A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

I Kissed Fundamentalism Goodbye

July 29, 2020 Randy Knie, Kyle Whitaker Season 1 Episode 2
A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar
I Kissed Fundamentalism Goodbye
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Randy, Kyle, and Elliot discuss American Christian fundamentalism and why they have, to borrow a phrase, kissed it goodbye.

The whiskey featured in this episode is Woodford Reserve Straight Bourbon.

AUDIO NOTE: There is some slight distortion and static at various places in this episode. We have since fixed these problems for all upcoming episodes. Socially distanced recording is hard.

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00:00

[Music]

00:14

welcome to a pastor and a philosopher

00:16

walk into a bar

00:17

where we say the things you wish your

00:18

pastor or your philosophy professor

00:21

has said to you about god spirituality

00:23

and the church

00:24

[Music]

00:29

well hello friends uh on this episode of

00:32

a pastor and a philosopher walking to a

00:34

bar we're going to be considering

00:36

fundamentalism so we have titled this

00:38

episode lovingly

00:40

i kissed fundamentalism goodbye there's

00:43

a little

00:43

reference in there for those of you who

00:45

are paying attention yep and if you're

00:47

old enough

00:48

yeah randy and i are going to be uh

00:49

discussing sort of in a personal

00:51

narrative way

00:52

our own histories with fundamentalism we

00:55

both

00:56

would say that we used to be

00:57

fundamentalists and we're not anymore

00:59

uh so we're going to be sharing a little

01:01

bit of personal stuff about ourselves

01:03

and our journeys and how we came out of

01:04

that and what it means to us

01:06

it's going to be fun but what we do

01:08

around here

01:09

we are going to beverage sample and

01:11

taste and i don't know about you but

01:13

uh i find it difficult to talk about

01:16

fundamentalism without a whiskey in my

01:18

hands so this really works

01:20

amen yeah i got the first round this is

01:23

um

01:23

we're going classic standard can't miss

01:27

if you give it a bad review i don't want

01:30

to be your friend anymore this is

01:31

woodford

01:32

reserve now you bourbon enthusiasts

01:35

might be rolling your eyes right now but

01:37

i'm just saying

01:39

there is not a more reliable bourbon and

01:41

i haven't even tried it yet but i'm just

01:42

about to so i'm gonna yeah

01:44

get to the nose here if you're if you're

01:45

rolling your eyes then you've sailed

01:47

past enthusiasts and you're firmly in

01:49

the snob territory

01:51

absolutely and good for you roll your

01:53

eyes out here

01:55

it smells sweet so

01:58

for those of you who can't see randy is

02:00

currently performing what we lovingly

02:02

call the kentucky chew

02:04

maybe you can hear it yeah it sounds a

02:06

little slurpy that's what's going on

02:09

you pull it you suck it over your tongue

02:11

and you just it bounces over your palate

02:13

and you can really taste

02:15

the notes of what we're trying to get

02:16

here for me it helps to try to

02:18

take the air from your throat and move

02:20

it back into your mouth a little bit

02:23

can't say why but it seems to work this

02:26

this is getting weird

02:27

a little bit uh woodford is one of my

02:28

all-time favorite bourbons

02:30

it's probably it's my go-to there's so

02:32

much oak and woodford right here

02:35

i really feel like i can taste the

02:36

barrel that it was aged in right there

02:39

yeah so the double oaked is their higher

02:42

price

02:42

point expression and personally i prefer

02:45

this

02:45

same it's perfectly balanced beautifully

02:48

balanced

02:49

got that caramelly action going on it's

02:51

got the dark berries almost

02:54

and then it's got like the old antiquey

02:57

library book almost thing to it you know

02:58

what i mean

02:59

yep it's got the the right sweetness

03:01

that i identify with bourbon

03:03

i came to bourbon after scotch kind of

03:04

had a backwards journey there

03:06

and so for me um bourbon is is like a

03:09

dessert

03:10

that's associated in my mind with that

03:12

[Music]

