WEBVTT 00:00:00.369 --> 00:00:04.456 It really no longer surprises me why some people walk away from the church. 00:00:06.577 --> 00:00:12.396 Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke. And I'm Pastor Cameron. 00:00:12.497 --> 00:00:19.264 And this is the Uncut Podcast, where we have uncut, honest conversations about faith, life, 00:00:19.579 --> 00:00:28.177 and ministry. Cameron, you and I sat down a few minutes ago talking about what are we going to 00:00:28.177 --> 00:00:34.622 talk about on today's episode of the podcast, and we've covered a lot of really, I don't know, 00:00:35.857 --> 00:00:39.617 we've covered a lot of ground over the course of the podcast, but one of the things that we, 00:00:40.337 --> 00:00:44.462 have kind of like circled around and talked about a couple of different times 00:00:44.534 --> 00:00:56.897 is this idea of like deconstruction, and it's been a growing topic in Christian circles and. 00:00:58.217 --> 00:01:02.448 We were just kind of talking, we were looking at a social media account that was kind of. 00:01:02.583 --> 00:01:09.357 Recounting some, um, some pretty awful things that were said and done in the name of Christ 00:01:09.357 --> 00:01:17.117 and Christian teaching and at least in the environment and it should have been in Christ 00:01:17.117 --> 00:01:26.397 centered, right? Not in like, yeah, they weren't explicitly like crusades. Yeah, that's true. 00:01:26.397 --> 00:01:39.397 A topic. But, you know, we just kind of were like, yeah. Well, we've been, like you said, we've been talking, kind of, we've named it a lot and 00:01:39.397 --> 00:01:45.557 we've had, I think we've had whole episodes on deconstruction. But it's been kind of central 00:01:45.557 --> 00:01:55.197 to my mind a lot lately as I'm considering, I'm still considering, considering whether or not 00:01:55.197 --> 00:02:02.437 to do some writing and essentially write a book on not necessarily, well, yeah, on the topic of 00:02:02.437 --> 00:02:09.537 deconstruction, but also on the topic of reconstruction and how in the midst of a 00:02:09.537 --> 00:02:17.837 faith that gets kind of deconstructed for whatever reason it does, is there a way to 00:02:17.837 --> 00:02:26.317 to reconstruct it, and how can we reconstruct it, and should we reconstruct it? 00:02:30.256 --> 00:02:36.985 So, I've been following a lot of, I don't know if I came upon this account 00:02:36.985 --> 00:02:39.169 because I've been following and engaging. 00:02:39.345 --> 00:02:45.145 Probably. With a lot of, a lot of. Instagram probably thinks you're going through a faith crisis right now. 00:02:45.145 --> 00:02:49.745 It probably does. And I will say to our viewers, I'm not going through a faith crisis. 00:02:49.745 --> 00:02:57.105 I'm not deconstructing in any classical sense of the word. I'm just really, really interested 00:02:57.105 --> 00:02:59.361 in the phenomena of deconstruction. 00:03:04.145 --> 00:03:07.598 And how we can have, 00:03:09.625 --> 00:03:17.149 I think it's really important to have both a pastoral response that understands the reasons for a person's, 00:03:18.905 --> 00:03:20.498 deconstructing their faith. 00:03:21.145 --> 00:03:24.963 And sometimes that leads to them walking away from the church, doesn't always. 00:03:27.178 --> 00:03:31.670 So having a pastoral response that allows us to understand the reasons, 00:03:32.465 --> 00:03:34.145 or at least empathize with their pain, 00:03:35.465 --> 00:03:41.105 but then also having a theological response, a fairly grounded theological response, 00:03:43.065 --> 00:03:48.065 that maybe communicates a more clear perspective. 00:03:51.645 --> 00:03:57.344 Than the really, usually non-nuanced perspective that people are walking away from. 00:03:59.105 --> 00:04:05.887 I think what you see theologically a lot of times is that people walk away. 00:04:07.745 --> 00:04:18.145 Or they outright reject things that are communicated or made to seem to be black or white, right or wrong. 00:04:19.598 --> 00:04:24.567 When if we take an honest view at the context of the scripture, 00:04:25.692 --> 00:04:28.906 and sometimes not just the context, but the actual content. 