Episode 1 - Raging Waters: Rocking the Boat without Drowning the Dialogue

In our pilot episode, Rev. Joanne Anquist, Ricardo De Menezes, and Rev. Bill Weaver talk about why conversations around deconstructing faith matter in a "go woke, go broke" world.

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Chapters

• 0:07 Exploring Expansive Faith Through Dialogue
• 4:40 Navigating Deconstruction of Faith
• 16:13 Navigating Faith Deconstruction in Churches
• 24:03 Navigating Faith and Family Struggles
• 33:33 Navigating Woke Culture in Relationships
• 39:14 Navigating Deconstruction of Faith for Growth
• 54:14 Finding a New Faith Path
• 59:21 Embracing Expansive Faith and Belonging
• 1:08:35 Church Experiences, Relationships, and Community
• 1:15:45 Creating Sacred Space Beyond Evangelicalism
• 1:21:34 Navigating Diverse Perspectives in Dialogue

Transcript

Bill

00:07

All right, folks, the deal is simple. We're going to turn on the microphones and we're going to start to talk about God, about faith and the world that we live in, unedited, unfiltered, looking for a far more expansive and loving God than the one that we see reflected in our headlines today. If that's not enough, we're going to do it in front of a live audience and we're going to bring some invited guests along for the ride. There's a church song that says you'll never walk on water if you're not prepared to drown. On this podcast, we're going to dive right in and see if we can find new depths, new depths to the love that we believe binds us all together. We might never walk on water, but I'm Bill Weaver and this is Prepared to Drown deep dives into an Expanse of Faith. Let's see if we can get our feet wet. And so welcome to this first podcast evening here at Prepared to Drown Deep Dives into an Expanse of Faith. We have our live audience in front of us for our first episode. 

01:01

Our inaugural setting sail out to discuss matters of faith and the intersection with the world that we live in. Here we are going to try to find ways to explore how an expansive faith, a nuanced faith, might actually invite us to live more fully and more wholeheartedly in this world. That seems so broken and so fractured, and so tonight for our opening discussion, we are going to talk a little bit about why we are doing this. We're going to explore seems so broken and so fractured, and so tonight for our opening discussion, we are going to talk a little bit about why we are doing this. We're going to explore a theme that we are calling Raging Waters. Raging Waters because we are going to try to rock the boat a bit with our conversations while at the same time, not drown the dialogue in the process. So, based on that and in that spirit, we have some folks here to talk tonight. We have the Reverend Joanne Anquist, who is sitting over here, to my immediate right, and you can say hello to everybody. 

Joanne

01:58

Hi everybody. 

Bill

02:00

And maybe say a bit about yourself what brings you here tonight, what you're excited about. 

Joanne

02:05

Well, I mean, I love having conversations all the time. I feel like a God talk in particular, is my favorite thing in the whole world to do, and I've spent a lot of my life kind of wondering what a faith that is meaningful and deep, but also contemporary, maybe a bit edgy, relevant for sure, what it looks like, and I find the best way for me to figure things out is in conversation, so that's why I'm here. 

Bill

02:36

And then we have Ricardo de Menezes here as well and you described yourself as a union thug and then actually scaled it back and said a union supporter, I think, activist, union activist. So maybe share a bit about what brings you here tonight and what you're excited about with the conversation, hi. 

Ricardo

02:54

Yeah, so I work as director for UFCW, the private sector union, and there's a lot of intersectionality between faith and labor. There's a lot of intersectionality between faith and labor. In fact, I think they're natural allies in community and social justice and uplifting those that are being downtrodden upon. So when you find those intersectionalities in community and in conversation, then it brings a bunch of peace to your life and probably others as well. But it also underscores the commonalities we have between us and the struggle of still being there. So it's nice to be here. 

Joanne

03:27

It's funny you say that about there's a lot of intersectionalities, because I was watching Kamala Harris today and she was at the United Auto Workers in. Michigan. And how does she start? She says it's good to be here in the house of labor. And I'm like, oh man, when she's at the black church on Sunday that she's going to, she's going to say it's good to be here in the house of the Lord. You know, like I, just the house of labor. It was interesting. It definitely had that kind of ring to it. 

Ricardo

03:59

And the interesting part is, like in some of those right-to-work states in the US where they struggle so much to just collect money and dues, they often find the pulpit being the best place to persuade people to pay their fair share towards the contract that they enjoy. So there's always Religious affiliation has some good hey. 

Joanne

04:17

And leverage, yeah, leverage, yeah, yeah hell is a real good motivator, so we're talking about. So what's your name and why? 

Bill

04:23

Yeah, hell is a real good motivator, so we're talking about. 

Joanne

04:26

So what's your name? Oh, and why are you here? Yeah? 

Bill

04:30

fair enough, I'm Bill Weaver and I'm here because well, because I've always wanted to kind of be involved in this work and because we spend a lot of time. You say you like to do a lot of God talk. We spend a lot of time not getting any work done in the office because we get embroiled in a conversation and on occasion we've had the opportunity, even in worship, to forego the traditional kind of sermon style of message and engage in some dialogue with each other or with other people, and I think the conversations matter more than the. The journey matters more than the destination in those kinds of situations. So an opportunity to do this in a way that maybe expands the conversation between just the two of us, because I think we kind of know what each other's going to say a lot of the time and to maybe make it a bit more fruitful. 

05:21

Yeah, just a really great opportunity to talk about things that maybe matter, that don't really land on the lectionary in a lot of ways. So, yeah, and tonight what we're talking about for the audience whether you're listening or whether you're here in person we're talking about an idea or a concept called deconstructing faith, which is something that we are seeing kind of taking shape in the world. The evangelicals in the US have been talking about it for 20 years. At this point really, and certainly to a large degree south of the border, I think, deconstructing faith happens a little differently than it happens up here in Canada, or has higher but different stakes than it does here, and the reason that I say that is that I was looking at some stats, because you know that's kind of what I like to do before these things. 

06:12

And in Canada we have, the evangelical population in Canada ends up being about 6% of the total population in Canada, where in the US it's 24%, right, so when we see sort of a move of deconstructionism happening in the evangelical church in the US, there are substantial stakes in the population when a quarter of that population is in some way directly impacted in their faith by this work, whether they're deconstructing or whether the person sitting next to them for the last 10 years population is in some way directly impacted in their faith by this work, whether they're deconstructing or whether the person sitting next to them for the last 10 years is suddenly no longer there. There's a lot of different stakes that happen with that. But at the same time here in Canada we have 6% more what are called nuns, or no spiritual affiliation or connection or identified religion. We have 6% more than the nuns in the US. So where they have the larger evangelical population, we actually have a lot more religious others in the country of Canada. 

Ricardo

07:21

N-O-N-E-S, not to be confused with N-U. 

Bill

07:23

Yes, n-o-n-e-s. Not nun, be confused with N-U, yes, n-o-n-e-s. 

