Ep 17 - What Are We Missing?

Kicking off Season 3, in this episode we ask if the reason we see so much in church that we'd rather not see, is not in spite of  what we believe about God and the message of the Bible, but because of  what we believe about God and the message of the Bible. If that's the case, then a serious re-examination and re-evaluation are long overdue.

Transcript

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Welcome back to The Willing Fool. We are kicking off season three today. I'm so excited. Thank you for joining. As I've thought about what this season is going to shape up to be, I reflected on my journey over the last several years. In this podcast, we love to talk about matters of faith and spirituality.

And like many of us, and probably many of you listening to this, I, I've done quite a bit of wrestling over the last several years and tried to process to the best of my ability, um, what I understand about faith, particularly Christianity, and also tried to make sense of my experience in light of that within the church, my faith journey.

And as I have continued to reflect,  I continue to be amazed at  some of the things that I have seen, I have experienced that I,  at the time I couldn't make sense of. I tried to fit it somewhere within my picture of who God is and who I am and theology, if you want to call it that. Um, and I just struggled to do that.

And at the same time, I've been on this journey of reflecting and unpacking. Again, I don't think this is uncommon, uh, particularly these days. What I've understood the message of the Bible to be, the message of the gospel to be, what Christianity is about. And, uh, many times I've realized, hmm, I've got some things in there that I think I have to call into question.

Maybe they're not the best model, the best understanding, and if I'm going to do that,  that takes a lot of energy and time and effort to unpack and unlearn something. But also, A lot of energy to figure out, well, what am I going to replace that with? I can't just, I don't really want to end up with a vacuum or, or nothing.

Uh, that isn't my goal. My goal is to, best my ability to understand who God is, what God is all about, what he might be looking for from me. And just what this life is all about. So, I know that's super vague and general, but I'll get more specific as we go. So, I've reflected and just kind of collected a few anecdotes of things I've experienced, things I've seen, heard recently within the shared Christian life, the church life.

And by that I mean local congregation, I mean, online dialogue, that sort of thing as well. Just the whole general church community. And what I've found is that, There is a lot, uh, that goes on that in one way or another you'd have to rate as like subpar. Like, this cannot be what Christianity is about.

This can't be what shared church life is all about. And another thing I've noticed along the way is that most of us, I think many of us at least, have a vague sensibility about that isn't okay. Um, Things being said things being done. That isn't okay, but but hard to put our finger on why and in many cases What we might otherwise point out in the any of the rest of our life is inappropriate wrong off base whatever in error We're more hesitant to do so in the church world in the Christian world Because there's this idea, well, if the person doing it is a believer, a Christian, and they have some sort of feeling of scriptural justification, then we've got to give it a pass.

You know, because we've got to love each other. We've got, you know, we've got to have unity. Um, everybody's doing the best they can. We don't want to be harsh or judgmental. And, of course, there's an element of truth in all that. But, my conclusion, um, We're open to revision, but at this point, conclusion on this is there actually is just quite a bit of really, really, really bad behavior, thought process, actions that takes place that is correctable, that is wrong, that is hurtful and harmful that is just unnecessarily getting a pass.

And I think that our, and I'm generalizing here, of course, Our theology and some of the ways we've gotten our understanding of who God is and what the message of the Bible is about The way in which our theology has been off over time has really made any correction of that trajectory much much harder at times almost impossible and As I've continued to think about this and again, I'll unpack as we go.

 I believe that That Uh, uncorrectability, that resistance to change and correction, um, is not just like a, well, well, you know, unfortunately, wah, wah, that's the way it goes. It's actually a feature. It's a feature of the bad theology itself. It's built in. It's, it's part of the package of a certain way of thinking and believing and then a certain posture about how we think and believe that way.

So I'm gonna give you a few anecdotes here and just see what you think about these or see if you've had similar experience. Um, I've experienced things like a leader, a top leader in a church denomination Standing up and delivering a message to thousands of people and asking if you have not shared your faith with somebody and walked them through the process of becoming a Christian and personally helped them become a Christian, stand up and people in the audience whom to whom that applied, including me, stood up.

And just made the blanket statement, You are in sin.

Now that's a heavy thing to say, to a group of thousands of people, who have spent their time and energy and money to travel across the country or a region of the country to go to a church conference. And um, And I remember how I felt in that moment. I remember how I felt. Leaving that auditorium where that message was delivered and, you know, it was going to some sort of dance or mixer or party.

