Episode 70 - Evangelical (Part 2)

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[Music]

we cover topics in as much depth as we

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this is jen hatmaker best-selling author

preacher pastor an all-around media

personality

science mike and william matthews sat

down to interview her recently

[Music]

okay so we're here today with uh

the one and only gin hat maker i'm

really excited

to have you uh be part of the liturgist

podcast with us

and we're talking thank you about

something that's really

i don't know a big part of my life and i

think a big part of a lot of our

listeners and that is the the

movement in christianity known as

evangelicalism

and i i guess we'd just like to start

asking you

you know a real basic simple question do

you

call or consider yourself an evangelical

and why

or why not well let's just start there

let's just start with some low-hanging

fruit

thanks for having me on by the way oh

we're glad you're here

it's a great question and i think it's

an important conversation one that

i'm having with a lot of colleagues when

we're having with our own church

um that i'm paying attention to pretty

closely it's funny because i grew up

pretty traditional

i grew up southern baptist and so those

labels i that was just part of the whole

pill you know the whole pill went down

without much consideration and that was

one of them that was one of the

components to it was just being called

an evangelical which i think

if i have to go back and mind my memory

a bit i think i probably felt proud of

it once upon a time

you know just in a different day a

different year and so

you know to have to examine that label

as a grown-up

with faith has been kind of painful

it's come for me with a quite a deep

sense of betrayal

particularly this last year in politics

in the election and the era of trump

i will raise my hand i know this makes

me naive it clearly makes

means that i have not been paying close

enough attention but i was one of those

who

was pretty stunned uh by the almost

carte blanche

support of trump by uh self-identified

evangelicals so what does that even mean

i'm not sure

but um you know that 81 percent really

that hurt it really stung and um

has since kind of unmoored us to be

honest we

it felt like something sort of

untethered a bit and

we're still adrift to be honest i i have

not called myself that in over a year

i have not called myself an evangelical

i'm very loathe

to be associated with that word right

now

um and you know i think we've got two

streams of conversation here we have

what does it actually mean and what do

people think it means

you know i'm not sure those are the

exact same conversations but the truth

is

what people perceive evangelical to mean

is what it means

that's what it means to them that is the

that's what they're going to

lump you in with the sort of this this

entire bit of group think

um that doesn't just come with maybe

what once was a bit of a more pure

definition um and so for me

i don't cherish that label at all and i

haven't identified

myself with that and i think the last

person that asked me that question i

said that no i don't consider myself an

evangelical

that's that's interesting you mentioned

this tension between

kind of what people interpreted as

meaning from outside the movement

versus kind of what people who

self-identify as evangelical might mean

and that there's such a gap there that

that is growing

uh when i was a southern baptist i

understood being an evangelical

man a few things you know a trust in god

that christ was the son of god and the

the road to redemption for all people

that the bible was the uh accurate and

authoritative source for understanding

uh the teachings of christ and god's

will for humanity

and that the bible taught us it was

necessary and important

to share that faith with others

so that you know they could be

reconciled with god as well and so

that's how i identified as an

evangelical

now if i think about those four tenets

in my current land

of a wild heresy you know

[Laughter]