Joanne

07:27

Not nuns who are married to Jesus, not the convent. 

Ricardo

07:29

Yes, yes, yes. 

Joanne

07:31

No, the nones Interesting about that, though that is worth mentioning in terms of the deconstruction that's been happening for a while, but it accelerated with the election of Donald Trump and the evangelical church's capitulation to him as their savior, really in a lot of ways, and that has accelerated that, along with the social issues in the states. 

08:10

Social issues in the states, the attacks on the queer community, for sure, that come largely from the conservative church, as well as the unmovable stance on choice and life and those things, particularly with young people, have made them feel like they don't belong in the church that they learned about, where Jesus is compassion, and so they're looking for a new home. 

08:35

I think, and that's what the deconstruction thing is about, deconstruction is a term that says you get this, we'll just do it in the context of faith, because there's also deconstruction of philosophy and other disciplines, but in terms of faith, you have this faith that is taught to you from the time that you're young. You know what the creeds are, you belong to the community and you follow, as most children do, you just follow everything that's there, it's, you're not critical of it or anything like that, and the deconstruction comes when it doesn't fit anymore. You know, like when fit fit with, when it doesn't fit anymore with your life and what you see in the world and what you've experienced, and there's a disconnect, right. So deconstruction says, okay, I love God and Jesus is really cool, my church doesn't fit anymore. What am I going to do? Do I give up my emerging faith which again that was a buzzword before deconstruction my emerging faith or do I leave my church? And it's a very difficult road. 

Bill

09:54

While you're trying to figure that out, the way that, like I guess the way that I liken it is that somebody who finds himself in a place of deconstruction is, in my mind, or at least in my experience, um, saying it's not that I don't believe what the church or the faith, or um, or you know, the the minister at the front of the church or the community that I've been a part of for my lifetime is teaching, it's that I don't think they believe what they're teaching anymore. 

10:21

There's a, there's something that's like they're delivering a message and not living it out at the same time, and so something for me needs to shift, and that means that I need to kind of break down these teachings and the way that this community is living them out and find out whether or not there's an authenticity here that I can connect to, or whether I need to find somewhere else that more fits with my understanding of what it is that compassion or justice or faith or love truly mean. So it's not the same thing as saying I no longer believe in God. It's saying I believe in God and I'm not convinced. The place that taught me that believes what it's saying anymore. It's not acting like it believes what it's saying. 

Ricardo

11:04

I think that's the interesting part in the whole concept of deconstruction, where you know, growing up Catholic, I went to Mass and it was interesting no matter where we went on vacation, and we loved our Plymouth Voyager. 

11:18

And we drove from Calgary to Florida once, I think it was, and my dad had the Super 8 directory and we stayed at every Super 8. And then, if we happened to stop somewhere on a Saturday or Sunday, we went to Mass. So no matter what country or city we lived in, the Catholic Mass was the same and it was this fellow up there with his robe and did what he had to do. And then the deconstruction for me came from. I would leave that church where we would put you know the host in our tongue and say all these prayers and chant all these chants, and then people would act completely different, like you said, from what you heard through the Bible and through the sermons. And what have you? Then you go to an evangelical church or any church that's in Protestant denomination and not really traditional in that sense or liturgical. I should say. 

12:04

I went to Houston recently and I drove by this thing. I was like, wow, that's a huge stadium. I wonder what it is for the college. It was a church, it was a megachurch. That's a stadium right, and when people go into these stadiums they see ministers and they see pastors that look just like they would see someone on the street. And so the connection between what they hear and what they experience is a little closer than seeing some sort of like untouchable force on the stand and what ends up happening is people adopt that and live their life by that. 

12:36

And then that's how I see the imposition of like abortion bans and anti-LGBTQ stuff, because this person that looks and sounds and talks like me is now all of a sudden saying what I should say and I think that makes sense. I'll take it as a thing, whereas, like you know, when someone does the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, or doesn't even in Latin, you're just like oh, this is a nice little one-hour kill of my time on the weekend right. 

Joanne

13:05

So reality in that sense, right. So that's how I see. Yeah, well, I would say that you know from my experience, having been raised in an evangelical church and having gone through what is now called deconstruction 30 more or more years ago, that when you belong, like I remember when I took sociology and I thought my church is a subculture, like that's what it is. It wasn't a cult exactly, you know, because I could be out in the world and stuff, but it was a subculture from our culture and all my friends were from the church that I went to. All my parents friends were from the church we went to. All our social engagement was at the church that we went to. We went every sunday. 

13:39

I have a five-year perfect attendance pin from sunday school somewhere in my jewelry box and faith was the most important thing in our house and it was life-giving in that sense, because you know, my father's a wonderfully faithful man and I really respect him and he lived his faith every day Like he was no hypocrite, that's for sure, and neither was my mother faith every day Like he was no hypocrite, that's for sure, and neither was my mother. For me it was like when I went off to college and I started taking sort of biblical studies and the things that they told me when I was young just weren't making sense anymore and really the experience for me in deconstruction was like the whole thing was a house of cards. It was a beautiful house of cards, carefully constructed it. You take one card out, the whole thing falls apart, um and it, and it was then okay. I still believe that god is present in my life, I have a sense of god carrying me, but I need to take away everything, like. I need to just start again and say well, what does the Bible even mean to me anymore? You know, because in my tradition it was an inerrant, inspired word of God, which means that if it's in that Bible, it's, it's the truth, more true than science, you know. So what do I do with that? Like? 

14:59

Because the my, the scholarship I was involved in, the classes I were in were, were telling me no, you know, like, these gospels weren't really written by the apostles, they were written by other people and they were in different communities. And oh, isaiah's written by three different people. And you know all that stuff, although they wouldn't have said that in my Bible college that I went to, but I later learned and so that was it. And like, what's the church really doing? Are we really loving each other? And particularly for me because I had a best friend who was gay in the late seventies. Particularly for me when they started to talk, because when we were little we never talked about gay people. But after Anita Bryant, if everyone remembers, in the seventies, all of a sudden queer folk were not welcomed and I had my friend called me and said hey, you know, I used to be gay but I prayed and now it's over. And of course it wasn't. 

Ricardo

15:56

Anita Bryant, the one that got the pie in the face. Mm-hmm. Who's Anita Bryant? She got that. 

Joanne

15:59

Yeah, yeah, she did. Anita Bryant got a pie in the face? 

Ricardo

16:02

I think no the anniversary of that was yesterday, I think. 

Joanne

16:04

Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. 

Ricardo

16:06

I saw that on Instagram, you and your queer history, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, the anniversary of that was just on Instagram. 

16:10

Yeah anyway, but that's the deconstruction. I think that what I need to make clear I guess from my own experience is that it's not just a let me go pick and choose this. It is soul crushing and it is alienating from yourself and it is a process that tears you up and so many times you I can't tell you the number of times I would lie in bed at night and think I am going to hell. I am going to hell. Even when I had kids, I was like I got to get those kids into an evangelical church because I was going to United Church at that point and a lot of kids just stopped going to church when they were, like, you know, 13, 18 plus a day and I was like, oh, man, I got it. 

