Quotes from Brian D. McLaren

When physical genocide ran its course, cultural genocide followed, reflected in the "compassionate" counsel of Captain Richard Henry Pratt: "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." Then

If you have the inner fire to stay in the struggle, may you know that you are walking a path that reformers, prophets, mystics, and sages have walked before you, including a fellow who grew up in Nazareth of Galilee and died just outside Jerusalem. APPENDIX V ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 1.

We are not scholars researching an ancient Chinese emperor — a matter of objectivity and disinterestedness; we are sons and daughters who want to get to know our father — someone with whom we have an essential relationship.

Fasting is] a way of making sure we haven't let the rhythms of the everyday put us to sleep, a way to make sure that our habits have not become addictions...

As Jesus continued, it became clear he was proposing a third way that neither the compliant nor the noncompliant had ever considered before. Aliveness won't come through unthinking conformity to tradition, he tells them. And it won't come from defying tradition, either. It will come only if we discern and fulfill the highest intent of tradition—even if doing so means breaking with the details of tradition in the process.

Some people--and I pray I will be one of them--never forget what it was like, which enables them to mentor people of any age.

the kind of person who wants to participate in the healing of the world is very different from the kind of person who wants to leave this world behind so she can go to a better one.

I'm raising the question of whether focusing on the afterlife beyond history can unintentionally but tragically lead to the abandonment of this earth and this life.

My concern is that by making heaven after this life the destination of our way, we are spiritually forming people who run away from fire, disease, and the violence of our world.

For those who regress, the fear of what lies beyond Complexity feels so terrifying, or the sense of belonging that is often found in strict Stage One communities feels so alluring, that they willingly resubmit to Stage One authority, or even authoritarianism.

Howard Thurman, one of America's greatest theologians said, "By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst.

If I could seriously ponder ending my life, then I can do anything. I can change anything in my life. So instead of ending my life altogether, I'll end my life as I've been living it and start a new kind of life. I can now see a third alternative to the status quo and suicide.

He had what we often lack — the maturity to see that faith isn't something you either have or don't have, but something that ebbs and flows in the life and soul of every individual. Doubt isn't the opposite of faith. It is an element of faith. Where there is absolute certainty, there can be no room for faith.

he encouraged them to explore their doubts, ask their questions, and express themselves honestly. Many people crave certainty. They don't want to have to think, agonize, or grapple with life's difficult questions for themselves. Instead they want dogma. They want guaranteed answers.

I so wish people had seen it your way, but I think too many of us have read the story to say it gives European white males carte blanche to play God over creation; so `having dominion' gives them a license to pollute and exploit.

Hannah Arendt explained in The Origins of Totalitarianism, decoupling politics from reality has a long history: "Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of the man who can fabricate it.

do we Christians want to continue to enfranchise scoundrels who hold the right beliefs but perpetuate harm?

Salman Rushdie said it well:  "Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives - the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change - truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.

The question that must be addressed is not how to care for the planet, but how to care for each of the planet's millions of human and natural neighborhoods, each of its millions of small pieces and parcels of land, each one of which is in some precious way different from all the others.

This rediscovery and rearticulation are necessary because so many elements of our Christian practice have lost their meaning and joy for us. For example, I can no longer sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" or other militant Christian hymns, knowing the harm done by the fusion of militaristic Christianity and colonialism.

one of the truest, most honest sentences of our lives: "Wow, we don't really know.

The wise preacher of Ecclesiastes might say, "There is a time for everything—a time to be laid-back and a time to be outraged; a time to be tolerant and a time to stand up and say, 'I'm not going to take this anymore.'" The challenge for all fighters, of course, is to be sure they find out what is now truly worth fighting against, and then to be sure they have something that is truly worth fighting for.

These emerging Christian leaders realize that if their message isn't good news for the poor, a message of liberation for the oppressed, it isn't the same message Jesus proclaimed.

For me, Carol, we can't be faithful to God unless we're faithful to the facts, faithful to the data if you will. And so, instead of hiding from evolution, I think we'd be more faithful to God to look it right in the eye and learn from it.