that even those theological points land

especially strong with me personally but

i

see the way in which tenants like those

can produce a faith

that produces like genuine action in the

world

that's good so as much as i was

concerned with

even in a decade ago or more i was

concerned with the way we would

attach handing out a track or a gospel

presentation

with a disaster aid or

foreign aid at least the foreign aid was

happening

but then what people are seeing today in

evangelicalism as you

as you shared is a completely

different set of attributes people are

associating the word evangelicalism

with racism with lgbtq discrimination

with cultural wars and political

conquest

and and from your perspective with

growing up in the same tradition

i did how did we go

from this this place of theological

alignment

to a political alignment we see today

i think it's been a slow leak a slow

bit of poisoning if you will uh

you know we can't just point to trump

and say that he

erupted this division you know among

this

specific subset uh that that would not

be true

although he certainly has exposed it i

think it's really it's come

to clear light in the last calendar year

but

um it must have always been there and

and for me this has

required a bit of self-examination and

some

some hard truth telling to my own self

which was that

i realized with just greater clarity

this year

that i have for the most part

created a bit of an echo chamber around

myself

most of my friends share my ideologies

they share my theology um we are

progressive in nature

we um understand jesus in the same ways

we understand

what we consider a faithful life to look

like

on this earth at this moment in time in

similar ways and so

if that's your primary source of input

and it was for me

there was a bit of shock there was a bit

of sticker shock

um to come out of that and realize that

oh i am

we're outliers we're actually outliers

and

um this sort of sense of unification

that i just

assumed a lot of times in the words that

i would say in the way that i would lead

and things that i would write just

thinking

well you know we mostly all kind of

think like this i realize it's

fundamentally not true

and so that's created a bit of

loneliness

um for sure to realize that

i feel like uh we're outliers in our

because we're interesting we sort of

split

two groups we're not all here or all

there

we don't i i don't really have a super

tidy label

over me and it just confounds people it

just drives them bananas

i mean my publishers my people are like

where do we put you i'm like i don't

know

i don't know how to help you here what

do we

label you with uh you know it's really

it's tricky

um because i see that i don't i would

like to hear your opinion on this this

is what i see and of course i'm a

i'm a female leader spiritual leader and

so that has its own brand

but i see sort of two paths here in

terms

of for lack of a better word resistance

toward the the label of evangelical and

now what it means

which is as you exactly explained

largely political

in nature i mean we you know much inc

has been spilt there but it runs all the

same fault lines as

you know obviously republican and

homophobic and you know you know the

deal

um so i see that there is one strand of

spiritual leader kind of

um i would call my peers who absolutely

are opposed to what we're seeing and

hearing

it offends their faith it offends their

conscience

um it offends their scriptures

um you know it feels very very far away

from the ways of jesus

but they feel all that privately and

don't lead publicly

so there's that group which is a big

group it's a huge group

it's almost everybody i know and i

really mean that it's almost

every spiritual leader i know um so we

have a thousand

private conversations and then for those

of us who have sort of

built our spaces in in primarily an

evangelical camp which would be me

there's just a couple of us out of that

space who

who would not necessarily be

traditionally labeled

a progressive christian or you know what

a mainliner or

you know some sort of uh where that is a

little bit more flexible

there's only a couple of us really who

speak publicly

that's a different crowd and so that

sense of loneliness is heavy

i'll be honest with you it makes me

frustrated it makes me really really

frustrated that we can feel so

deeply personally offended by the

nationalism and white supremacy

and and homophobia just ramp it in our

culture and still stay silent publicly

as leaders i don't know what to make of

it

[Music]