17:03

They have to have a strong faith, like I was raised with. Like it gets you, it gets you and it is hard to let go. And I guess that's why we want to talk about this, because coming from the United Church is a completely different tradition. 

Bill

17:20

Yeah, although at the same time I would say that because, again, I never grew up in an evangelical tradition and the evangelical tradition, well, we well know, is quite foreign to me in a lot of cases we have a lot of conversations about. 

17:33

Like man, I can't even imagine a world where that kind of music would be on display all the time and that kind of stuff. 

17:42

But deconstructing faith is not limited to the evangelical church either, right for sure. 

17:46

So I would say that while the deconstruction of evangelical faith has been going on for 20 years, the most recent and very real deconstruction that I've kind of been able to witness is the deconstruction of the liberal church, the United Church, the progressive church around, especially colonialism, right, so we find unmarked graves on the sites of former residential schools and everybody suddenly has very strong questions about their church, their faith has very strong questions about their church, their faith, its practice, its history, and it's just as soul-crushing on this end as well, right To kind of go like wow, we sometimes do a really good job of talking like we're somehow more enlightened or further advanced, or whatever you want to call it, and then you're hit with like wow, we have been just as quick to surrender to pride, misogyny, racism, you know all these things in our history. It just looks different, right? So where we may not wrestle with the exact same kind of, I would say, my sense would be that in the US you deal with a lot more of the Christian nationalism deconstruction. 

Joanne

19:07

Civil religion is very strong there. 

Bill

19:10

And Trump brought it to prime time. People woke up going this guy cannot be the spokesperson for my religion and it is really hard to come face to face with that. Where, here, absolutely, I was dealing with people constantly, even for myself more unmarked, gravesound, more unmarked gravesound, and going like man, like, is this something that? Like, are we going to be able to even like be honest about this and be honest about our history and the damage that we've done and just how wrong we were? Or are we going to churchify this? In the same way that you know the scandals, you know across the different denominations, you know for everything, from you know sexual impropriety to you know wealth, mismanagement or whatever, like all these things, all of these are issues that come to light, that force people to question their place in their church community and their church community's integrity, and there is nothing worse than feeling like you've woken up and spent your lifetime worshiping a false god. 

Joanne

20:15

Right, I would say a big difference in the mainline church, like if you talk about deep dives, wanting to have a deeper faith church, like if you talk about deep dives, um, wanting to have a deeper faith. My experience in the united church and I've spent more experience, more time in the united church than the evangelical church now but my experience in the united church is that we have a very genteel faith, right. So you go to church, you have a community there. Like the evangelical criticism of of the mainline church and the United Church in particular is it's a social club. Like people there don't really have a deep faith or a deep experience of God. That's the criticism and I'm not saying that that's true altogether. But there is much more flexibility to have a loose affiliation with your community as opposed to like if you're in, you're in and if you're out you're out. 

21:11

But there has also been a movement in the mainline church in particular and it dovetails very nicely with sort of the contemplative movement, right which is a deconstruction of a faith that is not, it doesn't ask anything of you, right, it's easy, it's an easy faith. You go to church, you sing in the choir. When you go to work, it doesn't matter as much anymore, like occasionally we're doing social justice or something, and many people, including young ministers in the United Church, are seeking a deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in the mainline church as well, and it involves a different kind of deconstruction because there's not as much at stake, because it doesn't. We never, ever even want members of our church to be caught in the way I was caught in my denomination, where to ask a question gets you kicked out of college, which kind of happened to me. You know like we encourage questions, we encourage exploration, we accept anyone at any level, but at some point for many younger people, same thing it's this wait, if I'm going to practice faith at all, because it causes a lot of trouble, it's got to mean more to me than just baking cookies. I have a great story of a friend of mine whose mom was part of a mainline church and the only time she ever got called was when they needed cookies and she just got tired of making cookies so she stopped going to church. 

22:51

You know, and I heard from another friend, another minister, someone who was the chair of their board hadn't been to church in a long time. He said you know, like haven't seen you. He goes oh, religion causes so much trouble, I just can't do it anymore, right? So this kind of I think we've come to the place in our culture and it's a post-modern, post-post-modern actually culture where if we're going to practice faith, if we're going to have it as part of our life, it's got to mean more. It's got to mean more than just be part of this community. It's got to actually affect your life in some way. And that's happening all around Now. I'm not saying we're not getting that way in any of the churches I serve, because I believe in that. You know everyone come wherever you're at, kind of thing. But for those who want something deeper, we have a hard time providing it sometimes, which is why this conversation is important. 

Ricardo

23:50

I'd like to personally thank you, joanne, for not texting me every Sunday, wondering where I am. Because it has been a little while since I've been to church. 

Joanne

23:58

Yes, yes. 

Ricardo

23:59

But I do appreciate the online services that you have. 

24:03

It's interesting for me in my because I came from the Catholic tradition and I think the fall apart of my link to faith came when I came out and it wasn't a negative experience in terms of my family kicked me out. I think my parents just had no idea or understood what being gay meant. But it came at the time when I was asked to be the godfather of my cousin's daughter and the priest whom I had a lot of respect for told me I wasn't allowed and it caused this big like debate between priests on whether, like there's some Vatican or Pope papal encyclical on homosexuality and the godfathership, as if I'm supposed to take care of this child. If there was a fiery car crash for my cousin and husband, that was not happening. 

24:48

I don't have. I can't take care of my dog, let alone another child, so I. So that didn't necessarily force me to leave the church, but I just lost interest in going, right, I think my parents understood that, and there was a time when I was in my late teens or my early 20s even when they're like, what did you go to church? And I was like no, and they're like, well, why not? You know, this is the one thing we actually do for an hour a week. But then after that they realized, like you know, when I caused this big battle within our family on whether or not I could be the godfather of my knees, they, um, they realized then that the church really wasn't flexible in that sense. Right, because I volunteered in the church. I was like the longest serving altar boy at St Luke's, in fact, so much so that I outgrew the robes and I did communion, I sang in the choir, I did everything that I should have done in the church. But the minute I came out, the church said, no, you can't do that anymore, right, and it hurt, but I had a family that still loved me, I had a chosen family of friends, and so it was fine. 

25:48

It was when me and my former partner were together and he actually saw what and you would understand this around in this room the family unit that a church actually builds and sustains. I think that the family unit is actually stronger when they have some sort of faith base. Like I can remember, like we'd all get together at someone's house when they bought a new house and the first thing the priest would come and bless everything and it was a big to-do, right. So, alex, really I think he appreciated that strength of family and extended family and so he's like let's find a church. So I was like I think he appreciated that strength of family and extended family and so he said let's find a church. 

