In this episode we tackle the good, the bad, and the ugly of American evangelicalism. This conversation represents the culmination of something Kyle and Randy have been discussing for a while, and something that comes up a lot when they do live church Q&A's. Is "evangelicalism" salvageable? Listen to find out.
The bourbon featured in this episode is Willett Pot Still Reserve.
If you're local to Milwaukee, check out our friends at Story Hill BKC.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
In this episode we tackle the good, the bad, and the ugly of American evangelicalism. This conversation represents the culmination of something Kyle and Randy have been discussing for a while, and something that comes up a lot when they do live church Q&A's. Is "evangelicalism" salvageable? Listen to find out.
The bourbon featured in this episode is Willett Pot Still Reserve.
If you're local to Milwaukee, check out our friends at Story Hill BKC.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
00:00
[Music]
00:14
welcome to
00:14
a pastor and a philosopher walk into a
00:16
bar the podcast where we mix a sometimes
00:19
weird but always delicious cocktail of
00:21
theology
00:22
philosophy and spirituality
00:28
hello friends and welcome to a pastor
00:30
and a philosopher walk into a bar
00:33
i'm excited to be with you today i'm
00:34
excited about what we're going to talk
00:36
about
00:37
mostly and i'm excited about what we're
00:39
going to drink today so kyle could you
00:41
just
00:42
tee it up for us please yeah so our
00:45
topic for today
00:46
is evangelicalism praise the lord uh
00:48
this is something that randy and i have
00:50
been talking about for a long time it's
00:51
something i think we've both been
00:52
wrestling with
00:53
for a long time we until fairly recently
00:56
would both have confidently described
00:58
ourselves
00:59
as evangelicals whether we still would
01:02
or not is going to be part of our
01:03
conversation
01:05
so we're going to talk about the the
01:07
good the bad and the ugly
01:08
of what it means to be an evangelical in
01:10
the united states
01:11
oh boy well i could use a good drink to
01:14
talk about evangelicalism in the united
01:16
states as
01:17
it currently sits so kyle what are we
01:19
drinking today
01:21
today we have willet pot still
01:24
small batch straight bourbon whiskey now
01:27
that's just the normal will it
01:28
correct yeah yeah hot steel small
01:32
i know i know that's just what it says
01:33
on the label it comes in a funny shaped
01:36
bottle that kind of looks like a pot
01:37
still
01:38
so it's it is it's a good looking bottle
01:42
it's very recognizable on the shelf
01:43
sort of drug paraphernalia i've always
01:46
looked like a bomb yeah you could
01:49
definitely smoke something out of it
01:51
i'm sure if you wanted to uh so this
01:54
comes in at
01:55
47 alcohol by volume
01:58
it is a straight bourbon whiskey which
02:00
means it's aged for at least two years
02:03
in new oak barrels uh
02:06
and it's delicious man i get this could
02:08
just be the glass but i really think i
02:10
get a lot of barn in the nose here
02:12
a lot of dusty oh yeah major old musty
02:16
books like dusty books
02:17
dusty library and barn like old wood
02:20
prefab wood
02:21
you know it's very specific yeah
02:25
all right now i'm gonna that was just
02:26
the nose i'm gonna taste it now
02:28
i mean to me it's a punch in the face of
02:30
vanilla
02:32
some black pepper on the back end nice
02:34
all right yep a little spicy but not too
02:37
much
02:37
i get the vanilla i get cherries yep
02:39
cinnamon flavor
02:40
cinnamon uh yep yes a good for me a good
02:43
bourbon
02:44
slash a good whiskey but particularly
02:47
bourbon is
02:48
when the front of your pallet or the
02:49
front of your tongue is
02:51
different than the middle in the back of
02:53
your palate
02:55
yeah when that's complex enough to
02:57
actually do something and have different
02:59
descriptors
03:00
that's i'm having fun then yep vanilla
03:02
hits first it's like it's more cloves on
03:05
the back
03:07
for me i feel like that's the the taste
03:09
that stays in my mouth for a while
03:11
we apologize to all you non whiskey
03:13
geeks
03:14
but i'm not fine that's where there's a
03:17
fast forward button on your
03:19
on your app um this bourbon used to be
03:21
really easy to find i guess it's not so
03:23
easy to find anymore
03:25
um it's so comes in somewhere around the
03:26
40 mark i think
03:28
comparable to other mid-range bourbons
03:31
yeah i'd say that's a great 40
03:33
whiskey myself i'd have to think hard
03:36
and have them side by side if i
03:37
like will it or woodford to me we're
03:40
gonna need to get some wood good stuff
03:41
side by side
03:42
all right hey we should cool all right
03:45
well cheers boys
03:47
cheers evangelicalism
03:51
is a hot button topic in our world today
03:54
particularly among people who are maybe
03:57
on the first half of life
03:58
40 and under there's a lot of
04:02
hand wringing over it there's a lot of
04:03
anger over evangelicalism there's a lot
04:05
of protection and defensiveness when it
04:07
comes to
04:08
talking about evangelicalism and there's
04:10
a lot of people
04:11
a lot of people who grew up in within
04:13
evangelicalism
04:15
who want nothing to do with it and in
04:17
many ways because of evangelicalism want
04:18
nothing to
04:19
do with the church they've written it
04:21
off some of them have
04:22
gone on to high church traditions
04:24
catholic presbyterian episcopalian you
04:26
name it but i would say many of them
04:29
have become
04:30
gone into this none category where
04:31
they're just i'm done with organized
04:33
religion it's
04:34
evangelicalism has ruined me for
04:36
christianity
04:38
and that's uh that's a loaded gun that
04:41
we're talking about here
04:42
something that some people say because
04:44
of that i don't want anything to do with
04:45
religion and then some people who are
04:47
clinging to it
04:48
in all in its in its pure form or in
04:50
their pure form
04:52
in defending it and they think defending
04:54
evangelicalism equals defending the
04:56
gospel
04:57
right which i would totally disagree
04:58
with kyle can you just frame up
05:01
this big umbrella that is evangelicalism
05:04
a bit for us give us an overview
05:07
sure and just to piggyback on what you
05:09
said there's another class of
05:11
people who just don't know what to do
05:12
with themselves like they're not willing
05:14
to become the nun and they're not
05:15
willing to exit into what you call the
05:17
high church traditions
05:18
they just don't know where to go because
05:20
there's nowhere that they fit and so
05:21
they
05:22
sort of spin their wheels and are really
05:23
really unhappy i know quite a few people
05:25
like that
05:26
disgruntled within the movement but
05:27
don't know where where
05:29
what their options are correct yeah yeah
05:30
or they don't have any good options
05:32
um so there's several different i mean
05:35
it's one of those words where you drop
05:37
it in a room and suddenly
05:38
you've made enemies on all sides right
05:40
because it means so many different
05:41
things to so many different people
05:43
so to give some some clarity about what
05:45
it is we're talking about here
05:46
we're both americans and so what we're
05:48
going to be talking about is american
05:50
evangelicalism
05:51
i say that because evangelicalism is
05:53
older than
05:55
the american expression of it it exists
05:58
in other parts of the world today in
05:59
very different ways than it does
06:01
in the united states and so that's not
06:03
necessarily what we're talking about but
06:05
it's important to keep in mind that
06:07
american christians are a very small
06:08
segment of christians globally and there
06:10
are many
06:11
global christians who would use the word
06:13
somewhat differently from how americans
06:15
use it
06:16
in the united states it's almost become
06:17
synonymous with a political voting bloc
06:20
so when you read a poll from barna or
06:23
pew or something like that and they talk
06:24
about evangelicals
06:26
what they mean is this this really
06:29
sizable
06:30
and politically powerful demographic
06:34
that's mostly white that votes a
06:36
particular way
06:37
and to to extricate evangelicalism
06:40
from that can be very very difficult so
06:43
if we're going to talk about we're going
06:44
to have to talk about both the spiritual
06:47
aspects of it and also the political
06:49
aspects of it because
06:50
these days they're they're one entity
06:53
and it would be kind of dishonest of us
06:54
to pretend
06:56
that we could we could just isolate one
06:58
half of that and ignore the other half
07:00
which would be really nice to do right
07:02
uh i personally wish i could ignore the
07:04
political half and just focus in on the
07:06
theological stuff but it's not that
07:07
simple
07:08
so we have to just admit it's aligned
07:11
with
07:12
today in the united states conservative
07:14
politics politics of the
07:17
the gop which itself is quite different
07:19
than it was
07:20
a couple decades ago on the more
07:23
theological or religious side what does
07:25
it mean to be an evangelical
07:26
fortunately here there's a definition
07:28
that's pretty widely accepted
07:30
that we can appeal to so there's this
07:33
historian
07:34
i think he's british named david
07:36
bevington actually
07:37
he and an american historian named mark
07:40
knoll
07:40
have both written a lot about
07:42
evangelicalism trying to sort of locate
07:44
it in the history of religious thought
07:47
and they just came out with a book
07:48
together about
07:50
evangelicalism in its place and actually
07:52
its future so i'm looking forward to
07:53
reading that
07:54
later this year yeah but bevington gave
07:57
this
07:58
call it a definition he set out for
08:01
markers i'm going to call them markers
08:03
of evangelicalism
08:05
as a way to distinguish it from other
08:07
historical religious movements
08:09
so he says there's four things that are
08:11
kind of distinctive
08:12
to evangelicalism first a kind of
08:16
he called it biblicism so
08:20
a strong emphasis on the bible uh now
08:23
some evangelicals
08:25
yeah the authority of authority
08:26
particularly in the sense of what should
08:28
i believe about god
08:30
but also for most evangelicals what
08:32
should i believe about the world
08:34
and what should i believe about ethics
08:35
really what should i believe period
08:37
yeah i mean when it comes to the bible
08:39
and biblicism i would say this is a huge
08:42