you had quite an experience uh as you

started to speak out on these issues

how much do you think how you were

treated

by people who had followed your work

previously supported you previously

or maybe people who didn't even know

your work that well

and only you only got on their radar by

getting like the

the evangelical watch list how much do

you think

um the fact that you're a woman played

into their response to you

uh i feel like it was a heavy factor

most of the critics that even remain

you know it's been over a year but are

men they're white men the majority of

them

and they come out of a certain

theological camp the way they speak to

me

is incredibly misogynist it's very um

i'm hysterical

they demean me they they they strip me

of any credentials i've i've earned

um and they call me a lady blogger a

girl who had a reality show and

you know and and i won't just lay that

on the feet of men

um some of the women from that camp have

been just um

they've reduced me in the exact same

ways um so

gone are any of the titles they would

assign to men i'm a pastor

i'm an author of many many books we've

led

the church for 20 years all of our adult

life we are church planters

we run a non-profit we have you know

anything else that would have lent

lent credibility to a man is just erased

um from my docket and and i'm reduced to

a to a hysterical lady blogger

and so that's been really telling um

very

eye-opening to see um just how far we

actually haven't come

in certain spaces how far behind we

still are

i am now at the point where that just

washes off me that does not stick to me

at all i do not wear that

in the slightest bit um none of that

can get in anymore but it is really

interesting to see

that i think a man in my position

would be treated with a bit more respect

i seem to be easier to dismiss jen i'm

really

interested in everything you said but

one thing in particular stands out i

think there's so many people

listening right now who

grew up in the evangelical movement

maybe they aren't public figures

but they've started to speak publicly

with friends and family

about their frustrations with racism and

homophobia

and these these associations with the

movement they grew up with

and and the necessity to seek change and

maybe they have been treated the way you

have except not on twitter

at the dinner table or or conversations

with

with cherished friends and family and

you've said that

in a lot of ways these things don't

stick to you anymore

what what process what kind of journey

did you go through

to land at a place where these

accusations and condemnations

don't strike you the way they once did

that's a couple of things it's a good

question

because you're right you rightly

separated this

criticism and backlash into two

categories and

one is easier to brush off which is

strangers on the internet

i mean honestly who cares right you

don't know me you don't

i've never met you i don't care what you

think about me

i'm not interested in your coalition you

know i don't i'm not trying to earn your

favor i

really honestly couldn't care less so

that doesn't hurt me because that is

that is fake outrage that lives on the

internet right that is just

that's clickbait i have been the subject

of so much clickbait

that i it's lost all meaning to me and

so um so there's that category

which i find easier and easier to

literally just

shut the drawer on and carry on with my

life

but closer and it is harder and and

that's the category to whom

um you mentioned a lot of your listeners

find themselves in

uh where this is not some

satirical site on the internet it's not

babylon b

it's your aunt linda right it's your mom

it's your brother

um it's your best friend that that's

harder and that was harder for me too

it's still harder for me

so the relational tension that

we've navigated close in is a completely

different animal

so that is more sincere it's harder to

navigate

requires a lot more work but we've also

seen a lot more fruit there too and so

it's worth the work so for for your

listeners who think

i just i can't i can't even speak to my

family i don't know how to

manage my own relationships right now

because we're so at odds we're so at

odds

theologically or ideologically or

politically or all of the above

i would say that that work largely is

worth it

um when it's two people who love each

other who have

years and years of history or mutual

respect who

you're related maybe or it's somebody

for whom you

are you have treasured in a hundred

other ways

that work is worth it i i think we're

gonna have to really fight

against this instinct that we're being

handed right now which is

burn the whole thing down right just one

all bad

all good those labels are really really

polarizing

and i don't find them truthful they they

lack nuance

they lack relational context that's

i think that's a dangerous position to

take that if

on a couple of these things we are

completely unaligned

then this is this relationship is doomed

so um i do think there is some some

ground to be gained

potentially not always some some

relationships i think are so unhealthy

they're so

toxic and then of course in my opinion

certain positions or beliefs or

values are if they are destructive to my

neighbor

if they are harmful to my friends i

don't find that as

an agree to disagree potential you know

that's not

well you're racist but i we have

fun when we have beer on the porch you

know i there are some things that are

worth fighting for

but i think there's other space that we

continue to try to gain ground

relationally with our people across the

wide spectrum of beliefs and values but

um

i'm sorry so back to your original

question how what have i had to do in my

life or what has had to happen

so that a great deal of these critiques

can just sort of roll off my back

and i will tell you that it's born in

real life which is this our sense of

jesus

our understanding of um of his life and

and thus the word and how that has

suggested that we live

in a really meaningful way on this

planet um

and the people that that has since

brought in so that means you know we're

throwing our lot in

with our friends of color we're throwing

our lot in with our

lgbtq friends and neighbors and

anybody really who's been marginalized

in this current culture

um the fruit that that has borne in our

life to use that old school

christian term is it's so undeniable

it's been such a beautiful beautiful new

path in front of us

our life has felt so incredibly

expansive

with the inclusion of these friends

and people and groups that there is

really no way

for us to make any draw any other

conclusion

except for these are the ways of christ

like these are the

these things are giving birth to life

and to

joy and community and healing and health

and the fruit speaks for itself

so that in and of itself is it's a

confidence builder

and it's a comfort um and those alone

have i think developed some chops

in us to say let the criticism come

the proof is kind of in the pudding

right now

[Music]

