In this episode, Brian McLaren joins me to talk about The Great Rift, the second book in his Last Voyage trilogy. We discuss what happens when a community leaves a collapsing Earth for Mars and finds that the old world’s assumptions have come along. I ask Brian how real change happens, whether we can imagine anything beyond the systems we’re swimming in, and what it takes to move from survival to meaning. We also talk about artificial intelligence, ritual, the power of story in a crisis, and why rediscovering our connection to one another and the earth may be the most urgent work we have.
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, and public theologian who spent over 30 years as one of the most widely-read voices in progressive Christian theology. After the 2016 election, he began writing science fiction as a way to imagine the future honestly. His new novel, The Great Rift, the second book in a trilogy that began with The Last Voyage, releases November 3rd, 2026.
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