Scott Bessenecker & Disappointment

This week on 20 Minute Takes, we talk with author Scott Bessenecker. His book, Bad Religion, Good News: An Honest Guide for the Spiritually Disappointed was released this past May. Scott talks with us about why engaging with disappointment is often a challenge for Western Christian spirituality, and shares stories of people who have found good news through their earnest engagement with disappointment.

This is the final episode of season 8 of 20 Minute Takes—check back in the fall for our new season!

Scott Bessenecker has worked in college ministry for the past 40 years, facilitating global justice immersion programs inviting young adults to discern voactional ministry alongside the urban poor. He's also the author of the New Friars.

You can find his Substack here.

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action
Hosted, Produced, and Edited by David de Leon
Music by Andre Henry

Transcript

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20MT 08x08 - Scott Bessenecker

[00:00:11] David de Leon: Hi, my name is David de Leon. I'm the producer of "20 Minute Takes," and I have the pleasure of hosting this episode, our final one of the season. Today, I'm talking with Scott Bessenecker. Scott is the author of the recently released book, "Bad Religion, Good News: An Honest Guide for the Spiritually Disappointed."

Scott has worked in college campus ministry for the last 40 years, leading and developing justice immersion programs around the world. Join us for today's episode as we talk about disappointment with God, Christians, the church, and how our honesty and attentiveness to disappointment is indispensable for a thriving spirituality. Thanks for joining us.

[00:00:52] David de Leon: 

Scott Bessenecker, it is so good to have you on 20 Minute Takes

[00:01:01] Scott Bessenecker: David de Leon, I miss you. I used to supervise David, and our supervisory calls would just be engaging theology, like, 'cause you were part-time going to school, and it's like I didn't hardly ask anything about what work you were doing. It's like, "Hey, what are you reading lately?" And we'd just have this deep dive.

[00:01:23] David de Leon: --- Yeah, it's good to get to catch up and I really enjoyed reading your book here. I'm gonna ask you another question, though, Scott, you're one of the most well-traveled people that I know. If you, in this moment, could instantaneously transport yourself anywhere in the world, where would that place be?

[00:01:43] Scott Bessenecker: There's lots of places I like. I don't even keep track, David, 'cause I feel like that's a sign of consumption. It's like this sort of checklist of, "Here are the countries I've conquered." So I don't even know, like, how many places I've visited. But Laos, 1995 I don't know what it's like... I guess I was there 10 years ago, but in the '90s it felt pristine.

[00:02:11] David de Leon: Yeah.

[00:02:12] Scott Bessenecker: unspoiled, and it was just such an interesting environment where you did get the French influence in the food and stuff like that. But as there are churches on every corner in places in the Southeast, there are monasteries, Buddhist monasteries on every c- corner, and saffron-clad monks walking the streets, and a kind of jungly feel even to Vientiane.

So there, there was a kind of magic in Laos in the '90s.

[00:02:44] David de Leon: Very cool. I would love to talk to you a little bit about the book that you recently had released called "Bad Religion, Good News: An Honest Guide for the Spiritually Disappointed." Obviously, there it is in the subtitle, disappointment is a huge theme in this book, and I'm curious if you can talk about the things in your life that lit the fire under you to write this book.

What was happening for you? What were you noticing in the world around you, in your communities? How did this book come to be?

[00:03:17] Scott Bessenecker: David, this is a clumsy overstatement, but it felt like the Christians I was friends with 30 years ago who were really aligned, on fire, connected, have either become Christian nationalists or have left the faith. And so feeling this sense of abandonment's not the right word, but like loneliness.

Because I think when you suffer through disappointment after disappointment, one reaction is like, "This is garbage." You get people like Bart Campolo, Tony Campolo's son, who's like, "I don't think I can hang with this faith anymore." He calls it death by a thousand paper cuts. I think that's a disappointment.

Or you get like this, "I've got to become more dogmatic. I've got to retrench." "This faith is under attack and I see all these, scandals and other things that are making giving the faith a bad name. I'm going to dig deeper." And that some dogmatism, I think, has turned into Christian nationalism.

So that sense that I've lost all the good friends I've had to either leaving the faith or most of them I would say is, have left the evangelical family,

[00:04:51] David de Leon: Yeah.

