Mary Lee Talbot
Staff Writer
In a post on his website, the Rev. Brian D. McLaren wrote that “in this agonizing time, we must do all we can to preserve and rebuild our own humanity.”
How do we do that?
“For some of us, ‘all we can’ means running for political office. For some of us, it means supporting good and humanizing organizations with our money and energy and time. For some of us, it means using our citizenship and voice to vote and call and boycott and buycott and protest and post and like and subscribe and unsubscribe,” he wrote. “For some, it means making music and poetry and art that helps us stay human … that invites us to feel and not turn away … to face and not pretend.”
McLaren will serve as chaplain for Chautauqua during Week Nine. He will preach at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday morning ecumenical worship service in the Amphitheater. His sermon title is “Rediscovering the Bible for Our Troubled Times.”
He will also preach at the 9:15 a.m. morning worship services Monday through Friday in the Amp. His sermon titles include “The Biblical Law as Traditioned Innovation,” “The Biblical Prophets as Visionaries of a Renewed Tradition,” “Jesus as Interpreter of Tradition,” “Paul’s Tradition in Travail” and “Apocalypse as Tradition Disrupter.”
McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” that is just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good.
He serves as dean of the faculty for the Center for Action and Contemplation and a podcaster with Learning How to See. He is a co-host of Southern Lights, a conference at Epworth by the Sea on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. A prolific author, his latest books are Faith After Doubt; Do I Stay Christian?; and Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart. His co-authored children’s book, Cory and the Seventh Story, was released in 2023. The first book of a new science fiction trilogy, The Last Voyage, was published in May 2025.
McLaren is an Auburn Senior Fellow, a contributor to We Stand With Love, and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training and mentoring program for pastors and church planters.