departure from this is a protestant
08:44
thing in many ways i would say
08:46
is that catholics look at to their main
08:48
authority as tradition
08:50
and evangelicals look to their main
08:51
authority as the bible
08:53
yeah catholics don't even read the book
08:55
right
08:56
that's a little jab to my catholic
08:58
friends but i've had priests say that to
08:59
me so
09:00
i feel okay about it yeah um
09:04
that's a huge huge divergence that's a
09:08
that's a major major difference in what
09:10
we give authority in way
09:12
and most of my catholic good catholic
09:14
friends and most of my good evangelical
09:15
friends would say
09:17
both of them catholics put too much
09:19
weight into
09:20
tradition and evangelicals probably put
09:23
too much weight
09:24
into the scriptures now if i said if
09:26
you're a good evangelical listening
09:28
you just put me in the heretic box
09:29
because you can't put too much weight in
09:31
scriptures
09:32
but but that's exactly what we're
09:34
talking that that attitude that's
09:35
biblicism you can't put too much weight
09:37
on this that's
09:38
that's what that's what bevington has in
09:40
mind um so that's the first identifier
09:43
or the first marker the second
09:44
is cruciate centrism which is just a big
09:47
word that means
09:48
a strong focus on the cross so the death
09:52
of jesus is the most important aspect of
09:55
christianity or the death
09:56
and resurrection let's put those
09:58
together of jesus
10:00
are the defining features of
10:02
christianity that's what it's
10:04
really all about let's let's make
10:06
another nuance here i would say
10:08
good evangelicals with good theology
10:11
would say the death and resurrection
10:12
of jesus is central but i would say
10:16
part of that not fully robust
10:18
evangelical theology
10:20
really even leaves out the resurrection
10:21
and just says it's all about
10:23
the cross yeah and not in a non-healthy
10:26
way i would say
10:26
yeah so there are fair enough there are
10:28
some traditions that you could you could
10:30
sit in
10:31
a church in that tradition for several
10:33
years and not realize that the
10:34
resurrection was that important
10:36
but you know guys a lot about you know a
10:38
whole lot about the crucifixion
10:40
and sin um definitely fair point um so
10:44
that's biblicism crucialism third we
10:46
have conversionism
10:48
so this is the idea that you need to
10:51
have
10:52
a conversion experience born again
10:55
yeah to be born again to use the
10:57
scriptural language you have to be one
10:59
way
11:00
and then you make a decision and you
11:01
repent and you have an experience and
11:03
then you're a different way
11:04
and that's how you enter into the church
11:07
that's put into terms how do you stay in
11:08
the church
11:09
put into terms that i grew up with did
11:12
you invite jesus into your heart yeah or
11:14
i invited jesus into my heart when i was
11:16
eight years old at a milwaukee brewers
11:17
baseball
11:18
christian camp and i remember kneeling
11:20
on one knee thinking about what a worm i
11:22
was
11:23
at eight years old invited jesus into my
11:25
heart and i get to live forever i was
11:27
nine
11:27
so that's interesting uh and i remember
11:30
praying that conversion prayer three or
11:32
four times to make sure that it's
11:34
that stuck before i told it absolutely
11:38
but yeah you have to have this conv and
11:39
sometimes those you know those
11:40
conversion stories are very dramatic and
11:42
sometimes they're not they happen when
11:43
you're a kid
11:44
but the point is uh there has to be a
11:46
point in your life when you acknowledge
11:48
the lordship of christ and you devote
11:50
your life to that and yeah that's your
11:52
conversion as a good church boy and
11:54
pastor son i would guess that you had
11:55
the the problem of your a boring
11:57
testimony where like you grew up a
11:59
christian
12:00
and you didn't have that like cool
12:01
college story where you could i was
12:03
six so yeah if either of you need any
12:06
spiritual guidance on your
12:07
journey or whatever just like a little
12:09
ahead and you can
12:10
lean on me yeah yeah thank you
12:13
[Laughter]
12:15
so that's the first three yeah and then
12:16
the last marker uh according to
12:18
bebington is activism
12:20
this one's vague it can mean a lot of
12:22
different things to a lot of different
12:23
people
12:24
right now it means political activism
12:26
that's what it means in the united
12:27
states
12:27
i didn't always mean that though it
12:29
could be
12:30
prior to the civil war in the united
12:33
states it meant
12:34
what we would now call social justice
12:36
yeah i'm caring for the poor
12:38
and the downtrodden and the socially
12:40
disenfranchised
12:41
doesn't matter so much anymore i would
12:43
say that's the beautiful roots of
12:45
evangelicalism evangelicalism when it
12:47
began
12:48
i'd be a card-carrying member to be
12:50
honest with you with john wesley and the
12:52
methodists and
12:52
the social justice movement that was
12:55
burst out of there really
12:56
is a huge part of the foundation of
13:00
evangelicalism
13:01
it's beautiful it's good unfortunately
13:03
now when you talk about social justice
13:05
to most evangelicals
13:07
you're talking politically you're
13:08
talking a dirty word social justice
13:11
is like now a dog whistle for saying oh
13:14
that's a liberal evangelical so that you
13:16
can write them off
13:17
yeah so it's changed dramatically in the
13:20
last
13:21
um 150 years and i think another aspect
13:24
of this
13:25
is well several things happen we could
13:27
talk about a few of those things i mean
13:28
the war was one thing and there was
13:30
fundamentalism which we've talked about
13:32
in a separate episode happened a lot of
13:34
things happened in culture that
13:35
evangelicals felt they needed to react
13:37
against
13:37
probably the enlightenment being
13:39
possibly the biggest right well yeah
13:41
certain ways of looking at scripture
13:43
that were birthed in the enlightenment
13:45
yeah and so
13:46
because of those ten those trends in
13:48
this broader society and because of the
13:50
decisions that
13:51
a lot of evangelicals at the time made
13:54
to
13:54
react against those things and to i mean
13:57
they chose a couple hills to die on that
13:59
they honestly shouldn't have chosen
14:01
and that started a trajectory that led
14:02
to what where we're at today
14:04
just imagine though for the first time
14:06
actually right now as we speak
14:09
listeners friends community we're
14:11
sharing a moment of epiphany here
14:12
i actually understand a little bit i
14:14
feel like i'm i'm i can empathize with
14:17
the evangelicals who reacted in the
14:19
wrong way during the enlightenment when
14:21
you're getting you're used to a world in
14:23
which science is just
14:24
loose theoretical non-foundational world
14:29
that it really doesn't have much matter
14:30
when we're talking about truth
14:32
but then all of a sudden with the boom
14:35
of scientific discovery happening
14:37
in the enlightenment all of a sudden
14:38
people are saying oh we can actually see
14:40
what's true based on science
14:42
and can i can imagine where a church
14:44
that's been used to being able to
14:45
identify what's true based on the bible
14:47
based on tradition based on their their
14:49
ideas
14:50
now they're being challenged by science
14:51
and that's a very insecure moment
14:54
and so now all of a sudden we have to
14:55
react right that's usually where things
14:57
go wrong
14:58
is where instead of responding you
14:59
actually react and so now we have to
15:01
react and say no this
15:02
what is in this book is scientific fact
15:06
right or fill in the blank you they went
15:07
all sorts of different directions but i
15:09
actually get that you know like they're
15:10
used to controlling the narrative
15:11
they're used to having
15:13
the the lion's share of what it means to
15:16
be
15:16
what's something if something's true or
15:18
not and all of a sudden that rugs
15:20
getting swept up from underneath them
15:21
and they panic i get it yeah but yet
15:25
it gave birth to all sorts of
15:28
funky theology and bad ways of looking
15:30
at the scriptures it makes you think it
15:31
makes me think
15:32
that if they had really honored the
15:35
scripture as much as they
15:36
claimed to if their biblicism has been
15:39
sincere
15:40
they might have noticed that it's
15:41
written from the perspective of socially
15:44
weak people
15:45
yes absolutely they're an oppressed
15:48
people
15:48
yeah i mean it's written from the
15:50
perspective of social oppression
15:52
yeah so to use it as a way to hold on to
15:56
social power is
15:57
pretty ironic and what's ir what's
15:59
what's crazy is that the bible actually
16:01
never claims to be a book of science
16:03
no literally science didn't exist
16:07
and the ancient people had their science
16:10
all wrong so if we're taking science
16:12
from
16:12
from this book that's thousands of years
16:15
old
16:16
whoa we're going to have a weird science
16:17
anyways yeah and it did i mean it turned
16:19
out to be really weird and parochial and
16:21
is to this day
16:22
yeah before we move on from this i just
16:24
wanted to say like another aspect it
16:26
seems to me of
16:27
activism see if you agree with this is a
16:30
certain kind of
16:31
evangelism evangelism for the purposes
16:35
of
16:35
conversion evangelism it seems to me
16:38
not as an expert here within
16:41
evangelicalism evangelism looks quite
16:43
different than it does outside of
16:44
evangelicalism
16:46
has that been your experience yeah i
16:48
would say
16:49
i mean evangelicals do
16:52
evangelicalism evangelism i'm sorry very
16:56
poorly for the most part but
16:57
to their credit they're one of the few
17:00
traditions that actually do evangelism
17:02
intentionally um and hold it as a
17:05
as a value i would say or or well they
17:09
i don't want to say for example that
17:10
catholics don't hold evangelism to be of
17:13
value
17:14
but their approach to it seems very very
17:16
different yeah and here's what i think
17:18
you were getting at which i would
17:19
completely agree with
17:20
uh even a typical evangelical response
17:22
to
17:23
a social justice movement would be well
17:26
we just got to get them saved
17:27
right like why are you worrying about
17:29
their environment why are you worrying
17:30
about those kids
17:31
not having food to eat why are you
17:32
wearing worrying about those kids not
17:34
having parents why are you worrying
17:35