[00:04:52] Scott Bessenecker: or just becoming hyper-dogmatic about their faith

[00:04:56] David de Leon: That's really interesting because I feel like for the folks who've left the church and, like there's all the statistics that get updated every year. I get to teach on them in the classroom about like the increase in Nones, in spiritual nones particularly with the current generation of young folks.

That your assessment that like disappointment is the reason for people leaving the church, but it never occurred to me until you said it right now that the response to disappointment, that the other side of that response is the digging down, higher dogmatism, fundamentalism, et cetera.

And so I'm curious what is it about Christian spiritual formation or imagination that has made it difficult to be attentive to our own disappointment?

[00:05:44] Scott Bessenecker: I think particularly American Christianity is malnourished in our theology of suffering. And so something I've learned from you, from many friends of color, or in the developing world, the, the Christians who exist in harsh conditions there is an understanding of suffering that has really helped me.

And I think our malnourishment, theological malnourishment as Americans to understand suffering within our Christian context makes it hard for us to face the cognitive dissonance of disappointment and unwilling to really-- let's just write, let's just say they weren't real Christians if they did something really bad.

That's kinda bad theology too. What if real Christians who have the Holy Spirit of God in them commit murder,

[00:06:56] David de Leon: Yeah. Yeah

[00:06:58] Scott Bessenecker: Domestic abuse? What do you do with that? Let's deny that they are true Christians or let's go super dogmatic

[00:07:10] David de Leon: Yeah. And when you make that point in your book, whether you were talking about the Rwandan genocide or even Nazi Germany I think you made a great point of hey, these are people who legitimately believed and were sort of faith-filled Christians, and the fact that they can do these things how do we look that squarely in the face and not dismiss it by just lopping off , our connectedness to them historically?

But it feels like a call in some sense for greater accountability is like what you're saying. Hey, like Christians we have to own this reality for sure. 

[00:07:46] Scott Bessenecker: I think, David, too, part of that is working around Gen Z or the revolving door of versions of Gen Z on the college campus, you realize they can sniff out insincerity or they're not asking for a hero story about the church. They're just asking for an honest one. And they know, "Wait, why aren't we talking about the church's involvement in the slave trade?

Can we look at that?" "Oh, let's talk about the abolitionist movement. Let's talk about Martin Luther King Jr." Wait, there's another story here. So I think working around young people has also helped me realize this. There's automatic suspicion of institution, the church is an institution, but they know pieces of the bad story, and no one from inside the community is telling that story very well.

All of the detractors are telling those stories, and I think just hearing us talk about our collective sin is healthy. It's healthy for us, and I think Gen Z honors that

[00:09:15] David de Leon: Yeah. No, I think I have seen that even in my classrooms as I, I'm a, an instructor and I teach the mandatory religious studies and theology class at the university that I work at. And I think students are often very surprised at the willingness to stare straight in the face the history of domination as it plays out in the theology of the Christian church.

Or you talk about the spiritual act of confession in your book That's probably one of the only genuine things that we can actually do in response to either the disappointment or dare we say shame about some of these stories.

[00:09:54] Scott Bessenecker: And I would add only lament is that gift of sitting with, recognizing, and expressing our disappointment. I think lament is the expression of disappointment.

[00:10:08] David de Leon: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:10] Scott Bessenecker: And, Soong-Chan Rah and others have talked about the critical missing element of lament in many spaces. But in addition to confession, I think lament is important.

[00:10:22] David de Leon: One of the cool things in the spirituality that you approach in the book is you refuse theodicy in many ways in the book. And and what I mean by that is you don't try to reason away the disappointment or anger or frustration with God by way of spiritual truisms.

And I'm curious what brought you to be able to resist thinking theologically that way? 

[00:10:56] Scott Bessenecker: I'm 62. I'm still figuring out this. Does God control all outcomes? And if not, what's the equation here? How do I understand the spiritual physics of bad things? And, of course the existence of evil or bad things happening to good people that's 2,000-year-old discussion within the church.

But that's where this writing led me. A writer is really working out his or her stuff in a public forum. And so to the extent that I come across with any sense of certainty about disappointment with God or others, that's sin.

[00:11:43] David de Leon: Yeah 

[00:11:44] Scott Bessenecker: I'm still figuring it out. I'm just figuring it out with y'all.

