Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope: part the second

In chapter six McLaren invites us to revisit the questions about what are the biggest problems facing the world and shares some of the ones he considers most on the ball, including the Copenhagen consensus, the millennium development goals, Rick Warren's PEACE plan and the UN questions about development. He also reminds us of Einstein's dictum that no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. He then mentions the work of the New Vision group who identify three main challenges [global poverty, environmental destruction and increasing violence] and diagnose the common root to be a disease of ideology.

Chapter seven could have been entitled 'The Suicide Machine'. It explores the metaphor of human systems (machines) which have become interlocked to produce human extinction, ultimately. This machine, he analyses to be composed of three interdependent subsystems. One is dedicated to prosperity, another to security and the final one to equity.

Chapter eight looks at that analysis in terms of how it sits within the earth's ecosystem. This employs a helpfully designed diagram to make the points clearer about energy flows and the size of the economy relative to the ecosystem. Much of the information is well-known, but not necessarily by some of the target readership, and the way that it is put over may be helpful to those who are familiar with it already in giving a way to share our concerns simply and with some hope of being effective.

In the next chapter we consider the importance of what McLaren calls “framing stories”. He gives some examples of how the stories we tell ourselves about who we are will tend to affect the way we live; we will live out these stories both individually and corporately. The chapter then explores how each of the subsystems can move into dysfunction supported by various narratives legitimising the overall continuance of the dysfunction, the comparison to addiction and denial is well made. It is here that the “theocapitalist narrative” is identified and so labelled. It is against this background that McLaren now raises the possibility that Jesus may offer a 'framing story' that stands outside of the consciousness that created our global crises.
Amazon.co.uk: Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope: Books: Brian D. McLaren