03:15

as you said in the beginning of the

03:17

episode we are going to be turning

03:20

into the world of fundamentalism and

03:22

talking about our journey out of it

03:24

both of us have grown up in that and

03:26

been formed by it and also

03:28

kissed it goodbye as it were so can you

03:31

first kyle

03:32

being the philosopher and the academic

03:33

that you are

03:35

could you define fundamentalism for us

03:37

because certainly

03:38

when we talk about fundamentalism we're

03:40

followers of jesus we talk about

03:42

christian fundamentalism

03:44

we're very familiar with it but it's not

03:45

the only kinder brand of fundamentalism

03:48

there's fundamentalist muslims

03:50

and those are the ones that uh everybody

03:53

the caricature that everybody thinks of

03:55

when you think of muslims that

03:57

is just a little minority within the

03:58

muslim world there's fundamentalist

04:00

jewish people there's fundamentalist

04:02

atheists

04:03

you know there's there's fundamentalists

04:05

of all sorts so could you define

04:07

fundamental

04:08

fundamentalism for us kyle sure so in

04:11

the

04:12

the christian context or i should say

04:14

the christian american context maybe

04:16

fundamentalism has a kind of specific

04:18

historical meaning

04:20

which is not always what people intend

04:22

when they use

04:23

the word so if you were to look up just

04:25

in a dictionary

04:26

fundamentalist you'd see something like

04:28

the following

04:29

a strict adherence to biblical

04:32

literalism

04:34

and maybe some isolationist social

04:37

tendencies

04:38

and the reason for that is because

04:41

around the early 20th century

04:43

in the united states there was a

04:45

movement that came to be called

04:47

fundamentalism and the reason that it

04:49

came to be called fundamentalism is

04:51

because of

04:52

a specific book or a set of essays that

04:54

were published

04:56

in about 1910 called the fundamentals

05:00

and then it had this fun tagline a

05:01

testimony to the truth

05:03

uh so it gives you an idea of how

05:05

seriously they took themselves

05:06

yep this this set of essays was

05:10

by some pretty conservative evangelical

05:14

biblical scholars who took a very

05:17

literalist very kind of narrow

05:20

reading of the bible particularly

05:22

certain parts of the bible

05:25

strong inerrantists that kind of thing

05:27

probably a reaction against the

05:28

enlightenment

05:29

yeah yeah and ended up taking some

05:31

pretty strong stances against

05:34

liberal theology against

05:37

what we what scholars would call the

05:39

historical critical method

05:41

of biblical interpretation which means

05:44

you're treating the text of the bible

05:46

scientifically

05:47

and you're trying to study it like you

05:49

would study any other

05:50

ancient text they don't they don't

05:53

approach it from a perspective of faith

05:55

biblical scholars they approach it from

05:56

a perspective of

05:58

historians or sort of secular

06:00

scholarship

06:01

and that set of essays the fundamentals

06:05

was really influential and it ended up

06:07

creating or at least spearheading this

06:10

movement within american christianity

06:13

away from

06:14

certain expert consensus on several

06:17

issues so

06:18

things like the origin of the universe

06:21

how old is how old is the physical

06:23

universe or

06:25

human sexuality or um i mean

06:29

various political issues you name it

06:31

there's all sorts of these issues that

06:33

secular experts had sort of formed

06:35

consensuses about in the environment and

06:37

what's happening to it etc

06:39

and this group of evangelicals viewed

06:42

those expert consensuses as being

06:44

in tension with or in contradiction with

06:47

their reading of the bible

06:48

and so they sort of battened down the

06:50

hatches

06:51

and became kind of insular and then this

06:54

movement picked up a lot of political

06:56

steam

06:57

and we could do a whole episode on in

06:59

fact we will do a whole episode on on

07:01

evangelicalism and

07:02

how some of that worked out and so in

07:04

the sort of historical american context

07:07

that's what

07:07

it means to be a fundamentalist it's to

07:09

be a certain kind of evangelical in that

07:13

particular tradition but the word gets

07:16

used differently

07:17

and often the word means no more than

07:20

somebody that i disagree with

07:22

it's used as a pejorative or abusive

07:24

term

07:25

so a philosopher that i admire named

07:28

alvin plantinga

07:29

one time he's trying to define

07:31

fundamentalism

07:32

and he said often the word just means

07:34

something like

07:36

ignorant son of a bitch someone whose

07:38

opinions are somewhere to the right of

07:40

my own

07:41

is what fundamentalism often means and

07:43

we want to i think

07:44

both of us would agree we want to avoid

07:46

that kind we don't want to use it in an

07:48

abusive way

07:48

right because we identify with the

07:50

community we we say

07:52

we were fundamentalists and it wasn't

07:54

because i was an ignorant of the bitch

07:57

there were some good reasons why i was

07:58

and there's also some really good

07:59

reasons why i'm not

08:01

anymore so when we use the term

08:03

fundamentalist we mean something like

08:05

the following

08:07

a a christian who is uh pretty

08:10

conservative in their theology and who

08:14

leans very heavily on a very strict

08:17

literalist

08:18

reading of the bible and who

08:22

approaches that in a somewhat dogmatic

08:24

way which means

08:27

they need it to be true they need it to

08:30

be

08:31

um that interpretation of the scripture

08:34

is the

08:34

the correct one and all competing

08:37

interpretations

08:38

are somehow dangerous or untrustworthy

08:41

yeah

08:41

so that that's the kind of context we

08:43

came out of and i think that's what we

08:45

mean

08:45

when we talk about fundamentalism yep

08:48

yeah i mean uh as we talk about how we

08:51

use the term fundamentalist

08:52

um i do currently use fundamentalists as

08:55

a as a derogatory pejorative

08:57

word but i grew up in a fundamentalist

08:59

family and still have close family

09:00

members who are fundamentalists and who

09:02

would

09:02

consider themselves fundamentalist and

09:04

don't see it as a dirty word i remember

09:06

exactly where i was

09:07

sitting with a close family member who i

09:09

love and we're talking about faith and

09:11

we normally don't talk about faith

09:12

because it's a potentially volatile

09:14

thing and

09:14

talking about faith a little bit and i

09:17

asked

09:18

this family member if they would

09:19

consider themselves a fundamentalist

09:22

thinking it's a dirty word and they said

09:24

actually yeah

09:25

and i like the idea of being a

09:27

fundamentalist because a fundamentalist

09:30

stands on the fundamentals of the faith

09:32

and at that moment i was both

09:35

surprised because it's not a attractive

09:38

term for me but also

09:40

kind of impressed that like actually i i

09:43

do stand on the fundamentals and

09:45

unfortunately that inherently means that

09:47

i don't because i'm not a fundamentalist

