Brian McLaren On Loving A Doomed World
And finding hope in what comes after...
Greetings, you shining stars, you!
This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with the wise and thought-provoking Brian McLaren. A best-selling author, speaker, and Christian public theologian, Brian brings a deeply spiritual and practical lens to the most pressing challenges of our time. Their conversation explores how we can find clarity, resilience — even joy and calm* in the face of existential threats.
*BTW—Speaking of finding Calm, is it time to invest more in your best self?
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As a companion to Brian’s appearance on the podcast, we’re delighted to feature an excerpt from his latest book, Life After Doom. In it, Brian defines "doom" as more than a looming catastrophe; it’s a kind of “pre-traumatic stress disorder” that emerges when the old normal is collapsing, but no new normal has yet appeared. Doom, he explains, is “the emotional and intellectual experience shared by all who realize the dangerous future into which we are presently plunging ourselves, our descendants, and our fellow creatures.” Or put more simply: "Doom is the feeling we have when we know our problems are way bigger than our solutions and we feel things will get quite a bit worse before they get better."
But Life After Doom isn’t about the despair this foreboding brings—it’s about what comes after. It’s a guide to seeing clearly, grieving fully, and finding a path toward creative resilience. In the excerpt below, Brian invites us to reconsider how we engage and connect in a way that fosters healing, hope, and meaningful action. He reminds us that even in the face of doom, we can find our light—and illuminate the path for others.
Keep on shining,
The Soul Boom Team
Find Your Light and Shine It
By Brian McLaren
“You are the light of the world.”
—Indigenous prophet and contemplative activist Jesus
I would like to share the dream I cherish in the face of doom. But first, I would like to share an epiphany I had along the way in this writing process…It may seem utterly obvious and familiar to you already, but it was like a baptism into a new reality for me: I realized that everything is energy. The universe is a cosmic dance of energy.
...Matter is (metaphorically speaking) frozen energy. Every material thing is a container of potential energy... On this planet, life evolves to direct energy toward novelty and diversity, toward interdependence and community. Everything we humans do is about energy—eating, drinking, working, learning, loving.
The energy we take in through food was originally solar energy... The sun itself derives its energy from the original singularity, the Big Bang—the “Let there be light!” of Genesis 1. If written today, the Creator might say, “Let there be energy!”
Music and art creatively organize energy. Speaking and writing are energy. So are listening and reading. At this moment, you and I are engaged in an amazing exchange of energy. These collaborative acts of creativity and communication energize us, and they can spark new creativity in others, even generations from now.
What we call power—political, spiritual, or the power of love—is energy too…Love is like light passing through a prism, expressing itself in many colors: love for ourselves, for our mate…for the sound of a cello…these are all forms of energy, no less real than light or gravity…
The desire for energy is not evil; it is natural. Life is, we could say, a creative use of energy, and evolution is an ongoing trial and error experiment in energy discovery and sustainable use. This realization helped me release some of the blame and shame I’ve been feeling—blame of our species and shame as a member of our species. As I contemplate this insight, I am fascinated to feel a new surge of energy flowing in to fill the space that had been filled with blame and shame energy before: mercy energy, grace energy, compassion energy…
Our current situation . . . being part of a civilization torn between growth and decline, expansion and collapse . . . is all about energy: feeling unable to cut back on it, using too much of it too fast, running out of one source of it and struggling to find another. Our current situation is an energy drama, a significant moment in the evolution of life on Earth…
In dangerous times when familiar worlds fall apart, the things you’ve always depended on to provide you energy might fail you—gas stations, electrical grids, schools, political and religious institutions... And that’s why, as soon as possible, each of us must, if we can, find our light and shine it…
We need a personal energy conversion, from dirty energy—arrogance, rivalry, fear, greed, lust, domination, revenge—to clean energy: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. While scientists and engineers do important work on new energy technologies, and while activists and political players do important work on shifting the balance of social and political energy from personal and corporate wealth to ecological health, you and I can do important personal and spiritual work, engaging in an internal clean energy revolution.
Sarah Kendzior is an anthropologist who studies authoritarianism. She knows that in turbulent times, people grow afraid, and their fear is a kind of psychological energy… If we don’t learn how to control the psychological energy of our own fear and resentment, we can be sure others will exploit our emotional energy for their own selfish and destructive projects. That’s why, when Kendzior saw the authoritarianism she studied abroad growing in power in her own country, she promised to resist, and to help others resist. She wrote…
“You need to be your own light,”
For this old preacher, her words echoed words from Jesus, who lived in another dangerous time when worlds were falling apart. He said, “You are the light of the world.” When you find that light within you and let it shine, it not only helps you remember who you are, why you’re here, and what you love. It also helps others. People around you see your light, your love energy, and they remember that there is a light in the universe… call it Spirit, call it God, whatever… that can shine in and through them as well. The darker the night, the brighter the stars shine…
Instead of going along with the crowd until collapse comes and then finding yourself part of a panicking, unprepared, easily manipulated majority, do your inner work now.
