the following was part of our november 2007 vertigo, the monthly refuge ezine (if you are interested in subscribing, click here). we have always known we wanted the refuge to be a missional community, deeply committed to global & local social justice. we want to stay connected to bigger conversations that are happening in the world because there are great thinkers out there stirring the pot & causing others to consider hard & challenging issues on how to live out the ways of Jesus in the midst of this broken & crazy world. one of those voices is brian mclaren. some of you have read his books, that include a new kind of christian, a generous orthodoxy, the secret message of Jesus. a former english teacher & pastor, he has been a key voice in challenging christians to consider how we can live the Kingdom of God now. he is booked solid for 2008 on a tour for his new book, everything must change (a worth read for sure!), but somehow in the midst of his crazy schedule he took time to answer the refuge’s request for an interview.
your books & teachings have been making a pretty big impact on the current christian culture. you are stirring the pot and causing people to really question what they believe about life as a christian. why do you think the message you are sharing has become so powerful?
At this point, I think my work has been more provocative than powerful. I hope it will be powerful in the sense of motivating more and more people first to see, then to care, then to act, and then to make a difference. Here’s what I mean: I was talking to Jim Wallis the other day, and we were talking about the change in the wind that we both feel - that more and more Christians are seeking an integral or holistic understanding of the faith, one that puts personal spirituality and social justice together. But then Jim added, “But 30,000 more people died yesterday from preventable diseases. Until that number goes down to 20,000, and 10,000 and 1,000, we aren’t really making the difference that’s needed.”
For that to happen - for us to move from thought to feeling to faith-in-action to Spirit-empowered-change - it takes groups like The Refuge working all this out on the ground in their neighborhoods, which is why I’m so thrilled to be talking with you.
I think that we all can feel a change is in the air. Something is trying to be born. Something is trying to take root. We feel the Holy Spirit groaning deep inside us, refusing to let us be complacent and satisfied. I hope my books are a little shred of those groanings, and that they’re resonating with the groanings other people feel.
what do you think isn’t working too well in the contemporary american church? what still amazes you about it?
I like the way you phrase that. I think a lot is going well, so uch really. But at the end of the day, I think Dallas Willard is right: we have a “great omission” in our “great commission” which means that we’re making Christians (or born-agains or charismatics or Baptists or Pentecostals or whatever) but not necessarily making disciples of Jesus the Liberating King. To put it more strongly, we’re better at making Christian consumers than we are at forming love-and-good-works-producers.
But a lot does still amaze me … a little Anglican church in Canada where people faithfully come to say and mean the Lord’s prayer and celebrate the eucharist and confess their sins and be sent out “to love and serve the Lord” - it’s a small miracle, really. A big megachurch in the US that’s mobilizing it’s people to address racism and poverty. A pentecostal super-megachurch in El Salvador that started a recycling center because they believe the Holy Spirit not only produces healings but also environmental responsibility. There are ten thousand beautiful stories like these.
Jesus had a lot to say about injustice, power, and the least of these. why do you think it’s been so easy for us to ignore injustices both locally and globally? what do you think we’re afraid of?
One of the big reasons is that we’ve been taught to read the Bible in special ways that blind us to a lot of its power. We’ve been taught to spiritualize and segment and hyper-analyzie and focus on trees and miss the forest. And I think you’re right when you imply that fear is a big part of it.
Partly, I think we’re afraid of change. But before we even get to that, I think we’re afraid of being criticized. A lot of our religious communities run on fear: ask the wrong question and you’re seen with suspicion. Don’t be satisfied with the standard answer and you’re out the door, with people talking about you behind your back. This atmosphere of fear accounts for a lot of our religious behavior, I think.
the title of this newest book is everything must change: Jesus, global crisis & a revolution of hope. why must everything change? what do you think is going to happen if we don’t change?
Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So, wherever we see God’s will not being done … wherever God’s dreams for our earth aren’t coming true … that’s where change is needed. Of course, it doesn’t happen all at once: I’m not calling for violent revolution or careless insurgency. How the change happens is as important as that it happens: it happens quietly, but steadily, like yeast working in bread, like light penetrating darkness, like salt flavoring or preserving food, like fertilizer transforming soil so gardens can thrive.
