To be honest, I do not think I was the target audience for this book. I did not enjoy reading it and the dooms day prophecy was disappointing. I agree that we should care for the planet and do what we can to help it remain sustainable. But this one was a difficult one in which to get invested and I forced myself to read the entire book.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Essentials for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

For more reviews, please visit my blog at: https://www.msladybugsbookreviews.com/. Over 1000 reviews posted!

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"I dream that the wisdom of indigenous people, the wisdom of St. Francis and St. Clare and the Buddha and Jesus, the wisdom of climate scientists and ecologists and spiritual visionaries from all faiths could be welcomed into every heart. Then we would look across this planet and see not economic resources, but our sacred relations ... brother dolphin and sister humpback whale, swimming in our majestic indigo oceans, with sister gull and brother frigate bird soaring above them beneath the blue sky. We would look across the land, and walk across sister meadow and brother forest, feel our kinship with brother bald eagle and box turtle, sister song sparrow and swallowtail butterfly, all our relations."

Ecological viewpoint: McLaren is a former pastor who wants to save the earth from doom. His book contains lots of research about ways that the earth could be protected. I agree with him that sometimes people (including religious folk) can be too flippant about how we take care of nature. There are ways that we could extend resources by being more conscientious. 4 stars

Worldview: McLaren is a bit all over the map in his background. He professes to value faith, but he also seems to believe in evolution and the Big Bang. Those two viewpoints seem to collide. He seems to think that if we could put aside our differences that changes could be made. He seems to see man as kind rather than prone to fighting and destruction. He quotes many different sources whose views seem incompatible. 2.5 stars

Biblical references: Of all the books quoted in this non-fiction title, the Bible appears the most. But McLaren does not seem to fully believe in what the Bible says. Heaven and he** do not make sense to him. Jesus seems to be heralded as just another prophet. Either one believes the Bible or doesn't. The in between perspective is confusing. 1 star

After I finished this book, I almost felt depressed. I am not sure there can be life after doom on this earth. I am holding out for the hope of heaven that Jesus my Savior offers to me upon my belief.

Final rating: 2.2 stars He is a decent writer, but his views are confusing. Unless the reader has a similar perspective of keeping religion in its place, frustration will result. Other than being challenged to be a better steward, I did not walk away with increased knowledge or hope.

I did read this book through NetGalley. Originally, I wanted to read this book, but I was less certain about the book the more I read. There was definitely some skimming going on just so I could complete it. All opinions are my own.

Much Needed. Timely. Many people will read this book too late. My heart these past two months needed this book. Thank you, Brian McLaren, for lamenting and hoping and challenging and offering action and words when all we see is actionless anxiety and a loss for words. A must-read.

Brian McLaren is just the right guy to write a book with this title. His outlook is so expansive, caring, and welcoming generally, that his optimism can be just the thing people need in this era. Things are rough these days, and although my review is a little late in the making, I think after the 2024 election many people will be looking especially for some hope after the doom and dread the election results portend. McLaren's work over the last couple decades has prepared him, and us, well, for the future. I thought his characterization of "doom" as that "un-peaceful, uneasy, unwanted feeling" that lingers in our minds and souls was spot on. I sometimes feel like humanity, and especially my own country, has lost its way. Not just like we are wandering around, but like we have literally 100% lost the plot of being human and instead have allowed our baser motives and instincts to rule us. It's depressing. Seriously depressing.

McLaren offers us some hope, though! (Starting off with a Dave Barry quote is always a good direction!) Citing the problems that face us (economies that exploit the environment, far right-wing political incivility and nastiness, "Christians" who prioritize right wing politics over actually being Christlike, McLaren knows that life is full of crappy things. (The included quote from Alex Jones talking about how he's ready to eat his neighbor when things go south completely summed up the epic dumpster fire that is American right wing politics in the 2020s.) Things are tough out here. Ultimately, McLaren wants us to know that hope can be found by embracing all of life, and living in the moment. Become as a child, with a Zen-like "beginner's mind" approach to life. We have to be willing to unlearn and relearn so much in order to move forward with hope.

The book is not explicitly religious, though those of a Judeo-Christian background will find McLaren knows how to speak their language, though his solutions ultimately might upset those who--in practice even if not in their own minds--put politics before the teachings of their God.

Brian McLaren was a pastor for many years, writing books on spirituality, but in LIFE AFTER DOOM, he steps away from that framework to consider how we might approach the global climate crisis, and considers whether it can be done without losing hope, particularly as there are plenty of other landmines our world is facing.

"LIFE AFTER DOOM is for everyone who has reached a point where not facing their unpeaceful, uneasy, unwanted feelings about the future has become more draining than facing them."