26:23

So I was like I really don't want to. So I just looked at the McDougal website, right, and they said, oh, we're very same-sex couples, right. And so I was like, well, you know, let's try and find a church. That I hear out there aligns with my values. And it almost did, right, except at the time and God loved Dave and Karen. They're like, well, we do, because me and Dave choose to, right, but we're not actually an affirming church. You know, at the time it didn't stop me, I still gave McDougal a good chance, and I still do. I don't hate this church I wouldn't be here if I did but what I appreciate about the United Church is that and some United Churches are like this is that McDougal especially, it strives to learn and it makes attempts at change Right. It makes attempts at adapting to the community around it or the issues. And, joanne, I respect you so much for that because you're like, yeah, let's do it, let's go through the affirming process. 

27:20

And me and Alex were like, okay, right, and it went well. And I don't think anybody was harmed by the affirming process. I don't think anybody was harmed by the big teepee we have in the church with the red dress day. I don't think anybody was harmed by recognizing what is happening in the world, understanding the church's influence on those, on those groups that are affected by it, and then trying to educate us for it. 

27:43

And that's how deconstruction sort of happened for me, like I think I'll be honest with you, like my experience on council and all sort of the politics of the church really wasn't a fun experience, and I don't think it is for anybody, because at the end of the day, these lights have to run somehow and so choices have to be made in the church, right, I think everybody wants to live on on our fathers and goodwill, right, but it doesn't work that way. But I think we to find a home is a cool thing, and but to deconstruct my mind around religion as well was very important, because I found that when I first joined mcdougall I was like why are you making me? Where's the community? Why is it? A piece of bread, a sourdough bread and grape juice, right. And so at one point in time I can remember going to McDougal for a few times and I was like Alex. I hear the Anglican church is doing games. 

28:32

At least the registers. Wear robes right. Like I don't know, but everyone learns, and as long as the institution or the church that you're with is willing to learn with you, it's nice. But I think deconstruction really happens in a negative way when you're learning about yourself and the life around you, and the church that you're so reliant upon psychologically and even physically is not budging at all. No Right. 

Joanne

28:58

And you become a spiritual suspect. 

Ricardo

29:01

Right. 

Joanne

29:01

You know, like in the sort of terms we used to use, that if you don't believe what we believe, then you don't belong anymore. And if you don't belong anymore, I remember it was actually my brother who said, well, if you're right, then I'm wrong, like that's how it was. If you're right, then I'm wrong, like that's how it was. If you're right, then I'm wrong. And I said to him and this was actually the 80s, so it was a long time ago I said to him no, you've got to understand. If I'm right, then we're all right. You know, like, just because it's so much broader, there's like God is so much bigger than can ever fit in a creed or a song on Sunday morning. And I mean, that's step one, you know to say God is bigger than the box I've put God in. 

Bill

29:48

Yep, I mean, I had a prof in seminary that used to say that even the language of the Trinity itself is just our best failed attempt at compartmentalizing God. Right, it's the best we could do and it's still not good enough, right? And so, like the thing that I was hearing when you were talking, ricardo, especially, is again, there were a couple of folks, angela Bick and Peter I can't remember his name, peter Sherman, I think, bick and Sherman Peter Sherman, I think, bick and Sherman that they actually researched and studied and did some interviews with deconstructing evangelicals in Canada a very small population of folks that they were able to research. But all of them described the same thing, which was such a fascinating thing for me to read. I grew up in the United Church. They don't take attendance on Sunday morning. Like, they really don't, right, you show up, when you show up, you're not there. Oh, that's fine, maybe we'll see you next week, and it's you know. You eventually start wondering, like, do they even miss me when I'm gone? 

Joanne

30:51

Because, like, there's no right, yeah we did have folders, we did take attendance. 

Bill

30:58

Yeah, but nobody actually looked at those folders. 

Joanne

31:00

Let's be honest, right. That's why we stopped it when I said what do we do with this information? I know you had the folders. 

Bill

31:08

But these people described a church community, a church family, like the language is always the same, we're all in, like longest serving altar boy. Right, like I was all in. I did everything. I sat on boards, councils, I baked, like I was all in on this thing and then, for whatever reason whether it be my child came out and suddenly I wasn't allowed to be all in anymore, right? Or suddenly, despite the fact that I like bled for the church for decades, suddenly no, no, wait, that's okay, maybe we'll find somebody else to do that kind of work, right? 

31:41

There's a story I don't actually know if it's true or if it's just mythology now, but there's a story that Martin Luther King Jr, when he was in Sunday school, stood up one day and said I'm not sure Jesus actually physically resurrected and they put him in spiritual quarantine. As a result. He was not allowed to go to Sunday school or interact with any of the other children in his church until he was prepared to meet with the minister, with his parents, and get back to the correct belief around the physical resurrection. And there's a part of me that thinks that's got to be true, because you don't end up being like Martin Luther King Jr without a little conflict with the church at some point in time. Right, no, thank you. Right, mom, no Dad, thank you Minister? Yeah, for sure not. 

32:25

But the church in general tends to have a great deal of trouble with things like doubt, and so part of the hallmarks, I think, of an expansive faith, the faith that we want to explore in these podcasts, is it's okay to doubt, it's okay to question everything, and if your God is not able to handle that, then you need a better God. Really right? If your Jesus can't handle it, you need a better Jesus, and I feel like I might be heretical saying that almost. 

Joanne

32:52

But Well, as a minister, I want to say there is a better God and a better Jesus, and you better find him Right. 

Bill

32:58

Yeah, right, so, but as much as we're kind of joking and having fun with this, it has real stakes for a lot of folks, right, because we were talking a bit about, you know, sort of the lead up to this conversation tonight and part of the reality of it is that, in response to deconstruction, in response to sort of these questions that emerge around things like social justice and the LGBTQIA community and the role of women, still we seem to be having to fight these fights even more so now than we were, in my mind at least 15 years ago. We seem to be backsliding. There's also this manifestation of what started, I think, as a kind of like a reverse activism of like go woke, go broke, right. So this idea that if you are going to embrace kind of what now is being called, you know, woke culture, but really embrace this idea of social responsibility and responsibility to your neighbor and your family and your friends and the stranger on the street and the people beneath you that are in the social order of things, then we're just going to phase you out, and it started off almost as like I'm going to make you go broke, your business is going to close. I'm only going to buy from people who, you know, espouse these values that I consider to be true, traditional, you know, espouse these values that I consider to be true, traditional, you know values. 

34:23

But go woke, go broke, is actually, at least in my experience, way more of a relational commodity or a commodification of relationships. Right? So to turn around and say, like I'm really struggling in my church community with these questions that I have about whether or not we really believe this, whether or not you know this is actually what love looks like, and to have your community go like you just need to step back and like go figure things out and come back when you believe, like we believe, this is like a relational thing more than anything. Right there's, you go broke, not monetarily. You go broke when your entire support network you go broke, not monetarily. You go broke when your entire support network, your family, just cuts you off, right, and it's that kind of emotional blackmail and punishment, that really kind of waits for people. 