But maybe "I don't know" is a good answer to your question. I'm still working out why God didn't completely rescue me from a stroke. Why my friends have experienced real suffering in the midst of them being really faithful. The scriptures the Romans 8:28 sort of passages that seem sweepingly to promise good things not coming true in some cases.

I just wanna acknowledge that's been my experience and the experience of my friends, and can we say that in church and try to wrestle with this and work it out?

And I think the answer is I don't know what's going on here. Part of it is this desire for control and desire for certainty. I think those are the great impediments to deep spirituality.

I'm gonna work out an equation where I can control things and where I can be absolutely certain about this position,

[00:13:10] David de Leon: Yeah.

[00:13:11] Scott Bessenecker: then I will feel better

[00:13:13] David de Leon: Yeah. Yeah. Y-you offer up some helpful categories to, for people to discuss their disappointment with the church. And you offer up these categories of arrogance, insularity, and division, and how those things have crept up both today but also just historically throughout the life of the church, the story of Christianity.

And so I'm wondering if you could unpack those categories a little bit more insularity, arrogance, and division.

[00:13:43] Scott Bessenecker: I get the arrogance because I am. And, that probably comes across in my book. Like my certainty that certainty is the great sin of the church is wait a second, you come across just as arrogant as the people you're criticizing. We crave that kind of Solidity. And so we feel good if we can wrap a verse around it and maybe a story and say, "This is the absolute truth."

I'm 62 now, and things that I was really certain of at 32 don't seem so certain to me now. And I don't think it's because I'm going down the slippery slope of woke culture. It's like, no I'm hanging on to the orthodox belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ and his work on the cross and his resurrection. But the, these, the other things that attach themselves to my growing doctrinal statement, I don't know if I can sign that thing anymore.

[00:15:09] David de Leon: Yeah..

[00:15:10] Scott Bessenecker: So that certainty, I get it. I've experienced it, and this feeling that m- the, the non-Christian world has that most Christians think that they're subject matter experts on politics and on social issues.

And that's how we come across,

As like we've got the absolute answers in all these realms that aren't even, faith-related realms or, they're adjacent to it. That seems dangerous, and I think that's been really unhealthy for the church. Insularity. I'm insular,

I've worked in a Christian organization for 40 years. My work has always been administrative, in a building full of Christians, very involved in my church that's a kind of insularity that may be unique to me as a Christian worker, but I also find within the Christian family this sense that the other is leprous and dangerous to be in contact with.

I cannot have friends who are wildly outside of the Christian journey unless it's to evangelize them. I can't have a meaningful relationship with a Hindu where it's like I'm a friend that like this person matters to me and I look to them for advice. We can't do that. I think there's some care to be thoughtful about the community we're part of, but I don't see Jesus being very careful about the community that he hung out with. That got him in trouble "this guy is hanging out with sex workers and with mafioso," is how I interpret the tax collector community. "He can't be good." So the kind of engagement I see with Jesus, with those outside the religious community And then the one thing that could qualify, I think, as an 11th commandment, "A new command I give to you." Like that kind of language, I think spoke to the disciples of the Ten Commandments.

Love one another. That's not happening, David. That, me too. I don't like, I don't love Christians who think really differently than me or who are, who I would qualify as Christian nationalists. Of course, they would say the same about me in terms of left-leaning version of nationalism, which I think could happen too.

It could be that should an administration change and we get a liberal president, that all of the left-leaning churches gather around that person and become just as entangled in empire as our right-leaning friends. But my division from those individuals that I don't feel very aligned with, that's a form of hatred, I think. Or at least it's not loving. And our tendency to separate from one another, think is also dangerous. Division, insularity, arrogance I'd like to see something different

In my chapter on disappointment with Christian mission, I think the, the aha for me was when the church and the main source of disappointment in all the varying expressions of disappointment, I think come from the church's connection to empire. That is the desire for power in political, social, educational, et cetera, spaces.

Like that quest for power brings about many kinds of disappointments. So when that happened in history, in the story of the church, which I try to tell in a few thousand words in that chapter, I feel like it's these weirdo misfits, usually young people, who start living in deserts or creating a f- "I just wanna live as closely to how I see Jesus calling the rich young ruler.