09:49

you know um

09:50

but we can get into that later but sure

09:52

not all definitions of it are

09:54

are awful i'd love to hear

09:57

your story kyle of what your journey

10:01

in fundamentalism looked like yeah uh

10:04

when i was a kid i've been in church my

10:06

whole life

10:06

um i was raised in the rural

10:09

south kentucky which we consider at the

10:12

south people in mississippi probably

10:13

don't but

10:14

in kentucky listen to you i mean you're

10:17

in the south

10:18

you're from uh and uh so i was raised in

10:23

a church denomination which and i didn't

10:26

realize this until much later

10:28

was actually a fairly liberal

10:29

denomination but it was in the rural

10:32

south

10:32

and there aren't any liberals in the

10:34

rural south so

10:36

uh it was the disciples of christ

10:38

denomination if anyone is familiar with

10:39

that

10:40

and they they tend to be like if you go

10:43

to their

10:44

uh general conference or whatever you'd

10:46

be around some people who are pretty

10:48

theologically liberal and so our pastor

10:50

was trained in that denomination and so

10:52

his own personal views weren't

10:54

necessarily very conservative or

10:55

fundamentalist

10:57

but a lot of the people in the

10:58

congregation certainly were

11:00

just because of geography and my father

11:03

was definitely one of those people

11:05

and so i you know as a child was very

11:07

happy in this congregation i didn't know

11:09

anything about how it differed from any

11:10

other kind of

11:11

theological outlook all i knew was we

11:13

take communion every week

11:14

and everybody can take communion and

11:16

that's the whole that's their whole

11:18

shtick

11:18

and over time my father became less and

11:21

less

11:22

okay with that he became more and more

11:26

conservative largely as a result of

11:28

listening to

11:30

certain radio preachers and biblical

11:33

scholars

11:34

i should i just try to guess radio

11:36

preacher that was was it john mcarthur

11:39

not him specifically but i think he was

11:42

in the

11:43

the sort of group of people actually a

11:45

guy is one of those like

11:47

uh biblical prophecy guys named chuck

11:50

missler

11:50

he had a radio program that my dad

11:52

really liked and my dad had the scofield

11:54

study bible which is this

11:56

uh this very dispensationalist kind of

11:59

take on the scripture

12:00

so you know it gives you the answer to

12:02

any question you might have while you're

12:03

reading it and you just look in the

12:04

footnote and it tells you what it means

12:06

so you know he got really into this and

12:09

gradually

12:10

was less and less comfortable at the

12:11

church we were at and so we

12:14

shifted over to southern baptist he

12:16

remains to this day

12:18

a kind of fundamentalist i didn't think

12:20

much of it i didn't

12:21

really know any better to me that just

12:22

was christianity because i came of age

12:25

in that environment and when you're in

12:28

fundamentalism you don't realize that it

12:30

is fundamentalism it's just

12:32

the church i didn't even think to

12:33

question it much really until i got to

12:35

college

12:36

and as happens to many people in college

12:38

you take a few classes and

12:40

your professors say things inevitably

12:42

that our intention with

12:45

your religious upbringing what your

12:47

pastors

12:48

believe maybe they even say things that

12:49

your pastors warned you they might say

12:52

and i was always interested in being

12:54

able to

12:55

know the truth about things and be able

12:57

to explain why i believe things and so

13:00

it really didn't take long for my own

13:02

religious fundamentalism to

13:04

fall apart realize pretty quickly that

13:06

some of the doctrines they seem to care

13:08

a lot about that their

13:10

explanations of those things did not

13:12

stand up to scrutiny

13:15

and so that was the beginning of the end

13:17

of my fundamentalism

13:19

yep yep yeah for me

13:22

um i grew up in a house with a lutheran

13:25

dad and a baptist mom

13:27

and both were both sides of the family

13:30

were fundamentalists in their own way

13:32

the baptist side

13:33

particularly fundamentalist and so i

13:36

mean i grew up in the house where we

13:37

were literally

13:39

driving to school and we'd be singing

13:41

this is the day

13:42

this is the day that the lord has made i

13:46

mean we would do it in round it

13:47

makes me throw up in my mouth just

13:48

thinking about it but also

13:50

warms me strangely so i mean i grew up

13:53

in a world where i was i would

13:55

my cartoons were super book was the old

13:57

testament stories in the flying house

13:59

was

14:00

the new testament stories and i learned

14:02

the bible and

14:04

from third grade on i went to a

14:05

christian school and so i never was

14:07

educated into the way of

14:09

evolution and had to confront that

14:12

reality

14:13

creation was science to me

14:16

and uh i i had a very narrow

14:20

sheltered world view i remember sitting

14:22

in our living room growing up i was

14:24

probably 11 or 12 years old and

14:25

the local news had a story about some

14:28

gay men who were protesting something

14:30

and i still remember these men chanting

14:32

we're here

14:33

we're queer we're not going away and i

14:36

remember being

14:37

scared shitless to be honest with you i

14:40

didn't know what to do with this idea of

14:42

homosexuality and i remember my parents

14:45

reacting

14:46

in some violent ways and angry ways and

14:49

just had no space for it

14:51

and that was my upbringing i just had a

14:53

very black and white world

14:54

where god created the world and bible is

14:57

literal and

14:58

is what it says and uh is a very us in

15:01

them world

15:02

that we lived in the world was scary and

15:05

the

15:05

non-followers of jesus were seen as just

15:08

dirty

15:09

don't want to be around them that was my

15:12

world

15:12

very fearful and scary and small and

15:15

judgmental

15:16

and uh delicate extremely delicate

15:20

um and it all kind of broke further down

15:22

the road

15:23

yeah let's uh let's let's bring elliott

15:27

into this conversation producer slash

15:30

creative partner genius

15:34

genius yeah because you you as well have

15:38

uh your former fundamentalists so

15:42

you have a lot to contribute here what

15:44

was your experience there like

15:46

if i if i spin my chair from producer

15:49

mode and think about my

15:51

religious upbringing actually producer

15:52

isn't far off from that either

15:54

you know it was it was about being as

15:56

being a certain thing and having a

15:58

certain

15:59

output to my faith which really was was

16:01

just about how

16:02

um how how i looked how our family

16:05

looked my dad was the pastor of the

16:06

evangelical free church in a small

16:08

northwoods wisconsin town of 1200 people

16:11

so

16:11

something that's a part of

16:13

fundamentalism already this appearance

16:15

that needs to be maintained

16:16

if you put that in the small town

16:17

context is amplified that much more and

16:19

so

16:20

i was leading worship as soon as