35:14

So I remember I feel really bad now and almost wish I could go back to when I was younger because people would say, you know, oh, I'm new to this church. I'd be at, you know, a United Church up in the Northeast. 

35:26

And, hey, I'm new to this church and it's my first time here and I came from, you know, such and such the evangelical church, and I would always just like very flippantly, kind of say, oh yeah, who in your family, you know, came out as gay? Right, right, ha, ha, ha ha, right, because that was always my experience, right, like you get to the heart of the conversation, I had to choose between my daughter coming out and my church that said that it's not okay, and I chose my daughter, right, not me personally, but the people that I would always meet, and, uh, and to like to realize now, like how painful that reality actually was, that, yeah, that's exactly why they were there is that they were cut off by everybody that had raised them, been there celebrating their, like their child's baptism or or their birth, or, you know, was probably like had people at their wedding, um, like all these things that suddenly went like no, sorry, because and it's not even the nope sorry you're not in my life anymore. 

Joanne

36:17

That happens sometimes. The hardest thing is like seeing them and the look in their face. You know, when I say you're a spiritual suspect, it's like if you you know when I would happen to go to my parents' church with them, for instance, and it wasn't ever comfortable. I didn't really feel comfortable, but people that had been really close to me, that kind of raised me and they all had this sort of suspicious look on their face like I wasn't quite okay. You know, the minister's wife just one day said why are you at the United Church? And actually all I had to say was, well, I'm a feminist. And she went oh, and that was it. Do you know what I mean? So that's what it is. You feel really uncomfortable in the space Everybody's looking at you, like what happened to you and that, yes, I remember. 

37:15

Going back to the story, I was the editor of the school newspaper at the Christian university I was at and I wrote this article about how, you know, questioning is a good thing and the students that are actually questioning, they're the ones who really want to make an impact in the world, because that was their slogan, you know make an impact. Anyway, I wrote this editorial and like they hauled me up before the Dean of Academic Affairs and I was supposed to tour that summer on a music group and they kicked me off the music group and they said why are you so bitter? Like what has happened to you? And it was like devastating. Yeah, it was just like overnight everything gets taken away. 

37:55

And then when I went back the next year because that was the easiest way to finish my degree the dean of academic affairs called me into his office or it it could have been Student Affairs and he called me into his office and he said if you're here to cause trouble, we don't want you here, you know, and like this is a university in Canada. And I'm like, wow, this is like that's what does it to you when you take the first step and you realize that your position is very precarious and it can all be gone in no time. It's like that's why I mean I know people who've done that they take one step out and it's like no, pull it back and just sail. You know, just make sure you don't upset the apple cart. 

Ricardo

38:40

I think what's also interesting is that church doesn't have as much influence in personal life anymore as it used to Like. I can remember stories of priests having influence on like, oh how can we have enough children? Or whatever it would be. And we live in a society, especially right right now, today, in an affordability crisis, with inflation where the church is nice and it's a nice way to to reflect and and take your mind almost take your mind off of the greater problems that happen when church doesn't help you outside of that door that you walk out of. 

39:14

People doubt that too, so I often say, like I see people in the catholic church or the, why don't you come back to us? You play the viola so well, you can be in the choir, and I was like I'm not just in church to you know, fulfill your spot in the musical's ministry, right, but I mean as much as I would love to be part of the Catholic Church again, you know. And the same thing in the United Church here at McDougall, when we first started the affirming process, they said well, why would they want to do this? We're everyone's welcome, you know. You're always welcome here. We're always so nice, why do we have to spend so much time talking about gay people?

Ricardo

39:48

Everyone's welcome here and there's a difference between welcome and there's a difference between you can stay in the hotel, but you're going to sleep in the lobby. 

39:55

So, that's the difference for me as well. But you know, it's people are often and this is the reason why church membership is also declining in many ways because people have to work more, because wages aren't going up and they need to find a way to make things matter to them, you know, and if church is telling them something completely different than what they're experiencing outside, that's a big problem. 

Joanne

40:24

Well, if it doesn't matter more than just sitting and warming a pew on Sunday, then for sure. 

Ricardo

40:29

Yeah, so I often think of two things. First of all, I reflect back on that big stadium in Houston, right, and I was reading about the minimum wages in Texas and how it paralleled the American minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour. But if you're a tipped worker in America earning tips at a restaurant, your minimum wage is $2.37 an hour, right, and so you basically rely on tips in order to make ends meet. So I think to myself, like how are these mega churches being built on the backs of workers like that and them not coming out into the community or pushing the rhetoric of raise minimum wages? I mean, it's an economic. They need us more than we need them, right, do you understand? So, if that's the confusing part about it, you know that evangelical person who just recently passed away the television, one who was instrumental, like Billy Graham, in getting religion and politics to get married, where there was such a very clearly outlined separation of church and state in America. 

Bill

41:37

Right. 

Ricardo

41:38

So evangelicals and their allegiance to the Republican Party confuse me, because they have a vested interest and this is coming from my church council years in people earning more money and working less hours and being able to come to church and being able to contribute to the life of the church, not working 75 hours a week and all those kind of things. But if the church no longer helps you outside of what you're learning for the one hour or two hours on sunday, then that's when deconstruction starts well, and also actually the attendance. 

Joanne

42:08

Oh, we gotta. 

Audience

42:09

There's a question well, it's not really a question. I would also say, like you know so, that we've heard talks about a lot of personal kind of deconstruction. We want to talk about deconstruction for growth. You also have to deconstruct the view of the church in the secular eye, because, I'll tell you, it's not just about what does the church give you. It's way more difficult than that. It's how do I reconcile the ethical concerns? And you're not even getting to. Am I fulfilled by it? Like that's a yeah, I mean. 

42:46

Step one to me is is deconstructing the ethics of what and and, and I've heard it, you know, like you said, bill, it's like always, like oh, who came out in your family or whatever. And we live in a time where our access to information is so deep and so easy that our ethics, our personal ethics, are so important to us that nothing will get in the way, including church. So we will cut out, or some people I say we, but I think my generation is guilty of this but we will cut out whatever doesn't fit, because, because, because there's so many things out there, we don't need church anymore. And I say that rhetorically, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying that, but that's to me the ethos is we don't really need church, and also it's bad in my opinion, in my mind, so theruction. There's a deconstruction of people who are from the faith, from faith communities, but there's also a deconstruction of what religion and church has put out there for however many hundreds of years, and it's seemingly unbreakable. 