about those kids not having health care
17:36
we just got to get introduce them to
17:38
jesus and if that's if that happens
17:40
let's move on and get the next ones is
17:42
that what you're getting at yeah yeah
17:43
yeah i literally heard my old pastor say
17:45
those exact words
17:47
people would argue about other various
17:49
things and uh he'd be like oh
17:51
let's just focus on what really matters
17:53
yeah that's been some of the comments
17:55
uh some some of the things that i've
17:57
seen coming out of
17:58
some of my evangelical friends in
18:00
response to recent
18:02
racial protests the this uprising trying
18:05
to do something
18:06
the response is why why aren't we seeing
18:09
the gospel mentioned here like we should
18:11
be mentioning the gospel
18:12
protests that that aren't uh that don't
18:15
have the gospel message embedded in them
18:17
are
18:17
are useless and uh and it's of the world
18:20
yeah yeah i i have trouble putting
18:24
wrapping my head around how the gospel
18:26
could be extricated from
18:28
the advocacy for the poor and the
18:30
powerless but it but it seems like
18:32
that's a division that's been really
18:34
cleanly made in a widespread way
18:36
and it gives you it gives you a sense of
18:39
what
18:40
that kind of evangelical must mean by
18:42
the gospel if it's not already present
18:44
in that kind of service and that kind of
18:46
social activism
18:48
then what is the additional thing that
18:49
they think the gospel is that's missing
18:51
from that exchange
18:52
and it seems to me it's something
18:54
cognitive it's it's
18:56
a matter of what people believe what
18:58
propositions they have assented to
19:00
and if that's what it means then that's
19:02
a thoroughly unbiblical way of thinking
19:04
about
19:05
yeah it's probably about where they go
19:06
when they die too like that's sure
19:08
if sure but the thing that that decides
19:11
that for
19:12
for many many evangelicals is what you
19:15
believe
19:16
uh i heard a philosopher of religion one
19:18
time kind of snarkily
19:20
say it's almost like when you get to
19:22
heaven god is going to put a little hat
19:24
on you with a little meter on it he
19:26
called it a doxastoscope
19:28
it's something that measures the level
19:30
of your belief and if
19:31
if the you know if the needle pins the
19:33
right thing then you get
19:35
let in or something which is absurd when
19:37
you put it that way but that really does
19:38
seem to be
19:39
the basis of most evangelicals beliefs
19:43
about what it takes to be saved so it's
19:45
a matter of doctrinal ascent
19:47
now to be fair to evangelicals i would
19:50
say
19:52
interpretation or the translation that
19:54
we've been given of the apostle paul
19:55
particularly in the book of romans and
19:57
many other places would in galatians
19:59
would lead us to believe that belief is
20:01
everything right so like to be fair to
20:03
them you have to
20:04
you have to look those those verses and
20:06
those texts in the eye and say
20:08
yeah what's is there something bigger
20:10
going on so i
20:11
i think belief actually does matter in
20:14
in
20:15
in some way to god i think god really
20:17
loves it when we put our faith and trust
20:18
in him
20:19
but what where i said the translation is
20:22
usually when paul says faith in christ
20:24
it's the original greek is usually
20:27
faithfulness to christ right and that's
20:30
totally different that means
20:31
i can have i can have feeble faith
20:33
that's struggling to actually
20:35
really cognitively put the dots together
20:37
i can i can be having a hard time
20:39
in doubting but still be faithful to
20:41
christ in my life
20:42
that's a very big difference so this to
20:44
me is another irony of
20:45
evangelical biblical scholarship because
20:48
it seems to me
20:49
like i agree with you that on the
20:51
surface it would make sense how they got
20:53
there
20:54
to the belief is everything kind of view
20:56
but they got there through poor exit
20:58
jesus
20:58
they got there through ignoring superior
21:01
biblical
21:02
scholarship which would have told you
21:04
that you know english translations
21:06
of the word belief are not adequate for
21:09
the greek
21:10
pistus or pasteur or whatever this is
21:13
not what they meant
21:14
right and so if you you know if you read
21:16
paul in an english translation it's easy
21:17
to come away you're right it's easy to
21:18
come away with the view that
21:20
without belief you know your your
21:22
eternal security is
21:23
is not there but when you recognize that
21:26
paul didn't really think of belief in
21:28
the same way that we do nor did jesus
21:30
the whole foundation of that kind of
21:31
gives way yeah absolutely i can
21:34
i've been in evangelicalism long enough
21:36
that i can put on the hat and really
21:38
quickly think in those ways and and
21:40
feel that defensiveness that that i
21:43
think has to be felt when we look at the
21:44
reality that like going back to the
21:46
example of the protesters
21:47
if if there's a world out there that's
21:49
advocating for justice more than the
21:51
church is
21:53
for the church to come along if if
21:54
that's the if that's the gospel of
21:56
advocacy for the oppressed is
21:58
is part of the gospel and that's
22:00
happening better outside of the church
22:01
as the church comes along it's like
22:02
trying to sell
22:04
ocean water on the beach like we have we
22:06
have yeah
22:07
it's more expensive because we're going
22:09
to ask something of you
22:11
as you as you join this movement and we
22:12
have literally nothing to offer
22:15
that isn't already present uh outside of
22:17
the church so the defensiveness is
22:20
uh i think it's a response to what's
22:23
perceived as a position of um it's a
22:25
perilous position it's a weak position
22:28
i can't sell this yeah
22:31
you get no argument from me so randy
22:35
you're
22:35
you're a pastor of what you used to
22:39
confidently call an evangelical
22:41
church i did yep so has that changed for
22:45
you
22:45
what has you what has been your
22:46
experience in fact for both of you
22:48
because i know you both have
22:50
extensive experience in the evangelical
22:51
church world can you just describe for
22:53
our listeners what that experience was
22:55
like
22:55
and why you are where you are now yeah
22:58
and i'll say
22:59
back to you kyle i feel like you've held
23:02
on to the evangelical label only because
23:04
we as a church have for the last yeah
23:08
for the last three or four years that's
23:09
fair
23:10
yeah okay which is very honoring of you
23:12
by the way
23:13
um it's just more work to not use
23:18
the label yeah you have to explain what
23:20
you mean now
23:21
yeah yeah yeah i mean i avoid a lot of
23:23
awkward conversations
23:25
yep so i've been a pastor for uh
23:28
for about almost 14 years
23:31
in september we started brew city church
23:33
in september of
23:34
man i think 2006 it was a year after we
23:37
got married my wife and i
23:39
and at those moments i really didn't
23:41
have a whole lot of qualms with
23:43
evangelicalism by name or the tribe
23:45
right i
23:46
even then i still tried to prophetically
23:49
speak out against the
23:50
overtly political nature of it i've been
23:52
uncomfortable with that since i was in
23:53
middle school to be honest with you
23:55
and confronted by it so there's things
23:57
that i fought against
23:58
early in my pastoral life career calling
24:01
whatever you wanted to call it
24:03
but in the last probably 10 years
24:06
and especially probably four or five
24:09
i've grown increasingly uncomfortable
24:11
with the label and
24:12
in the last couple of years have really
24:14
actually
24:16
i dread when people ask me i don't dread
24:19
what people ask me what i do
24:20
i don't mind saying that i'm a pastor
24:22
but i dread the following question which
24:24
is always
24:24
what kind of church do you pastor that
24:27
question i absolutely dread because
24:30
by and large they easily write me off
24:32
when they hear i'm an evangelical pastor
24:34
they easily put me in a box they easily
24:36
label me
24:37
as conservative republican
24:40
trump supporter homophobic very
24:44
homophobic
24:45
judgmental he thinks that i'm going to
24:48
hell
24:48
no matter what there's there's all these
24:50
things that like as soon as i say
24:52
evangelical pastor i think
24:53
subconsciously and even consciously
24:55
people put together these little things
24:57
that go off that says
24:58
he's judging you as we speak he's not a
25:00
safe person
25:01
he's he's he's got an agenda and since
25:04
that's been happening in the last five
25:06
six years or so i've become extremely
25:08
uncomfortable
25:09
for me personally as an evangelical and
25:12
then
25:12
something happened to me a couple maybe
25:14
a little more than a year ago
25:17
one easter morning on easter is a big
25:19
deal for guys like me right we our
25:22
buildings are packed people are ready
25:24
for us to be inspired and the worship is
25:26
is beautiful and it's it's a fun time
25:29
and i just remember i remember driving
25:32
in to sunday service and i'd take the
25:34
same way every time
25:35
going down i-94 here in milwaukee and i
25:37
remember thinking there's like three
25:39
times as many cars
25:40
this morning as normal uh struck me i
25:42
know
25:43
how many cars there are going to be what
25:45
the feel is on a normal sunday morning
25:46
and they were
25:47
easily triple the amount of cars on the
25:49
road and i told me something and then we
25:51
have
25:52
all these people in the in the building
25:54
and we pack it out and it's
25:55
it's wild times and instead of being
25:58
super
25:59
pumped by that and super excited by that
26:02
i was disturbed by it because it just
26:03
told me
26:04
what's keeping these folks from being
26:06
here the other 51 weeks of the year
26:08
right
26:09
and what i realized was
26:12
maybe it's our label maybe it's that
26:16
as long as we're calling ourselves
26:18
evangelical
26:20
we're actually making ourselves off
26:22
limits to a bunch of people
26:23
who might find what we bring beautiful
26:26
who might find what we bring life-giving
26:28
and eye-opening and surprising but
26:30
because we have this
26:32
tribe in this name over us of
26:35
evangelicals
26:36
they'll write us off and never step foot
26:38
through our doors and
26:39
that is the tipping point for me i don't
26:42
mind being looked at as a
26:44
i don't mind being mine being looked at
26:46
poorly by other people i can explain my
26:48
way out of that
26:49