00:04:30.185 --> 00:04:39.635 That not everything is as black and white as many preachers, parents, administrators, teachers, 00:04:40.755 --> 00:04:50.515 want it to be. Because we all want to believe that our particular way of thinking, of believing, 00:04:51.169 --> 00:04:58.209 of processing this theological issue or whatever is obviously the only way to believe it. It's the, 00:04:58.755 --> 00:05:08.515 only right way. And it's not always necessarily true. It's not a thing that most pastors, 00:05:09.209 --> 00:05:11.635 I don't know, I don't hear a whole lot of pastors talk about that. 00:05:11.635 --> 00:05:18.035 Yeah, as you say that, I'm reminded of something one of my professors said, and it took me a long 00:05:18.035 --> 00:05:25.075 time to actually understand what he was saying because I remember growing up, I grew up going 00:05:25.075 --> 00:05:30.355 to Christian school and going to church and stuff, and there was a whole lot of, you know. 00:05:34.435 --> 00:05:40.035 Like, post-modernism, like, the church was like, do you remember when the church was scared of 00:05:40.035 --> 00:05:46.115 post-modernism? Like, and that was like what, like, every sermon was like, well, the post-modernists, 00:05:46.115 --> 00:05:54.955 modernists, right? And so that was kind of the cultural moment. And growing up, kind 00:05:54.955 --> 00:06:00.535 of like talking about worldviews. Do you have a Christian worldview? And a professor who 00:06:00.535 --> 00:06:08.035 challenged that when, and he just, he very much liked to say, he's like, there's no, 00:06:08.035 --> 00:06:14.235 No one can have a world view, he's like, because you can't see that well. 00:06:17.483 --> 00:06:23.537 And so his whole contention was like, sure, think, you know, he's like, your goal should 00:06:23.537 --> 00:06:29.057 be to see the world as Christ, or to see the world around you as Christ. But the idea that 00:06:29.057 --> 00:06:39.457 you can potentially, like, construct a thought system, or like, a philosophy and all of your 00:06:39.457 --> 00:06:45.697 ducks in a row so that you can see the entire world with accuracy through your singular lens, 00:06:45.697 --> 00:06:54.857 he said was hubris. That was his contention. What do you think about that? Is that in line 00:06:54.857 --> 00:07:07.805 with what you're talking about? It is, it is. But it's true when it feels separated from my. 00:07:08.177 --> 00:07:14.137 Own personal beliefs. Because I would say, obviously the reason that I hold my beliefs 00:07:14.137 --> 00:07:23.617 is because I think that they're true, right? So I think it's also a little bit of hubris, 00:07:23.617 --> 00:07:30.217 but maybe hubris is the wrong word, but I think it's also a little disingenuous to walk around 00:07:30.217 --> 00:07:39.577 and say, no, I do firmly believe these things, but I could be wrong. Because I don't think that 00:07:39.577 --> 00:07:43.497 I'm wrong, I think that I'm right. Otherwise, I wouldn't have chosen these. 00:07:43.497 --> 00:07:47.017 Otherwise, I wouldn't have chosen them. I wouldn't believe them. There is a perspective. 00:07:47.657 --> 00:07:57.657 Upon which I carry my beliefs. But I'm also, I feel like the goal in belief should be to 00:07:57.657 --> 00:08:07.337 be clear about what, at least in your mind, is non-negotiable and to also be clear about where 00:08:07.337 --> 00:08:15.577 there is not always a lot of clarity or theological or academic agreement on things. 00:08:15.577 --> 00:08:27.897 And to hold those things a little bit more loosely than we've been willing to hold them 00:08:27.897 --> 00:08:36.163 before. I think one of the issues that the Church faces is this extraordinary fear of 00:08:36.523 --> 00:08:37.639 of being wrong. 00:08:38.117 --> 00:08:43.094 This really extraordinary fear of not... 00:08:45.489 --> 00:08:49.270 Of not having the authoritative word. 00:08:51.796 --> 00:08:58.785 Because a common principle has been that the word of God is authoritative. 00:09:01.096 --> 00:09:05.420 And I agree. I think that it does have authority. 00:09:09.356 --> 00:09:18.716 But I think it's less, I think that the word of God is less black and white than the church has made it to be. 00:09:22.556 --> 00:09:31.292 Because it has made it black and white in terms of like it's the quality of its information, 00:09:31.556 --> 00:09:34.236 but divorced it from so much of its context, 00:09:35.036 --> 00:09:38.449 that the black and whiteness turns into, 00:09:39.436 --> 00:09:42.016 like it's just not that simple all the time. 00:09:43.878 --> 00:09:51.316 Like, what's a topic that we could talk about? Like, I guess the first one that came up to mind 00:09:51.316 --> 00:09:53.348 would be like, divorce. 00:09:54.516 --> 00:10:02.356 Let's talk about divorce in the Bible. What is the Bible? Take a mainline evangelical perspective. 00:10:04.836 --> 00:10:13.783 On the biblical view of divorce, and you tell me, when is God okay okay with someone getting divorced. 00:10:15.764 --> 00:10:18.836 LRH In matters of sexual infidelity. CB Right, and that's it. 00:10:20.337 --> 00:10:23.076 LRH Right. Matthew 19. CB Right, and it's black and white. 