When It Does Harm, Step Away

Brian McLaren grew up in the Plymouth Brethren community, a very conservative Christian group. From his childhood, he was taught that the earth was an evil place, doomed to be destroyed by fire in the Last Judgment. Fortunately, he and his fellow believers would be taken up to be with Jesus before the final destruction would occur. In the absence of Christians, things would get worse and worse on Earth until Jesus would return for the last time and ultimately destroy this wicked Earth in a battle called “Armageddon”.

Christians would watch this destruction from a safe place called Heaven, and would then turn from the sight to spend “eternity” in a place of unending joy and bliss, an unending feast. The billions who did not “accept Jesus into their hearts” would get what they deserve in an eternal lake of fire called “hell”. Using ingenious twists of theological logic, it was taught that the horrific fate of the damned, even if that included those we loved on earth, would not bother us throughout eternity. (Some theologians posit that Christians will rejoice in the condemnation of the damned because “God’s Justice” has been served, and that is the highest good. NV)

“Looking back, I feel sad for nine-year-old me being subjected to this teaching. What does it do to a child morally, to be told to rejoice in my individual eternal destiny, singing about being saved week after week, thanking God for salvation in prayer after prayer, and yet remain so numb to the destruction and damnation of all my fellow human beings who were not saved, redeemed, justified, elect, born again, orthodox, or otherwise exempt from damnation, however described? How was I supposed to consider all the beauties of the Earth, all the forests, mountains, rivers, and oceans, all the creatures who live within them, creatures that as a nine-year-old boy I already loved…and then think that their entire reason for existence was to serve as cheap, disposable props in a drama whose only stars were God, angels and the members of my religion?” (63)

Aside from what this narrative does to (young) minds, it promotes a theological narrative that “is both socially disengaged and anti-ecological. It says little or nothing about our need to be engaged with movements for social justice, anti-racism, poverty reduction, violence reduction, and the like. The story is about other things entirely”. (65)

McLaren notes that conventional capitalism – the “economic story that upholds our current global civilization” (65-6) – leads to the same result: social disengagement and ecological destruction. The two fit and work together like a hand in a glove: the capitalist way of life takes its legitimacy from the traditional Christian escapist narrative: both produce a culture in which social concerns are a side issue, and because destruction of the environment is inevitable (even desirable!), we can blithely continue to “drill, baby, drill”. Both of these narratives will destroy the Earth. “Working together, religious and economic fundamentalism will push us over the ledge, singing a hymn and counting corporate profits as we go.” (69)

If anything is going to be done to change the course of events, we “will need to identify with the stories told by both religious fundamentalism and economic fundamentalism. (We) will need to break up with the ideologies and narratives that have intimately shaped (us).” (69)

At the beginning of the chapter, McLaren quotes the contemplative monk Thomas Merton: “When I criticize a system, they think I criticize them – and that is of course because they fully accept the system and identify themselves with it.” (60).

McLaren concludes this chapter by referring to the Merton quote: “You will know you have not dismounted from the destructive stories of the current theo-economic system when someone criticizes conventional theology or conventional economics and you feel they are criticizing you. You will know you have dismounted from the stories of the current system when you can voice the critique yourself.” (70-1)