so as you talk about having these types

of conversations

with family and friends are there maybe

some practical tips that you could

maybe help listeners who say okay i sit

at the dinner table and my aunt linda

you know says racist things how do i

like how do i

uh confront her how do i in love or how

do i maybe

combat this narrative that is being

believed by people in my family like

is there are there any even phrases or

ways of

introducing that conversation that

you've learned in your experience while

having this maybe

with people you know or your tribe or

your family

it's like the worst moment right when

aunt linda

or your coworker george

like drops this racial like

in the conversation it's always george

what is wrong with that guy

at the water cooler and you're just like

ah here we go

and i burn real hot i um i just i

i have i know myself and george always

voted for obama

well george just presses my buttons like

nobody's business and does aunt linda

and so i uh some of it has you kind of

have to know yourself i'm not a

i'm not a steady eddie right out of the

gate um i just tend to be like hair on

fire

like fisticuffs right and so um so

for myself i know for sure that if i'm

if if what i'm prioritizing to your

point is a meaningful conversation if i

want this to go somewhere

besides just a dumpster fire i

am going to need to do a couple of

things number one i'm going to need to

give myself

a minute i need a minute

my the first thing out of my mouth is

rarely the good thing and so

sometimes that means i really want to

talk to you about something you just

said or i really want to

i really want to have this conversation

i'm wondering if we can snag

30 minutes can let's grab coffee so

for me having a tiny bit of removal

just from the moment of offense um or

even

um of just disagreement is helpful for

me because i just get control of my own

personal emotions

um and so i like to separate like if

you're

around the thanksgiving dinner table

that's not necessarily the best moment

like that's the moment to say

let's have that i really want to have

that conversation with you not now

but tomorrow and then one thing that

i've found helpful

and and this is just a way honestly that

i wish people would have treated me

and so i am determined to extend it

is to to try with all my heart

have my my brain say to myself

i'm going to think the best of this

person going into this conversation

i'm gonna not assume the absolute worst

i'm going to to remember that there are

some really good qualities of this

person

they are not a absolute garbage human

being

so i'm going to go in with sort of a

best-case scenario the way i'm

imagining you i'm going to give you the

benefit of the doubt and so

that puts a filter over my conversation

in a way that i have found

to be really useful and not in a way

just a managed tension that's not

helpful we're not here just to manage

tension

but to move it into a productive space

and so between giving them the benefit

of the doubt and then prioritizing being

a good listener

at least for half the time um because my

tendency is to reload while their mouth

is moving

you know i've got my rebuttal like take

a breath

bro i'm ready you know um so

is to really listen what are they saying

what what is their perspective what are

they trying to

understand what don't they understand

what's their experience

and i've just found that something in

there can be common ground something

in there we can both grab on with both

hands and move to step two

um and so it is possible to have a

productive conversation that does not

sacrifice

advocacy that doesn't sacrifice telling

the truth

that does not sacrifice being a defender

of what's good and right and pure but

that still

manages to keep a conversation on the

rails and hopefully will lead to a

second one where it can even go deeper

that's good you're better than me i put

it out right there on the dinner table i

said you said what

uh-uh listen i am not saying i'm

successful you asked me for best

practices

i'm going to give myself like a 60

success rate on that absolute 40 fail

oh wow okay i i want to throw a bone to

both of you

as a consistent uh non-reactive presence

i'm not a hot personality uh if i do get

angry i tend to get icy cold

but i have such a non-reactive presence

that the processing time

it takes me to deal with

the kind of statements we should be

confronting in our culture

often mean that by the time i'm ready to

make a thoughtful contribution the

conversation has already

veered pretty dramatically far

from that that moment and

uh some studies have shown that contrary

to what

we see happening in social media with

the dramatic collapse and empathy

when people communicate verbally

what they're feeling that matches the

nonverbal signals their body is sending

that activates generally empathy

in the brain of the person uh

who who might need this teachable moment

so if you say

interesting if you're if you have this

body reaction your face flush whatever

if you act hot

and you can communicate with that that

offended me that shocked me that hurt my

feelings that made me angry

and then say why that actually tends to

open people up and make them more

receptive

if you have an anger response

and you attach that to a verbal attack

or condemnation

then that activates their amygdala and

creates a hostile confrontation

so that's so interesting wow but my

point is

both of you being like more reactive

people that actually can create

more chains than someone like me who

maybe has

done a little too much contemplative

meditation and

responds to comments like that in a very

similar manner to a desk lamp or a chair

yeah okay right

you know what's funny about what you're

saying is of course this could open up a

whole new conversation but

um as you have talked about at length

i'm a three on the enneagram

and so i that you know i'm just a doer

and i am a i'm a charge in and

i am feet to the fire but when i

disintegrate i am an absolute nine

and so i can tell when the the climate

and the tone culturally has just pushed

me beyond the brink

of despair because i go ice cold

absolutely ice cold i mean i i shrivel i

go quiet i withdraw

and so i understand the instinct for

sure but it's true

everything's such a hot take these days

that literally if you need to give

yourself 48 hours it has passed

it has passed and so that's exhausting

and i think uh as

as leaders as thought leaders in in any

capacity we really have to consider this

right now

uh about how much outrage we can

honestly handle and

and at what point the fatigue is going

to overtake our effectiveness

you know i think a lot of our older

leaders particularly are older

progressive leaders i'm really listening

to them right now

and in fact i was just on the phone this

week with jim wallace and he said

something that i'm like looking over at

my notes right now because i wrote it

down as he said it but

he said i'm just talking about how he

for him it's important to reclaim the

evangelical label i think that's

something that he craves

um and we were we were talking in the

context of that exact conversation but

he said you know strategy is good

but sustenance is going to be more

important and i think that

uh that for those of us who are

prioritizing the long game here

you know when we want to still be

influencing and leading

10 years from now that honestly we can't

we cannot respond every single time

the media erupts we just can't it's not

sustainable i think we will

our souls are going to starve i think

our

hope is going to be drained of its power

um and and i'm afraid that we're going

to sort of

join this movement toward

such polarization that we will no longer

be even close enough to build any sort

of meaningful bridge we'll be too far

apart

and that's not what i want that's really

not what i want i i think

the thing that i'm asking myself right

now is what do i want here

like what do i want here because i think

i can figure out a way to respond

eloquently to everything that happens i

can do that if i will never

ever take my eyes off twitter you know

if i will never ever have a moments

piece

um but what's my end game what do i want

what do i real what am i hoping to see

and that helps guide me a bit that that

helps me stay a little bit

focused with my eyes further down the

road than just

every little bump which at this point in

our culture is

every 10 minutes i mean who can keep up

who can keep up there's just a new thing

to be shocked or horrified or

embarrassed by

literally every single day right now it

is just

stunning and it's just sheer volume

um and so i think rather what where do i

hope that we'll be

in a decade where what kind of world am

i in a decade all of my kids will be

adults

every one of them and so what sort of

culture do i want to hand off to my kids

in their young adulthood and that helps

that helps sort of steer the ship a bit

and

figure out how to continue to lead with

hope

and with sort of a prophetic

voice that builds people up instead of

tearing

everything down still um i don't know

how well any of us are doing but

you know we still got three years of

this administration and i just

i don't i don't quite know how we're

going to sustain it

at this pace it's normal at

so many different points in our life to

feel like something is getting in the

way of being present

or happy something stopping us from

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ourself or feeling connected to the

people that we love

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[Music]