i do mind when our label affects the
26:52
witness of the gospel when our label
26:54
in our tribe actually compromises the
26:56
witness of christ
26:58
that's that's a that's a non-starter for
27:01
me it can't happen and so since
27:02
since then i've been processing and i've
27:04
just gotten more comfortable with
27:07
being the annoying voice in the room i
27:09
still have evangelical
27:10
friends our church networks are
27:12
evangelical my peers and closest friends
27:14
in the ministry are evangelical
27:16
but i'm no longer comfortable calling
27:18
myself
27:19
evangelical or calling bruce city church
27:21
evangelical now i'm not the only one who
27:23
gets to say what bruce city church is
27:24
with there's
27:25
250 people in a leadership team that
27:27
gets to do that together but
27:28
i just refer to us as a christian church
27:30
non-denominational following jesus
27:33
because i'm tired of beautiful people
27:36
who might be able to hear something
27:37
beautiful
27:38
be off limits to it because of our title
27:41
and our tribe
27:43
yeah speaking of when people ask me what
27:46
i do and i'm dreading when they ask me
27:48
what kind of pastor what kind of church
27:50
i pastor there's just
27:52
a conversation that sticks out to me i
27:54
love cooking
27:55
and somehow that got out to my kids my
27:58
boys cub scout camp
27:59
and they recruited me as the camp cook
28:03
for winter camp
28:04
which is just cooking a lot of below
28:08
average you know food
28:11
for a bunch of kids who don't really
28:12
care about what it tastes like it's
28:14
really fun for a cook but so i'm cooking
28:18
and then one of the other dads come in
28:19
his name's ed he's a great guy he's a
28:21
catholic
28:22
he um he lives in the same area as i do
28:26
i can tell he cares about social justice
28:28
a lot
28:29
and we start talking about politics and
28:31
um he's liking where this is going and
28:33
everything
28:34
and then he starts asking what i do and
28:36
i could as soon as he started hinting at
28:38
talking about what i do because we were
28:40
talking about what he does instead
28:42
i was panicking because i knew i was 100
28:45
confident of what his
28:47
reaction would be and so he asked me
28:48
what do you do i'm a pastor
28:51
and you know you always get that little
28:53
like eyebrow raise like
28:54
oh you're a pastor yep i'm a pastor goes
28:57
what
28:58
what kind of church do you pastor and
29:00
inside i'm
29:02
just panicked and i go
29:05
well i'm an evangelical church but it's
29:07
a different kind of evangelical church
29:08
we really care about social justice and
29:10
we really
29:10
we we love we're pretty progressive for
29:13
an evangelical
29:14
church i had to put on so many
29:16
disclaimers and i didn't even let him
29:18
pause or let him say anything before i
29:20
went into all those disclaimers
29:22
because i wanted to crawl into it under
29:24
a table
29:25
and hide because i was embarrassed of my
29:28
tradition i knew what he would think of
29:29
it
29:30
and i knew that he was about to write me
29:31
off and so i felt like i had to save it
29:32
in the moment
29:33
that's a really rough affiliation
29:37
to to take just because that's what
29:39
we've been given
29:41
and now i feel like i've got to justify
29:42
myself and excuse myself in my
29:44
church that i love dearly and i think is
29:47
following in the way of jesus
29:49
but now with most interactions i have to
29:51
actually be embarrassed and excuse our
29:53
us
29:54
because of the name that we have that's
29:56
being trashed by the rest of our tribe
29:58
and family
29:59
not the rest but a lot large part of it
30:01
that's a problem for me
30:04
yeah like most things it comes down to
30:07
is this a
30:08
a liability or is this is this an asset
30:10
is this
30:11
absolutely there's a constant benefit
30:13
and the cost to say you're an
30:14
evangelical is very high
30:16
it's just grown and grown yeah
30:17
absolutely i mean when we first started
30:19
it was a little bit of a liability we
30:21
had a lot of ex evangelical people who
30:23
would be
30:23
young people who would be like okay i'm
30:24
done with the evangelical church but i
30:25
can i can hang with you guys you know
30:27
like
30:28
we meet in warehouses and got to sweep
30:30
up cigarette butts from the
30:31
you know the party that was here the
30:32
night before i can do this here
30:34
but since those early days it's just
30:36
exponentially grown to be a bigger and
30:38
bigger liability to now like you're
30:39
saying elliot
30:40
it's just not worth it i don't think um
30:42
if i actually care about the testimony
30:44
of jesus
30:44
and the gospel it's not worth it
30:48
friends before we continue we want to
30:50
thank story hill bkc
30:51
for their support story hill bkc is a
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full menu restaurant and their food is
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seriously some of the best in milwaukee
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30:59
full-service liquor store featuring
31:00
growlers of tap available to go
31:03
spirits especially whiskeys and bourbons
31:05
thoughtfully curated regional craft
31:07
beers
31:07
and 375 selections of wine
31:10
visit storyhillbkc.com for menu and more
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info
31:14
if you're in milwaukee you'll thank
31:16
yourself for visiting story hill bkc
31:18
and if you're not remember to support
31:19
local one more time that's
31:22
storyhillbkc.com
31:23
[Music]
31:25
so elliott you have an interesting
31:27
history with
31:28
evangelicalism tell us a little bit
31:30
about that yeah
31:32
well it was my my whole context i grew
31:35
up a pastor's kid within an evangelical
31:37
free church like the full
31:38
efca thing and rural america no less
31:42
in rural america this is this is a badge
31:44
of honor like we're evangelicals because
31:46
we care about
31:48
uh propagating the gospel in the world
31:50
and so i don't know what all of those
31:52
other denominations who aren't
31:53
evangelicals are doing but
31:55
like obviously we've got it right
31:58
i questioned the label until i saw it
32:01
politically associated
32:02
and and even then it's been this long
32:04
kind of this progression of
32:06
of starting to understand more and more
32:08
this is something that's not
32:09
uh i can't when i say i'm an evangelical
32:13
that doesn't
32:14
actually describe what i what i mean or
32:16
what it like what it meant
32:17
in my in my context uh in my my origins
32:20
and so
32:23
it's it hasn't felt like any major cost
32:26
to me to to drop it it's not like i'm
32:28
i have to make a decision on behalf of a
32:30
church or it's what this isn't something
32:32
that
32:33
i i'm really bought into aside from my
32:35
parents tradition frankly and so
32:39
evangelicalism uh as as i see it now
32:43
as it's as it's become politically
32:45
aligned and as i've seen the responses
32:47
of
32:48
um of of those who would
32:51
overtly call themselves evangelical
32:52
christians and and who who wear that on
32:54
their sleeve and then i see
32:56
the the open the racism or the
33:00
if if not if not openly it's the the
33:03
fear of the other the defensiveness this
33:05
fear it seems to be this dominating
33:08
characteristic
33:09
as as we look at um
33:12
immigration or even
33:16
even other denominations at those who
33:18
who we could
33:19
look at and identify as as others within
33:21
the bride of christ it's
33:23
there's this this sense that that they
33:25
don't have it right
33:26
and we do i i don't know when it
33:28
happened but i know i can't call myself
33:31
an evangelical now and
33:32
it's it's been i think in the last
33:36
two three years within the current
33:39
administration perhaps that that i
33:41
finally had to make that break once and
33:42
for all
33:44
yeah and what about you kyle what's your
33:47
process been
33:48
recently so i i
33:51
just sort of de facto became an
33:53
evangelical because
33:54
um when i was a teenager my
33:58
parents switched from the kind of
34:01
liberal
34:01
mainline denomination we were a part of
34:03
to the southern baptist convention but i
34:06
didn't have any idea what that meant
34:08
and so we were just suddenly
34:09
evangelicals but i had no
34:11
context for that or anything i couldn't
34:12
have distinguished it from what i'd
34:14
known
34:14
prior to that point and then when i was
34:18
in college
34:18
i had a pentecostal experience i got
34:22
involved with a bunch of
34:24
a campus ministry of a bunch of
34:25
pentecostals i didn't know they were
34:26
pentecostals but they were
34:28
uh and then sort of they sneakily you
34:29
know baptized me in the holy spirit
34:31
kind of like that scene in nacho libre
34:33
where they just sneak up on you and
34:34
you're baptized and so then i was
34:36
pentecostal which
34:38
is also a kind of evangelicalism at
34:40
least in the united states
34:41
but again i didn't know that so i didn't
34:43
become aware really of being a
34:45
an evangelical until i got to graduate
34:47
school i suppose
34:49
at least it wasn't really on my radar
34:51
and then suddenly you know i'm
34:52
surrounded by a bunch of atheists and
34:54
a bunch of catholics and some mainline
34:57
protestants that are very very liberal
34:59
and i realized that i'm the peculiar one
35:03
that they view evangelicalism as as kind
35:05
of backwards
35:06
as um kind of a punchline really
35:09
socially
35:10
and and particularly from the from the
35:12
perspective of scholarship it was just
35:13
not taken seriously at all
35:15
and i had thought that we were like at
35:17
the pinnacle of
35:19
of christian scholarship i was varying
35:21
at the time i was very into
35:22
apologetics which we can talk about on a
35:26
later date
35:27
and so you definitely get this sense
35:29
within that kind of world that kind of
35:30
space
35:31
that evangelicals often see themselves
35:34
as the cutting edge of scholarship
35:37
especially when it comes to the bible
35:39
and outside of that world they're almost
35:41
entirely ignored
35:43
so there are you know a handful of
35:45
exceptions here and there
35:47
uh evangelical scholars who were
35:49
educated at reputable institutions and
35:51
so they make a name for themselves in
35:52
scholarship
35:53
but you can't when you read their
35:54
scholarly work you can't really tell
35:56
their evangelicals so much
35:58
but like within the umbrella of
36:00
evangelicalism you think oh we have all
36:03
the smartest people all the best experts
36:04
all the best biblical scholars all the
36:06
