Liminal Living

Does hell exist? Who goes there? Does Matthew 13’s furnace reference talk about it? Today, I spout off about my views of hell, judgment, and justice. I share my thoughts around the passage from Matthew 13, commonly called the parable of the wheat and tares, where the wheat and tares are allowed to grow together until the end of the age when the wheat is harvested and put into a barn and the tares are gathered and burned in a furnace. Does this passage talk about hell? If yes, what does it mean? If not, how do we interpret it? I also go into the four classic views of hell, Eternal Conscious Torment, Annihilationism, Purgatorial, and Universal Reconciliation, and talk about where I land these days, why, and what it means for the lived experience of faith. Time Stamps for the episode: 0:40: Introduction 2:02: Matthew 13, weeds and wheat 3:08: Eternal Conscious Torment is the central dogma of fundamentalism 7:40: Judaistic Roots of Mattew 13 12:26: Agricultural Sabotage! 15:44: The Big Baddie in the Bible i

S2 E16: Lance Hough, The Abuse of Commodifying Creativity What happens when a church continually commodifies creativity for a Sunday morning experience? Today, I talked with a friend and former church creative director, Lance Hough. Lance experienced leadership abuse under a few different pastors that led to an existential crisis concerning his faith and how we experience it in a modern western church experience, and the eventual leaving of ministry and healing of trauma it caused. Lance is a creative individual, and many churches can take advantage of creatives and transform art into a religious commodity to be bought and sold and traded on a Sunday. It ends up being an abusive cycle for those who create and have a stunting effect on the maturity of the attendees who become religious consumers. Time Stamps for the episode: 2:08: Introduction 4:26: Faith roots 7:47: Serving in Church to Career in Church 11:32: How the Sausage is Made 15:51: Abusive Leadership 19:56: Crisis of Career 24:57: Questioning

What happens when a pastor’s kid and a worship leader from a Marshill satellite in Seattle becomes an Agnostic? Today on the podcast I talk with long time friend, Caleb Jacobson. Caleb comes from a conservative evangelical background, is a pastor's kid in a family with a heritage of pastoral vocation. Caleb had an existential crisis with his faith, hit a reset button on belief, and reconstructed what he could. He left the pastorate and left the faith and became an Agnostic. I think that it is important to learn of all kinds of Liminal experiences and stories and practice empathy and understanding. I remain curious and ask questions seeking to understand Caleb’s perspectives and learn along the way. I hope you do as well. Time Stamps for this episode: 2:21: Introduction 4:18: Rockstar for Jesus 9:16: Working at Marshill 14:45: Cleaning the slate of all belief 19:36: Journeying toward Atheism, stopping at Agnosticism 24:08: Questioning the Christian Worldview indoctrination 28:05: Being Ok with the discomfort

Today I asked many of you to submit your questions to me for an Ask Me Anything episode, and I was absolutely shocked at the amount of questions I received. I have four pages of your questions, and today I take on just one, but I do a deep dive into the world of mental health. While I am not a mental health expert, I have much work on the intersection of spirituality and mental health. So today we get very practical about how much of the Western Evangelical tradition does not equip us to handle things like trauma and stress, but instead increases it in many cases. So we take on the spiritual practice of meditation today, what happens physiologically and spiritually as we discuss Tim’s question: “How do you view the confluence of spirituality and mental health? In other words, what have you learned about how to navigate difficult seasons from both a spiritual perspective and a mental health perspective?” With a revisit and deep dive into Jason’s question: Is there a difference between Christian meditation and

Today I asked many of you to submit your questions to me for an Ask Me Anything episode, and I was absolutely shocked at the amount of questions I received. I have four pages of your questions, and today I took on four of them. #1 from Joseph: Do I have to love myself in order to have a relationship with God or to love God? #2 from Jason: How does one "grow in their faith?" #3 from Jacki: What is the point of praying on behalf of someone? Does a person/s praying for someone bring them to the attention of God and he gives them grace, protection, or healing? My thought is that God is already taking care of that person and has them on his radar. It just doesn’t seem like we need to remind God to have grace or mercy on an individual. #4 from Jeremie: Do you think the current interpretation of prayer in modern Christianity is lost in translation? Meaning instead of asking an omnipotent spirit in the sky for favors, prayer is intended to be a time of meditation and introspection, maybe similar to meditat

Today I asked many of you to submit your questions to me for an Ask Me Anything episode, and I was absolutely shocked at the amount of questions I received. I have four pages of your questions, and today I took on four of them. #1 from Paul: How do you recognize God during deconstruction when God seems to have completely disappeared? #2 from Scott: When there are tragedies in people's lives, what other things can we genuinely say to them other than “we are praying for you”, or “it’s all in Gods plan” that will be helpful in their situation? #3 from Lance: The problem of evil; "If there is a loving God, then why does He allow bad things to happen?" #4 Tim: When you have gone through your toughest season(s), what was your spiritual "North Star?" Along the same lines... what was your biggest fear during that season? And along the same lines... where were you most misunderstood? Time Stamps for the episode: 0:45: Introduction 2:41: Paul: Finding God’s presence during a Deconstruction of irreco