16:23

i was old enough and part of our youth

16:25

group and trying to invite people and

16:26

leading see you at the poll at the high

16:28

school

16:28

and bible studies and these are just the

16:30

things that as a lund

16:32

our family did this and i don't say that

16:34

to dishonor that upbringing at all it

16:36

actually was a

16:37

the biblical truth and the grounding

16:39

that's part of the foundation that i

16:40

still have but i realized looking back

16:41

that this was

16:42

almost like this manicured lawn of faith

16:45

with no unknowns and nothing that hadn't

16:47

been

16:48

considered and put in its place and so

16:50

as i stepped outside of that

16:52

my fundamentalism began to show some

16:54

cracks and that was because

16:56

i had never been around people who love

16:58

jesus

16:59

and also would swear like sometimes for

17:03

fun

17:04

or or would drink or smoke or do these

17:06

things that

17:07

like around the the lunch dinner table

17:09

these were bad things like for people

17:10

who weren't following the lord

17:12

as opposed to us and so to see

17:16

people who who i wanted to be like that

17:19

really started to break me down and

17:20

people didn't

17:21

necessarily have to act the same way

17:23

that i had always been taught to act

17:25

in order to be jesus followers and

17:28

and so that was my experience with

17:31

fundamentalism and how it started to

17:33

break down for me

17:34

so this question is directed at both of

17:37

you

17:37

was there a particular form of

17:40

disruption

17:41

was there a particular experience or a

17:44

particular conversation or something

17:45

like that that started to

17:47

crumble the house of cards so to speak

17:49

for for myself it was more of a gradual

17:51

progression of a lot of really small

17:53

things i realized for example that

17:55

creationism was not scientific and you

17:58

know i realized all these things

18:00

um and gradually came to understand that

18:02

the kind of experts that my community

18:04

had appealed to weren't really experts

18:06

and

18:07

over a long period of time and several

18:09

other experiences that we can

18:10

talk more about i just gradually came to

18:13

realize

18:14

i wasn't a fundamentalist anymore but it

18:16

was never like a single intentional

18:18

decision

18:19

what was that process like for for you

18:21

guys yeah it was definitely a process

18:23

but there's a few milestone moments that

18:26

that define that

18:27

one was just getting out of the

18:29

baptistery lutheran church and getting

18:30

into a little bit more of a

18:32

um i don't know it was very evangelical

18:37

but still

18:37

more open reality in in world view in

18:40

the church that i was

18:42

a part of in college and wanted to be a

18:44

pastor discovered i wanted to be a

18:46

pastor but within that

18:47

would have a drink every once in a while

18:48

because friends would and didn't feel

18:50

bad about it

18:51

and felt like i had to hide that from my

18:53

family and

18:54

journey from smoking cigars to clothes

18:56

to cigarettes and then got addicted and

18:58

didn't feel terrible about it actually

19:01

you know but i had to

19:02

hide it even though my mom knew the

19:04

whole time

19:05

but the biggest thing that really sucked

19:09

me out of that fundamentalism was

19:10

working at a restaurant where i was the

19:12

only christian person there and my

19:14

bubble was burst i just didn't know what

19:16

to do with all these people

19:17

who were just the furthest thing from

19:19

what i grew up in but they would just

19:20

happen to be amazing people insulted the

19:24

earth people who partied hard

19:25

but they were amazing beautiful people i

19:27

remember having my

19:29

my my world shaken when a gal who was a

19:32

server we got off at the same time on a

19:34

friday night and she said hey randy you

19:35

want to go have a drink

19:37

and internally i was like what a girl

19:40

wants to have a drink with me she must

19:41

be hitting on me

19:43

turns out she just wanted to hang out

19:45

she's a cool

19:46

cool girl the other thing the other

19:49

person that shaped that for me was this

19:51

guy named brad who

19:52

was very obviously gay the first time

19:54

you talked to him you know that he's gay

19:56

and i had no experience with gay people

19:58

i thought that they all had hiv and that

20:00

maybe if i got

20:01

into too close of contact with brad i

20:03

might get hiv myself

20:05

i started there and then observed what a

20:08

beautiful amazing person brad was and

20:09

became

20:10

great friends with him and then i

20:13

remember this moment where we

20:14

after a shift went and had martinis and

20:17

talked about him and his sexuality and

20:20

his world and me and my world and my

20:21

understanding and

20:22

he was gracious enough to let me ask

20:24

asking questions like

20:26

has he always been gay and when did he

20:27

find out and if he could choose to not

20:29

be gay would he

20:30

not be gay and his frustrations with how

20:33

hard it is to settle down

20:35

and have a family and that's all he

20:36

wants to do that's what he dreams about

20:38

and

20:38

talking about uh his struggle with the

20:41

culture and all sorts of things and it

20:42

just

20:43

in that one night of a couple of

20:46

martinis in a conversation with

20:48

brad my world just melted and it went

20:51

from black and white

20:52

to colorful and confusing

20:56

but rich and complex it went from simple

20:59

cut and dry to anything but that really

21:03

was a catalyst for bringing me out of

21:04

fundamentals i'm seeing that

21:06

the world isn't as simple and nice and

21:09

neat and concise

21:10

as i was raised to think it is and i

21:12

thank god for that moment

21:15

elliot how about you there was a point

21:18

where i realized that fundamentalism

21:20

wasn't going to be

21:21

a big enough place for me to live

21:24

happily and healthfully

21:26

and it was actually a moment in our

21:27

marriage where we were already going

21:29

through a lot

21:30

but i think we were just sitting and

21:31

watching like some

21:33

sad movie like where the red fern grows

21:35

or something

21:36

and i just i grace turned to me my wife

21:39

turned to me and said do you not feel

21:40

this at all

21:42

there's something wrong with you if

21:43

you're if you're not able to feel that

21:44

and i wasn't and i

21:45

and it was through other scenarios as

21:48

well realizing i just wasn't able to

21:49

feel anything

21:50

and it was because of this um

21:55

this weight of shame that that actually

21:58

bridged back to this fundamentalism

22:01

it was being able to know truth and to

22:04

have this responsibility for defending

22:06

truth looking out at the world that i

22:07

had also applied to myself

22:09

in the form of of self-judgment

22:12

self-loathing at

22:14

any any sin or things that i perceived

22:16

as

22:17

being against god's will and and so in

22:19

that pain i had just

22:21

shut down and realized this is the world

22:23

i was living in even relationally not

22:25

being able to connect not being able to

22:27

feel

22:28