I just thought, how in the world are we supposed to go dance and have a party after being told that and condemned in that way? And amazingly, nobody after that got up to, the pulpit podium, whatever, and, and said anything. In a, of a corrective fashion, that that was out of line, or whoa, let's unpack this.

This was, this was literally a, or the top leader in an entire, fellowship of churches. Uh, and in fact, I mean, I, I don't know what I would expect, but there's some part of me that thinks, wouldn't somebody of close to or equal status at some point in the future go back and sort of unpack that and, and walk it back and.

It's amazing to me that to this day, I don't know that I've seen or experienced or heard that. I'm not saying it hasn't happened anywhere, but it hasn't happened to me, and not from lack of exposure. I mean, I've, I've heard hundreds of people speak thousands of times, um, where the opportunity was there.

And that's just one example. I mean, I can, I can go on a lot more. I've been, uh, in situations where people in the church were behaving fairly. Uh, treacherously antagonistically sabotaging what people in leadership were doing, uh, being very quick to accuse. Um, and I would say my characterization, hypocritically judge the actions and intentions of others while themselves having a lot of things to deal with.

And I wasn't too shocked about that, although it was pretty terrible. What I was shocked by was the lack. Of insistence and strength and wisdom and discernment, again my characterization, of other people who are involved and could see some of these things. to point it out, to be very specific and say, listen, we see how you're behaving.

We see what you're doing. And here's why it's wrong. And it is wrong. And I just, I was, I was shocked by people who otherwise I thought I really respect. I think they're great. And they are, um, they have a lot of maturity in a lot of ways and a lot of things that are very imitatable. And yet there seemed to be this incredible.

To me, incredible, hard to believe, I mean literally hard to believe, um, lack of decisiveness and precision on pointing out that very treacherous behavior and it extended over months of time and caused, in my opinion, a lot of damage. I've seen, uh, things that, not just that I experienced personally, but I've seen things online even in recent weeks.

One, and these are just random examples to kind of paint the picture, was a guy from a denomination, um, close to a denomination I grew up in, not exactly the same, but he was posting his opinion on, the correct way to worship, the correct forms and patterns, and what was allowed and what wasn't allowed, and he was throwing out some pretty heavy bullshit.

Um, lines in the sand, so to speak, about other worshipers and other churches who didn't take the same hard, hard line approach and, and how in danger they were and how wrong they were. And,  there's clear examples in the Old Testament, uh, Nadab and Abihu who worshipped in an inappropriate, inappropriate fashion and they were killed on the spot and that's, that's the example he was going to, empower and undergird his, his harshness and, you know, people were trying to reason with him and point out, um, you know, ways to view all the scriptures that led to quite a bit different conclusions when he was, but he was very adamant and he was pretty antagonistic, uh, I think it's fair to say pretty antagonistic.

Just kind of brandishing his sword towards other, other believers, other churchgoers who were being pretty reasonable and loving, I thought, uh, and he was convinced that he had it and nobody else did, uh, if they didn't agree with him on this. And even as people pointed out other. Hebrew scripture Old Testament passages that that didn't really go along with what he was saying he was saying that well these Hebrew scripture Old Testament stuff is all irrelevant to us except for the purpose of examples that should kind of warn us off of bad behavior and it's like man that that's so interesting that's that's your primary go to proof text for your point in the harshness with which you hold it here you are sort of missing most of the scriptures, uh, and just kind of relegating them to the dustbin of history is, almost completely irrelevant.

There was another example of somebody who was asking an honest question about the show The Chosen and its impact and what people thought about it, and somebody had jumped in there with a pretty negative take on the whole thing, and, they... They were actually pretty sarcastic in their response and they said something, and I'm characterizing, but something like, oh, yeah, like this entertainment, this show, like it could reach people in a way that the pure word of God spoken by me and other people like me, like God would allow that to be true.

And, you know, people were a little taken aback by the tone and what he was saying. And so he, he doubled down and people tried to reason with him a bit. and, take a different tone and approach with him than he was taking. And he just kept doubling down and he, you know, Jesus, this actor playing Jesus, and I didn't like that.

They took liberties. And they said, Jesus said at one point, listen to your heart. We all know the heart is. Evil and deceitful and, you know, he's referencing Jeremiah 17. The heart is,  deceitful, above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? This sort of passage, it points out the darkness of the heart and, he hated that Jesus said to this guy, you know, listen to your heart like that.

No, we wanted to impress how bad we are. And I think somewhere in there was, you know, the message is to, Say how much of a sinner you are, and throw yourself at the mercy of Jesus, for forgiveness of your sin. So he was just really, he took this tone, this approach that I've heard, it's very familiar to me.

