Ep. 69 We Don’t Have to Live This Way w/ Derrick Jensen

Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus

Episode Summary:

Living in the United States is a daily dose of trauma. Our nation is philosophically and pragmatically built on injustice, coercion, lies, oppression, exploitation, violence, dehumanization, and planetary destruction. Do we ever stop to think about how messed up the world is? The answer, of course, is an overwhelming no. We are living in what theologian John Dominic Crossan called a domination system—shorthand for a way of organizing society in a hierarchical, patriarchal, power-driven arrangement where the masses are politically oppressed, economically exploited, and socially marginalized. This same system has an almost demonic disregard for the environment. Worse yet, the largest Christian movement in the United States (white evangelicals) can be counted on to support it all. It’s madness writ large dressed in drag as the “American Dream.” We don’t seem to realize it, but most of us are suffering from Complex PTSD simply for existing in this dirty, rotten system.

Worse, we live in a culture of lies. As today’s podcast guest Derrick Jensen writes, “In order for us to maintain this way of life, we must tell lies to each other, and to tell lies to ourselves. Truth must be avoided at all costs.” The truth about our economy, about our dying planet, about violence and domination at the family and cultural level; truth about the daily injustices that rule our lives in this decaying empire. Life doesn’t have to be this way. We can work together to create a more just and equitable world. We can carve out subversive spaces even if we will never be able to leave these shores for a different home. But, how do we do it? How do we speak truth to power? How do we challenge a culture that silences the least of these? How do we push back on the religious, political, economic, and social domination systems that rule our lives and malform our bodies and our planet? How do we confront evil and injustice without losing our souls? How, as Christians, can we resist the dominant culture and live into what Dr. Martin Luther King called “the beloved community?” As theologian Marcus Borg writes, “Jesus wasn’t talking about how to be good within the framework of a domination system. He was a critic of the domination system itself.”

Today’s conversation on Holy Heretics with eco-philosopher and environmentalist Derrick Jensen invites us to envision this way of life. A way that will take great courage, but is necessary for the life of every sentient being on this planet. Jensen’s visceral, biting observations and stories always manage to lead back to his mantra: 'Things don't have to be the way they are.' I think this is the most profound conversation we’ve had to date on the show. I hope you enjoy!

Bio:

Hailed as the philosopher poet of the environmental movement and a leading voice in cultural dissent, Derrick Jensen is is an American eco-philosopher, writer, author, teacher and environmentalist. He explores the nature of injustice, how civilizations devastate the natural world, and how human beings retreat into denial at the destruction of the planet. author of twenty-one books, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He was named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.” Jensen unflinchingly examines the culture’s darkest corners while searching for a way forward. In A Language Older Than Words, he draws on his own experience of childhood abuse to examine violence as a pathology that afflicts every life on the planet.

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Show notes:

http://www.sophiasociety.org/podcast/we-dont-have-to-live-this-way

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This episode was produced by The Sophia Society and written by Gary Alan Taylor. Music is by Faith in Foxholes.