not only the shame but the joy of

22:31

connection

22:31

and um and the sadness that's

22:34

appropriate

22:35

in order to grieve with those who are

22:36

grieving and so i just turned that all

22:39

off and

22:40

that wound up being the kind of the

22:42

catalyst to

22:43

some work personally you know honestly

22:45

doing

22:46

going through counseling and starting to

22:48

peel back these layers it's not

22:49

something you would right away associate

22:51

with

22:52

fundamentalism but the judgmentalism

22:56

that comes with fundamentalism

22:58

had been so destructive inside of me

23:01

that it had caused some serious damage

23:03

and that was the world that i needed to

23:05

fix

23:07

it just happened to also involve

23:09

dismantling

23:10

uh that judgmental stance towards the

23:13

world and towards myself

23:15

yep you mentioned elliott which a good

23:18

fundamentalist or recovering

23:19

fundamentalist would

23:21

truth right and i've got

23:25

okay i've got a bone to pick with

23:27

fundamentalists in

23:28

in many ways but here's here's the bone

23:30

to pick i want to talk about now

23:32

is this this notion that fundamentalists

23:36

care more about truth than any other

23:39

branch of christianity

23:42

first of all i think fundamentalists

23:45

idolize truth over and above

23:48

god in many ways fundamentalism idolizes

23:51

the scriptures because they

23:53

call the scriptures truth and and it's a

23:56

member of the holy trinity which is in

23:58

completely unhealthy but secondly

24:00

fundamentals kind of feel like we have

24:03

the we are passionate about truth we

24:05

have the truth we own it we know what it

24:06

is we

24:07

we are protectors of truth

24:10

when really what we find in the

24:13

scriptures

24:14

is jesus is the fullest revelation of

24:16

who god is

24:17

and jesus himself said that i am the

24:20

truth the truth is a person the truth is

24:22

not a

24:23

a bunch of ideas the truth is not a

24:25

literal interpretation of the scriptures

24:27

the truth is not a guidebook

24:29

and a statement of faith on the church

24:30

on a church website i'm getting a little

24:32

preachy here

24:33

but actually the truth is a person and

24:36

his name is jesus

24:37

for for any uh philosophy types that

24:40

might be listening and your hackles are

24:42

going up at this usage of the word truth

24:44

uh fear not we are going to do an

24:46

episode on uh

24:48

truth specifically so stay tuned

24:51

piggybacking on your soapbox a little

24:53

bit it was specifically the desire to

24:56

know what is true that led me out of

24:59

fundamentals how about that you know i

25:00

mean it was

25:02

uh scrutinizing the assumptions

25:05

that had been given to me and

25:06

scrutinizing the arguments

25:08

for particular doctrines and points of

25:10

view

25:11

that ultimately led me to conclude that

25:14

this was not a sufficient foundation for

25:16

a religious faith

25:17

eventually anyway that and having a

25:19

really good

25:20

mentor figure who modeled for me

25:24

what a different kind of christianity

25:26

could look like i had a

25:28

good friend of mine still to this day

25:30

named hl hussman who is a pastor now

25:33

in louisville shout out to hl hey hey uh

25:36

daylight church google it check it out

25:38

and he even though

25:40

he was a little more conservative than

25:41

me and kind of still is to this day

25:43

definitely showed me that there was

25:46

there was an alternative to

25:48

either fundamentalism or atheism because

25:52

there was you know there was a point and

25:53

you guys probably experienced something

25:55

like this too

25:56

eventually you reach a point where

25:58

you're ready to chuck the whole thing

26:00

and if i didn't have a good model for

26:02

what an alternative could look like i

26:03

might have

26:05

chucked the whole thing but he and a few

26:07

other people

26:08

modeled for me like look you can be

26:11

passionately invested in this and also

26:13

simultaneously admit that you're unsure

26:16

about some stuff yeah and not pretend

26:18

that you're 100

26:19

certain about everything all the time

26:20

and that as a matter of fact a sincere

26:22

religious faith doesn't need to be a

26:24

hundred percent

26:25

certain about everything all the time

26:27

and we can have serious conversations

26:28

and serious disagreements and still

26:31

uh love each other through them and

26:32

share a religious experience together

26:35

if i hadn't had that i might not have

26:37

stayed stayed around at all

26:39

yeah thank you lord for hl i mean i i

26:41

can say pastorally

26:43

um you know i've been pastoring for

26:46

shoot i don't know 13 14 years and i've

26:49

walked through

26:51

countless faith journeys with people who

26:53

are faith

26:54

crises with people who grew up

26:57

fundamentalist

26:58

and were introduced to the wrong or

27:01

maybe even the right person who caused

27:03

them to question

27:04

their view on the scriptures or

27:06

contradictions in the scriptures

27:07

or whatever science confronted them in a

27:11

in a jarring way whatever it might be

27:13

and they had a little doubt doubt snuck

27:15

into their process

27:16

into their faith journey and they had no

27:19

idea what to do with it

27:22

because they they've been groomed in

27:23

this world of fundamentalism that says

27:26

if one thing isn't true the whole

27:30

house falls apart that is a really

27:33

really dangerous kind of faith to give a

27:36

person

27:37

because the world is just not that black

27:38

and white and in

27:40

in cut and dry and it's frustrated me

27:42

endlessly

27:43

journeying with people and by

27:45

frustrating me i mean

27:46

also like i just love him so much i just

27:49

want to be like

27:50

you don't have to freak out if the bible

27:54

isn't absolutely literal you don't have

27:56

to freak out if inerrancy

27:58

actually doesn't work out because jesus

28:01

is still

28:02

alive for crying out loud

28:05

so that's that's a a fatal flaw to

28:08

fundamentalism to me

28:10

is i don't want to pass down to my kids

28:12

a faith

28:13

that is so delicate that if one little

28:15

thing is out of whack about it and they

28:17

they kind of look under the covers and

28:19

it isn't there

28:20

that the whole thing falls apart yeah in

28:22

some ways i think this is

28:24

a justified fear that a lot of

28:27

fundamentalists have

28:29

it seems to me there's a there's an

28:30

insecurity at the the root of this

28:33

approach to religious faith and

28:36

that there's something right about it in

28:38

the sense that

28:40

once you start to question it in that

28:42

way

28:43

yes you might actually be led down a

28:45

trajectory or you begin to question

28:47

all of those other things i was down

28:50

that trajectory

28:51

and whatever form of faith you end up

28:54

with

28:55

will be a fundamentally different kind

28:56

of thing than what you started with

28:58

and to that extent the fundamentalists

29:00

are correct

29:02

to be afraid of that but you know at the

29:05

end of the day like

29:06

either you trust that god is able to

29:09

handle that kind of doubt

29:11

