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.
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.
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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50:00
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50:02
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50:04
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50:05
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