How about going to Ireland for nine days in 2022?
Grace and I loved our first trip to Ireland with Gareth Higgins so much that we’re joining him again in 2022.
The pace of travel is perfect. The combination of rest, renewal, and learning is ideal. The settings, of course, are magical. Your fellow travelers will be fascinating. And the chance to learn from Gareth and his friends in Ireland about the challenging work of peacemaking will inspire us for our work back home.
I hope you’ll consider joining us! This year, Gareth and I will speak about a theme we’ve collaborated on for several years: A Better Story for a Better World. We'll engage with the material we've written about in our 7th Story writings, which you can learn more about here: https://www.theseventhstory.com/
You'll find details about how you can be part of the 2022 Ireland retreat here: https://www.irelandretreats.com/2022-retreats
Space is limited, and these retreats tend to fill up fast, so it's a good idea to plan ahead now. (This might be a great Christmas present for you and someone you love!)
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Southern Lights, January 13-16, 2022
Brian McLaren will join Diana Butler Bass and Jim Chaffee to host this important event especially for forward-leaning Christians across the South. There's an amazing lineup of speakers and musicians, including Anthea Butler, Kaitlin Curtice, Ken Medema, Odessa Settles, and Solveig Leithaug.
There's still a little room - consider joining us on the beautiful Georgia coast! Information here: https://southernlightsconference.com/
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A reader writes: LUDIO
I wanted to thank you for writing Faith After Doubt. I have been a Christian for many years, and for a long time, I believed I was pretty good at it. I did all the right things, believed the right doctrines, and voted for the “right” candidates. The last five years have been disorienting; so many of those things I knew with certainty have been upended. I still believe in Jesus. I believe in love. I believe in goodness, truth, and beauty, but I can no longer accept many of those things I once accepted at face value as the only way to be a Christian. I was afraid to move deeper into my doubts and questions because to do so, I believed, was a sign of faithlessness.Having said all that, I wanted to let you know I am writing for one particular reason apart from expressing my gratitude. Near the end of the book, in chapter 11 or 12, I believe, you talk about the importance of faith expressing itself through love for God, others, self, and creation. That resonated deeply with me. Several years ago, I came up with the acronym “LUDIO”—Love up, down, in, and out... Thank you and keep sharing your message.
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“What I Thought Would be Exile Turned out to be Home … if the Trump Era has a bright side” – a Reader writes:
A reader writes:
I’ll keep it brief - this isn’t a note asking a spiritual question, or requiring your considered opinion. It’s simply to thank you for your writings & ideas, which I’ve encountered exactly when needed, and which have made more generous my approach to faith, mystery, and work over the past twenty years.
You’ve walked a difficult line for a long while. It must’ve been lonely, often. In an age of retrograde Christianity one becomes a target by expressing support for, say, civilization, which is frankly hated by many people I love. Watching the Islamic State blow up cultural sites in Palmyra a few years ago, I couldn’t imagine a Christian analog doing something similar here. Now it feels inevitable. It is happening already. I spent most of my life among those now lighting the fuse.
If the Trump era has a bright side, it’s that many of us felt liberated from a Church we’d stuck with past its ruination. Church becomes an evening beer in the alley with a lawn-mowing neighbor. Or a walk down the creek a few blocks from home. Or receiving an idea for a luminous scene in the novel at hand. Or writing this note to you.
What I thought would be exile turned out to be home.
Thanks for your note. Wow, it strikes me that some readers have walked with me for over twenty years already!
It's heartbreaking to see what so much of (white) Christianity has become in the United States (and some other places too) ... many of us have felt as you have, that we were exiled ... but that became a better way to live. Thanks for writing.
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