Joanne

43:57

So yeah, Well, and that's why, again, if it doesn't, if it's not more than just warming a pew and contributing financially, then no, this, this church, will die. With those folk who were raised with loyalty, right, like I mean, it used to be a big thing and that's why it's important always that we continue to strive to have a deeper understanding of our relationship to god, both individually and as a community, being the community of christ. But when some I'll just tell you the story on the go woke and go broke about. There was a church in the states and the minister he was. There was a conservative church, huge conservative church, in nashville I think it was, and um, he in you know his prayer life and his reading and stuff, decided that they needed to become affirming that you should never reject anybody from god's table, the communion table, and he told his congregation that. And it split that church apart because the big givers, which is the thing you know there might be a lot of, in fact the group that goes to church the least are the lower wage earners. Right, it's actually people with university degrees and sort of upper middle class people that you find in churches. But the big givers in churches like that are, like you, take what we believe, my traditional faith, or I'm pulling my money out and he left that church and started it again. We were in it in Nashville, grace Point, which is just a small church and it's a great church, but he lost his megachurch. Another guy lost the church when he said he didn't believe in hell anymore. You know true story. He said I don't believe in hell anymore, he's called up for heresy in his church and he, he lost his church. 

45:50

So, and even in this community, we became affirming, hoping that, you know, lots more people would come. And then, more recently, we have a lot of immigrants who come to our country who aren't comfortable with affirming ministries, and so they don't tend to want to go to churches that are affirming. And I remember someone in the church saying to me oh, we became affirming because we wanted to be open and now we're losing these people because we're affirming. You know, like it's that whole thing, because we're woke, the the most likely people to go to church the immigrants in Canada that come from countries with great religious traditions are the least likely to come to our churches because we're affirming. Like that's that whole, like when you're in the business of church, you have to navigate these things carefully. If you want, no, you don't have to. You feel like you have to, and that's, I think, the differences. Justice and popularity are very tough to. 

46:56

Yes, that's exactly right. That's what I'm trying to say. You want to do just what is just and what God is calling you to do, and then you know, oh wait, the price for that is pretty high. 

Ricardo

47:09

My parents go to catholic church. Priest had to add another mass on because it was getting so busy. 

Bill

47:14

Yes especially with people from the filipino community that come to church yes, and then my dad said the priest got up in front of everyone after mass and said look, my church is full but we have a $19,000 deficit. Oh, so I think we're going to take a break there and we'll come back and continue the conversation. Thank you, all right, and so we're back and I guess the question to start us off. We've talked a lot about deconstruction and the experience of deconstructing and the challenges about it and some of the adversity and relational violence that will kind of be a part of that process, and I think we'll open up this session by a simple question. Really, so then, why do it? Why would anyone want to go down this road, and what is the hope or the outcome that we hope to encourage or hope for? You're the one who lives in hope, joanne, more than any of us. 

Joanne

49:23

So yeah, why do it? 

Bill

49:27

Why I mean, in some cases, people, as I would say, with my experience I think sometimes people are forced to choose. It's not a gentle process, it's I have to choose between this child I care about or this person that I love and a faith community that suddenly has totally changed the nature of my relationship with them as a result of it. Right, and the choice is never easy and never without consequence, but the choice is made, and certainly I've experienced enough people in my life as well where the choice was made. The opposite, where you know an openly gay child is, you know, suddenly living with friends because the parents say like sorry, church has taught me since I was a kid that this is not okay, right? So why deconstruct? Why go down this road? What's the hope? 

Joanne

50:23

Well, I think for me, as I continue to do that now like it's not, like deconstruction is something that happens, it's over and it's done. It's like a lifelong journey really to figure it out. But what motivated me was actually the experience that I had had of God and of Jesus, notwithstanding that a lot of it is manufactured. But I felt that I had had a true experience of the sacred and the holy other, and to give up that experience was more painful than deconstructing, so to say. I'm not. I mean, I tried that. Actually, I tried to go. 

51:13

I don't believe in God anymore. That'll make it easier and it didn't. It didn't make it easier, it felt hollow actually for me, and that's why I went on. The journey to reconstruct, which I think is the most important thing that we can do in our faith, is like, yeah, I believe you got to pull it all apart and you only keep the stuff that really makes that really resonates as sacred and holy, and then you start putting it back together. I mean, for me, I couldn't not I think of that movie Brokeback Mountain, since gay is such a big part of this thing tonight, but the movie Brokeback Mountain, we're everywhere. 

51:57

Yeah, and everywhere. One of us. One of us, that's right. Anyway, there's this line and I forget who says it, I think it's the jake gyllenhaal character says I wish I knew how to quit you. And that's how I felt about god I wish I knew how to quit you and I just didn't. I didn't know how. So it was like for me to like there was a seven-year process of my deconstruction where I woke up in the middle of the night and said I'm going to hell, what's happening to me? And then you know, it was funny because I actually I found the United Church. Actually that's what really helped me. I was in Toronto and I lived on Harvard Street, actually right across, very close to the Morgantaller Abortion Clinic. As it happens, the same year that the Supreme Court said women's access to abortion is, you know, protected, and I remember walking past there. I'm just giving you this story for fun. It doesn't really have anything to do with it, but I remember. 

53:07

I remember walking past that clinic that day and the pro-choice people on one side and the pro-life people on the other side, or the anti-abortion people on the other side, and it was like this, very palpable, you know, distress on the one side and exhilaration on the other side. Distress on the one side and exhilaration on the other side. And I guess, um, you know, that kind of thing led to this, uh, this backlash against, uh, abortion laws and stuff like that. But I was living in that part of town and there was this church called um Trinity. I can't even remember what it was called now. Anyway, I had heard that Bruce Coburn went to that church, and so I'm like I love Bruce Coburn, I'm going to go to that church and see if I can meet him. Actually, that's why I went. 

Audience

54:01

That's why I went. 

Joanne

54:04

And I never saw Bruce Coburn in that church. 

Bill

54:07

But what a marketing strategy. 

Audience

54:09

Yeah that's right. 

Joanne

54:11

Yeah, that's exactly right. What I did get at that church was a minister His name is Malcolm Sinclair, actually, and he was a great orator. Like what a wonderful preacher. I think he's still alive, but he had a way of framing faith in such a refreshing way, do you know, and all of a sudden I felt like I could breathe in church again, because every time I went to my parents' church I couldn't breathe. And all of a sudden there was an expansive faith and one that welcomed questions, and so then the process of reconstructing began. Like I couldn't quit God, it was impossible. So to find a place where I could wrestle with God and with the church and the community was like life-giving and so freeing for me. 

55:12

And I've been a United Church member ever since then, or I've been, you know, like a progressive Christian. I happen to be in the United Church, but I've just Because when you say to God, you know what? I can't quit you, but I need to experience you differently and open yourself to that. It's like it's not that God is unknowable, god is infinitely knowable. I forget who said that, but God is infinitely knowable. So when you take one step and you feel like you can breathe and you take the next step and you feel like you finally have some water. And you take the next step and you feel like maybe I could find a community. And you take the next step and you're like maybe I could live this as a way of being Like that process of reconstructing is so beautiful even though it's also very painful and that gets you through really. 