I'm in the place of the rich young ruler, and I'm gonna take Jesus' words literally and see what happens." Those things happen at the time when the church is most entangled with empire. I'm expecting a fresh wine skin that will likely offend me and others because of just how different it looks. And I don't know.

I think people in the emergent movement of 20 years ago or whatever were thinking, "Oh, pastors with T-shirts and jeans and people sitting on couches, that's the new wine skin." I don't think that was it, but I think we've, I think we know we want something different,

And it will likely be small, it will likely be rejected, and it will likely be a misfit or a weirdo who starts it, and it will come out of this disenchantment with the church's connection to empire.

[00:21:12] David de Leon: Yeah. What are the ways that you are seeing something different? What are some stories or people that you've encountered either from the book or in your life right now who you feel like you're like, "That's how I wanna engage disappointment. I'm seeing fruit from how that person is handling their disappointment, either with the church or with God."

Could you tell us a couple stories?

[00:21:36] Scott Bessenecker: I'm not seeing a lot, but I do see Christians who are res- struggling with disappointment within their faith community, and they decide to stay in a way that's beautiful. So our church, for instance, we don't have a senior pastor.

We're a, yeah, little bit of a hippie church. But elder folk who were complementarian, that is, they didn't believe in women in leadership, we have women teachers and women elders. They stayed with our church until they passed away, like decades, because they were connected to the community and really believed that was more important than ticking all of their boxes on the theological level.

So sticking with the community, and of course, that happens the other direction, too. People really uncomfortable with certain theologies that feel too restrictive or conservative or outside of... Or there are some for whom it's actually becoming spiritually, a kind of spiritual starvation for me to stay here.

I'm gonna go to the leaders, which I have multiple times, and like we've had not very fruitful discussions and say, "I wanna bless you guys for the things you've contributed to me spiritually. I need to move on, but I'd like to do it in a way that has integrity and grace." And so those sorts of examples I think give inspiration to church leaders to say, "Oh, they could disagree and stay or disagree and leave with a blessing for us and a thankfulness for the things that we've contributed to their lives."

I'll try to remember Dina's story. But Dina raised in a more traditional Christian home and became a worship leader, an important person within their early church experience in their 20s. Presenting male but also having some questions about, "I've got this sense that this doesn't fit, and I-- and it's both a social and spiritual and physical question I'm dealing with." And the church's response was a bit tone deaf, and ultimately she felt destructive. She tried leaving the church and she came back as "Oh, this is an example of someone who rejected the queer identity and has returned to the fold, and let's put him on display." One of the other questions that she was dealing with is the, judgment of God, the existence of hell, and how that plays out, and really wanting to have a deep discussion.

I don't think questioning the idea of God being perfect and able to judge and issuing some judgment, but the, the scare tactics that she felt like were being used against her "I can't be queer and be a Christian and go to heaven. If I'm gonna be queer, I need to accept that I'm gonna be tortured for all eternity if I stay within this tradition."

So that kind of pinch point led her to just completely dismiss the faith. And she found like a, a profound sense of loneliness and disconnection without a spiritual family, and led her into dark places. And she had an encounter with God in the deepest place of her disappointment that called her back.

And so returning to the journey while accepting a different gender and an identity with a queer community led her to different kinds of Christian communities that she felt restored wholeness to her. So that kind of space, damned if I do, damned if I don't remaining in this one particular expression of Christian faith felt unsustainable to her. completely and finding God speaking to her in the midst of her loneliness, disconnection from the Christian faith, brought her back into a restored place, and finding a different kind of community that accepted her identity and her sense of self, and what she felt like was God's affirmation of who she was, brought that necessary vital spiritual life back into her story.

[00:27:01] David de Leon: Thanks for sharing that story, Scott. Thanks for being on our podcast. Appreciate having you.

[00:27:07] Scott Bessenecker: Good to be back with you, David. Let's do this again.

[00:27:17] Outro: 20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action. Nikki Toyama-Szeto our executive director, is our usual host, and today's episode was hosted and produced and edited by me, David de Leon. Our music is done by Andre Henry. You can find us on the web at christiansforsocialaction.org. Feel free to give us five stars, write a review, and share about this podcast with your friends.

Check back in in the fall for our next season of 20 Minute Takes..