00:10:23.884 --> 00:10:32.836 LRH Yeah. CB Right? There is no nuance. There is no understanding of context there. There's no 00:10:32.836 --> 00:10:44.956 understanding of marriage in the Ancient Near East. And so, the classic anti-example of that 00:10:44.956 --> 00:10:53.276 in modern-day church and evangelicalism would be to say, okay, so let's say you have a one spouse 00:10:53.276 --> 00:11:07.196 who is routinely physically, emotionally, and verbally abusing the other, but remaining, 00:11:08.607 --> 00:11:17.796 sexually, like not committing adultery in the sexual realm. 00:11:18.041 --> 00:11:18.236 Yeah. 00:11:20.220 --> 00:11:23.839 Sorry about your luck, dude. We know you're getting beat up every night. 00:11:25.490 --> 00:11:30.490 We know that he or she is emotionally abusive to you, 00:11:31.690 --> 00:11:37.910 but he hasn't cheated on you, so if you leave him, you're living in sin. 00:11:37.910 --> 00:11:39.179 You need to stay faithful. 00:11:40.690 --> 00:11:41.393 You need to pray. 00:11:43.190 --> 00:11:47.947 You need to persevere through this. God is using this to test your faithfulness 00:11:48.190 --> 00:11:49.072 to the marriage covenant. 00:11:50.413 --> 00:12:02.790 And I think that it's stuff like that as an example that creates such a dysregulation in 00:12:02.790 --> 00:12:10.670 people about how the Bible functions in the Christian faith and how it doesn't. 00:12:10.921 --> 00:12:20.350 Yeah. The last phrase that we talked about before we pressed record was this. I said, 00:12:20.350 --> 00:12:28.750 it really no longer surprises me why some people walk away from the church. 00:12:28.750 --> 00:12:38.190 Yeah. Where do you put, do you make any, how do you categorically separate, 00:12:38.190 --> 00:12:46.510 because, like, okay, the teaching, like, Christ's teaching on divorce, and then, like, that. 00:12:48.190 --> 00:12:55.630 The refusal to see the, like, kind of the principle, the operating principle, the, 00:12:56.830 --> 00:13:00.750 values under which, like, Christ seems to be making that claim and all of that, like, 00:13:00.750 --> 00:13:07.550 seeing it that broader. We were talking about those two examples, like, we were talking about, 00:13:07.698 --> 00:13:15.152 Nephilim and the Mark of Cain. 00:13:16.601 --> 00:13:23.275 Where do those like those negative awful interpretations of scripture are those? 00:13:23.595 --> 00:13:31.155 Categorically different in some way like So for. 00:13:34.183 --> 00:13:40.835 Yes, and no, mm-hmm so like For reference for people who are listening. Yeah, right about those things 00:13:40.835 --> 00:13:48.460 we were talking about some examples of things that we've seen on Instagram, you know, of... 00:13:48.755 --> 00:14:00.019 I've met people who thought that. Okay. All right. So apparently, I had never met or even encountered this belief before, 00:14:00.325 --> 00:14:05.635 to be honest with you. But essentially, there is a some stream of Christian teaching out there 00:14:06.015 --> 00:14:13.555 that teaches that the Nephilim, which is an Old Testament, an old- It's about one verse long. 00:14:13.555 --> 00:14:23.875 About one verse long story of Noah, right? The Nephilim are essentially an angelic slash 00:14:23.875 --> 00:14:31.115 demonic. They're a spiritual being that comes down and sleeps with the daughters of men, 00:14:31.428 --> 00:14:34.597 I think that's the exact line or whatever. 00:14:34.678 --> 00:14:42.395 So they interbreed with humanity and the offspring of that interbreeding, 00:14:42.395 --> 00:14:45.195 could you find the verse, Elise, so that we can give reference to people? 00:14:45.195 --> 00:14:54.795 So, and that the offspring of those, the offspring of those people are themselves Nephilim 00:14:54.795 --> 00:14:59.795 or are just a inbred, like half-fallen angel. 00:15:01.115 --> 00:15:06.123 Half-human person let's see. 00:15:10.066 --> 00:15:28.079 Okay, so this is the ESV, Genesis chapter 6, it says, When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and the daughters were born to them, 00:15:28.236 --> 00:15:33.021 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. 00:15:33.276 --> 00:15:42.596 And they took as their wives any they chose. Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, and his day shall be 00:15:42.596 --> 00:15:52.124 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God 00:15:52.286 --> 00:15:58.676 came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who 00:15:58.676 --> 00:16:06.436 were of old, the men of renown." So, the way I read verse 4 there is it seems that the Nephilim, 00:16:07.131 --> 00:16:13.298 were the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of man, and the Nephilim is 00:16:13.514 --> 00:16:17.796 an explanation for the mighty men of old, the men of renown. 00:16:17.796 --> 00:16:18.519 Okay. 00:16:19.556 --> 00:16:29.236 So, it's four verses. We've seen people build full theological systems and beliefs off of that. 00:16:29.556 --> 00:16:32.049 Yes. Say, well, the Nephilim still exist. Right. 