you know what if anything i want to

tell you that i appreciate the space

that you have created i think it's

really important right now really really

needed

uh where those of us who are

shifting or finding ourselves on the

outside of a faith that used to feel

really safe

that used to feel really welcoming that

used to feel like home

um have a place to go it just matters i

that sense of loneliness is kind of

paralyzing

uh and on the flip side finding

community

in in sort of the outlier space it is

like a cold cup of water on a hot day

enough almost nothing has brought me

more joy and more healing

um than looking around after sorting

through the debris

of everything getting blown up in my

life last year trying to figure out

what's left

and finding people thriving

and connecting and asking hard questions

and nobody dies

right and this instinct to excommunicate

is not present there but rather uh folks

holding a lot of tension

and saying well let's sit down over you

know dinner and talk about it and

this very mature sort of sober-minded

approach

to faith and truth and culture it's just

been

life-giving for me and so your podcast

um the way that you gather people

around these sorts of ideas has been

really important for me this year i've

listened to almost everyone

it's it's just really provided a lot of

fuel for me as a leader and so

um i i thank you i thank you for being

who you are and for your courage and

your intelligence

and there's a lot of us i think there's

a lot of us in your space

that are um in some ways

coming back to faith or considering it

and

that's good work that's really really

good work so thanks for having me on

in your corner of the world i like your

corner

so um jim thank you

so much i mean obviously you have a

great gift you're very talented i'm sure

you're comfortable with that but

uh we do a lot of interviews and very

few of them will require

so little editing to be air worthy so

and thanks for taking the time i know

you're super busy

also known as the empress the empress

the hat empress evangelicalism what do i

think

i think she's been through a lot yeah

and

the desire to reclaim the label that she

talked about

seems noble although i wonder

what that actually means and if that's

feasible and useful

uh when she was talking about you know i

don't even listen to that stuff anymore

i thought

wow i'm so relieved and i find that so

hard to believe

when the community that you

self-identified with

totally rejected you and devalued you

and shamed you publicly

so i'm so i feel pleased to hear that

it's been

healing that she can join a community of

people and see that it was worth it in

the end

but i can't imagine what it's like to

carry that much hurt

yeah i know it feels like to have a

community that you love

and really valued um give you over to

satan

in essence right yeah um and that's what

happens sometimes in these

you know churches and movements where um

agreement is the goal and you're right i

think jen has gone through

a lot and i read the article i think it

was political that did the article on

her that was really good and

they talked about i mean the nasty

things people were saying to her

children

um i mean it was there was a lot of

vitriolic hate

over her and her husband um and was the

thing

she came out for affirmative yeah i

think she turned her husband after

uh doing some theological study and

research really changed their views on

uh same-sex unions

and became an affirming uh because they

were they're pastors and so they

uh moved into an affirming space for

their church and

where do they pass her texas i'm not

sure the exact town but yeah texas

and it was i don't know i really value

her struggle and what she's been through

and i also value her

strength and confidence to keep moving

forward and to keep like pressing on and

i know she's been doing this tour with

nicole norton uh it's been blowing up

like it's funny even after she

uh you know had this whatever whatever

it was controversial

you and and you and lisa gunger are no

strangers to that to that type of

controversy

um you know like her book sales have

been doing really well her

uh you know they're doing this tour

after the uh that they were on another

tour and it got cancelled

and they've been doing this tour on

their own and they they better on

themselves and and they're packing out

of venues and i think there's

there is a shift happening where people

yeah the it's the same old story that

happens in evangelicalism and

fundamentalism but now

i think people are either choosing to

see it differently or decide that that's

a non-essential

and i think her fans are are doing that

and her readers and

and so obviously you know you've

experienced that too so

i'm glad that her work is being

successful but i think that even if it

wasn't

i would say that she did the right thing

yeah absolutely and that we can't

base our moral decisions on if the

popular

crowd or community is going to support

our work after yeah and so good for her

for

stepping out and doing the thing that

she felt mattered

without any guarantee that it would be

successful or

productive or would help her work

in any way absolutely i don't think

you'd step out

and do lgbt ministry and think or

somehow we're going to make some more

books now

at least not to this that same crowd it

just it doesn't work and so you're right

it was it was such a moral choice

i think but there's a lot of people who

don't say something because they're

afraid it will hurt them

they're brand we don't hang up a shingle

and we say i'm not going to

self-identify with this because

it's really going to anger my publisher

or my boss or my family

or my ethical committee on my licensing

board or whatever it is

yeah and so i think it's incredible that

in spite of knowing it could have cost

her she did it

because it felt right which feels to me

like a really healthy version of

evangelicalism

do you have any as a therapist sort of

blanket advice

for people that are leaving

even you know they maybe i'm sure

there's evangelicals listening to this

program that

are on the fence like gosh am i an

evangelical

should i be should i leave and for

people that make that decision like i'm

i'm not doing this i'm not i find too

much destructive in this camp

i'm go i'm moving out do you have any

advice that would apply to lots of

people at the same time

yeah i think that maybe we can change

the primary label from evangelical to

human

rights so moving our self identity away

from the theological belief towards

something that actually allows

more people to be like us so if you

identify as evangelical

then by the nature of the word your

identity is exclusionary

but who is not human and so who can you

not find community with

if you're human so i think changing the

identity and the label to human and then

finding another community of people who

can help you feel like you belong

because at the heart

of psychological thriving and we could

even say neurological and

neurobiological thriving is a sense of

safety and belonging in community

if you are having to leave your group

because it doesn't work for you anymore

and find a group that it does work with

so that you don't feel like you have to

be alone

in your struggles and in the challenges

of renegotiating identity

that's good my neurons and my biology

needs lots of love

coming at you thank you you've been

loving each other all day

i also think that the things that you

love about your faith what

community is probably one of them but

even jesus

and even the scriptures and the

christian tradition

there are deeper and older

streams that you can swim in

uh that aren't so exclusive i mean

whether that's through orthodox or

catholicism or

line there's lots of options if jesus is

really important to you

you can always go the mystic path too

it's uh my lane of choice but

you can still in fact for me

i think that following jesus

actually seriously um is a big part of

what

made me move on it wasn't a rebellion

even because even when i still believed

most of the

doctrines and things i see that i see

jesus saying things that are

not what we're building our church out

of like

why do we spend all this money on

millions and millions and millions of

dollars on amazing youth rooms

and flat screen tvs and

company vehicles and all the big

big things that we do but then i went

down to the homeless shelter

and they couldn't even afford hamburgers

and i was like

like are the churches one outreach to

downtown homelessness

and i was like what is why are our

priorities so different than jesus's

word

and so just following the heart of your

faith

like just just actually believe some of

what you think

is so true and beautiful at the heart of

your faith

and just that alone will take you on a

journey

yeah so pulling apart what it means to

follow and be like jesus from the

cultural components of christianity and

evangelicalism

so to add to what you're saying then

when you leave

figure out how you can retain the things

that you really want

the things that have always been

important to you and maybe even the

things that are important to you

so much so that they're asking you or

that you're rising up within you and

calling you to leave the church

find a way to live those things out and

have them close to you in a community

that

can support you to do that and not

throwing out who jesus is

when you walk away from the culture of

christianity or the culture of

evangelicalism that has been

painful or hurtful for you or for other

people

amen amen i i instantly heard the

rebuttal to what she said

that's how the dogma is so strong in me

i grew up with it

so when you said you know why do we have

flat screen tvs and brand new youth

centers you know and the homeless

shelter down the street

starving i instantly thought well you

know brother brother michael you know

the bible says

jesus said the poor will always become

another vision brother vishnu

[Laughter]