best you name it
36:07
and then outside of it it's viewed as
36:09
like this kind of fringe
36:10
niche thing that's a little behind
36:12
behind history and the wrong side i mean
36:14
you've seen ken ham's
36:15
ark though like that so i i grew up in
36:18
kentucky
36:19
and as you know just a couple hour drive
36:22
from where i grew up and
36:23
i have relatives who still are very into
36:26
that kind of thing
36:28
yeah so for me
36:32
my movement out of evangelicalism
36:34
coincided with my movement
36:36
out of what i would call second-rate
36:39
scholarship
36:41
not i'm not trying to offend any
36:42
evangelicals here but that's just kind
36:44
of how it happened
36:45
but then i i'm late for that buddy
36:49
i met you and i love you and i love
36:50
everybody at this church and so
36:52
um that's the label that was used and so
36:55
if i would
36:56
if i would meet somebody and they asked
36:57
me what church i went to i would say
36:58
we're a progressive
36:59
evangelical church right and then they'd
37:02
probably ask what that meant and i can
37:03
explain
37:04
you know we're evangelical in these
37:06
distinctives but
37:08
we also like black people and we don't
37:10
hate gay people and we don't think that
37:12
transgender people aren't human and blah
37:13
blah blah blah
37:15
but now i'm very relieved to hear that i
37:16
don't have to make that qualification
37:18
anymore
37:19
there you go i can just say we're a
37:22
christian church in milwaukee
37:24
so we've we've kind of been skirting
37:26
this a little bit some of the
37:28
things that have driven us out of
37:30
evangelicalism
37:31
let's just name some things if that's
37:33
okay
37:34
what are randy from your perspective
37:36
what are the main dangers or the main
37:38
problems
37:39
with evangelicalism that have forced you
37:41
to decide that you can no longer use the
37:43
label
37:45
i mean this might take a while the
37:47
rampant homophobia is a major one
37:50
it haunts me that our tribe
37:55
or maybe even we can say now former
37:56
tribe has
37:58
made a large people group feel like god
38:01
doesn't love them
38:02
because christians don't love me
38:05
god thinks i'm terrible because
38:08
christians obviously think i'm terrible
38:09
god doesn't want anything to do with me
38:11
because christians don't
38:12
want anything to do with me and that's
38:13
by and large evangelicals but
38:16
there's some in the other other
38:18
traditions as well but that's mostly
38:19
evangelical
38:20
i think the the status if you ask
38:22
non-believers
38:24
young non-believers what they think of
38:25
when they think of evangelicals 91
38:27
of them say homophobia that's a problem
38:29
to me because those are people that have
38:31
the gay people have
38:32
the image of god on them they bear the
38:34
imago day
38:35
which makes makes them gives them
38:38
unsurpassable worth and value is
38:40
as greg boyd likes to say that's a
38:42
problem for me
38:43
so homophobia is one of them
38:44
judgmentalism is one of them this us
38:46
versus them mentality that evangelicals
38:49
thrive off of
38:50
is a problem for me because i don't find
38:52
any of that in christ
38:53
in jesus when we talk about the gospels
38:56
the political stuff is a problem for me
38:58
here's here's
38:59
it's not just the political stuff if if
39:00
evangelicals were just mostly republican
39:03
i wouldn't care that wouldn't be that
39:06
big of a deal for me but here's the big
39:08
deal
39:08
is and this has happened i think mostly
39:10
in the last decade
39:12
is what many evangelicals have done
39:14
without knowing it
39:16
is they've they've let their theology be
39:18
influenced by their
39:20
political ideology and that is a scary
39:23
thing that i've noticed that
39:24
when it comes to things like race racism
39:27
in things of race and
39:28
inequality are completely to me kingdom
39:31
things and i'm not saying that they
39:32
don't have political
39:33
outcomes which they do but for me is how
39:36
you feel about equality how you feel
39:38
about
39:38
race and racism that is a completely
39:42
kingdom of god
39:43
issue but because we've got gotten so
39:46
entrenched in the evangelical church
39:48
in the more conservative way of thinking
39:50
now anytime you
39:51
talk about race and i can say this from
39:53
experience loads and loads of it
39:55
that when you talk about race you've got
39:57
to actually cringe because you're going
39:58
to mix
39:59
you're going to make a lot of the room
40:00
mad because you're talking about race
40:02
that means you're a liberal
40:03
that's why many churches right like as
40:05
as we think about the rioting that's
40:07
happening the protests that's
40:08
that's that's been happening and why so
40:11
many evangelical leaders have said
40:12
nothing about it i can tell you
40:14
firsthand i've talked to these guys i
40:15
know
40:16
they're scared out of their mind to do
40:17
it because they know that if they do
40:19
they're going to be seen as liberal
40:21
progressive you know
40:23
heretics and they're going to lose a
40:25
bunch of their church because they're
40:26
going to think you're getting too
40:27
political when really you're just
40:28
walking in the way of jesus
40:29
i can't take that anymore like i'm not
40:32
going to be willing to to compromise the
40:33
gospel for the sake
40:34
of these people who say they love the
40:36
gospel and that's my last one that i'll
40:37
say that
40:38
it's just this one of the straws that
40:40
broke the camel's back is that this
40:42
people
40:43
evangelicals and i'm sorry i'm being so
40:44
hard on you evangelicals now
40:46
it's us i still i still like in many
40:48
ways see us as
40:50
family um but this group of people who
40:54
say they hold the gospel so highly the
40:56
gospel coalition we have we got all
40:57
these gospel-y things
40:59
this group of people who say they care
41:01
about the gospel so much
41:03
this is an extreme statement but i'm
41:05
gonna say it because i've thought it
41:06
through and i really believe it
41:08
evangelical christians who say they hold
41:10
the gospel so highly
41:11
just might be the biggest danger to the
41:13
gospel of jesus christ of any people
41:15
group in the world right now
41:17
i really think that evangelicals again
41:20
who
41:21
say they care so much for the gospel are
41:23
a danger to the gospel and to the
41:24
testimony of christ himself
41:26
they're letting jesus be lumped in with
41:28
this judgmental
41:30
homophobic angry us versus them tribal
41:34
movements
41:34
and everybody's seeing the gospel as
41:36
such that
41:38
is for me that's grounds for divorce
41:42
yeah yeah i have a really hard time even
41:45
considering
41:47
that kind of evangelicalism a genuine
41:50
expression of christianity there's a
41:53
political commentator i won't name him
41:54
because i don't want to necessarily
41:56
recommend his work but
41:57
and he just doesn't even refer to that
41:59
as christianity he calls it christianism
42:01
sure that's good pseudo-christianity and
42:03
i've heard similar other things like
42:04
there's a biblical scholar i respect a
42:06
lot who just calls it the american civil
42:08
religion
42:10
doesn't even use the word christianity
42:12
for it because it's just so
42:14
it's so antithetical to what you see in
42:16
the new testament i mean
42:18
there's nothing about the sermon on the
42:20
mount that's consistent with
42:23
that kind of rampant you know us first
42:26
mentality
42:28
where it's all about grasping and
42:29
maintaining power at the exclusion of
42:31
of others yeah you i mean speaking of
42:34
the term of the mount
42:35
as a good jesus follower wouldn't you
42:37
think that if you find yourself having
42:39
to qualify and put asterisks
42:41
and conditions on the sermon on the
42:42
mount jesus
42:44
formative teaching about what what god
42:46
is like
42:47
doesn't that make you think man i should
42:50
think of my way through
42:51
where i've gotten to in my faith journey
42:54
that's just the fact that more people
42:56
don't consider that because i've heard
42:58
how many evangelicals have the three of
43:00
us heard who
43:02
put asterisks on the sermon on the mount
43:04
to explain it away
43:06
how can you not be how can you not be
43:08
uncomfortable with that i don't
43:09
understand that
43:11
yeah have i hit them all or do you guys
43:13
have other issues with
43:14
evangelicalism since we're taking the
43:15
gloves off here
43:17
i mean mine are maybe predictably
43:21
more evangelicalism has in my experience
43:25
a real hang up with being
43:28
intellectually respectable and that's a
43:31
volatile
43:32
relationship with academia right i think
43:34
this go well
43:35
yeah i mean this probably goes back to
43:38
the foundation of sort of american
43:40
fundamentalism and the sorts of things
43:41
that they were reacting against and
43:44
they they started to form this idea that
43:47
there's a
43:48
an intellectual elite at the big
43:51
universities
43:52
that has it out for them that liberal
43:55
agenda
43:55
yeah the the kind of but like a hidden
43:58
kind of
43:58
uh i don't know conspiratorial kind of
44:01
thing that
44:02
you know to to get a position at one of
44:04
these big universities you have to
44:05
somehow be liberal or
44:06
not take the bible seriously or
44:08
something like that rather than seeing
44:11
the fact that you know most academics
44:13
are more liberal rather than seeing that
44:15
as a reflection of
44:17
the effect of of critical inquiry
44:20
and they see it they see it they take it
44:22
kind of personally and so they
44:23
they become insular and they do a kind
44:26
of very cult-like
44:28
thing i'm not saying all evangelicals
44:30
are in a cult
44:32
but there are some pretty stark
44:34
similarities
44:35
between how evangelical scholarship
44:38
often works and how cults often work
44:40
they kind of separate themselves from
44:41
the larger quote-unquote mainstream
44:44
society
44:45
they build their own institutions they
44:48
teach their adherence to distrust the
44:51
experts
44:52
and the sources of information in the
44:54
mainstream
44:56
and then they give them worked out
44:57
explanations of why the mainstream sees
45:00
things the way that they do
45:02
so that when their adherents encounter
45:04
mainstream
45:05
expertise and whatever they have uh they
45:07
have a ready way to explain it away they
45:09
don't have to take it seriously
45:11
because it's already been explained for
45:12
them by their
45:14
religious authority um so you know the
45:17
leaders within the bubble
45:18
are touted as the best in the world and