Each chapter ends with a "Dear Reader" section, with a summary and list of questions and prompts that can be used individually or in a group.

McLaren does not shy away with hard facts, but he encourages readers to be sensitive to their reactions and step away or skip sections if necessary. Early on, McLaren outlines four likely scenarios that he then refers to throughout the remainder of the book:

Scenario 1: Collapse Avoidance
Scenario 2: Collapse/Rebirth
Scenario 3: Collapse/Survival
Scenario 4: Collapse/Extinction

Each chapter opens with a collection of quotations to set the theme, many of which I was drawn to, like this one by Vaclav Havel:

"Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing regardless of how it turns out.... [This] hope...gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now."

The "Hope is Complicated" chapter, which opens with the Havel quotation, also included this: "Miguel De La Torre says that the best alternative to hope is not despair, but desperation, 'because desperation propels me toward action.'" McLaren doesn't shy away from hard realities, but he finds ways to inject hope and perseverance in what too often feels like an impossible challenge.

LIFE AFTER DOOM is full of statistics and facts and I had to pace myself; when I hoped for brief reprieves from a contentious election season, this book was sometimes set aside for others that allowed a temporary escape from all that we are facing. Yet it is a welcome resource for anyone wanting to process the very real challenges ahead, particularly if you are interested in a pastoral perspective.

(Thank you to St. Martin's Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.)

I can’t read this book right now. As the author helpfully states in the first chapter, it’s not for people who are struggling with their own anxiety or depression. The book initially appealed to me because I thought it would be helpful for my anxiety, but after reading the first chapter, it was spiked. I skimmed through some of the rest, hoping to find something that looked helpful, but didn’t get there. I think this may work for me at another point in my life, but not now.

I was not impressed with this book at all. I didn't see where it was going and what the author wanted to say. I would not recommend this book.

This was very thought provoking, although I did feel that it was a bit of a downer. I appreciated his points of view on the malaise that comes from living in fraught times. I think this book could have used a bit of levity to lighten it up a bit, but it is very well-written and researched. I will definitely revisit it.

This book was a confusing hodge-podge of ideas and information, bad news followed by insistence that we persevere in hope, but no clear description of where we might focus that hope…or how…or why. I don’t buy the idea that the best human ideas that got us to this point in history will get us out of the mess McLaren so aptly describes. I guess I thought he’d have something more to offer, but I found this a grim reading experience without much hope.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book for review.

Definitely a book of doom and gloom, but McClaren does his best to bring hope. It’s down to Earth and full of info that’s convincing.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book.

I hope many people read this book. Because despite the four possible scenarios that McLaren lays out, you still come away feeling hopeful. Not hopeful that we'll quickly stop the damage we're inflicting on our planet, but hopeful that we can possibly maintain our values and humanity throughout the challenges.

The four scenarios are:

1: Collapse Avoidance Scenario
This is the scenario we want, the one where governments, businesses, and citizens unite with urgency to stabilize our climate crisis.

2: Collapse/Rebirth Scenario
This scenario is a gradual decline with survivors who can rebuild communities and economies in new ways.

3: Collapse/Survival Scenario
This scenario is like the dystopian movies we’ve seen, where the few survivors face unimaginable conditions.

4: Collapse/Extinction Scenario
Well, you can figure this one out. It's the worst.

If it comes to this:
“Standing on the brink of oblivion (to use Ernst Becker’s phrase) we feel arising within us this sustained declaration: We will live as beautifully, bravely, and kindly as we can as long as we can, no matter how ugly, scary, and mean the world becomes, even if failure and death seem inevitable.”

McLaren occasionally draws from his own Christian tradition in the book, but also values insights from other religions, philosophies, and indigenous traditions. We all are neighbors on this planet, and we’ll need to be in solidarity on how to heal it.

“Do you see why I keep coming back to the Serenity Prayer? I do not know for certain whether our current doom trajectory can be changed with courage, or if it should be accepted with serenity. I do not yet have that wisdom. The only thing I know is that I want to set a moral course for myself, without judging others if they take another course.”

McLaren includes lots and lots of resources in this book for wise actions we can take, for information we can read, for people we can listen to, and for support we can find.

Reading books like Life After Doom is a powerful way to get started.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the review copy of this book.

If i had realized that this was the author of Faith After Doubt, I wouldn't have even picked up this book. Faith After Doubt was not helpful and neither is this book. I got halfway through the book and couldn't take it any longer. There were no practical ways to truly adapt to the world. There are good points, especially about how hope can be dangerous.
The author depresses you at the beginning of the book and by halfway through the answers were to read your Bible stories & take faith and face reality. Really? There is a suggestion to see how the Indigenous people bounced back after their world ended. They haven't bounced back and it's ignorant to suggest we look to people whose world ended because of us.
I didn't finish this; I couldn't.