In the book, I describe the peculiar and rather startling situation we’re now in: we’ve developed a large population, a huge rate ofglobal consumption and waste production, and a complex and somewhat fragile economic system supported by the most dangerous weapon systems in the history of history. This puts all of us at risk. I’d rather leave it up to readers’ imaginations to answer your question about what happens if we do nothing … because it’s not a pretty picture.
The good news is - and really, the book is about hope and good news -if we have faith as big as a sesame seed on a bagel, we can begin to turn things around. With God, nothing is impossible, and so mountains of injustice can be moved, and valleys of poverty can be filled in. I really believe that!
you travel a lot and see a depth & breadth of injustice in the world that many aren’t aware of. which injustices have gotten under your skin the most?
I suppose religious injustice comes to the surface first: religious people who use their holy texts - whether the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, or whatever - to legitimize the status quo or justify meanness. That makes me sick.
But beyond that, I’ve been thinking of economic injustice the most. I’ve been asking how can we turn capitalism around so that it becomes an engine not just of win-lose competition … us versus them, me versus you … but instead becomes a catalyst for collaboration, you and me together for the common good. I guess you’d call it capitalism with a conscience. I’m really inspired dreaming about an ethical buying movement, where we use the democracy of dollars to work for global social justice. Wouldn’t it be great to go into a store and find a code or rating on every product … so that we had the chance to choose products that were produced by means that are socially and environmentally sustainable? I really believe that’s something that we as people of faith could make happen, and it could make a real difference for billions of people.
we agree with you, that as Christians we have spent a lot of our time & energy in the wrong place–focusing on what we need to do to get to heaven, instead of thinking about how to live out the Kingdom here on earth. what are some ways you believe we can live the Kingdom now?
For Jesus, it starts with how we treat our neighbors. So you’re white and you’re getting on the bus or you’re walking into a party - where do you sit and who do you try to get to know? Another white person of your social class and race? Or do you specifically look for “the other” - the woman with a Muslim head scarf, or the kid with a bunch of tattoos, or the African American teenager standing in the corner? A smile on the sidewalk, an extra kind word in the check-out line … these small actions add up.
Of course, it’s an election year, and so we all need to take voting seriously. As I see it, as a follower of Jesus, I can’t simply vote my self-interest. I have to vote on behalf of the salmon and the warblers and the desert tortoises who don’t have anyone voting for them. I need to vote on behalf of the innocent kid in Iran who might be bombed pre-emptively if we elect a warrior president. I need to vote for the poor farmers in Sierra Leone - whose lives would be way better if we had a president dedicated to using American power as a good neighbor, not as an imperial power. That sort of thing comes to mind.
Ironically, for those of us who believe that heaven is a gift of grace, not something we have to work for or achieve … we of all people really don’t need to be preoccupied with that any more, so we should be of all people most free and ready to invest our lives for the least, the last, and the lost, as Jesus did.
In the book, I try to help people understand how to make a difference by looking at the world in terms of three interlocking systems - a prosperity system, a security system, and an equity system. I think that we can find ways to function in each of these systems according to kingdom-of-God values … and we can be agents of the kingdom in all our daily actions.
you are a spiritual activist, calling out some things that you believe are wrong with the system. how do you live out what God has layed on your heart even though the system doesn’t like it very much? does it make you angry, others’ responses to you, calling you a liberal heretic among other things? what do you do with your anger? how do you not get cynical? (we are taking notes)
If religion is the opiate of the masses, as Marx said, then cynicism is the opiate of intellectuals and the graveyard of activists who burn out. So you’re so wise to see the dangers of cynicism and bottled up anger - which turns to bitterness and ruins your ability to serve others in love. I don’t like being criticized, but I try to keep a few things in mind. First, as the singer Jackson Browne said, if you have a few real true friends, somehow all the other ones are easier to bear. So I cherish my friends as never before when I find a lot of people lining up as critics.
Second, I remember I’m a sinner, which normally isn’t very hard because I’m constantly proving the fact. The worst thing anyone has ever said about me isn’t as bad as what I know about myself, and nothing compared to what God knows about me. In this way, critics are what you could call “cruel friends” - they do you an immense service of helping keep you humble. Third, I try to remember that people who criticize me are just doing what they think is right. I’ve criticized a lot of people unfairly or in ignorance myself through the years, so how can I be angry at others for doing what I myself have done? Fourth, I remember Scriptures like Paul’s words in Colossians, where we’re called to forgive others as God has forgiven us in Christ, or I recall the Lord’s prayer, where Jesus teaches me to forgive as I would have God forgive me.