Ricardo

56:26

I think that's also part of the challenge for a lot of people who deconstruct faith, because this conversation is also about deconstructing self and reconstructing self and deciding whether or not faith has a place in the life, as you've analyzed or put together. And I think for those people, especially people who are forced to deconstruct when they come out of the closet or they have a different point of view, or even if they have an abortion and are then exiled or excommunicated from the church, and then they still have that connection or that need to have God in their life and they don't find it in a different church home, that a lot of issues in society prevail, a different church home, that a lot of issues in society prevail. And so when you deconstruct your faith and you try and find pieces of it that can match up with the puzzle pieces of your life, that's deconstructing yourself too. And when you reconstruct yourself and realize that perhaps the church you're going to or the faith group that you belong to is no longer, you don't longer identify with it, it's quite the hunt to find something. 

57:34

I can't say that I was necessarily. I had this big void inside of me for religion when I stopped going to the Catholic church, I mean, I'll still go once in a while. It's maddening how brainwashing Catholicism is. Sorry, I'm going to go on a tangent now, because I'm one of those C&E Christians that my cousin, who's the priest, says I only go for Christmas and Easter, when someone dies or someone gets married, and it's like clockwork. I don't ever forget the words or when to kneel or when to stand or what to say or what to do. So when I stopped going to church there wasn't necessarily a void, but when we started coming back to church and I came to McDougal after so many years, you find a piece of you that fits again right, and whether or not I still come to church on a regular basis, at least, reconstruction has been a positive process for me. 

58:24

But for so many who, as we talked about earlier, have had the carpet yanked from under their feet when it comes to faith, they never find their footing again and that's actually probably one of the most damaging things we can find in society. When they're abandoned by society and they're abandoned by faith and they're abandoned by family and they're abandoned by friends, and they have the worst time, and I think of the trans community the most in that sense, because they truly are a group of people in this world who are systematically being abandoned by everybody around them. When they come out as transgender family friends, even though friends will say, oh it's fine, I love you, no matter what, when they start wearing the wigs or shaving their heads or masculizing or feminizing or changing their appearance, there's always a limitation to the friendship. Then right, and they lose everything. That's when problems in society start. 

59:21

But also why churches on the learning and growing process are important. The learning and growing process are important and I always enjoy McDougal and enjoy Joanne and you, bill, for saying that love is at the center of everything we should do, no matter who you are or where you come from. It's important. So deconstruction is just as important, but the reconstruction process and how that all fits in can be essentially life or death. 

Joanne

59:52

Well, the most interesting thing about it, I think, is I had a friend who had a gay son who came to him at 16 and said Dad, I'm gay, who was an evangelical. And he said to me, and immediately I became a theological liberal. So it wasn't just I'm accepting my son, because you understand that if I accept my son, that means that some of my theology has to go, what I think about God has got to go. So I think the most freeing thing about saying, okay, I'm going to experience a different way of God it also means you start experiencing society in a different way. You know, like I was raised in a mostly conservative household and I'm pretty liberal now socially as well. Because when you start experiencing God like just take the trans thing, for instance if you say that in God is all life right, all life comes from God, then God contains male, female, trans, gay, straight. All the iterations of life are imagined and contained in God. Because God's creation is a giving of God's self right. Then a trans person is probably the like in some ways, the closest we get like I. I think you know, and notwithstanding the congregation, that the pronouns that we should use for god are they them. I really believe that, but I also know it would be very confusing for people on sunday morning because they're like, wait, there's more than one god and I know we have trouble with pronouns and I hope we get over it someday but they, them, are the pronouns that you should use for God. Now, when you start having that as the idea that that's who God is, that changes everything in your life, right, that changes what your place in society is. That changes what justice looks like. Everything is different and that's why it's so threatening to the people who are in power. Because you start, you know, over the the break. 

01:01:58

Um, I was talking to michael and he said well, you know, we're deconstructing everything. We're deconstructing what in the states? What democracy is right? What are you willing to give up in order to keep society the same as it's always been like? What are the things, the sacrifices you're willing to make? That you know, kind of uh gymnastics, mental gymnastics that we do in order to keep ourselves safe and inside the box. You know, and if you say I'm breaking the binaries, first of all I'm breaking the box. God is bigger than I ever imagined before and I'm going to go down this path and it takes you into a whole new world in a lot of ways and that is scary and threatening scary and threatening to the people who are comfortable in the box. 

Bill

01:02:47

Yeah, and to be fair, not just to them, Like I said at the beginning, I've never had to deconstruct when I started going to the United Church. When I started going to church, it was the United Church and I went in spite of my parents. My parents were both lapsed Baptists at that point. 

Joanne

01:03:07

Deconstructed Baptists. Nope, well, no. 

Bill

01:03:12

They left. This wasn't about deconstructing, this was about destroying. In their case, it was a carpet bombing of their religious understanding, and that's totally well and good and fine, and I still, to this day, do not even know the reason why. I don't know what happened to them and their relationship with the church. We've never talked about it. But two things were clear If I was going to go to church, I was getting there myself from the age of 12. And so it was a bunch of people at this small little United Church in Northeast Calgary that started going hey, like we notice, he's walking all the time and then started to track the route that I was walking so they could meet me on the way and pick me up and bring me to church. Not creepy at all, right. 

01:03:59

A little maybe. 

Ricardo

01:04:01

But in minus 30 Calgary weather. 

Bill

01:04:03

You appreciate the creepy? You appreciate the weather? Yeah Right, I don't even need the bag of candy when the van door opens. 

01:04:15

I'm hopping in and so, but, more importantly, I found something in that church that I was really missing in my life, that I could not even identify at that time, but it was really about belonging in a way that I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere else. But the piece that was so difficult to watch, even as a teenager brand new to the church, was like I started in the church in the very early 90s, right after all of the affirming votes, right after all of the general councils, right after the whole United Church becoming an affirming votes, right after all of the general councils, right after the whole United Church becoming an affirming denomination in Canada right the issue. 

Joanne

01:04:54

Yeah, that's what they call it the issue. 

Bill

01:04:57

And so I hear about the glory days. I came after the exodus, right. So I came as people were still openly lamenting the person who had sat next to them in church for 40 years that was no longer there because they had walked, because they were not prepared to vote in favor and could not agree with the church doing it right. So again we talked before the break about like justice and popularity are very tough to hold together, right. And so it's threatening not just for the people in power, it's threatening for the people who know it's the right thing to do but can also see the cost of it very clearly. And, like, what I lament the most in all of it is always for me, it's always the same thing. 

