Life After Doom – Book Review
Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, by Brian McLaren, May 2024. Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 9781399814195, 305 pages. RRP £10.99 (paperback)
It took me longer to read than I expected but it’s worth it. McLaren anticipated it would be read by Christians and potentially by others. He writes in a way that can address both.
I warmed to the “permission” to miss sections if you are well-briefed already or suspect you might find it upsetting to engage in a deeper dive. What Life After Doom does particularly well is acknowledge the emotional impacts of more fully contemplating global heating. It calmly pictures the kinds of logical space for responses and also our emotional journeys. He draws on pastoral experience to attend to these respectfully. So this becomes a book not only to navigate our own responses but also to accompany others as they navigate theirs.
There is personal transparency in the story-telling, creating a kind of shared journey encouraging brave honesty. McLaren encourages us to engage with spiritual practices that equip us to attend to reality and be bolstered to face the challenges. I found helpful his characterising of the human mind as a kind of committee, with naming the members and their roles as a good conceptual tool. There are well-curated, wise insights from psychology and spirituality. I liked the distilling of insight and helpful quotes.
We’re gently reminded that it is consonant with Christian history to do the inner work. Perhaps we need new versions of the old penitential manuals to aid the examination of conscience, making reparation and amendment of life? These could be resourced by insights such as this: “You will know you have not dismounted from the destructive stories … when someone criticizes conventional theology or conventional economics and you feel that they are criticizing you… You will know you have dismounted … when you can voice the critique yourself. … we will feel that although we are still in the civilization, we are no longer of it. It no longer defines us.”
McLaren passes my ‘hope’ test; towards the end of the relevant chapter he writes: “Hope is complicated. But writing this book is helping me to see that even if hope fails, something bigger can replace it, and that is love.” Shades of 1 Corinthians 13, I thought.
In the chapter on seeking indigenous wisdom, one of the real insights for me was that the Bible is actually an example of indigenous wisdom. “The Bible begins to take shape as colonizer civilizations are taking over. It is written and preserved by indigenous leaders who want nothing to do with any kind of exploiting civilization and its idols.”
For encouragement I quote: “Don’t worry if people call you a hypocrite because you haven’t made progress in all areas of your life: of course you are a hypocrite! None of us have arrived at perfect consistency with our values and ideals … better to be a hypocrite who is growing than a critic or cynic who is doing nothing but criticizing good people who are doing their imperfect best to change and grow!”
Andii Bowsher
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