00:16:32.905 --> 00:16:42.616 You know, the interbreeding still exist. Mm-hmm. And that one example that we saw is that people on earth now with mental or physical disabilities are. 00:16:44.562 --> 00:16:45.103 The Nephilim, 00:16:46.615 --> 00:16:50.625 That was one person's. One person's. Not what we agree with. 00:16:50.625 --> 00:16:51.825 Not what we agree with. 00:16:52.025 --> 00:16:56.385 By any means. The other example that I've personally encountered was. 00:16:58.865 --> 00:17:08.625 It's an old teaching, it's a racist teaching that the Mark of Cain, when Cain is set away. 00:17:08.779 --> 00:17:14.305 Because he had killed Abel and the Lord, you know, Cain's like, well, I will be killed out there. 00:17:14.305 --> 00:17:20.865 And the Lord's like, no, I'll put a mark on you, and then sends him away. And the teaching that 00:17:20.865 --> 00:17:28.145 some people taught and not that I can't think of the right word, but... 00:17:28.145 --> 00:17:38.945 I know the word. It's called racist. Racist, yeah, was that the mark of Cain is anyone of a darker complexion or someone who's 00:17:38.945 --> 00:17:49.505 African American blackness was result of the Mark of Cain, which is just awful Bible teaching. 00:17:49.505 --> 00:18:00.065 It's not what the Bible teaches. No, not even close. Yeah. So we have really, really, really extraordinary pronouncements 00:18:00.065 --> 00:18:12.505 off of virtually nothing in the scripture. So I would say how do we categorize the divorce stuff 00:18:12.505 --> 00:18:22.105 with Nephilim and the Mark of Cain? I would say a few things. One is that I think part of what 00:18:22.105 --> 00:18:35.805 happens is that people will take a very small piece of scripture and create an extraordinary 00:18:35.805 --> 00:18:37.845 theological system off of it. 00:18:39.746 --> 00:18:45.436 Yeah, okay, so they'll take something very small virtually insignificant within the text and, 00:18:46.453 --> 00:18:51.557 They will blow it out up to here and all of the blowing out will be like, 00:18:52.337 --> 00:18:56.097 inference conjecture, 00:18:56.896 --> 00:19:05.497 Like hermeneutic Gymnastics seems to me right seems to me that well this must mean then it this equals that, 00:19:06.474 --> 00:19:07.284 type of teaching, 00:19:10.030 --> 00:19:20.517 that you can't really step down on anything that you would say is a foundational biblical truth 00:19:20.517 --> 00:19:33.397 that exists within the whole counsel of God. It's perforatory to really everything that the church 00:19:33.397 --> 00:19:43.877 has believed. It almost exists in this Gnostic environment of special revelation or special 00:19:43.877 --> 00:19:46.897 knowledge. Yeah, I feel that. 00:19:50.009 --> 00:19:54.819 I would say that the difference between those types of beliefs and a belief about divorce 00:19:54.819 --> 00:20:01.139 that we just talked about is that there is a half-truth to the belief on divorce, 00:20:02.937 --> 00:20:10.579 or to the system that's built around divorce. That it is well-established that scripture 00:20:10.579 --> 00:20:15.579 does in fact say, right, that the main justification, 00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:24.371 for divorce is infidelity. Right, and that you shouldn't, 00:20:24.959 --> 00:20:29.781 that divorce is contrary to God's intention for marriage. Correct. 00:20:30.249 --> 00:20:37.279 Right, biblical truth clearly taught. Yes, I think that the why then that becomes, 00:20:40.579 --> 00:20:47.679 not that belief in particular becomes troublesome, but the conversation around it is that. 00:20:53.539 --> 00:20:59.179 That there is then a kind of a reason to jump off of that what is true, 00:20:59.179 --> 00:21:03.315 but to springboard off of what is true to conjecture. 00:21:05.459 --> 00:21:13.499 And so you base your starting point for your beliefs now off of something that is true, 00:21:14.279 --> 00:21:19.419 but the conjecture that it leads to is stretching the text a little bit further 00:21:19.780 --> 00:21:22.819 than it should be stretched itself, right? 00:21:22.819 --> 00:21:27.765 Whereas like, well, what would be the truth that you would stand on in the Mark of Cain? 00:21:28.179 --> 00:21:32.819 Well, virtually nothing. Right, that it says there was a mark. 00:21:32.819 --> 00:21:36.452 That it says there was a mark. Nothing about skin color, 00:21:36.619 --> 00:21:40.999 nothing about the continued mark of Cain upon humanity. 00:21:44.329 --> 00:21:50.099 No set of nuances in like believing that well, Jesus was probably more dark-skinned than he was light-skinned 00:21:50.469 --> 00:21:54.259 Mm-hmm. He was from the Middle East right, you know, so. 00:21:56.581 --> 00:22:01.496 So I would say the difference there is that the, 00:22:02.298 --> 00:22:07.179 The jumping off point of the conjecture. Mm-hmm. How much truth exists? 