45:22
you know they're probably smarter than
45:23
the average layperson for sure
45:25
and so when the layperson goes out into
45:26
the world and meets other experts they
45:28
can't tell the difference they can't
45:30
tell
45:30
you know who's a genuine expert who
45:32
isn't and they've been told to distrust
45:34
those other ones and so it's just sort
45:37
of this self-reinforcing cycle thing
45:39
and what you get is this really insular
45:42
and really really over
45:44
confident kind of theology
45:47
that the outside world views as a joke
45:50
and
45:50
inside it you can't understand why it's
45:52
viewed as a joke so here's a
45:54
little microcosm of what i mean so
45:57
we don't have to talk at length about
45:59
this issue but it's just a good example
46:01
you mentioned the ark thing earlier so i
46:04
was
46:05
you know i grew up in a play in an arab
46:07
part of the country where
46:08
young earth creationism which is the
46:10
view that the earth is
46:12
six to ten thousand years old and they
46:15
get that date from
46:16
a particular reading of the bible it's
46:19
just taken for granted that's
46:21
it's just in the soil almost i mean i
46:23
didn't know anyone growing up who didn't
46:26
take that view and if you look at the
46:27
polls a shocking number of americans
46:29
still take that view
46:32
and if you if you talk to a pastor
46:36
in that kind of culture
46:39
about that specific issue probably
46:41
they're going to point you if you have
46:42
questions
46:43
they're going to point you to one of a
46:44
handful of quote unquote
46:47
creation science organizations and then
46:50
you're going to go and you're going to
46:50
read their material and you're going to
46:52
get this idea
46:53
that this is just obvious that anybody
46:56
who was rational
46:57
and honest would take this view
47:00
and then you want you might wonder if
47:02
you're a thoughtful person well then how
47:04
come
47:05
all the scientists how come everybody
47:07
outside of our community
47:09
how come they don't take that view and
47:11
the answer
47:12
the very ready explanation is
47:15
they're dishonest or they're sinful
47:18
or they're somehow out together the
47:20
devil is deceitful
47:21
yeah they can't help it satan just has
47:24
them their minds have been clouded
47:26
right and it never occurs
47:29
to these uh seemingly anyway the kenham
47:32
types right
47:33
seemingly never occurs to them that
47:35
maybe the problem
47:36
might lie on the other side of that
47:39
equation it's just an extreme
47:40
overconfidence
47:41
uh about what they claim to know and
47:44
that's something that as a philosopher
47:45
obviously really
47:47
really rubs me the wrong way and and
47:48
from that you get this sense that
47:50
evangelicals feel like they are the best
47:53
or maybe even the only
47:55
representation of the church because
47:57
nobody else understands it quite as well
48:00
our interactions with anybody on the
48:02
outside are going to be mediated through
48:04
conversion we're trying to get you to
48:06
think like us and if you don't
48:08
well we have to sever ties yeah now
48:10
let's be clear
48:12
we're talking about extremes here right
48:14
so many evangelicals would say
48:16
we're the only show in town we're the
48:17
only true believers that's that's
48:19
language that many evangelicals use
48:21
but i have many evangelical friends and
48:23
peers and colleagues
48:24
who would never in the millionaire say
48:26
that i have evangelical
48:28
pastor friends who you know they have to
48:31
unfortunately they feel like they have
48:33
to hide from their church that they do
48:34
the catholic hours every day
48:35
and they're beautiful because they've
48:37
resonated with that liturgical
48:38
form of prayer in in profound ways and
48:41
who
48:42
profoundly honor other traditions they
48:45
just find themselves in the evangelical
48:46
one there are plenty of good
48:47
evangelicals
48:48
um it's just the bad ones are so damn
48:51
loud
48:52
and so dang weighty that they kind of
48:55
just tilt the scales and the world
48:57
around us sees those ones they don't see
48:59
the thoughtful
49:00
you know kind gracious loving
49:02
evangelicals they see the
49:04
the the crazy uncle evangelicals yeah
49:06
yeah and you know
49:08
speaking from my academic perspective
49:10
those
49:11
what you call the crazy uncles they are
49:13
still largely the gatekeepers
49:15
at most of the evangelical schools sure
49:19
and those schools have a lot of money
49:20
and a lot of influence
49:22
and you know there are exceptions and i
49:24
myself have quite a few friends who are
49:26
evangelical academics and
49:27
you know i respect them and they would
49:29
not be accurately described by what i
49:31
was just talking about
49:32
yeah but for me at the end of the day i
49:34
it comes down to this question
49:36
is there enough that is good and
49:38
distinctive
49:39
about evangelicalism to justify
49:43
ignoring all of that and at the end of
49:47
the day to me the answer is no because
49:48
everything that's good about it can be
49:50
found somewhere else uh
49:52
all the all the four things we talked
49:54
about you know all the
49:55
the great things that we like about its
49:57
history i mean that stuff
49:59
isn't unique to evangelicalism it's also
50:01
available in catholicism it's also
50:03
available in mainline protestant
50:04
christianity
50:05
it's available in orthodoxy you know
50:09
yep and yeah i mean that's that's i
50:11
would say why
50:12
i'm not why i was for so long
50:15
uncomfortable with jumping
50:16
out of evangelicalism is because i
50:18
didn't see and what for me would be a
50:20
viable
50:20
alternative i love catholics but i'm not
50:23
interested in being one i
50:25
i'm i love episcopalians i'm not
50:27
interested in being one i love the
50:28
methodists
50:28
i'm not interested in in being one
50:31
that's been the problem for me i
50:32
haven't seen something for us to land in
50:34
for me to land in
50:36
and that's where though as in
50:37
conversation with some of our church
50:39
leaders it's just been
50:40
what if should we just call ourselves
50:43
christians what if we just kind of
50:44
hearken back to the early church and
50:46
call ourselves followers of the way of
50:48
jesus and we don't
50:49
have to have a label or a new thing or
50:52
an old tradition to jump into we can
50:54
just follow that old tradition that is
50:56
following the way of jesus
50:57
now so play devil's advocate just a
51:00
little bit if that's okay
51:02
so like younger me would say well
51:05
isn't that just cut either isn't that
51:08
just sort of avoiding some important
51:10
questions
51:10
or maybe it's just taking a stance on
51:12
some important questions without
51:14
admitting which stance you're taking so
51:16
for example
51:17
a non-denominational church right
51:19
there's bunches of non-denominational
51:21
mega churches for example
51:22
within evangelicalism and without fail
51:26
the pastors and the leaders at that
51:28
autonomous
51:29
non-denominational mega church they have
51:31
opinions
51:32
on theological questions and if you were
51:34
to write those opinions out
51:36
you could probably match those opinions
51:38
up to one of the main
51:40
already existing denominations which
51:42
makes you wonder well why not just call
51:44
yourself
51:44
that right why separate yourself from
51:48
that rich history
51:49
so what do you i don't know what do you
51:51
what do you think about that is there an
51:52
importance in attaching yourself to
51:54
a historical tradition that you actually
51:57
do line up most closely with in your
51:58
theology
51:59
or is it best to just say we're just
52:02
christian
52:03
uh yes and no i mean i think first of
52:06
all
52:06
as you were talking about
52:07
non-denominational it made me think
52:09
again that
52:10
we might have to also drop that
52:11
non-denominational title because that's
52:13
what people see on the internet
52:15
and as soon as people in our culture and
52:16
world c non-denominational they
52:18
instantly think evangelical that's a
52:21
non-denominational is actually a
52:22
denomination
52:23
now right yeah so so that's another
52:26
problem for us that we'll have to
52:28
work our way through but what i would
52:30
say is
52:31
we're not creating something new we're
52:34
actually trying to
52:35
be something a lot more ancient and i
52:38
would also say
52:39
just because we don't identify as
52:41
methodist or presbyterian
52:43
or lutheran or you know
52:46
episcopal catholic we see all of that
52:49
within our family
52:51
even evangelicals to be honest with you
52:53
like they're the crazy uncles
52:55
but we they're still part of the family
52:56
you can't get rid of them right
52:58
our family is not defined by the tribe
53:00
that we identify with or
53:02
that denomination christianity is this
53:04
rich
53:05
huge tense that has all sorts of
53:08
traditions within it
53:10
all sorts of cultures within it i mean
53:13
anglicanism is different in africa than
53:15
it is in the uk than it is
53:16
in the u.s that's just the beauty of
53:19
christianity is this this litany of
53:21
voices
53:22
in this diversity of of ways of going
53:24
about it
53:25
and that's the that's the messiness of
53:27
it as well but that i think that's still
53:29
beautiful and so i would say we
53:30
identify as family with all of those
53:33
traditions
53:34
we're just walking in the way of jesus
53:35
in this way that we feel like is most
53:37
honoring to the gospels in our context
53:40
right here in milwaukee wisconsin
53:42
hmm what would your old self say to that
53:45
i i think i'm okay with that yeah and
53:47
i'm not my even young guy
53:48
so who cares i'm okay with it now
53:52
yeah i liked young kyle too but i like
53:53
you better now well here's what my
53:55
current self would say about it i'm not
53:56
necessarily convinced anymore that
53:58
church bodies ought to define themselves
54:00
according to what they're
54:01
what they're doctrinally committed to so
54:03
that to me
54:04
now seems like a mistake and and that is
54:07
the distinction between the traditional
54:09
denominations its doctrinal commitments
54:11
so
54:12
if we're trying to move more towards
54:14
something along the lines of our
54:15
practice and being unified despite our
54:18
differences
54:19
then i'm all about that yep so as a
54:22
formerly evangelical
54:24
pastor what would you say is the future
54:26
if you had to predict
54:27
what does the future of of
54:28
evangelicalism look like
54:33
i honestly think that we're seeing the