And, um, it seemed really, it's like man, it's just very hard to imagine that Jesus would be super pleased with the tack this guy's taking. And, The tone that he's taking. I'm gonna package those, you know, and the two kind of go together the theology and the tone go together I mean if that's the whole crux of the message and you've got this send problem You better get it fixed.

If not, you're going to hell that is the message That is what everything turns on and the way that you're gonna hear that is by me coming directly at you head on no holds barred about, you know, your sin and the problem that poses and how bad it is and how bad of a situation you're in. I've heard all this.

I've been immersed in this, in church life and I get the logic of it. I understand it at a visceral level, a cell level, uh, and there is a tightness of the logic there. And so this is what I want to unpack. Of course, if that guy's premise is true. Then it's pretty actually hard to talk him down. I mean, in his worldview and his theology, his way of thinking about what the message of the Bible is and what God's all about.

Um, he's pretty consistent. He's pretty consistent and he's doing his very best within that understanding. Um, and  if and when you try to talk him out, of course, his reaction is to double down because you're trying to talk him out of the most important thing. You're trying to water down, or get him to water down, the thing that he holds as most sacred, the message that he holds as most sacred, and his duty that is most sacred.

The last example I'll share is actually from a note I read, uh, just yesterday in my Bible in Ephesians 4. And it's an, it's an odd passage.

It can be hard to understand. It's in Ephesians four, it says, now, grace was given to each one of us, according to the measure of the Messiah's gift for it says, and as a scripture quoted in scripture, when he ascended on high, he took prisoners into captivity. He gave gifts to people, and it goes on from there.

And, I won't at this moment go into what I think that scripture is talking about. I think what it's talking about is actually very important, but I looked down and happened to read the notes, of the people who made this Bible and it's a great Bible. It's got great notes and all these people are smarter than me and know a lot more than me and are definitely better at making Bible commentary than I am.

So I have to couch this, question or critique with that reality. And here's the note. This verse is an allusion to Psalm 68. The essence of the psalm is that a military victor, uh, that would be in this case Jesus, has the right to receive gifts from the people he has conquered and who are now his subjects.

Paul suggested that Christ has conquered his enemies, parentheses, unredeemed sinners, unparentheses, and has given gifts to them. And so in this person adding the note, their view of the scripture is that when it's implied that Jesus took, prisoners into captivity and, and took, the booty of war, uh, to himself to give out.

He took it from his enemies who were his enemies, humans, humans were his enemies. And again, I'm not going to delve into what I think that there's a different take on the scripture, what it's talking about, although I agree with the general. The general structure, but I thought, man, if the, how I'm understanding this is correct, the enemy is not humans in this case.

And that's a pretty big difference of interpretation to set up the, the people as the enemies. Um, it's a pretty big deal. And so I share these examples. I could go on. I have more written down, but you probably get the point and plus. More at this point, but I, I, I struggle with these things because for one thing, they've, they've personally hurt me over time.

I mean, these ways of thinking and communicating and, and trying to, uh, push forward what God is thinking and feeling and what he's about at times when they take this fairly dark and I'm going to use the term twisted and I'll explain why as this, podcast unfolds this twisted take it.

Really harms people and so I've noticed that when I try to point things out And I've noticed the same thing when others try to point things out whether it's in real life You know irl or whether it's online or whether it's  through a message or whatever there tends to be a really, Sometimes quick and hard pushback.

Um, or a dismissal or a minimizing or relativizing um and those are a couple different levels and the third level is People might acknowledge a little bit, but then there's this sort of, uh, this general tamping down of the intensity of any need for being specific and correcting and figuring out like what, what is actually wrong with those things?

Like, how did people get there? And if it's not right, like what isn't right about it? And can we land somewhere where this is unlikely to just continue unchallenged in the future in our, communities? Um, to me, that seems like a very reasonable goal. And yet I noticed that there's a lot of time that, well, you know, kind of attitude.

We got to be humble and, and, and that's your brother. And you want to be unified with your brother and we need unity above all else. And Jesus prayed for unity. And, and,  I want to give. Way to that. That's real. That's true. Those are very real things. And yet I don't think it should be used to dismiss real relevant concerns about things that do real harm in an ongoing way for months and years and decades and generations.

Those realities, the need for unity, the recognition and respect for fellow people, brothers, sisters. Um, it should not empower laziness, inaction, abuse, ignorance, lack of maturity, things that wound the people of God, the communities of God. It just shouldn't be used for that. And I guess this is a grindstone for me, um, but that, that just seems like it should not be.