or not either you trust that

29:14

reality really does reflect uh your

29:17

belief system

29:19

or not and if you if you do really trust

29:22

that then

29:22

you know follow the argument where it

29:24

leads and wherever you end up is going

29:25

to be a place that

29:26

is still compatible with communion with

29:29

that god

29:30

yeah that's good so let me ask

29:33

where where would you say how would you

29:35

describe your faith journey now

29:37

at this point in time i started with a

29:40

really long list of things that i was

29:42

sure of

29:43

in my faith and

29:47

i thought that's the way it was supposed

29:48

to be but over time it's actually become

29:51

a much shorter and shorter list as i've

29:53

started to realize

29:55

what the actual i mean it's ironic is

29:57

what's

29:58

what's actually fundamental to faith in

30:01

this triune god

30:03

and it's it's not a certain

30:05

eschatological view

30:07

and it's not a certain way even of

30:10

of seeing the the creation narrative or

30:14

um or or of interpreting how

30:18

how we should be on mission in the world

30:20

it's

30:21

understanding that there is a creator

30:23

god

30:24

who sent his son to save us from sin

30:27

and and now we get to be with him in

30:30

life

30:31

and that's kind of the only thing that

30:34

i've been able to cling to through this

30:35

and there are other things that i

30:36

actually hope are going to come back

30:37

into phase

30:39

that i'm going to be able to to once

30:40

again feel sure of but that doesn't feel

30:42

like a journey that can be rushed right

30:44

now it's been

30:45

more appropriate to to sit back and and

30:48

hold loosely and let the ground shift

30:50

so yeah i really i hope to be able to

30:53

continue

30:53

in this faith in in in god and to have

30:57

that type of trust

30:59

but i guess i guess to have that type of

31:01

trust requires

31:03

a loose holding of it as something that

31:05

doesn't have to be coddled or protected

31:07

and that's much more the stance i've

31:09

taken now than

31:10

when i needed to protect that the house

31:13

of cards

31:14

from uh from getting bumped it's good

31:18

for me um if i had to describe the state

31:21

of my faith

31:22

currently it would be something like

31:27

a deep fascination with

31:30

agape and agape is the

31:34

one of the greek words for love and

31:36

specifically in the new testament it's

31:38

the word that is used for divine love

31:40

the kind of love that god has for the

31:43

people

31:43

that he made the kind of love that jesus

31:46

has for

31:47

his enemies even while they hate him and

31:50

torture him and crucify him nonetheless

31:52

he loves them

31:54

and this is really what has sustained me

31:57

as a religious person is the fascination

31:59

with understanding and experiencing this

32:02

kind of love

32:03

and if i'm just totally honest totally

32:05

transparent at this point

32:06

in my religious journey i'm pretty

32:09

ambivalent about the rest of it

32:12

ambivalent in the sense of being like

32:14

torn in in

32:15

multiple directions sometimes to the

32:18

extent that i

32:19

sincerely doubt many of the things that

32:21

are probably on

32:22

elliot's list of fundamentals did you

32:25

know did jesus

32:26

really rise from the dead is there

32:28

anything after

32:30

this life does god even exist that kind

32:32

of stuff

32:34

tuesdays i'm pretty sure friday's not so

32:36

much and the thing that really keeps me

32:38

going

32:39

is this this really

32:43

deep sincere fascination almost an

32:45

addiction to understanding

32:47

whether that kind of love is possible if

32:50

we can

32:51

practice it if we can learn it where

32:54

it's available

32:55

and i've had a few like a handful of

32:57

experiences in my life that you might

32:59

call

33:00

mystical or contemplative or something

33:02

like that

33:03

where i feel like i did experience that

33:05

kind of love and it seemed

33:07

transcendent and it seemed outside of me

33:10

and that's that's what keeps me going

33:13

and i've experienced that kind of loving

33:15

various human relationships as well um

33:18

and it

33:19

i at the end of the day my faith at this

33:21

point is a combination of

33:24

sincere doubt but also sincere

33:27

hopefulness

33:29

that the world really is as described in

33:32

the new testament

33:34

and and when i can't bring myself to

33:35

believe that it is

33:37

i rest on the hope that it might be how

33:40

about you randy

33:41

as my faith has evolved which it

33:44

certainly has

33:45

with each evolution jesus

33:48

hasn't diminished he's just gotten

33:50

better

33:52

my view of god of the divine has gotten

33:55

fuller and richer and bigger

33:57

the love of god has gotten

34:00

deeper and deeper and deeper and i feel

34:02

challenged by it so for me

34:04

is my faith has evolved and grown it's

34:07

rooted me more in jesus than

34:11

my first simple self

34:20

so let me ask this as we've talked about

34:23

where we are

34:24

and how do we deal with an ever

34:28

evolving faith journey kyle what do you

34:31

think is a healthy way to

34:34

engage with god or hold our faith

34:36

journey

34:37

in a really mature healthy way that's

34:39

going to bring life

34:43

yeah so let me start answering this

34:46

question by saying

34:48

a way that i i think you should not do

34:50

it

34:52

and this is the way that i did it for

34:54

for quite a few years

34:56

and that was to try to

35:01

explore every possible avenue

35:03

intellectually

35:05

that would allow me to hold on to my

35:08

narrow interpretation of christianity

35:11

uh to the extent of reading as many

35:14

books as i could get my hands

35:16

on and engaging in as many online

35:18

arguments as i

35:20

as i needed to to try to force myself

35:24

to be as confident about my belief

35:26

system as i thought that i should be

35:29

and for a while especially if you're

35:31

clever

35:32

you can be very successful at that there

35:35

there is something to be said for

35:37

positive psychology the power of

35:38

positive thinking right

35:40

and and convincing yourself of certain

35:42

things i got

35:43

boy i got super into that and for

35:45

several years i thought it was my life

35:46

calling to be an apologist a christian

35:49

someone who you know professionally

35:51

defends

35:52

the faith but from a very intellectual

35:54

perspective marshals all the arguments

35:56

that you can to

35:57

to justify why the bible is inerrant

35:59

doesn't have any contradictions and why

36:01

each of these doctrines and our

36:02

understanding of them is

36:03

you know precisely accurate and that is

36:06

the wrong way

36:08

to go about uh recovering from

36:11

fundamentalism or something because

36:12

well there's so many dangers there and i

36:14

don't want to go into them all right now

36:15

we should have a separate discussion

36:18

about that but it's maybe the most

36:20

pernicious thing

36:22

hold timeout what does pernicious mean

36:25

yeah it's maybe the most dangerous thing

36:28

i think the most tricky

36:29

thing about certain forms you're welcome

36:32

certain forms of

36:33

particularly evangelical christian

36:35

fundamentalism

36:37

is that because it has this tool

36:40

of apologetics it gives you

36:44

kind of a framework for anticipating

36:47

and explaining away any kind of

36:50

resistant inconsistent information you

36:52

might encounter in the world

36:54

so i go to college and i take a class

36:56

and the professor says xyz

36:58

and that disagrees with what my pastor

37:00

said but

37:01

my pastor warned me that they were going

37:03

to say that and then they already gave

37:05

me a reading list

37:07

you know just in case they say this here

37:10

is what you should say

37:11

or here's how you should interpret it so

37:13

that your mind is never actually focused

37:15

on

37:15

getting an education or learning what

37:17

the expert has to teach you

37:19

it's focused on refutation and holding

37:21

on to your prior point of view

37:23

and that that's the way i i went about

37:25

it personally

37:26

and that was deeply destructive

37:29

for me a healthier approach

37:33

has been to focus first on

37:37

relationships with people

37:41

and trying to form mature

37:45

healthy loving relationships

37:48

with appropriate boundaries and all of

37:50

that and letting

37:52

the religious agreement stuff

37:56

play second fiddle to that

37:59

and it's not that it's not in the

38:01

picture ever

38:02

it is because if you're a religious

38:05

person and you're going to have a deep

38:07

friendship or a deep romantic

38:09

relationship or a deep family

38:11

relationship with someone

38:14

being religious is part of who you are

38:16

and that's going to have to come into

38:17

play eventually so it's not that it's

38:19

you know it's not that we bracketed it

38:20

out altogether it's that it's no longer

38:24

the most important thing it's not given

38:27

primary place anymore and we don't

38:28

approach it as though

38:30

if we don't agree about this it's the

38:32

end of the goddamn world

38:34

we approach it as though uh agreement

38:37

about this is secondary to us

38:39

actually having a loving relationship

38:41

with one another because we both agree

38:44

that probably god cares a little more

38:45

about that than he cares about us

38:46

agreeing about how old the earth is or

38:48

whatever

38:49

um so that's that's the kind of general

38:51

approach that i've developed

38:53

to this sort of thing and what i've

38:55

found interestingly

38:56

is that when you approach the

38:58

relationship first

39:00

the other stuff becomes a lot more

39:02

manageable

39:04

the disagreements that might be

39:05

inevitable now take place in the context

39:09

of trust and we're willing to listen to

39:12

one another

39:13

in a way that we wouldn't have been if

39:15

the entry

39:16

into the relationship was let's

39:19

you know hash all this out immediately

39:21

that's good it's really good

39:23

how do we see god in our faith journey

39:26

in a healthy way i would say first of

39:27

all for me

39:29

it looks like my faith journey is not

39:31

something that needs to be protected

39:34

it's something that should be enjoyed

39:36

that's a very

39:37

fundamentally different perspective on

39:40

my faith journey

39:41

another one is that it's a dangerous

39:43

thing to think that i've arrived at

39:44

truth

39:45

the scriptures are authoritative to me

39:48

but to think that i've arrived at truth

39:50

and i have a

39:52

full understanding of who god is it's a

39:54

very arrogant

39:56

position to hold rather than to say

39:59

i'm on a journey towards truth that i'm

40:01

going to be on for the rest of my life

40:03

and i'll never arrive until i stand

40:05

before

40:06

truth and look him in the eyes when i

40:08

when i see jesus

40:11

so thinking back over um everything

40:14

we've said about our journeys out of

40:16

fundamentalism i know all of us still

40:18

have family members and good friends who

40:21

are fundamentalists who are still very

40:23

much in it some of them struggling with

40:25

it some of them

40:26

proud of it how how should we relate

40:29

to these people do we consign them to

40:33

the you know trash bin of history

40:35

they're just behind the times and

40:38

uh they're a minority and so we're just

40:40

going to move on without them

40:42

do we view them as the other the you

40:45

know the

40:46

the enemy to be fought and defeated

40:49

or is there a better alternative

40:52

so how have you guys approached this

40:54

personally with respect to

40:55

fundamentalists that you're still in

40:57

relationship with um

41:00

all sorts of ways basically i have

41:03

confined them to the trash heap of

41:04

history and i have

41:05

just tried to ignore the fundamentalists

41:08

and done all sorts of things but then

41:09

i go back to what you said kyle in the

41:11

beginning of um

41:12

your where your faith journey is and you

41:15

said it's this obsession with an

41:17

addiction to

41:18

agape love and then that begins to

41:20

challenge me again

41:22

because if god is love and if jesus the

41:25

fullest expression of who jesus is

41:27

is agape love then i have to choose to

41:31

love

41:31

my family members who are

41:32

fundamentalists i don't get a choice in

41:34

that

41:34

actually and um and that's helpful it's

41:38

it's easier for me to love my family

41:40

because your family is something that

41:41

you

41:41

you know you can say no to but man

41:44

that's hard to do

41:45

my family is my family and so i don't

41:48

have a ton of

41:48

fundamentalist friends because you can

41:50

choose

41:52

pick and choose your friends and i don't

41:53

choose a whole lot of fundamentalist

41:54

friends

41:55

but the fact that my family i can still

41:57

love them and i can still appreciate

41:59

them and i can still see beauty in them

42:00

even though i disagree

42:02

fundamentally with their fundamentalist

42:04

beliefs tells me that maybe i should

42:06

open my world up a little bit more to

42:08

people who

42:09

i see as having a smaller more confined

42:12

faith

42:12

journey than myself that i condescend

42:15

upon you know and i've been

42:16

condescending through this

42:18

uh podcast it checks me a little bit and

42:20

says i don't know if that's what agape

42:22

love looks like

42:23

agape love probably looks like making

42:25

room and space for people who i disagree

42:27

with in

42:28

in in just finding the beauty in them a

42:31

little bit more now i know this is a

42:32

really pastoral churchy

42:34

answer but um i think this is a more

42:36

christ-like answer

42:38

and sometimes that looks like not

42:39

talking about things like politics or

42:41

faith

42:41

and that's best that's choosing love

42:43

that's choosing

42:45

a person over my agenda and loving a

42:47

person for who they are rather than what

42:49

they

42:50

do or don't believe in choosing to see

42:52

the beauty in them so

42:53

that's my reality is i have

42:55

relationships that i just can't go there

42:57

with because it's not constructive

43:00

i won't love them as much as i as i

43:02

would as if we just don't go there

43:04

and hopefully i hope and pray that we

43:06

will get to a point where we can talk