Today I talked to Kevin Sweeney about his newest book “The Joy of Letting Go…,” eventually we got there, at least. First we talk about a lot of amazing things, his journey as a teenager using psychedelic mushrooms and meeting God, his journey into Bible College, his deconstruction from that understanding and into Black Womanist Liberation Theology. Kevin is a wise man with a unique journey, and that makes it hard to sum up our conversation in a paragraph. Kevin was co-founder and lead pastor of Imagine Church in Honolulu for almost ten years, He was co-founder of the Honolulu based creative collective The (un)Commons, He has also organized and taught multiple Enneagram Experience events in Hawai’i and California, he helped lead “Saying Grace,” a curated gathering of dinners and stories between the church and the LGBTQ community in Honolulu. He is the host of podcast “The Church Needs Therapy” and is a best selling author. His two books are “The Making of a Mystic: My Journey with Mushrooms, My Life as a Pasto

Today I talk to Rohadi Nagassar about his newest book “When We Belong. Reclaiming Christianity on the Margins.” from Herald Press. Rohadi writes and speaks on the topics of decolonizing, liberation, and deconstructing western Christianity. And today we talk about just that, focusing in on talking about Deconstructing white supremacy and whiteness from our faith. He has planted two churches including an inner-city multi-ethnic expression called Cypher Church. He has also written extensively in the areas of missions and church leadership including his book, “Thrive. Ideas to lead the church in post-Christendom”. Rohadi lives in Canada, on Treaty 7 Lands, otherwise known as Calgary, and holds a Business Certificate from Mount Royal College, a BA in Economics from the University of Calgary, and a Master of Divinity from Canadian Theological Seminary. His experience includes non-profit work in both governance and organizational development. He is the past-chair of ACT Alberta, one of the largest anti-human traffic

Dr Dave Beach lost his wife to cancer, and it triggered a deconstruction of his assumptions about the world. He found out that the propositions he claimed were not embedded deep in his own soul. He went on a journey to make sense of this event in light of his faith and eventually wrote a dissertation on the topic of Christianity and suffering with the hopes of meeting people at the intersection of their faith and suffering with hospitality and care. Dave is a retired counselor, college teacher, a current author, speaker, chaplain, and spiritual formation presenter, as well as an executive director of Four Health Family Resource Center Inc, in Saranac MI. You can find Dave’s book here: https://rb.gy/9ri2p and You can Dave’s Dissertation here: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/dmin/281/ Below are the topics and time stamps of the issues we cover which includes, 2:23: Introductions 6:05: Faith Roots 8:11: Bad Songs that shaped his theology and expectation 10:23: “Faith” insulating us from reality 12:34: The F

What if deconstruction is not always losing faith? What if it can be a natural part of the faith journey that modern churches merely don’t have space for? Today, I talked with Therapist, Counselor, Campus minister, and Author, Jacci Turner about her new book: Tumbled People: Deconstructing and Reconstructing your faith. This book promises that you will find hope and encouragement for the spiritual changes you are going through, for they are a normal part of the stages of spiritual growth and development. What stage are you at? Listen in and find out. You can find Jacci’s book: https://rb.gy/haobk and https://rb.gy/osbg5 You can find Jacci at www.jacciturner.com Below are the topics and time stamps of the issues we cover which includes, 2:05: Introductions and Faith Roots 5:40: The first domino that sent her into deconstruction 10:03: Shalom, the Bible’s word for Salvation, Justice, Peace 11:50: Intro to the six stages of faith formation 15:40: Making space for deconstruction in organizations 21:14: Stage 1 Tr

Today, I talk with author, writer, and doodle lover, Zack Hunt about his new book, Godbreathed. He shares his experience of the Nazarene Church, watching TV preacher Jack Van Impe, going to Bible college and getting hit with an academic approach to the Bible which gave him more questions than he was comfortable with. This deconstruction led him to write his first book Unraptured and as he further processed his faith he wrote Godbreathed to help people process what the Bible is and what it is not. He is a wonderful human being and I had a lot of fun chatting with him. You can find Zack’s book: https://rb.gy/5skge and https://rb.gy/n0lck You can find Zack at www.Zackhunt.net and https://substack.com/@zackhunt Below are the topics and time stamps of the issues we cover which includes, 1:47 Introduction 5:08 Puppies and dog lovers 6:20 His anti-fundie billboards around Nashville 8:30 Deconstructing Jack Van Impe, Unraptured 11:49 Voices of Guidance, Rachel Held Evans 15:11 Why he wrote Godbreathed, permiss

What does a theology of Eternal Life really look like? If you've deconstructed the idea that you need to pray a magic Jesus prayer to go to heaven when you die, what do you do with the concept of Life Eternal? In this solo recording from a teaching at my church I go into what eternal life is and is not. All Music for this episode is provided by Axeltree: @axletree Voiceover for this episode is provided by Play.ht https://liminalliving.simplecast.com/ 