And here's a few thoughts I have in relation to that. One, I think about my family, I think about my kids. And how intently I, I study them. I, I, I look at their facial expressions. I, I listen really carefully for the inflection of their voice, their tone, where they might be going, uh, emotionally and psychologically in a particular direction within a day or in general.

Um, and I pay careful attention and I'm, I'm always trying to put myself in their shoes and what might they be feeling. And of course, along with that, I try to be aware and I fail all the time at this, but I try to be aware of, well, how am I? Helping or hurting that I, I hope that a lot of times and occasionally I hurt that I make it worse or harder or don't provide what they need empower them.

And so simple point, but I'm very careful. I try to be very careful. My aim at least is to be very careful with my thoughts, my words, my tone, what I'm emphasizing and when. How helpful is it to them? Is it what they need at this stage in their development? Is it what they need at this stage in this moment in this day?

And if I feel like what I'm saying has the wrong tone or is the wrong approach, I'm quick to really want to abandon that and find a different way that, that gives them what they need. That doesn't harm them. I feel like this is a basic thing that many people do. Like good people do. Good parents certainly do.

And they probably don't have words for it, but. It is nonetheless very real, very necessary. It's just part of trying to nourish and love and help a person that you're responsible for and responsible to. And if I do that in my family, why would I not be that equally careful and conscious and thoughtful?

Within a church community where I am tasked with and responsible for Doing my best to reflect the heart of God the actual thoughts of God the demeanor of God the tone of God All those things are so so important. And in fact it you can imagine a scenario This is gonna be a little odd, but you can imagine a scenario where somebody's talking about family and they're emphasizing like family's important, right?

You know, and you, of course, you agree with that. So you agree. Yeah. Yeah. And it's important in the kids. They need to respect the parents. They need to obey the parents. They've got to learn to obey. And of course I would agree with that. Like respect is very important and kids do need to learn to obey parents.

But you ever heard somebody talk about something like that and you agree with their words. But you notice, you notice where the, the weight is placed, where the emphasis is placed in their picture of, in this case, family. I mean it's really weighted in the example I just made up, um, weighted heavily on the obedience and, and just kind of digging into that and, and laying all the weight there.

And if somebody did that often enough and stringently enough. And then I kind of watched their action and I was like, okay, yeah, like that's how they look at what,  parenting is all about. And it's, it's all about the obedience of the child and forcing that and, and squeezing that out of the kid with any means necessary.

At a certain point, I'd have to say, well, I agree with your... Basic premise, I agree with your idea that family is important, obedience and respect are important. But you know, I think your picture's off a little, and I'm, I'd be a little worried putting my kids with you. Um, cause I think you got the tone of this wrong.

I mean, yeah, obedience is important, but obedience isn't what family is. That's not what family is about. That's just, it's part of the journey, and it's, it's a necessary part of the journey and learning. But family is much more about... Love, about connection, about helping someone grow and flourish, and if you, if you flip that upside down, those two relevant, real important things, if you flip them and you get them inverted, don't think that you won't do some serious damage.

You could end up being an abuser in the name of quote, loving your family, loving your kids, raising them in the way that you think is right. And I know some people will immediately respond with kind of the, put the shoe on the other foot scenario and well, you can be too loose. Yeah, you can.

You can be too loose. So of course there is a danger on each side. But the point remains, a danger on one side does not justify, throwing all the weight on a piece of the picture that is not the main part of the picture. And I think, you know, another way to look at this is you could just think, Jesus had people around him who were technically and officially, supposedly, on the same team, right?

They're people of God. They love the law. They love the Lord. They recite the Shema daily. They pray. They observe the Sabbath. They go to temple. They have great respect for the things of God and the laws of God. And, I'm not breaking any new ground to observe. But think about how it fits into this conversation.

To observe that Jesus... Those people he drew a serious line in the sand with at times he called them brood of vipers You know snakes you you've got this Deeply wrong and in a way that matters and is important. At some point it refers to some of these people as children of the devil. So if it's possible for Jesus to see that people who are quote on the same team that he's supposed to quote be unified with that he's supposed to quote be humble with and he's willing to draw a line in the sand and say you're playing for the wrong team here that's how bad you're off and the damage that you are doing is.

Then I don't see why we would, might not think that that's possible in our day. And so, of course no one wants to create a, a witch hunt type scenario, or a, everybody has their swords out type scenario, but that's, we're not that far along. I mean, we're just talking about being able to draw conclusions and show discernment.