got him brother vishnu you know the poor

will always be among you

and you know like sometimes we have to

pour our love you know the alabaster box

we just break in and it's an extravagant

waste on jesus and we're doing this

youth center for jesus and

like i instantly hear the pitch like in

my head with you know this

you know it's always southern because i

spent a lot of time in north carolina

so it's always a southern minister but

um

you know or the tv evangelist you know

that's like this is what it what it

looks like

so i just wanted to acknowledge that

because i know a lot of people listening

probably heard that same passage of

scripture in their head because they've

been so

uh can you can you give the rebuttal to

your rebuttal like what would you say

back to that

yeah um well i think jesus lived in a

cultural time

where uh truthfully

they lived in a uh under caesar in rome

and

they were slaves uh excuse me they

weren't slaves they were uh occupied

and so they had no representation they

had no appeal

to government they were pretty much

living at the whim

of the political system that was

happening

i think what we live in today is very

different we live in a representative

democracy

you actually have a vote vote what you

say and

do matters um so for instance i think it

was slate just came out this big article

that said

if they counted up all the money in 2015

that churches

don't have to pay because they're taxed

exempt in america and it totaled to

75 billion a year excuse me i think it

was 71 billion dollars a year

and then i started thinking about other

articles that i read that said that we

could actually

end homelessness in america with for 75

billion dollars a year

yeah i mean you could give everybody

clean water on earth for like 10 billion

yeah

uh there's been there's a lot of talk on

the conservative right

about not being dependent on government

you shouldn't be dependent on government

to

be dependent on the lord you know like

you shouldn't need food stamps and you

know you should just depend on your

community in the local church and

you know and faith and god will you know

provide the miracles and come to church

and come to our prayer meeting

and we'll pray for you know like and

you'll get the breakthrough like that

that's a big

i think churches feel this like we don't

want you shouldn't be dependent on the

government you should come to us

um and the church should take at least

in america she's hillary's looking at me

like i'm crazy

you guys are listening to a podcast so

you can't see her face

but um you know i see it all over social

media and preachers and and

pastors you know will sometimes make

these really silly statements

while forgetting that their churches are

receiving mill thousands if not millions

of dollars in tax breaks

uh you know and they're not paying a lot

of bills that other companies

that make profits wouldn't you know

they're not paying that stuff

and then have the audacity and the nerve

to tell you know poor people

not to receive handouts or receiving a

handout is

wrong or you shouldn't be dependent on

the social safety net and so i would say

to

anyone that has that scripture in their

head like the poor will always be among

you

no they don't have to always be among

you and isn't that about

bringing the kingdom of heaven here and

now yeah

and isn't that our calling as people who

who desire

to know and love and be loved by god

is to bring down the kingdom of heaven

yeah you know when you talk about the

big flat screen tvs and

you know we're doing it for jesus the

thought in my head was

which who that's not the jesus that i

know that i love that i believe in and

it made me think of the scripture

when jesus has to sit to peter and he's

like who

he says to the pharisees who do you say

that i am

wow like who who is this jesus

that is being honored when the poor are

starving down the street but there are

big flashy

youth centers with tvs i don't know that

jesus

certainly not the jesus i follow yeah

amen amen amen

amen amen

[Laughter]

the relationship to the bible that's a

that's like that's that big idol that

is real if you just say

the bible is not god on twitter

which i probably have literally said

that and and people will respond like

but

but the bible says god

was the word and the word was with god

the word was god

[Music]