Fifth, I realize that I can learn a lot from criticism. Some is just mean, and you have to filter that out. But some criticism is constructive and a great learning opportunity. Sixth, I pray a lot. There’s a beautiful prayer someone gave me - it’s by a Serbian Orthodox bishop, and it’s called “prayer for enemies.” People can find it on my website …. brianmclaren.net. That prayer has helped me so much, I can hardly say. It begins, “Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.” Then it lists all the ways enemies and critics help us. “Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so do I, pursued by enemies, find safer shelter in the shadow of your wings” - it’s really beautiful and inspiring and challenging.
But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t add that sometimes I just fail and the anger gets the best of me, and I start to get discouraged and overwhelmed. Often, at that point, God sends along some encouragement through a friend or a reader or someone I meet. So ultimately, I feel that I’m upheld by a power far greater than I can take any credit for.
there are all kinds of labels people have given to describe you–liberal, nonorthodox, neoevangelical. how would you like to be described?
Hmmm. I guess I’d like to be known as a fallible human being who is trying to learn to follow Jesus. As a human being, I have something in common with everyone in the world - Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Catholic, Protestant, whatever. And as someone trying to learn to follow Jesus, I am called to serve everyone and love them as my neighbor, which flows from loving the God who loves us all. But my guess is that this can’t be reduced to a functional label very well!
okay, last question, this is a practical one. the refuge is a rag-tag community of Christ-followers. we’re pretty messed up ourselves, without alot of resources, but we have huge hearts to impact the Kingdom. what are some things we could do as individuals to do to start a “revolution of hope” in a really practical way?
At the end of “Everything Must Change,” I really grapple with this question, and I decide not to come up with a list, but simply to focus on one thing: faith. I believe the most radical thing we can do is to disbelieve the many framing stories that are given to us, and believe the story given to us by Jesus.
If we have that shift in confidence, I think it will work out in a thousand really exciting ways. In fact, we’ll be developing a blog where people can share ideas about what they’re doing and how it’s going. And that will be a major function of the tour we’re doing early next year too - to help people dream together and share ideas.
Thankfully, there are so many great organizations that we can team up with. Amahoro-africa.org, floresta.org, sojo.net, emergentvillage.com, World Vision, the One Campaign and the MIcah Challenge are some of my favorites.
But let me just add one more practical idea. I think passionate people like you all could do something really interesting and enjoyable: throw parties for your neighbors. Just get people together. Have some games, help people get-acquainted, have some good food, wear name tags, share email addresses and phone numbers. Then the host could say something like this: “I’m really glad everyone came over, because I think we all feel that the world needs a lot of change, and I’m hoping we can try to be good neighbors for each other. In other words, we know the world needs a lot of change, and we can make a little start there by being the kind of neighborhood that would make the world a better place. That’s why we wanted to get everyone together, and if you have any ideas, I’m ready to help.” Then see if anyone has an idea. No prayers, no sermons, just an act of good will toward your neighbors. I think that if a bunch of us did this sort of thing, pretty soon people would be talking about God, because a good neighbor is a sign of the kingdom of God, at least I think that’s one thing Jesus was telling us.
brian mclaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. married to Grace, they have four young adult children. you can learn more about brian & organizations he is involved with at www.brianmclaren.net.
check out info for the everything must change 2008 tour here (tracy howe collaborated with brian on a CD that is companion to the book & is part of the tour. details here)
to order everything must change, click here
check out this brian mclaren YOUTUBE video for an overview of everything must change
we always say at the refuge that we are just babies at this. we are less than 2 years old, toddlers, really, when it comes to planting a new community. a few months ago we met a pastor of a sweet little church in east denver who told us that his congregation was pretty young—only 22 years old! it made us laugh because we always think we’re so far behind. then we remember that most of our friends who are pastoring other communities have been at it a long time; they are 8, 9, 10 years ahead of us. sometimes we get really distorted thinking, kind of like the toddler or preschooler who thinks they should be able to do something that the older kids are doing. they get frustrated because they just…can’t. there are many things we’d love to do and try and experience but we just aren’t quite ready for it yet. maturity takes too long!
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