54:36
not even the first fruits but we're
54:38
we're into this journey we're past the
54:41
introduction to it
54:42
we're past the the first couple hours of
54:44
it if we're taking a road trip
54:47
into the evangelical church turning into
54:49
a very
54:50
niche christian circle i
54:53
i look at my kids and my kids my oldest
54:55
is 13 my youngest is eight and i look at
54:57
my two oldest in particular
54:59
and i can tell you that my daughter if
55:01
if the church doesn't talk about race
55:03
and equality
55:04
which in from in seven years from now
55:06
when she's gonna be
55:08
making this her own she will want
55:10
nothing to do with it and i think
55:12
it seems like the chur the evangelical
55:14
church the extremes of it especially
55:16
are more and more disassociating
55:17
themselves with anything that has to do
55:19
with racial equality
55:20
and justice and i can tell you my
55:22
daughter won't want anything to do with
55:23
even
55:24
even as a pastor's daughter my son
55:27
who loves science and is obsessed with
55:29
science and biology
55:31
if he has to believe that the earth is
55:33
six to ten thousand years old
55:34
he will not want anything to do with it
55:36
i can see it in him now as an 11 year
55:38
old
55:39
and i guarantee you as an 18 20 25 year
55:42
old
55:42
he'll see that it is irrelevant and
55:44
won't want anything to do with it so i
55:45
think that's where evangelicalism is
55:46
going because i don't see
55:48
much changing in that regard so i see it
55:50
as a sinking ship
55:51
and then i see maybe evangelicalism goes
55:53
from this big titanic ship
55:55
that has hit the glacier it's like that
55:58
already happened
55:59
now we're in the process of going down
56:00
and i think evangelicalism will turn
56:02
into lifeboats
56:03
it'll just turn into a smaller niche
56:05
kind of inbred
56:06
group of people and by inbred i mean no
56:08
one's going to want to come into
56:09
evangelicals and on his own
56:11
they're going to have to keep it going
56:13
by having more babies
56:15
kind of like mormonism sorry for mormon
56:17
friends but
56:18
it's going to be ironically mormons are
56:20
in many ways more progressive today than
56:22
evangelicals are but that's
56:23
that's a separate episode yeah but i
56:25
know from having mormon friends like
56:27
mormons are encouraged to have more and
56:29
more babies
56:30
because that's the way that they're
56:31
growing the church and i think that's
56:32
the way the evangelical church will get
56:34
by and large the outside world will see
56:35
it as kind of you described it which
56:37
haunts me kyle
56:38
but and i've never heard anybody compare
56:40
the evangelical church to a cult
56:42
but it fits the bill and i think that's
56:44
where we're headed
56:48
it seems like there's a evangelicalism
56:50
as
56:51
a movement too as it's on the move and
56:53
so this
56:54
this feeling this need that we need to
56:57
separate ourselves from it you know some
56:59
of that is is us undocking but there's
57:01
some of it is just work we're getting
57:03
off
57:05
stop the bus we need to get off and this
57:06
thing is going to keep going uh further
57:08
and further down this journey and it
57:09
seems like it's condensing towards
57:12
you know it's that that generic distrust
57:14
of
57:15
uh mainstream science like that was
57:16
always part of my experience and and
57:19
the the way that i was taught but for
57:22
that to
57:23
crystallize into like i never knew how
57:26
to say fake news
57:27
like it's so it's so quick and so easy
57:29
and
57:30
it's applicable to everything and so so
57:32
now they're
57:33
they're these simple uh simple ways to
57:35
write off
57:36
things that are outside of uh our
57:38
comfort zone
57:40
and it seems like it's just it's just
57:42
getting uh narrower and narrower and
57:44
more and more
57:45
crystallized as it gathers around some
57:47
of it's gathering around political power
57:48
some of it it just seems to be around
57:50
around the language and as as the camp
57:53
gets smaller
57:54
uh the circle's tightening and yeah so
57:57
it feels like the
57:58
the movement itself is on a trajectory
58:01
um and randy i think that's what you're
58:02
describing too but it's it's not like
58:04
it's this static thing that we're
58:06
walking away from either
58:07
yep and i will say i think you'll see
58:10
more and more churches like us
58:13
have to have this moment of
58:15
introspection of
58:17
can we stay tied to this sinking ship i
58:20
i guarantee you
58:22
we're not the first that's having this
58:23
conversation but we're among the first i
58:25
think
58:25
and i guarantee you there's going to be
58:27
more churches just like us
58:29
who have that moment where they say
58:31
where they're counting the cost for the
58:33
gospel
58:33
now i could i would i know for sure that
58:35
more pastors the evangelical pastors
58:37
would love to be having a conversation
58:38
just like this
58:40
it's just that too much of their bottom
58:41
line is tied to staying evangelical
58:43
for us we're small enough and we also
58:45
have a progressive enough
58:47
and mature enough culture that we can do
58:49
this and
58:50
we probably won't lose any if many if
58:54
any people
58:55
other churches other evangelical
58:56
churches especially the bigger ones
58:58
so much they'll have to cut they would
59:00
have to cut three quarters of their
59:01
staff
59:02
if they came out and said this what
59:03
we're saying right now that's why they
59:04
won't do it but there's gonna come a
59:06
moment i guarantee
59:07
for church after church after church to
59:09
consider
59:11
we might have to cut ties with
59:12
evangelicals and i think you're gonna
59:13
see that happening
59:14
and i think uh what's currently
59:16
happening with
59:18
race and the the george floyd protests
59:21
and everything
59:22
might be the thing that really triggers
59:26
that
59:26
yeah for for a lot of people i've seen
59:28
lots of posts on social media that say
59:30
things like
59:30
especially from black friends that say
59:32
things like if your church isn't talking
59:34
about this this sunday
59:35
leave yep just yesterday i saw a post
59:39
from a prominent
59:41
former evangelical twitter person has
59:43
large following on twitter
59:45
for the first time sort of telling his
59:46
story about why he left the church that
59:48
he did
59:49
and it was because he was black and he
59:51
would talk about being black
59:52
and his you know his church leadership
59:54
explicitly said
59:56
don't do that that in fact they said uh
59:59
that's the sin of pride
60:01
yep and he just couldn't take it anymore
60:03
and so
60:05
yeah i think this might be the tipping
60:06
point for a lot of those churches
60:08
and the ones that resist and hold on
60:12
we'll just see a slow attrition because
60:15
you know
60:15
the next generation doesn't think that
60:17
way my students don't think that way
60:19
your
60:19
your children don't think that way yep
60:22
yeah
60:22
absolutely i hope you're right that
60:24
there's a catalyst to some change
60:26
but when i think about the
60:30
uh maybe it's just the loudest fringe
60:31
but the the individuals that that i see
60:34
still driving that movement
60:36
the the slow attrition feels like a more
60:38
realistic path i hope i'm wrong i hope i
60:40
hope
60:41
what you're what you're saying that
60:42
there that there's maybe still time
60:44
that that plays out well i think i do
60:47
think there's a
60:48
very big difference i know there is
60:51
between urban evangelicalisms and then
60:53
suburban evangelical
60:55
evangelicalism and then rural
60:57
evangelicalism i'm in a we're part of a
60:59
church network that has all three of
61:01
those in it
61:02
and just the response to covet even
61:05
itself
61:06
has been so telling where us is a very
61:08
urban
61:09
church are taking it very seriously and
61:12
the people in our church we have nobody
61:14
very few people have any clamoring for
61:15
us to reopening the minute we can right
61:18
the suburban context they do they have
61:20
people who
61:21
mostly careful but there are many people
61:23
who are like i'm gonna go
61:24
over to this other church because they
61:26
opened up you know and then
61:28
you have the rural ones who are saying
61:31
if you don't open up
61:32
you're not a real christian because you
61:33
have no faith and i'm a freedom fighter
61:35
right
61:36
and so i think there's the entrenchment
61:38
of evangelicalism
61:39
gets further and further and deeper and
61:41
deeper the further away you go from an
61:43
urban center yeah i think that really
61:46
matters
61:47
we should get an expert on the
61:48
urbanization of religion
61:51
and interview them that would be
61:52
fantastic here's an episode yeah yeah
61:55
i do want to say before this we're done
61:57
with this episode that there might be
61:59
some of you who
62:00
are exactly where we're talking about
62:03
you're resonating with what we're
62:04
talking about you're wondering why you
62:06
haven't heard this before maybe even
62:08
um and you're you've been seeing it as
62:11
an evangelical
62:12
evangelicalism or nothing kind of
62:15
situation or you've
62:16
resonated with where we are with don't
62:18
really fit in the catholic world don't
62:19
really fit in high church
62:21
but certainly need to be done with
62:22
evangelicalism and so you're just gonna
62:24
getting ready to pitch it all i get you
62:26
i have many friends like that
62:28
i know where where that is i want to
62:30
encourage you you don't have to leave
62:32
the way of jesus
62:33
because you're leaving evangelicalism
62:35
that just you don't have to do it
62:37
jesus is beautiful on his own with or
62:40
without this tribe that is maybe
62:42
made him look ugly just look back at
62:46
jesus again
62:47
look at the gospels in their purest
62:49
sense of what they are
62:51
and there are people like out there like
62:53
that that you'll resonate with there are
62:55
other churches in other cities who bring
62:58
that
62:58
beautiful gospel uniqueness and richness
63:01
look for it but don't give up on jesus
63:03
because you're ready to give up on
63:04
evangelicals
63:05
please it's hard to overemphasize that
63:10
that's that's been the the saddest part
63:13
for me about the decline of
63:14
evangelicalism well i guess there's
63:18
it's it's the two two sides of the
63:20
saddest part it's seeing
63:22
my my sunday school teachers my
63:26
uh my mentors my relatives who
63:31
who have followed evangelicalism into a
63:33
really dark place that it is now
63:36