First, you start waking up. You welcome reality. You learn to more intentionally and skillfully mind your mind… This inner work will help you let go…
Then, as you come to the place of accepting what you cannot control, you open yourself to insight. You learn to see and to cherish indigenous wisdom…you begin to discover the deep ecological wisdom our sacred texts offer. You find yourself increasingly able to hold back from judging everything in simple binaries of good and bad. You begin to see your life as a candle, temporary but blessed with the flame of life…That will help you to start with step one, which is admitting your powerlessness, for that is the only way to find new power, new energy.
That will bring you to a path forward, a path of creative resilience… not a nostalgic path backward to the “good old days” when life seemed easier…When your energy isn’t being drained by fear, you can imagine safe landings and new beginnings for yourself and future generations… You see the need, when times are tough, to grow tougher in character, which always includes kindness of heart, and you share this understanding with others, especially the young and the afraid.
Perhaps unexpectedly, through this sometimes terrifying engagement with doom, you feel yourself being set free… free of constraints and assumptions that were imposed upon you by an unsustainable, energy-addicted civilization… Suddenly, you feel privileged to be alive “in a time that matters so much.” You realize that…life will go on. And perhaps, in this process, you have your own epiphany…
It starts to be clear: the doom we face in our current civilization is a result of our misunderstanding… of energy, of overshoot, of what matters more (ecological and social health) and what matters less (monetary wealth). We realize that our civilization has become addicted to these misunderstandings because it has defined life as the rapid consumption and hoarding of energy rather than as the wise sharing of energy. We see our civilization collapsing into sadness, absurdity, and despair…
“But,” [contemplative activist Thomas Merton reminds us], “it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things; or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there…[W]e are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.”
Our civilization is not the point. Our species is not the point. If we are to exist, we must exist not for ourselves but for the health of the whole, for the joy of the cosmic dance, the dance of energy, light, love.
The oceans, the atmosphere, soil, the billions of living creatures on this planet today . . . they do not exist to sustain our civilization. They are vital participants in the cosmic dance. Our job is not to dominate and exploit them, but to share in the dance with them!
Detachment means disentangling from all delusions of separateness, so we can stop being wallflowers and join the dance of energy exchange that we call the universe. Detachment from our delusions of separateness is the portal to coming together with wisdom and courage when worlds fall apart.
That brings me back to the dream I have been trying to articulate….that in this time of turbulence…all of us with willing hearts can come together... not only in a circle of shared humanity, but in a sphere as big as the whole Earth, to rediscover ourselves as Earth’s multi-colored multi-cultured children, members of Team Earth.
I dream that… the wisdom of climate scientists and ecologists and spiritual visionaries from all faiths could be welcomed into every heart. Then, we would look across this planet and see not economic resources, but our sacred relations… We would see all land as holy land…. even in our cities, we would look up in wonder at the sky, and a marriage between science and spirit would allow us to marvel at the sacredness of sunlight, the wonder of wind, the refreshment of rain, the rhythm of seasons. At each meal, we would feel deep connection to the fields and orchards and rivers and farms where our food was grown, and we would feel deep connection to the farmers and farmworkers whose hands tended soil so we could eat this day with gratitude and joy.
In my dream, our life-giving connection to each other and to the living Earth would be fundamental, central, and sacred… and everything else, from economies to governments to schools to religions . . . would be renegotiated to flow from that fundamental connection…we would know God not as separate from creation, but as the living light and holy energy we encounter in and through creation… known most intimately in the energy of love.
The dance goes on, my loves, without us or with us. Why not join the dance while we have life? Why not find our light and shine bright, together, while we have this one holy moment to do so, even now?
From LIFE AFTER DOOM, by Brian D. McLaren. Copyright © 2024 by the author, and reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Brian McLaren is a best-selling author, speaker, and public theologian who is dedicated to exploring spirituality, social transformation, and the challenges of modern life. In Life After Doom, he reflects on how we can navigate the ecological, social, and spiritual crises of our time by embracing hope, wisdom, and resilience. Through his books, teachings, and activism, McLaren offers a vision for collective healing and renewal, inspiring individuals to engage with the world in deeper, more meaningful ways.
Great conversation. When both of you were talking about hope, I think what Mr. McLaren was talking about was complacency - hope with an attitude there’s nothing for me to do while hope that leads to action is called compassion. Where there is suffering there is also some action to take and the hope that drives it that says I may and can relieve some suffering.
This was so lovely. I can’t tell you how nice it was to listen to thoughtful and wise conversation. The world needs more of this. To LOVE- the great spiritual radical revolution.