43:08

about that in a generous loving fashion

43:10

but not right now we can't and that's

43:13

that's okay for me

43:14

and it's actually enhanced our

43:15

relationship and given me a way forward

43:18

so that's how i do it or how i try to i

43:21

should say

43:22

it's not that easy

43:26

yeah it seems like often words aren't

43:28

the right way to get this across

43:30

to to break down fundamentalism it's uh

43:33

it's

43:34

more so uh yeah living it out in

43:37

in a way that that shows a better way

43:39

and so it's it's looked different ways

43:41

with different people but

43:42

it just feels like something that needs

43:44

to be shown

43:45

rather than told yeah that that's

43:48

excellent um

43:49

so that really dovetails with with my

43:51

approach to this as well

43:53

or i should say my ideal approach to

43:54

this because there's the way that i

43:55

would like it to go and then there's the

43:57

way that it

43:58

sometimes often does go the way that it

44:00

sometimes does go is we have a weird

44:02

argument on

44:03

facebook and then we don't talk to you

44:04

oh facebook um

44:06

there's a lot of avoidance right i mean

44:07

in some of my relationships it's gotten

44:09

to the place where

44:10

uh kind of a conscious decision uh if

44:13

we're going to continue to enjoy each

44:15

other's company

44:16

issue x just doesn't come up and

44:18

sometimes i think that's where you have

44:20

to go

44:21

that can be the most responsible

44:23

decision to make

44:24

given the dynamics of a relationship but

44:27

for me it's not ideal

44:29

and so how i think about the ideal

44:31

there's some philosophy for you if

44:33

you're if you're ready for this

44:35

so a philosopher named soren kierkegaard

44:39

talks about a concept that he calls

44:41

indirect discourse

44:43

and this is a way of communicating

44:45

without saying directly

44:46

what it is that you want the other

44:47

person to believe or understand

44:50

and for him it's really bound up with

44:52

his whole approach to philosophy

44:54

he wrote under pseudonyms most of the

44:57

time

44:58

so most of the works that we have of

44:59

kierkegaard are under different names

45:02

and sometimes he will say things in one

45:04

work that will directly contradict

45:05

something he says in another work and

45:07

sometimes in the same book

45:08

even he'll write under different names

45:10

and argue back and forth

45:11

with these characters and so it's very

45:13

hard to pin down major issue in kicker

45:15

card scholarship is

45:16

what the hell did kierkegaard think

45:18

about anything um and

45:20

but he does this very intentionally

45:23

because he believes his view of faith

45:25

is that you cannot get to christian

45:28

faith

45:29

intellectually it's not possible he was

45:32

an anti-apologist before there was ever

45:34

such a thing as

45:35

evangelical apologetics uh the your

45:39

reason is gonna

45:40

only ever get in the way of you having

45:42

the encounter with god

45:44

that is necessary for sincere christian

45:47

faith

45:47

and so if you're going to lead somebody

45:49

to that kind of encounter and

45:51

let's be honest when we're dealing with

45:54

our

45:54

fundamentalist friends and family that's

45:57

what we're doing

45:58

i mean our hope anyway i think

46:01

is that we want them to experience what

46:04

we experienced

46:05

to use another philosophical metaphor

46:08

leaving the cave

46:09

and seeing the sunshine and figuring out

46:12

what

46:13

a freer more sophisticated faith can be

46:15

like we want that for them too

46:18

but approaching that intellectually

46:21

you know shooting arguments at them

46:23

trying to get them to see

46:25

that their position is irrational

46:27

probably not the way to do it

46:29

and so you have to figure out a form of

46:31

communication that is indirect

46:34

and that can take a lot of different

46:35

forms and for me the form that it tends

46:37

to take

46:38

is building a relationship of trust

46:42

around whatever i can find in common

46:45

with that person even if it's just

46:47

we both like woodford reserve that could

46:50

be the whole basis

46:52

of our relationship at the beginning but

46:54

building some trust

46:55

first and then also secondarily

46:58

not having an agenda for where i need

47:02

this to go

47:04

and that that requires a lot of

47:05

self-work getting to the place where

47:08

i'm genuinely okay if this does not lead

47:11

to their conversion

47:12

if this does not lead to their departure

47:15

from fundamentalism

47:17

my goal is this relationship and

47:21

loving them well and modeling for them

47:23

what i think

47:24

christian faith looks like to me or what

47:27

i think agape looks like

47:29

and i don't need it to necessarily turn

47:31

out a certain way

47:32

and that's just something i have to work

47:34

on for myself but in my experience when

47:36

you

47:36

approach a relationship that way it's

47:39

much more likely to end up in the place

47:41

that

47:42

you would hope that it would but

47:44

indirectly

47:48

a couple of years ago i was sitting on a

47:50

beach

47:52

on a northwoods wisconsin lake just

47:54

beautiful

47:56

place and what i consider just paradise

47:59

this beautiful place and i was

48:01

on a bonfire it was probably midnight or

48:04

later and just by myself and there was

48:06

no moon and the sky was just

48:08

full of stars and i could see the milky

48:11

way everything was just brilliant

48:13

and i remember just it just took my

48:14

breath away and i remember thinking

48:17

how could i ever think that i could

48:20

wrap my hands around you

48:21

[Music]

48:23

how could i ever think that i could know

48:25

you

48:26

fully it just seemed silly in that

48:30

moment

48:30

and that was the actual i felt closer to

48:33

god in that moment than i had

48:35

in a lot of different worship

48:37

experiences or

48:39

enlightened times and that's kind of

48:42

what my journey's been like

48:44

god has just gotten bigger and better

48:46

and more beautiful

48:47

i expect that in five years my my vision

48:50

of god and my

48:51

my understanding of god is going to be

48:53

bigger and better and more beautiful i

48:54

just expect it to happen i expect it to

48:56

change

48:57

and to morph and to grow and to get

48:59

better because

49:01

god has never been more beautiful and

49:03

attractive to me

49:04

than he is right now the person of the

49:06

christ

49:08

has blown up my world and the scriptures

49:11

really are responsible for it but many

49:13

of us

49:13

just don't want to pay attention to what

49:16

the scriptures actually say

49:17

about who god is in jesus christ so

49:20

that's where i am i'm

49:22

i'm enthralled i'm all in i'm more in

49:24

than i ever have been

49:25

um and that doesn't mean i don't have

49:27

doubts or don't think that

49:29

this might i might be you know getting

49:31

paid to mislead people sometimes i think

49:33

that

49:34

but more often than not i'm just i'm all

49:37

in on jesus

49:53

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49:58

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