00:22:08.131 --> 00:22:15.579 Within the system of belief that could be rooted in what I would consider to just be classic Christian 00:22:15.579 --> 00:22:27.279 belief or even Judeo-Christian belief. And so there are things that are, I would say, 00:22:27.396 --> 00:22:33.659 closer to core belief than others. I would say the thing about divorce is closer to core belief 00:22:33.659 --> 00:22:42.025 than the idea that anyone who is physically or mentally disabled is a nephilim. 00:22:42.379 --> 00:22:46.619 Yeah, which actually, now that we read the text, makes absolutely no sense. 00:22:46.619 --> 00:22:54.295 Zero sense. I think that text would make a better justification for the existence of like Amazonians, 00:22:55.419 --> 00:22:59.579 like that mythological idea of like superhumans and stuff like that. 00:22:59.579 --> 00:23:03.891 Which, and honestly, it just makes me fricking angry. 00:23:05.779 --> 00:23:12.019 Just makes me so angry. Because we have people out here who are actually 00:23:12.019 --> 00:23:14.568 proposing these as legitimate biblical ideas. 00:23:17.339 --> 00:23:22.059 And there's the biggest bug. I know. 00:23:22.059 --> 00:23:27.939 I saw it all out over there. And I was like, I'm not gonna distract Cameron. 00:23:27.939 --> 00:23:34.339 Too late. Holy cow. That is a Nephilim right there. I don't even know where I am anymore. 00:23:35.459 --> 00:23:43.219 There are people out there who would propose these ideas as legitimate and foundational beliefs 00:23:43.219 --> 00:23:45.959 and teach them to others as truth. 00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:53.431 And I return back to my foundational statement. It's no wonder people are like, 00:23:55.059 --> 00:23:59.327 I'm leaving the church, like this is crazy Because it is. 00:24:01.488 --> 00:24:07.778 People like that are crazy Yeah, you know, what would you say? Let's let's imagine, 00:24:08.738 --> 00:24:12.578 What would you say to the criticism of like well Cameron? 00:24:13.740 --> 00:24:24.641 You're you're taking the Bible and the simplicity of it and the clarity of it and you are making it complicated like you should just like, 00:24:26.271 --> 00:24:32.178 Jesus says that only in matters of divorce or only in matters of sexual infidelity, 00:24:32.178 --> 00:24:34.535 you are making the passage complicated. 00:24:34.778 --> 00:24:38.775 Like you are, like what would you say to that? 00:24:39.378 --> 00:24:43.384 I would say that it's natural to take a, 00:24:45.458 --> 00:24:54.142 21st century perspective on the nature of the scripture and to use it only according to our perspective. 00:24:54.498 --> 00:24:59.021 And that perspective is the 21st century is that we read books to gather information. 00:25:01.218 --> 00:25:10.818 So we take a book and we can make a bullet point list of the information that it seeks to communicate 00:25:10.918 --> 00:25:13.884 and that information then is, 00:25:15.658 --> 00:25:18.502 there's no nuance even in the information. 00:25:18.698 --> 00:25:25.178 It is a rule book, it is an ethical and moral handbook. And we hear people in evangelicalism 00:25:25.178 --> 00:25:30.583 talk about the Bible like this all the time, is that, you know, what is the acronym for the Bible? 00:25:30.658 --> 00:25:32.798 Basic instructions before leaving earth. 00:25:34.178 --> 00:25:36.158 Okay, Aunt Karen, I get it. 00:25:38.098 --> 00:25:39.458 I don't have an Aunt Karen. 00:25:41.498 --> 00:25:43.852 But when... 00:25:45.491 --> 00:25:52.125 Like the Bible was never written, nor did the earliest believers or Christians 00:25:52.269 --> 00:26:01.869 use it as a way to say, okay, let us use this as a moral, ethical, religious handbook 00:26:01.909 --> 00:26:04.378 of things to do and not to do, 00:26:04.629 --> 00:26:07.213 to believe and not to believe. 00:26:08.629 --> 00:26:13.704 These were stories of real people in a real context and time, 00:26:14.149 --> 00:26:20.469 with a real like, with real environmental context around them, right? 00:26:20.469 --> 00:26:28.709 And so, you could say for instance like, even Jesus himself was not willing to say, 00:26:28.769 --> 00:26:31.549 let me just be really clear about what I'm saying. 00:26:31.549 --> 00:26:38.838 Let me just be really clear about what I mean here. In fact, he was intentionally vague, 00:26:39.509 --> 00:26:41.589 and hidden in some things. 00:26:41.589 --> 00:26:46.669 I'm gonna speak in parables, so that those who hear don't actually hear, 00:26:46.669 --> 00:26:48.589 that those who see can actually see. 00:26:50.229 --> 00:26:55.249 So he was intentionally, what do we do? We pull out the meaning from those parables. 