Seeing Nature as a Visionary with Philip Clayton

Learning How to See with Brian McLaren

Center for Action and Contemplation

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 748 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How important is community in facing the climate crisis? What kinds of communities are helping you to live differently and find hope? In this episode, we’re learning to see nature through the eyes of a visionary. For this conversation, Brian McLaren is joined by Philip Clayton to discuss the urgent need for a shift in mindset, the transformative power of community, and the vital role of faith in building an ecological civilization. About the guest: Philip Clayton is a renowned scholar whose work spans philosophy, theology, and science, with a particular focus on ecotheology, exploring the intersection of climate science, ethics, religion, and social philosophy. Holding the Ingraham Chair at Claremont School of Theology and directing the PhD program in comparative theologies and philosophies, he has also taught at prestigious institutions like Yale, Williams College, and Harvard, publishing extensively with over two dozen books and 350 articles. Beyond academia, Clayton is the President of the Institute for Ecological Civilization (EcoCiv.org), working internationally to promote sustainable solutions, and also heads the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China, advocating for ecological civilization through various initiatives. When not immersed in scholarly pursuits, he enjoys cycling, refereeing soccer, and spending time outdoors with his family and dog. Resources: The transcript for this episode can be found here. Two of Brian's books have been referenced heavily this season. You can check them out at the following links, Life After Doom and The Galapagos Islands. To learn more about Philip, check out his website here. Find out more about musician April Stace here. Books mentioned during the interview: What is Ecological Civilization? by Philip Clayton and Andrew Schwartz The New Possible: Visions of Our World Beyond Crisis (Edited by Philip Clayton) Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson Eaarth by Bill McKibben Connect with us: Have a response to Brian's call to action at the end of this episode, or a question in general? Email us: podcasts@cac.org Send us a voicemail: cac.org/voicemail We'll be accepting questions for our Listener Questions episode until November 20th, 2024.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'd like to let you all in on a little bit of a secret. Most of the books I've written have been
0:08.9	nonfiction, although I have written some fiction. But my next book that will come out in 2025
0:15.2	is a work of science fiction. It's the first part of a trilogy, and this is the first time I've ever
0:20.9	written science fiction. I've been intrigued by science fiction since I was a teenager
0:28.1	and discovered that genre. Science fiction in many ways, it's often about a distant planet
0:34.8	or the distant future. But really, science fiction often is a way that we use a distant planet or the distant future. But really, science fiction often is a way that we use
0:40.9	a distant planet or a distant future to really talk about what's going on here and now. Somehow by
0:47.7	placing ourselves in a different world, we find ourselves able to better see what's going on in our world. There's a whole new genre of
0:58.4	science fiction that's often called clify or climate fiction. And it's trying to help us face and
1:05.3	understand what's going on with the changes in our own climate because of human interference with the natural systems of this earth.
1:13.6	And a lot of clify is very, very dark.
1:17.6	It tries to help us see where we're going, and that is a kind of scary experience.
1:23.6	And I think that kind of sci-fi and clify is very, very necessary. We need to be awakened from our slumber
1:31.3	to see where we're heading. We need a warning. But there's another kind of science fiction and
1:37.6	clify that doesn't stop at helping us see the trouble that we're plunging into. It also tries to help us
1:46.7	imagine what life could be like on the other side. It's a kind of visionary literature or film or
1:54.0	whatever media it takes. It's a way to help us imagine a better way of life that we could walk toward and create.
2:04.4	I think that's one of the reasons many people loved Star Trek.
2:07.0	It gave them a vision of human beings spreading out through the stars, finally learning
2:14.0	the prime directive, which has a lot in common with the great commandment to love others
2:19.4	as yourself, to not interfere, dominate, control, use others, but to respect them in their own journey.
2:26.6	And that's part of what I'm going to be trying to do in this science fiction trilogy that begins
	...

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