Interview with Author Brian McLaren

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Brian and I first met in 1999 when we were both pastoring on the East Coast. Ever since, Brian’s courage to address issues that matter to common good and his generosity towards those who are different has been contagious. Brian helped me love my own religious tradition more deeply and more patiently while also feeding the holy discontent with religion as we know it. I asked him about his upcoming book Everything Must Change. (Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope, Thomas Nelson, 2007)

Samir: I’d like to read a few quotes from your new book and ask you to comment briefly on them. I’m especially interested in how these quotes relate to the vision for Faith House. This first quote comes right after you introduce the central questions the book tries to answer:

All these questions may sound too religious for your taste already. If you have no religious commitment and even if you have a strong anti-religious commitment, I certainly sympathize. Those of us who are deeply involved in the religious community see abundant reasons to be cynical about religion. Though we see many signs of hope, goodness, and resurrection, the truth is that we often keep faith in spite of religion, not because of it. But whatever your background, I think you’ll agree on the most pragmatic level: if [our global] problems are as big as they seem to be, we’ll need all the help we can muster to address them, including the help of the religious community. (pp. 12-13)

Brian: This does relate to the vision of Faith House, and to your own life story, Samir. I know that you come from a Muslim family, and that you spent many years as an atheist before coming to embrace the faith of Christian tradition. You know that many people are atheists because they have seen the downsides of religion. And many people are Muslims because they’ve seen the downsides of Christianity and atheism, and many people are Christians because they’ve seen the downsides of atheism and Islam. We’re all good at seeing the downsides of other people’s commitments and beliefs, and we could spend forever arguing about them. Meanwhile, we’re facing not only new problems but also new kinds of problems these days. So many of our problems are global now – from nuclear weapons that could destroy us all, to global climate change that could destroy us all, to global economic collapse that could bring all our nations to a standstill. So I don’t think we can afford to let our future be determined by religious battles that distract us from this. We have to recruit people from each religion to address the new global problems we face, and that requires – not pretending that all religions are the same, because they’re not – but rather it requires us to invite people from each religion into process of learning how to work together as neighbors for the common good. As Christians, I think the idea of reaching out to our neighbors should come very naturally to us; after all, Jesus had a lot to say about loving our neighbors, not to mention strangers and enemies.

Samir: That’s where you go next in your book. You talk about the Christian religion’s pivotal role in our world because it is the largest:

In addition, since the Christian religion is the biggest religion in the world (with about 2 billion adherents, or 33 percent of the world’s population), whatever constructive things Jesus might have to say about our top global problems could be important in determining our world’s future. This would be the case at the very least because solutions in sync with Jesus’ life and teachings might get more buy-in among his professed followers. Add to that the fact that Islam is the world’s second biggest religion (about 1.3 billion adherents, or 21 percent of the world’s population) and that Muslims revere Jesus as a great prophet, and you discover even more practical value in seeing Jesus’ teachings in relation to today’s global problems.

Brian: This is really one of the key themes of my life – this belief that the issue isn’t Christianity, but Jesus. Depending on your background and what you’re exposed to, the Christian religion can have more or less credibility and appeal. But Jesus has an almost universal appeal. So that’s where I want to work from – not a “Christianity-centered” viewpoint, but from a Christ-centered viewpoint. In the book, I try to take Jesus’ teachings and example and show what resources they can bring to people today in grappling with global crises – whatever the religion of the people is who are getting involved. I don’t want to make the Christian religion the issue, or Western Civilization the issue, or whatever … I want to help people see the resources that Jesus offers to everybody as we and future generations face unprecedented global crises.

Samir: That’s where you go in the final paragraph of this section:

Beyond the Christian and Islamic religions, which together account for more than half the world’s people, and which together share a high regard for Jesus, we could add that many Hindus (14 percent of the world’s population, Buddhists (6 percent), Jews (0.22 percent), and even nonreligious people (16 percent) admire Jesus – even though they may be less enthusiastic about the religion that bears his name.

Brian: This is one reason why I’m so enthusiastic about the work of Faith House, Samir. The old “ecumenical movement” did a lot of good and opened a lot of doors. And current inter-religious or interfaith dialogue brings much to the table that we need. But ultimately, people need to see Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists and others working it out in a neighborhood, on the ground, living as neighbors and friends and colleagues – not hiding their differences, but modeling a way of loving one another across those differences. I hope this book will be a resource for the work you and others committed to Faith House are doing. We’re all in this together.

Samir: When is the book coming out, and how can people get it?

Brian: It comes out October 2. Of course, people can order it online, but it’s especially helpful during the first week if they go into a bookstore and buy a copy. Barnes and Noble, in particular, is making a big commitment to the book, so it would be great if people could drop by and pick up a copy.

Samir: Thank you and keep on writing!

You can check out Brian's resourceful website and meet him in person during the Everything Must Change Tour 2008.

Comments

[Nathan Brown]

Thanks for sharing this. Some interesting and challenging thoughts. I shall look forward to catching up with the book.