00:26:56.309 --> 00:27:05.469 And in some ways, we can be fairly confident in the spiritual principles that they are teaching. 00:27:06.629 --> 00:27:11.525 If we're honest with ourselves, we're not gonna speak intention, 00:27:11.829 --> 00:27:16.702 we're not gonna speak intent into the things that Jesus said beyond what is perfectly clear. 00:27:17.229 --> 00:27:22.634 Right, we're not gonna say, this is obviously what Jesus meant. 00:27:22.679 --> 00:27:28.749 Jesus obviously meant that if you're being physically abused, you still must stay in your marriage. 00:27:30.669 --> 00:27:40.360 He's obvious, because if he was... He would have said it if he meant it another way. 00:27:40.504 --> 00:27:41.971 Or... 00:27:43.069 --> 00:27:48.399 We could back up a little bit understanding the heart of God right the justice of God 00:27:48.499 --> 00:27:54.319 the protection of the oppressed the protection of the widow right the protection of like. 00:27:57.104 --> 00:28:04.439 Those who are least last and least loved right Yeah, right the the seeming prevent the provision that seems to be made 00:28:04.759 --> 00:28:09.119 Pragmatically because of the sin in the world and the sin in marriage relationships 00:28:09.119 --> 00:28:12.519 Like, that's the principle there. 00:28:13.326 --> 00:28:17.879 He's like, like the intention's no. Like, you guys should stay married. 00:28:17.879 --> 00:28:19.817 Like, that's the intention for marriage. 00:28:20.279 --> 00:28:23.003 But because you're sinners. 00:28:23.619 --> 00:28:29.215 Yes, yeah. Like, there needs to be a way for this to be absolved. 00:28:29.998 --> 00:28:35.003 Yeah, so what I would say is like, if someone were to ask me the question, 00:28:35.159 --> 00:28:38.802 well, why aren't you just believing the clarity of the scripture? 00:28:38.879 --> 00:28:42.639 Because I would say because the scripture's not clear on all things. 00:28:42.639 --> 00:28:44.456 It is clear on some things. 00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:47.697 We are saved by grace through faith through Jesus Christ alone, right? 00:28:47.799 --> 00:28:50.640 Not of our own so that no one can boast, right? 00:28:50.839 --> 00:28:53.494 It's clear about stuff like that. It's very clear. 00:28:54.299 --> 00:28:56.639 But on stuff that it's not clear about, it's not clear about. 00:28:56.639 --> 00:29:04.879 And we shouldn't propose to make it clear and then impose those seemingly clear beliefs onto others 00:29:04.879 --> 00:29:09.879 as if you must believe this in order to maintain, 00:29:10.359 --> 00:29:12.597 a positive spiritual trajectory. 00:29:12.719 --> 00:29:18.322 Just don't believe that, because even like I said, Jesus himself was not endeavoring to be 100% clear, 00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:23.328 or comprehensive in everything that he said. He spoke in parables for a reason. 00:29:25.719 --> 00:29:34.535 So, you've been looking at a lot of this deconstruction stuff, and do you think, 00:29:35.436 --> 00:29:44.879 Like, I guess I've got my own experiences here, but do you think that a lack of nuance 00:29:44.879 --> 00:29:51.879 in church teaching is one of the big reasons why people are, like, deconstructing? 00:29:51.879 --> 00:30:01.439 Yes, I do, although that's not even a really clear statement, you know? 00:30:01.439 --> 00:30:06.639 So like, what do we mean by a lack of nuance? Yeah. I think. 00:30:08.645 --> 00:30:12.369 I generally agree with that, but I'm not... Yeah, what is nuance? 00:30:12.369 --> 00:30:20.929 Yeah. Yeah, what am I getting at there? Right. I know what you're getting at, but I don't know that the question adequately represents, 00:30:23.130 --> 00:30:32.769 what's actually going on there. I would say it would not even the lack of nuance, 00:30:33.041 --> 00:30:41.809 but it would be the freedom to explore the nuance of scripture that often turns people clearly away. 00:30:44.129 --> 00:30:49.129 What I'm discovering in my research for this book, 00:30:51.289 --> 00:30:56.096 is that there are some pretty consistent theological themes, 00:30:58.349 --> 00:31:06.769 that come up in people's reasons for deconstructing. And so, kind of tracing the history 00:31:06.769 --> 00:31:09.797 of theological teaching around those themes is really interesting. 00:31:11.409 --> 00:31:18.287 This thing like, okay, how has the church throughout time taught this theological principle, 00:31:19.009 --> 00:31:21.437 or engaged with this topic? 00:31:21.729 --> 00:31:26.803 Two of the, probably two of the most significant ones that I've seen, well three really, 00:31:26.857 --> 00:31:34.293 is one is around issues of sexual ethics. What is the nature of human sexuality? 00:31:34.374 --> 00:31:36.669 What is the intent of human sexuality? 