The Seventh Story Quotes

“The way to redeem the myth of redemptive violence is to de-story it: to refuse to play the game at all. To invent a new game. To tell the story in a new way that decreases fear, and violence will reduce.”
― Brian D. McLaren, The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence

“Stories that increase a sense of threat end up producing more violence. Most of these stories also happen to be inaccurate. Stories that decrease threat end up reducing violence. Most of these stories also happen to be true.”
― Brian D. McLaren, The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence

“Imagine a community whose social stability is threatened.. Some dominant member of the group, churning with anxiety, picks a weaker or marginal member of the group upon whom to vent his pent-up tension. As soon as he begins bullying this weaker member, he feels a little bit relieved. His sense of power is partially restored. So he keeps up the bullying. And at that moment, each bystander faces a choice. Will they imitate the leader’s desire to vent their anxiety through bullying, or will they resist - thus risking that they might be the next victim? As more and more people imitate the alpha-bully’s desire, the coalition of bullies develops, and each unaffiliated member feels the excruciating tension between the deep social norm of solidarity and this spontaneous outburst of aggression that seems to be spreading among them . Eventually, teasing and mocking give way to pushing and shoving, and soon, the coalition of anxious bullies becomes a lynch mob, and eventually, the victim is either banished or murdered.”
― Brian D. McLaren, The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence

“Who are the children of the future? I should like to answer: the people who renounce domination and the dreams of rule, people who are not victorious and to not dream of victories, but who open themselves and their institutions in creative receptivity towards what is divine, towards what is human, and towards what is natural. These people are the heirs of the future.- Juergen Moltmann This book is a companion to Cory and the Seventh Story, a children’s fable about “them" and “us”.”
― Brian D. McLaren, The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence

“Salman Rushdie said it well:  “Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives - the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change - truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.”
― Brian D. McLaren, The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence