/1143718471
(You can also order through Amazon: https://a.co/d/czH5KmY)
Brief responses to questions people are asking:
Why Sci-Fi? Why now?
My long-time readers will remember a fictional trilogy I published back in 2001-2005, so fiction isn't new to me. I've always loved the science fiction/fantasy genre, and several years ago, I began work on this project. Just as reading helps us keep our sanity in insane times, writing this new trilogy has done that for me. Sci Fi for me is a way of grappling with our current problems on Earth by projecting them across space and time. Getting that distance sometimes helps us see and face things we couldn't face otherwise.
You recently wrote Life After Doom, which focused on ecological overshoot. Is The Last Voyage cli-fi?
Yes. It warns about the nonfiction of climate change, like, for example, Don't Look Up and Ministry for the Future. But the The Last Voyage trilogy is also an experiment in imagining a new kind of human-Earth and human-human relationship ... imagining what could emerge on the other side of the climate ignorance, political cowardice, ecological arrogance, and spiritual misguidedness that brought us here.
Why Mars?
Humans (most recently, Earth's richest person) have always projected their hopes and fears on Mars. Sadly, for some it represents an escape plan ... "If we ruin the Earth, we can always retreat to Mars," they seem to think. I wanted to confront that delusion as directly as I could. For me, what Mars represents is less possibility and more sterility. I see it as a sterile environment, like a laboratory, that helps us see more clearly who we are and what we might become, wherever we are.
Who is the protagonist?
In this trilogy, the protagonist isn't a single person. On one level, the protagonist is a team of people, diverse, troubled, conflicted at times, but ultimately good, resilient, and wise. On another level, the protagonist is a set of human values or qualities that bond this team together. There are several important individual characters, of course ... a billionaire philanthropist who poses as an oligarch but actually operates from a completely different set of values ... his partner, the Ukrainian widow of an oligarch who despises the code the super-rich and super-powerful live by ... a young American theologian-ethicist who has been recruited for a challenge she feels is too big for her ... a teenage musician-poet from Palestine who has survived too much already in her young life ... a Guatemalan geneticist who tells corny jokes ... an aging ecologist who knows he is arrogant but can't seem to do anything about it.
What follows The Last Voyage?
Volume 2 is called The Great Rift. It unfolds on Mars Base, which is located in the Valles Marineris, the great rift of Mars. The human community there must face a kind of social and spiritual great rift that is tearing them apart. Volume 3 is called Ethnogenesis. It unfolds thirty years after The Last Voyage and The Great Rift, and involves a woman on Mars secretly re-establishing contact with a group of humans on Earth who are in constant danger from the oligarchs and the global network of labor camps they have established.
What draws a former college English teacher and pastor, a public theologian, and activist to write a book like this now, in this moment?
The themes that I have written about for my whole career have suddenly shown up in the headlines every day ... what does it mean to be a human being ... a good human being? Why have both religion and science failed to make us more wise and generous? What practices help people mature and change for the better? What happens when institutions we have long taken for granted begin to fail? What makes a life truly meaningful and worth living? How does needed social change happen? Does money always win in the end? Writing this trilogy is helping me engage with all of these themes ... not just theoretically or abstractly, but in a concrete story with characters I have grown to love.
Finally, what are your favorite science fiction books or movies?
I recently read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I loved it and can't stop thinking about it. I'm a fan of all of Kim Stanley Robinson's work - especially his Mars series and Ministry for the Future, and Andy Weir's Artemis and The Martian. I appreciate Orson Scott Card's fantasy and sci fi, and, of course, Tolkein and C. S. Lewis. Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is also a favorite. And Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Seed are in a class of their own. When it comes to TVnseries and movies, of course, I love Star Trek in all its iterations. More recently, I loved The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica and only wish there were more seasons coming. As for movies ... Arrival, Interstellar, The Hunger Games were favorites ... but the whole genre fascinates me. I'm a fan of all of literature, but there's something about science fiction/speculative fiction that helps us imagine new possibilities and "new worlds." We need that these days, don't we?
Press/Podcasters/Reviewers: If you'd like to schedule an interview with Brian about The Last Voyage, contact: kaitlyn.shokes@johnmurraypress.co.uk
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Pastors … here’s help in addressing the “White Christian Nationalism” that is infiltrating so many churches and denominations
Thanks to my friend Paul Nuechterlein for his tireless work in helping us see nonviolence in the Scriptures ... and for addressing Christian nationalism directly: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/preaching-gods-reign-under-the-shadow-of-christian-nationalism/
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Do you think this quote from Bonhoeffer is relevant today?
"The upsurge of power [they experience] makes such an overwhelming impression that people are deprived of their independent judgment, and—more or less unconsciously—give up trying to assess a new state of affairs for themselves. The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead us into thinking that he is independent. One feels in fact, when talking to him, that one is dealing, not with the man himself, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of him. He is under the spell, he is blinded, his very nature is being misused and exploited. Having thus become a passive instrument, the fool will be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. Here lies the danger of a diabolical exploitation that can do irreparable damage to human beings."
A friend shared this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It comes from a shorty essay,"After Ten Years." This isn't the kind of thing Bonhoeffer could publish publicly for obvious reasons, so he shared it privately with friends in 1943, reflecting on 10 years under the rule of a malignant narcissist. By prolonged submission to the malignant narcissist, people were rendering themselves "fools" and were being sucked into "folly." They were simultaneously becoming victims of "diabolical exploitation" and "capable of any evil."
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