00:31:36.777 --> 00:31:38.704 What are the boundaries for human sexuality? 00:31:40.249 --> 00:31:46.608 Probably, from a contemporary perspective, the most, the biggest one. 00:31:49.009 --> 00:31:53.089 So that, you can't talk about deconstruction and the history of theological belief 00:31:53.089 --> 00:31:57.809 without looking at those things. The second one that I'm seeing a lot of is, 00:32:00.111 --> 00:32:03.609 uh, questions around eternal punishment. Yeah. And hell. 00:32:05.846 --> 00:32:10.401 And the supposed mainline evangelical teaching. 00:32:18.616 --> 00:32:27.370 That God loves you so much that he will make you burn eternally if you don't choose to love him back. 00:32:29.016 --> 00:32:34.976 Now that's the way that it's being phrased from those who have actively deconstructed that. 00:32:34.976 --> 00:32:43.016 Now is that a nuanced, even like communication of what is actually being taught? 00:32:43.316 --> 00:32:48.156 No, I think it's a caricature. I think it's an overblown simplification 00:32:48.156 --> 00:32:49.858 of probably what was communicated. 00:32:49.921 --> 00:32:54.996 Do, have people communicated it like that? Yeah, of course, I've heard it, you know. 00:32:57.516 --> 00:33:15.776 And then the thing that kind of undergirds those two is the nature of scripture. The Bible is an extraordinarily provocative and controversial 00:33:15.776 --> 00:33:23.816 topic for not just non-Christians, but Christians as well in terms of its authority, its development, 00:33:24.210 --> 00:33:37.256 the historicity of how we got to have this thing as it is to us right now. And not only is it, 00:33:37.759 --> 00:33:46.776 provocative and controversial, we're fairly illiterate on how we got here. 00:33:47.256 --> 00:33:52.296 Yes. Yeah. The majority of the church is fairly illiterate. We've just been told, 00:33:52.504 --> 00:33:58.536 this is the word of God. He downloaded it into someone's brain and told them to write it all out. 00:33:58.536 --> 00:34:07.576 Yeah, and that's the thing that a lot of people, even... It was even a source of. 00:34:08.296 --> 00:34:14.936 I don't wanna say full-blown deconstruction, but some deconstruction for people who went to Bible 00:34:14.936 --> 00:34:19.576 College is they show up... 00:34:19.034 --> 00:34:25.924 And we've got your introductory... I think intro to Bible was one of the freshman classes that 00:34:25.924 --> 00:34:34.884 everybody at my school took. And we're learning how did the Bible become the Bible? How did it. 00:34:36.564 --> 00:34:42.884 Get formed? How did all the letters that Paul wrote and these poems all end up in one volume? 00:34:42.884 --> 00:34:49.804 And how was it translated and all of that? And... 00:34:50.084 --> 00:34:52.644 Can it be trusted? 00:34:53.459 --> 00:35:08.244 Yeah. And people who are at Bible college learning about the Bible become so scared and terrified and confused because what they're learning 00:35:08.244 --> 00:35:16.644 is at Bible college that's like preparing them for ministry is different than what they were 00:35:16.644 --> 00:35:26.084 taught in church. They were like, why didn't my youth group leader, like, he just said, like, 00:35:26.084 --> 00:35:31.684 you know, God just gave us this, like, that simplicity, like, God just downloaded this book. 00:35:31.684 --> 00:35:44.404 I didn't know that we had copies and all of that seems really scary because it's more complex 00:35:44.404 --> 00:35:51.844 than the simple Sunday school answer that they were given. And now fortunately they were in a 00:35:51.844 --> 00:35:57.444 context of faith, but some people encounter those ideas when they go away to secular college. 00:35:57.708 --> 00:36:06.404 And then they begin to learn, they're like, oh, and they like hear the, what was the council 00:36:06.404 --> 00:36:11.124 that Dan Brown, Nicaea, right? 00:36:11.124 --> 00:36:18.324 That whole idea that like, they hear some version of like the creation of Jesus as a 00:36:18.324 --> 00:36:23.324 legend and- A bunch of white guys in a room deciding what the Bible's going to be. 00:36:23.324 --> 00:36:41.549 Yeah, you know, so- So I see all of that, like I've witnessed that in people who just like, well, this is, 00:36:42.062 --> 00:36:43.604 more complex than I thought it was. 00:36:43.604 --> 00:36:49.244 Yeah, well, and it requires a lot of intellectual honesty and humility to say, oh, wait, this 00:36:49.244 --> 00:36:57.164 was actually formed within the milieu of history as well. Do you think that like churches need to... 00:36:59.887 --> 00:37:08.457 Be willing to bridge into that more? CB I do. However, I think you better pastors 00:37:08.457 --> 00:37:15.737 to do that better be really, really ready for the backlash because it is woven into the culture of 00:37:15.737 --> 00:37:25.337 