Podcast: Brian McLaren | A Galapagos Spirituality

When Brian McLaren got a call from his editor asking if he’d like to travel to the Galapagos Islands and write about it it took all of a few seconds to agree. The book he wrote is called The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey. In this episode, Jim Stump talks to him about the book and about a theology that is informed by wild places and the scientific knowledge that helps us understand those places.

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This was one of the ones that resonated with me the most. It’s in nature that I feel closest to God and able to appreciate him the most outside of how he’s read he’s out to us.

I’ll probably never visit the island but I also enjoy nature locally. The native flora and fauna and the habitat they develop are some of my favorite.

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Glad to hear you enjoyed! It does sound like quite an adventure that would be amazing to go on!

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Definitely. Especially since you can mix science and history together so well. One thing I really have been enjoying is visiting local state and national champion trees. I visited the Jefferson Oak yesterday and finally found a native pawpaw tree. The dwarf pawpaw tree that I’ve been looking for about 5 years. There are three other trees I want to see also. I want to see an American chestnut and a south Alabama native ozark chinquapin. Though I would settle for any lol. Lastly, I want to see a redwood in person.

I’ve actually never read any books by Darwin but now I want too. I’ve been searching for that one ecology book by the other person here and can’t find it so I think I’ll have to contact him for it but he said it’s ok.

I always like to imagine how beautiful the world had to be when the first humans were here. Clear skies, non fractured wilderness. Two animals that I am really curious about is the american mammoths and Giant American ground sloth. I actually got interested in them because of my desire to find the pawpaws in the wild. They believe that the pawpaws coevolved to be eaten by giant ground sloths and smaller mammoths and they helped spread them. Same way I learned about Zebra Swallowtail butterfly because the pawpaw is it’s host plant.

For the podcast series it’s definitely one of my favorite ones so far. The other ones I really liked was the one about humus and human focused on the dirt in the Bible, the one about the evolution of whales, the beetles episode, the fossil episodes and now this one. Been long enough I think I can start the entire series over again and still really enjoy it and try to pick out even newer things listening through again.

It was one of my favorites too!

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Not had time to check this one out yet but looks good.

Out of interest, is this the Brian McLaren, emergent church leader and writer of A Generous Orthodoxy?

The very same! :slight_smile: Hope you enjoy.

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I listened to this podcast while on my daily Shelter-In-Place walk around my neighborhood today. I now have two books – “The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey” and “A New Kind Of Christianity” – on order! Thank you, Jim Stump and Brian McLaren, for this engaging and inspirational conversation. Food for my heart and mind.

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I’ve been putting up feeders in my garden for the birds. Watching them has helped me to remind me of Jesus’ saying on the flowers (moreso than the birds of the air), if God made them with such beautiful forms, how much moreso has he made us?

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Welcome to the Forum, @Joanne_Salcido! We are glad that you enjoyed the episode. Those books are certainly on my list now, too!

Catching up on some podcasts the last couple of days. The entire series has been great, but this one was definitely on the short list of the best.

Thanks for all you guys do for the faith and science conversation!

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Thanks for listening, Mike!