A contemporary take on where we as a society are headed, but there is hope. I think this would be a better read as a book club or with a friend, because there’s so much to unpack.

It’s the end of the world as we know it. And we’re not fine.

So what can we do?

In Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, Brian McLaren considers our present predicament and how we might deal with it.

He began by describing the possible ways climate change and civilization plays out. Some of the models involve a lot of suffering but most of us would find them not entirely intolerable. Some of the models involve the complete collapse of everything we hold dear, and ourselves.

For many this is all overhyped and excessive. It won’t be that bad, they think. It can’t be that bad. This kind of bargaining is commong, as the author well knows, and has experienced himself. None of us want to think it could be that bad. No one can really imagine the end of everything he or she knows.

But that hasn’t ever been able to stop it when things do get that bad, and everything a person knows is gone. Ask the Israelites of the Exile. Ask the western world of the fifth and sixth centuries.

But the book is about life after doom. How to live in light of all these matters? The author addresses the way things are and how they have come about. He points out how we got here because of our colonialist/dominionist heritage of exploitation. He wants us to call in the poets. He wants us to heed indigenous wisdom - although his definition of “indigenous,” which probably does not originate with him, is pretty expansive. He would like to appeal beyond the religious, but the author’s heritage in Christianity and that perspective informs everything. He wants to prepare you for the end of everything; how well one might feel prepared by the end is another story.

But he does not want it to be all about doom and despair. He wants to encourage hope in doing what can be done. The author does well to remind us how this will not be the end of the world: it would seem the earth has been as hot as it is now before, and much more. The earth will persevere until the Lord comes; it might just not be as amenable or comfortable for us. So whatever we can do can at least marginally improve our conditions and perhaps also for the future. We live at arguably one of the greatest times to be alive; our goal should not be to enjoy everything to the hurt and harm of all who come afterward, but to find ways to conserve and preserve our environment.

It is harder today to deny the changes to our climate than it was a decade ago; no doubt it will continually prove harder to deny them, despite all the work of those who profit by the status quo to try to do so. We do well to consider how we can live within our means as human beings on a finite planet without depleting all the finite resources. We cannot know exactly what will be; but, as in all things, we do best when we are prepared for the worst while doing what we can to make it for the best.

This book from McLaren answered some of my questions why Christians have not been very concerned about climate change. One insight was the rise of dispensationalism. It taught that the world has to get destroyed so there is really no motivation to save the earth. Another insight was the merging of Christianity and capitalism. He also reminds us of the world we were taught to believe exists – one with unlimited resources to fuel economic prosperity.

My father was a logger and I really like McLaren's analogy of cutting down a big tree. You might saw and saw, moving several inches in. Nothing happens. Perhaps you come back later and saw some more. Still nothing happens. You saw a little more and suddenly you hear a crack. Perhaps the tree falls then. Perhaps it stays upright for a day or two until a wind causes the tree to go past the tipping point and it crashes to the ground. We have been sawing on the tree for some time, thinking nothing bad was happening. Now we are beginning to hear the wood cracking.

McLaren draws from a number of spiritual disciplines. His theology does not correspond to evangelical Christianity so evangelicals will probably ignore this book. That is unfortunate as McLaren encourages us, among other things, to develop critical thinking. That is a skill that would benefit us all. He also encourages us to live with wisdom and courage in the coming years.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

Life after Doom - Hope in the chaos. McLaren is a beacon of clarity when it seems to grow darker around us by the day. Thank you for the Arc - this work will be an encouragement at my side table for years to come.

Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart by Brian D. McLaren is an exploration of how to live during these difficult times McLaren says, "we humans have made a mess of our civilization and our planet, and not enough of us seem to care enough to change deeply enough or quickly enough to save ourselves." He offer insights into how we can better deal with the doom of all the various things we are bombarded with every day. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

This was a very hard read for me. I typically enjoy self help books but I didn't find much to hang onto here. It was suggested to read it with a friend to process it together and maybe that would help.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very thought-provoking book. I've never read a book before that addressed the climate crisis from a religious perspective, so it was great to have a chance to read a book where someone finally addresses that.

Brian McLaren, a child of the church, has a unique perspective on many topics: religion, the church, human interaction. In Life After Doom, he takes on the notion that a significant part of, our world is in despair over things we think we have no control over. Like all of McLaren’s books, it is an invitation to conversation. In fact, Brian poses questions at the end of his chapters, for our personal reflection, but better still to lead us into conversation with one another, and with the world.

The subject matter is heavy. It is about the fate of the world in the face of the massive ecological damage we have done to the planet. Some of it is hard to read. But it will be important that many read this volume. We need to be educated and we need to not hide our heads in the sand. A courageous work