American evangelicalism that you just receive this lock, stock, and barrel as the downloaded 00:37:25.337 --> 00:37:35.457 message from God rather than it's what it actually is, which is the history of faith 00:37:35.457 --> 00:37:42.413 within context and letter writing and narratives and poetry and gospel writing and all of that. 00:37:43.257 --> 00:37:53.257 And I think that there is a very, very small threshold of acceptance for the non-spiritual 00:37:53.257 --> 00:38:01.357 download explanation for the authority of the scripture than there is for like the scripture 00:38:01.357 --> 00:38:05.437 is authoritative because the church has agreed that it's been authoritative from the very 00:38:05.437 --> 00:38:11.977 beginning. That's a lot less palatable for most people who simply want the answer that God said 00:38:11.977 --> 00:38:26.457 it, that's it. It requires that we think, it requires that we operate in an environment 00:38:26.457 --> 00:38:37.017 that is not black and white all the time. I don't think that most modern Christians 00:38:37.017 --> 00:38:42.137 have the stomach for it. I think we're spiritually lazy and fairly spiritually 00:38:42.137 --> 00:38:50.777 immature, and so what we do, what we have, doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny. 00:38:52.937 --> 00:38:59.987 Yeah. Which is why people, which is another reason why in all of life people just search 00:38:59.987 --> 00:39:05.267 for confirmation bias. Yeah, yeah. And then the moment that somebody begins to wonder, 00:39:05.267 --> 00:39:12.679 they encounter some, like stick with the divorce example, they encounter a life circumstance 00:39:12.814 --> 00:39:18.147 where they're in an unhealthy relationship, unhealthy marriage relationship. The church 00:39:18.147 --> 00:39:25.759 seems to be saying, you should not, you should just stay there. We're not really going to do 00:39:26.067 --> 00:39:30.387 anything substantial to your partner. We're just going to encourage you to stay in it. 00:39:32.907 --> 00:39:40.227 And then in that circumstance, they begin to look, heck, on Google, social media, 00:39:40.227 --> 00:39:45.227 and they encounter like, hey, there's a, 00:39:45.747 --> 00:39:50.002 that passage, there's maybe a different way to understand it than you've heard before, 00:39:50.067 --> 00:39:56.718 and it becomes the release valve for them to like move forward from the place that they're stuck in. 00:39:58.587 --> 00:40:01.787 Sounds really natural that that would create like a cascading effect. 00:40:03.551 --> 00:40:08.673 Yep, yep, and then you get back to the, I understand why people leave the church. Yeah. 00:40:10.267 --> 00:40:16.010 Yeah. Yeah. So that's where, that's kind of like, if you. 00:40:17.787 --> 00:40:28.187 We don't want people to leave the church. I don't. No. I do believe Christianity to be true and faithful. 00:40:28.187 --> 00:40:42.693 And I don't, I do believe that the Bible has authority. I just don't maybe think it or believe it in the same way that a lot of evangelicalism 00:40:42.747 --> 00:40:46.947 believes it, which is maybe an unfair statement because it's not very clear, but— 00:40:46.947 --> 00:40:49.547 RLF – That's like, who? 00:40:49.547 --> 00:40:56.484 CB – Right, who, right, yeah. RLF – Defining an evangelical is so hard. CB – Exactly, yeah. 00:40:56.787 --> 00:40:59.833 But maybe let that be the foreword to the book. 00:41:01.066 --> 00:41:05.004 The coming book of that'll probably, I don't know when it'll, if it'll get written, when it'll get 00:41:05.004 --> 00:41:08.844 written, but in the month of November camera, that's when it's going to get written. Come on, 00:41:09.804 --> 00:41:18.044 got nothing else going on then. So I don't do it. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, um, I think it's a 00:41:18.044 --> 00:41:23.484 valuable topic. I think it's an important topic. I think we would be foolish to ignore it as 00:41:23.484 --> 00:41:29.724 Christians and as pastors, particularly since I think, I think more and more people have loved 00:41:29.724 --> 00:41:34.844 ones who have stepped away from the church, and whether they're calling it deconstruction or not. 00:41:35.878 --> 00:41:41.644 That's kind of what's happening in a lot of spaces. And so, how do we even, how do we begin to, 00:41:42.378 --> 00:41:50.044 strike up a conversation with them that isn't just immediately stalled out because of, you know, 00:41:50.696 --> 00:41:53.004 conclusions and an unwillingness to hear? 00:41:53.370 --> 00:42:05.124 Yep. Yep. Right. So that's that. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast. As always, 00:42:05.124 --> 00:42:10.404 feel free to like it or unlike it, not like it. I don't know. 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