that that's jesus folks the word

not the bible and the fact that like

what the word is the bible so literally

they think a lot of people think in the

evangelical circle is that the bible is

god

so it's what like a quadratic quadrity

father son holy spirit bible

and then so i've you see people that are

still pretty evangelical like shane

claiborne or somebody

who really focuses on the red letters

you know it's like well let's look

really look at what jesus said and

really pay the most attention to that

people are like well what are you just

going to ignore the rest of scriptures

just with his lovey-dovey jesus

shit it's always southern

always he's got a potty mouth because

every preacher behind closed doors has

has a potty mouth or curse is like a

sailor and everyone knows that

especially in the cell

gone ahead but you know what i mean like

it's it's an idol it's an

honest-to-god idol in the

theology of evangelicalism is the

scripture they

have elevated it so high before i

remember

our preacher at the church i was working

at telling us like why do we believe

in jesus it's because the bible tells us

to

oh that's how he literally like spelled

it out like

we believe in jesus because the bible

says

that is precisely backwards for

historical christianity yeah so we're in

a crisis of authority

that's what's also happening right now

too on the right and the left in the

christian space

i think there's this interesting

conversation happening

right now about the bible um i think

liberal academia has always kind of

at least debunked some of the more

literalist versions

of or renderings of the text that i

think contemporary christianity loves to

tell and embrace

but i do think um so you brought up

shane claiborne's red letter revival uh

or let's focus on the words of jesus i

do think you have theologians

who are taking a new fresh look at the

text

who really believe that the text should

not be looked at as a flat reading

that each scripture does not have carry

the same weight as the next

that the words of jesus for instance

jesus telling his disciples i carry a

greater word than john

the baptist you know well the words of

john the baptist are scripture so how do

you measure

you know and so jesus seemed to even

cherry pick himself in terms of or even

changing scriptures like isaiah 61

spirit of the sovereign lord you know in

the isaiah 61 it's the

the year of vengeance right and then

when jesus quotes it he says it's the

year of

jubilee or freedom for the captives and

so you uh greg boyd

done a big work called the crucifixion

of the warrior god uh he's done

a big book on that where he basically

argues

the text needs to be reinterpreted

particularly old testament violence

needs to be reinterpreted

through the hermeneutic of the cross he

calls it crucify cruciform hermeneutic

uh brian zahn has has talked a lot about

this as well

in in his book he even has a chapter on

hell in his latest book uh

sinners and a hand of a loving god but

he really hits that home about biblicism

um if you follow any of his work in

books he talks about you know the

bible's not the fourth member of the

trinity kind of thing

and so i do think there is this

alternative subversive

thing happening within theology and

orthodoxy inside of even an evangelical

framework where

a lot of those guys would still call

themselves evangelical christian or

maybe not use the label but in practice

are very similar

but are doing great theology to uh you

know even some of them using the work

like brian's on uses the worker in azure

art

to you know undercut the whole scapegoat

mechanism thing

that's happening within the text and and

the violence and the

the child sacrifice thing uh so for

people that do

care about the text you know rather than

simply saying

either all of it's everything or none of

it's nothing

uh i think there's some interesting work

happening for

a lot of those people who uh yeah we're

in a theological revolution and i think

the question is what is our authority

and i think the bible

matters but it does not matter in the

sense of

holding it to the same level as god i

think that we can't read the bible

without understanding the

anthropological linguistic

and sociocultural history that

influenced the interpretation of the

text

that actually privileged certain

narratives and left things out

based on hermeneutic preference what

this comes back to i think

is how do we hold a sense of

something that's capital t truth while

also understanding

human influence and social

constructivism

and it's really hard for us to hold both

how can we hold that the text was

influenced by people and it's also the

word of god how can we

believe that the things that we're

reading today aren't

actually what the original text meant

but still believe it's the word of god

and that it's infallible and we get into

these tensions

where our perspective our

post-positivist perspective about

capital c

truth and objectivity means that we have

to neglect the way that the text has

moved and formed and

been shaped and shaped experiences and

dialogues and privilege and it's really

hard to reconcile all those things at

the same time

so people choose not to choose to double

down on probably a fundamentalism

in order to feel safe and to object to

anyone who disagrees

one of the functions of pathology is

black and white thinking

in cognitive sciences we see that if you

create these false binaries