Today, I talk with Aaron McConnell, a long time friend from a previous church. He shares his experience growing up in a hyper fundamentalist Baptist church and school, where the Baptist Church down the street wasn’t fundamental enough. Also half way through Aaron turns the tables and interviews me unexpectedly about my deconstruction as a pastor and how I am doing church differently, to create safe spaces for those who are unsure of their faith. 0:48 Introduction 3:03 Not Fundie Enough for the Fundies 6:14 Jumping back into church 8:46 Planned Parenthood Protest 12:07 Guilt, Shame, Fear, the fundie toolbox 17:17 Humility from pain 21:03 “Sound of the Genuine” 22:21 Deconstruction and personal relationships 24:59 Inerrancy, Ideology, Covid Mandates 29:14 Deconstructing as a pastor, creating safe spaces 33:22 Weaponizing Dogma vs knowing you’re not infallible 38:29 A Different Church MO 40:26 Suffering “Breaks” your understanding of God 43:49 Scientific Revolution, Fundamentalist reaction, new ch

Today I talked to Dr. David Rice about his journey into a pastoral role that followed the retirement of a beloved pastor of 33 years. They asked for change, but resisted, while shortly into this position David's father passed away. He learned that change is grief. He stayed for 8 years and left shortly after Covid shutdowns in America subsided. He had no job lined up, was emotionally spent, and moved his whole family to Oxford to weather the liminal season. The breakdown of today's conversation is as follows: 0:48 Introductions 3:20 Church Community in denial of grief 6:31 Loss of Father and personal grief 9:21 Emotional Prosperity Gospel and space to grieve 11:07 Church decline, transition, and grief process 14:43 Power Broker, leadership, boundaries, restraining orders 19:09 Church planting vs Revitalizing 22:51 leaving my pastoral role, skipped sabatical 27:06 Covid, Burnout, Everything Changed 30:49 Trauma, Loss, and Nervous System 36:01 pastoral transitions 40:38 Community, friendship, support outside ch

Today, I talk with Jeremie Wilson, a great friend, a great musician, a great soul. He shares his experience growing up in the faith as the son of a musical evangelist, his exploration of science with his college degree, his journey into church leadership, seeing how the sausage is made, and his eventual exit of the faith when there was no hospitality to reconcile his understanding of science with the demands of fundamentalist religion. 0:48 Introduction 5:04 Faith upbringing, CCM, Kieth Green 10:06 Stress of art, poverty, and false hopes of God given fame 14:16 Prosperity Gospel, Artistic Insecurity, Success 18:59 The Bible, Justice, Politics, Christian Nationalism 23:38 Systemic Theology, Communal Conformity 27:14 Science and Faith, Young Earth Creationism, Conspiracy Thinking 33:17 At odds with the faith, no space for discussion 38:36 Quiet Quitting the Church 42:27 Trying church again, but with kids 47:30 Deacon to Elder to Board Member 52:51 Excluded 57:13 Overcoming his religious prejudice

In this conversation with my dear friend Dr. Paul Jones, we hear his story of deconstruction, burnout, exiting the pastoral world as a profession, abandonment by Christian friends and colleagues, and finding his way through the dark night. 0:48 Introductions 6:02 Life Post Pastor 10:14 Dark Night of the Soul 14:24 Church planting and pressure 19:07 Building the Church Machine 23:36 Ego, Burnout,Boundaries 25:36 Trump, Christian Nationalism 27:02 Depression, Almost Atheist 30:25 Spiritual Direction and Counseling 36:35 Rethinking Church 41:31 Love not Found 47:07 The Unforgivable sin: Trump 52:19 Liminal Living Tips 57:39 Conclusions All music for this episode is provided by Axeltree https://soundcloud.com/axletree Voiceover for this episode is provided by Play.ht https://liminalliving.simplecast.com/ 

Today I talk to long time friend, Jayson Simonson, Chief Resource Officer of New International. We talk about his deconstruction process and his passion for eliminating poverty. 1:34 his faith story 3:23 Deconstruction and Poverty 10:21 Deconstruction and Spiritual Direction 12:10 Deconstruction and the nature of Truth 14:57 Church Bureaucracy and Truth 17:47 Church Entertainment Machine 21:56 Politicizing Poverty 31:17 Christian Authoritarian Empire 38:40 Row v Wade 41:38 January 6th Insurrection Spirit 48:28 Empowerment vs Power 52:19 Liminal Living Tips 57:24 Sources and Motivations All Music for this episode is provided by Axeltree: https://soundcloud.com/axletree Voiceover provided by: play.ht https://liminalliving.simplecast.com/ 

In John 2, did Jesus turn the water from the religious basins into wine? I do not think so. He did something greater to which this points. I explore this story in relation to its Old Testament roots in Isaiah. Check it out. https://liminalliving.simplecast.com/ 

The definition of hope is found neither in pessimism nor optimism, but in a "theology of color." Check out the latest #LiminalLiving podcast to see how. https://liminalliving.simplecast.com/ 

Does your doctrine sound like a lawyer wrote it? What is doctrine and what is it for? We explore the roots of what doctrine means in the Old Testament, New Testament, and early church. https://liminalliving.simplecast.com/