and then on the other side to know my
63:38
friends who who
63:40
couldn't find their place in the church
63:41
who felt outcast
63:43
because of their orientation or because
63:46
of their color
63:47
or who just couldn't be a part of
63:49
something that was so grounded in fear
63:51
and hatred
63:52
and and so to see
63:56
it's it's life but but it all comes into
63:59
stark
64:00
relief in the social media feed seeing
64:02
these two groups
64:04
crying out against each other and and
64:06
yet to say
64:08
this this isn't jesus this isn't what
64:11
it's supposed to
64:12
be to those friends who have left the
64:14
church there
64:15
promised there's something still here
64:16
this is this
64:18
there's beauty even though it's really
64:21
hard to
64:22
hear that see that sometimes over the
64:24
volume of the church itself
64:26
the evangelical church itself yeah and
64:29
this might seem
64:31
this might seem pompous but i'm going to
64:32
say it if there's any church leaders
64:34
listening
64:35
this is the real state of things if
64:38
there are evangelical pastors listening
64:40
who have been restless with the
64:41
evangelical movement and label
64:43
similarly to what i have this is real
64:47
we are losing a whole demographic
64:50
and they're leaving the church and they
64:52
don't want anything to do with it
64:54
in the future because of what our tribe
64:56
has done to it
64:58
and friends if that's if we're church
65:00
leaders
65:01
let's be beholden to the gospel more
65:03
than we are paycheck
65:05
i know that that's dangerous to say i
65:07
know that it's
65:08
easy to say when my paycheck isn't is
65:10
isn't on the line but
65:12
it could be and i want i
65:15
i like to hope to think that i have more
65:16
integrity to the in
65:18
and follow jesus in a in a way that says
65:21
i would i would be willing to get
65:22
another job
65:23
and have this be my side hustle because
65:25
i did that for the first five years of
65:27
doing this
65:27
have this be a side hustle that i do for
65:29
free because i'm so committed to the
65:31
gospel i will not
65:32
let a whole generation just in the
65:35
future of the church
65:36
walk out the doors because we weren't
65:38
willing to say the truth
65:40
we can do better yeah i'll just
65:43
add this one thing my encouragement
65:46
to people who are struggling with what
65:49
kind of christian can i be
65:50
now and wondering what the church is
65:52
going to look like in the future i would
65:54
say
65:55
watch for the holy spirit
65:58
watch for where the holy spirit shows up
66:02
and you might be surprised because the
66:04
fruits of the spirit have not changed
66:06
right they're the same
66:06
list of things they were 2 000 years ago
66:09
and it seems to me that if you look for
66:10
the evidence
66:12
of god's spirit in a community the
66:15
places where it shows up most for me
66:16
right now
66:17
are the marginalized so it's my
66:19
suspicion
66:21
that the future of
66:24
an activist church is probably in the
66:27
black community
66:28
it's probably in the lgbtq community
66:31
it's probably in
66:32
native american communities so
66:36
yeah watch for the work of the spirit
66:37
that would be my
66:42
[Music]
66:44
recommendation
66:51
[Music]
67:19
so i will say this much for
67:21
evangelicalism particularly the
67:23
evangelicals that i view as really
67:26
thoughtful
67:26
and really careful and trying to do
67:28
their best within
67:30
perhaps not the best framework um there
67:32
is a kind of zealotry
67:33
that goes along with being an
67:35
evangelical maybe it's rooted in its
67:37
history and the
67:38
you know the wesleyan tradition perhaps
67:40
um but
67:41
they're really committed and passionate
67:44
about people experiencing god uh and i
67:46
think
67:47
even if it's couched in some some
67:49
unfortunate language
67:51
even if it is based on some you know
67:54
shoddy expertise even if it doesn't
67:56
necessarily
67:57
have the most progressive social view uh
67:59
evangelicalism has a fervor to it a
68:01
passion to it that if we could translate
68:03
it to
68:04
a more progressive outlook could could
68:07
do a lot of good socially
68:09
so absolutely i'll give them that much
68:11
yep
68:12
yeah in i mean speaking of
68:14
evangelicalism and what it's
68:16
done to to sully the gospel i will say
68:19
that evangelical churches
68:23
are responsible for a lot of the relief
68:25
efforts happening around the world in
68:26
third world nations right now
68:28
whether or not i agree with samaritan's
68:30
purse's theology which i absolutely do
68:32
not and whether
68:33
whether or not i agree with all their
68:34
methodology which i absolutely do not
68:37
you'll see i remember seeing five years
68:39
ago when the refugee crisis happened
68:41
that samaritan's purse was standing on
68:43
the greek isles
68:45
with resources and supplies for refugees
68:48
fleeing their current situation and i
68:50
that that was a convicting moment for me
68:52
i've done plenty of slamming of
68:54
franklin graham and will continue to do
68:55
so but good on him for
68:58
for being there being the first to greet
69:00
these refugees with resources
69:02
and care and love that's we can't deny
69:05
that that also
69:06
reminds me of chuck coulson in his uh
69:09
prison ministry if you remember that
69:10
absolutely somebody who i would
69:12
passionately disagree with about the
69:13
relationship between politics
69:15
and faith but you cannot deny that you
69:18
know
69:18
the man did a thing that other other
69:20
christians were unwilling to do
69:22
yep and many evangelical churches now
69:25
have a prison ministry yeah
69:26
not to mention all the good focus on the
69:28
family has done
69:39
did you go to the adventures in odyssey
69:41
there's a slide that goes outside the
69:43
building
69:43
we did yeah because the the show
69:47
what was it called um adventures in
69:49
odyssey yeah yeah yeah
69:50
the mr whitaker right he was the oh i
69:53
still love that
69:54
we really identified with the i can't
69:57
throw out mr whitaker
69:58
i read all the little books yeah i never
70:01
experienced that as a kid but
70:02
we we started having our kids listen to
70:04
those just because they're cute and fun
70:07
and i'm down with mr whitaker and the
70:09
adventures in odyssey i remember being
70:10
sweet and fun and i don't remember any
70:12
of the theological content and
70:14
i don't know how much uh dobson actually
70:16
had oversight of that but
70:18
everything i remember that was directly
70:20
connected to him now seems to me
70:22
deeply damaging oh yeah but i also know
70:26
there was like some
70:28
some disagreement within the ministry
70:30
like between him and some of the
70:31
leadership that took over
70:33
when he got a little older because i
70:35
used to read their um
70:37
they had they did a movie reviews
70:40
for for people that were afraid of
70:43
r-rated movies and content
70:45
so fun but they they presented
70:47
themselves as actual reviews
70:49
that then also just mentioned here's the
70:51
stuff you can
70:52
so it wasn't just here's how many naked
70:54
scenes there are it was an actual
70:56
supposedly like artistic review of the
70:58
whatever
70:59
and i remember they gave a positive
71:00
review i don't remember the movie though
71:03
it was a movie that i liked and i didn't
71:05
think it was even
71:06
close to the line and then dobson
71:09
stepped in
71:10
and was like nope this is a [ __ ] movie
71:12
no one should watch this it's
71:14
dangerous and they had to like kind of
71:17
apologize
71:20
those are the ones where it's like it's
71:21
you know it's meant to make it so that
71:22
you don't have to
71:24
uh subject your family to this stuff but
71:26
but then the review reads
71:27
like erotica is like it's like so like
71:30
that's a backfire if you
71:32
if you go into like at the 56 minute
71:34
mark like you can see a little bit of
71:36
nip
71:37
through the sheer and suddenly
71:41
[Laughter]
71:46
so my childhood experience of focus on
71:50
the family i mean we lived in colorado
71:51
springs for a while so i've got some
71:52
memories of like being in the um
71:55
the imagination station uh yeah slipped
71:58
my head for a moment
71:59
uh but uh but then like years later
72:03
uh listening to i i actually like took
72:06
out a car stereo speaker and i
72:08
put it inside of my pillow at night and
72:10
so i would listen to the radio
72:11
um and like nobody else could hear it my
72:14
parents didn't know that i did it but i
72:15
write it in and so i listened to um ktis
72:19
the christian radio station out of the
72:20
twin cities and
72:20
at nine o'clock it was chuck swindoll
72:22
and i would kind of just like you know
72:23
bear through that because i was
72:25
i was looking like it would get more
72:26
interesting when focus on the family
72:28
would come and like dobson would
72:30
talk through whatever dangerous bill to
72:33
allow same-sex marriage was
72:34
on the docket and like what we should do
72:37
and then i would i would switch
72:38
down to uh to cities 97 at 10
72:41
for the love line with uh adam and dr
72:44
drew
72:45
nice and so then that was kind of the
72:47
sex ed portion of the evening
72:51
which explains a lot earlier almost
72:54
everything i know about sex came from
72:56
that show
72:57
dr drew did you ever listen to dobson's
73:00
actual sex
73:00
ed like no curriculum
73:04
i'm surprised my parents didn't put that
73:05
in front of me this is how my dad like
73:07
did the birds and the bees with me
73:09
which i was old enough at that point
73:11
that it it didn't seem like news but
73:13
yeah we went for a long car ride and he
73:14
popped in these cassette tapes of
73:17
chainstops oh goodness
73:20
i wonder how many people had that same
73:22
exact experience
73:23
probably a lot yeah praise the lord
73:27
yeah i think less of this is going to
73:28
get edited out than you guys think
73:31
i was just thinking you just made it
73:32
really we had a nice clean
73:34
episode as far as editing and then you
73:36
just messed everything up for yourself
73:39
oh it's worth it
73:48
thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed
73:50
this conversation you can find us on
73:51
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73:52
like and share and subscribe wherever
73:55
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73:56
if you're inclined to leave a review we
73:58
read through all of those and we love
73:59
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74:00
till next time this has been a pastor
74:02
and a philosopher
74:03
walking to a bar
74:14
[Music]