this or is this that that's actually

likely going to promote some sort of

mental

distress or a lack of well-being at some

point in your life

and so it's really easy to say i want to

throw the text out

or i'm going to privilege it as being

objective

and infallible how do we do something in

the middle and how do we sit in the gray

with the text and wrestle with it

ourselves and learn enough that we can

we can think critically for ourselves

but then also how can we have leaders

and teachers who are

helping us stay in the gray with things

and admitting what we don't know or how

the text

that's in our hands in front of us

actually

is privileging certain versions of

yeah human experience over others yeah i

think there's also

just a simplicity

and a lack of development that don't

allow a lot of people to be able to

think

nuance like that so think of like a

child that

maybe it's the rules of the house we

take our shoes off

when we come in the front door that's

the rules and whether her mom and dad

are there or not

that child probably feels like at a

certain age and development like

no that's the re there's like an actual

rule

that really exists in the universe it's

a thing it's like a

a real and if they didn't do that if mom

and dad weren't there and they walked in

they're breaking the rule there's

there's like something real that they're

breaking

at some point like you get old enough

and you develop you say like oh

that's just mom and dad wanting us to

not wear our shoes in the house

yeah so that question i always would try

to get

like we had a band and we would travel

and there was one particular guy that

was a calvinist we would just debate all

the time

good times um the question i can never

get biblical literalists down to i'm

like so

why do you believe that the bible is the

word of god

whose authority allows you to make that

decision

like it just is that's the but and

that's like you can't get past this

but it's the rule it's like you are the

one deciding

the authority is with you you have to

decide

that the bible and your interpretation

of the bible

that you're receiving and assuming is

true is the word of god

you are the authority and they just

can't see it's like that wall it's just

a cognitive wall it's like

no it's just the bible is the word of

god

um michael gunger i just need to ask you

a few questions do you believe that the

scripture is infallible

do you believe that it is inspired every

single word

i need to know right now for your soul

sake

the b-i-b-l-e yes that's the book for me

i stand alone on the word of god

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

um okay that answers my question that's

all i needed to know

all right i feel like the spirit of the

lord came in here in that moment and

just

brought you back to where you needed to

be yes yes convicted

that's right because when you ask the

things now about me i'm like i mean

i i just see it all so differently

yes they're the words of god and so are

the words that you're speaking to me

right now

it's all the words of god coming into

the world

inspired what he taught yes everything

is is

it is all i am-ness it is all is-ness

speaking and breathing glory so

yeah but not in a

way that makes me as an evangelical

higher than stan as a muslim

stan the muslim yeah yeah

no i think that's a great point though i

you always every time you go to the

oneness argument it's like how can i

like really argue against that

it's just a good it's just a good i know

it's just good though it's

in awana we had to do bible verse

memorization

and i went to the finals in the province

and there was a debate about john 3 16

and which word they would accept as the

official version

and that would determine which church

awana would win

the full title but i remember my mom

made up

i know right oh my god it was like it

was on it was like bring it on right

it was like where do you think they got

the idea

for bring it on that's where they got

the idea

but we we had to memorize the bible

bible books and so my mom

so sweetly made up the song so we could

memorize them good idea

genesis exodus leviticus numbers

deuteronomy

give me a joshua exit exodus joshua

judges ruth

first samuel second samuel first king

second king first chronicles second

chronicles ezra nehemiah and esther

job psalms proverbs ecclesiastes songs

of solomon isaiah jeremiah lamentations

ezekiel daniel obadiah jonah mike and

a.m

zechariah

what's the pattern to the song it's the

song that we sing

it's like the the wall that you hit it's

just the song

okay it's just the way this time

it matters no it's just the same

i guess

[Laughter]

all right so i'm not sure if it's

abraham's bosom quality

or not but it's got to at least make the

demo real

[Music]

genesis exodus leviticus numbers

deuteronomy

joshua judges ruth first

zechariah

[Music]

well that's our show everybody special

thanks to our patrons who make this show

possible

thanks to greg nordin for production

help

tyler chester pieces in there

of course to jen hatmaker and matthew

vines

your hosts have been science mike

william matthews

hillary mcbride and me michael gunger if

you'd like to know more about the

liturgists

go to the liturgists.com you can check

out our

video series get links to our patreon

there

find out about the events that may be

coming up in the future and all sorts of

other great stuff

so much love to all of you thanks for

[Music]

listening

you