And even with those people, there's something, uh, that I think is, uh, noticeable, observable, and important. Is that in many cases, what happened with people was they latched onto and correctly understood some of the conventions that God had. Uh, imposed and sanctioned and given a green light to the temple, the law, the Sabbath.

And yet Jesus in every case with those three, those three big, big, big elements of the people of God and the life of God, Jesus had to point out that, Hey, as important as the temple is, as relevant as the law is, as God given as the Sabbath is, you guys have taken it and you flipped it. So that you're using these things and weaponizing them against the people of God in a way that is thwarting and opposing the purposes of God, what God is trying to do among you right now, in this generation, through me and what I am saying, and people really did do that, and I think we're very naive when we think that we can't do the same thing with the conventions that likewise are sacred, are approved, are of God in our day.

Amen. Amen. Um, it is possible to use things of God in a way that God would not approve of, meanwhile thinking that we are the ones guarding the honor of God and, and guarding His, guarding His honor, doing justice to His, um, His person. So that's something to, to chew on, to think about. Um, these things are very real.

I know I'm being general on purpose in this episode, but I'm just setting things up. Uh, again, I want to repeat. I think that the... Resistance to correction of our theology, theology, just meaning what do you understand about God? What's the scripture about? What's the basic message? What's our role in it?

That's that's what I mean by a theology. I think that the resistance to correction the backlash and the Difficulty or an impossibility of learning from others Well is a built in feature of our theology and the posture with which we hold it

I think that some strains of theology, some ways of holding onto the things of God and understanding the things of God, once embraced, they become deeply rooted and  they twist and distort the message, uh, to the point that it's just difficult, very difficult to see and be open to correction. My aim in this season is not just to complain or critique, it's to foster something better, at least to promote the discussion, to present a diagnosis and an explanation that's as clear as possible, as precise as possible, and to present clear superior alternatives in the name of protecting and fostering that which I think is mutually held valuable and precious, which is The flourishing of community, the flourishing of Christians and Christian churches and maturing and growing.

Um, those are worthy goals. They're worth fighting for. They're not worth devolving into a, hopeless, you know, harsh sword fight, but they're worth advocating for. And I think that's what you see in Jesus, even when he uses those harsh words of critique. My realization a few years ago was, man, I think things have gotten to the point where...

Just where I was church wise, like, I don't think I'd bring a friend here. I don't think I'd bring a neighbor or a relative.  I don't trust that they would get even a good snapshot of, of who God is and what God's message for them is. And, you know, that was a very slow dawning conclusion, um, but very sad.

Uh, and I think, I don't want to leave it there. I think that things can be demonstrably. Incomparably better in some churches and circles. I know they're great in some places, but I don't think it's enough places And I think there are specific ways to do that I obviously I'm not gonna give a list right here at the end of this little episode Because we have a lot to kind of talk through the specifics.

But yeah, Jeremiah 17 and talking about how  hardest deceitful above all things and beyond cure and who can understand it in a way to tamp down things that people are coming to grow and Understand differently and to just get people to do what you think they need to do all along I think that little practice should be retired for at least 10 years people that have used that as a weapon should just put it down I think though in this the season as we go along episode by episode we're gonna gain insight We're going to do our best.

I'm going to do my best to diagnose with some precision, some discernment, some, hopefully some wisdom, how it's possible to grow in all these areas, how it's possible to create a healthier, less distorted, less polluted environment for the current generation, for younger generations. I think it's worth kicking up some dust over, or upsetting some things.

Or even some people, I would expect there to be some sort of opposition or blowback if, that conversation generates traction. Um, I think it's maybe unavoidable, but some things are worth fighting for. They're worth advocating for and trying to articulate and, and put a name on, and say we're not going that way.

We're going this way. That's hard work, but I think it's worthy work. So a little bit longer episode for today next time Next episode is going to be quite a bit different I'm going to do a little test case and how to read and understand the bible when we're reading something That is just foreign to us culturally.

What do you do with that? It's it's very hard to know so we're gonna do a little fun test case I think it'll we're going

to us up for the rest of the episodes where we'll We'll dig into the meat of a contrast how we understand what God's up to, what the story of the scripture is about, what our role is in it, and what are, what are some alternatives that really understanding the scripture, particularly in light of the ancient context.

Can, help us as a corrective to understand it in new, better, new to us, not actually new, very old actually, but better and better for us ways that Put us in our proper place in a very good healthy way and help us see what God has intended for us, which is deeply Deeply encouraging. So I hope you'll stick around for those episodes and we'll take it from there.

So thanks for joining today Thanks for joining the willing fool. See you next time