01:05:40

I wish, you know, I wish that these folks that I encountered throughout my life that came to a place where they're forced to make a choice between their church theology and their family member, could have done the work before it had to be that choice right, could have realized there was another way before they were forced into it and the rug had to be pulled out right. So I think that for me is the biggest hope out of all of this right. Let's have the conversations now and let people know now that there's like there's a bigger God out there than the box. You've been handed right and if you don't feel like you're loved where you're at, then you're in the wrong place, right, and that's not. That's not God's fault that's fault is a horrible word to use but that's the fault of the people that are giving you the wrong vision of God's love and grace for you. 

01:06:34

It's a human fallacy, not a limitation of God. We know God's love. I believe we know God's love to be bigger and broader and deeper and a hell of a lot stronger than anything we can throw at it right. So in the absence of that, we get this really terribly constructed, nonsensical image of a God that has limitations and confines to the human experience that you have to live within for fear of being kicked out and no longer you know being allowed to belong. Belong the spiritual quarantine of Martin Luther King Jr. Get your head on straight, don't infect anybody else with your doubt and come back to us when you're ready to toe the line again. 

Joanne

01:07:18

Well, it all becomes don't ask, don't tell. That kind of life is not just in the military, it's everywhere. 

Bill

01:07:24

It's everywhere, absolutely. 

Joanne

01:07:25

That's why it is important to me, if I'm preaching or speaking, that, even though there's nobody sitting in the pews that I need to protect or lift up, that we imagine the world is there and we speak to it in expansive ways. There you go. It's in the title expansive ways so that if someone should be there who is in the closet in some way and I'm not even just saying gender or sexuality, I'm saying in a lot of other ways that they know this is a welcoming place Like this is a place where you can bring yourself and be okay. And it's important to name that really early in any process of deconstruction, because exactly the don't ask, don't tell, which is how a lot of people live, um in faith communities that they no longer fit into, is like more devastating than a you know, break them down, fight it out argument. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember when we first break-em-down, fight-it-out argument? 

Ricardo

01:08:31

Do you remember when we first started the affirming process, we had that play. It was a play about the person who was in a gay relationship but had a lot of trauma from the evangelical church and they had the ability to take a pill. I was in that. 

Joanne

01:08:47

They had the ability to take a pill, and I was in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you were in that. 

Ricardo

01:08:50

Yeah, they had the ability to take a pill. 

Joanne

01:08:51

Oblivion. 

Ricardo

01:08:52

That's the one Oblivion, yeah, and if they took that pill, they would forget about being religious. Oh, being religious. 

Joanne

01:08:58

Being religious right. 

Ricardo

They would lose their, they would lose all the religious part of it. The big controversy was what if that religion and everything you learned was intertwined with the person that you are now? So if you take this pill and say, well, yeah, you might forget about this evangelical church you were from, but you could remember really, really good moments together that we had. That was taught to you by that church. And what always perplexed me was two things Was A, at the end of the play he took the pill and that's when the play ended, right. So you figure out what happens after that and I always ask the writer I said why didn't you end it with him just holding the pill in his hand?

Ricardo

01:09:35

I think the message was that the church wasn't taking him back. So let's see what happens with the pill. But the playwright had his own story about coming out from and how Center Street Church had exiled him and he'd even gone through the conversion therapy process with them. 

01:09:55

Right yeah, and what stuck out to me in the panel at the front was that there was some horrible accident at COP with some young children at Center Street Church who had gone down the luge when it was closed and they had passed away and you know they had this big thing at um the church, the funeral. I mean like this is not a comparison at all, but, and you know people would say, well, that's not a comparison at all. These kids, you know they, they did something and and and they passed away. So they have a funeral and people are so, so sorry. He's like you know what, those kids, they did something dumb and they died and everyone had a big funeral for them. He's like I was so part of the life of that church and they just threw me to the streets and he had to reconstruct his life from there. So he was forced to deconstruct and nobody knew this. But there was a person there who was taking pictures of the play. 

Joanne

01:10:46

Oh yeah, he was a former Hutterite, right. 

Ricardo

01:10:51

Yes, I remember that he escaped from the Hutterite colony and is now living and he's like a well-established photographer in the community and and I recently saw on his Facebook the other day that his sister was able to leave the colony to visit him and there's pictures of them walking down the pathway at Fish Creek Park and she's still wearing her Hutterite dress and stuff and he's just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. 

01:11:13

Could you imagine losing that much of a connection when everything is cut off? So that's not even a process of deconstruction in which you can still be involved in the church and consult people and see if things are fitting in, but but you're just like yanked out completely right, and the reconstruction process is there. So it puts to the test why we do it in the first place. Right, if your lifeline in your religion is so fragile and volatile, I should say why do we do it in the first place? What good is there in this day and age? I think even as little as 50 years ago, the church was such an established part of everybody's household that it wasn't even a question of whether or not you went to church. If you didn't, you were some sort of social pariah, right. But now we have that question like what good is that process right? It's so fragile. 

Joanne

01:12:07

Yeah, I mean, I think that's true, except that, you know, like me being me, I always have to back up and go. Hey wait, there was a lot of great stuff about my evangelical church, which was Center Street Church. Actually, parents are charter members. You know, there was a lot of great stuff about that. First of all, the community was very tight right it takes a village to raise a child. 

01:12:32

I had that village, no question about that. That was wonderful. The experience of God in those communities, you know, is so very powerful. That's why I'm a Christian today, not because I found the United Church. I'm a Christian because I couldn't quit God, because I had experienced God in such a powerful way. You know, the music is really great and contemporary. I was a singer. I had many, many opportunities to sing and be part of, you know, groups and stuff like that. 

01:13:05

Education is great. There's so many things about it that are wonderful, right, and if you can take the package and thrive within it, god bless you. Like, honestly, there is enough in this world that tears us apart. Enough questions that you know I am not in the business of taking other people's faith away from them. If you thrive in that and if it works for you and your families, you know like I will fight you on social issues where you make someone, who they are, their identity, an issue. Okay, so I don't. It's never acceptable to me to question someone's identity and ostracize them because of who they are. So I'll fight them on that. But on how they practice their faith, on their you know services, on the way they care for each other. 

01:14:01

You know like, here's an interesting story I just found out this is actually out in BC. They're experienced in BC, as you know from the BC election, a lot of issues with drug use and homelessness in British Columbia like a lot, because they decriminalized drug use and so, as in Portland, there's been this not figuring out what to do with the population. Anyway, the town that my brother lives in, the city that my brother lives in, abbotsford, has a lot of Mennonite churches, a lot of Mennonite churches, and they are providing social services to homeless, unhoused people and people who are struggling with drugs and Surrey and other lower mainland cities are putting those people on a bus and sending them to Abbotsford because they know that the churches have a lot of services in Abbotsford and so, like my brother's telling me, so now we have like it's an hour outside of Vancouver, more than an hour they have in Abbotsford a real problem with drug use and unhoused people on the streets. My brother's a pediatrician and he said there'll be someone outside his door who is high, you know, and sleeping on the street and he's got young children and families coming in and he's not the get them out of here. He's just like we got to figure out what to do with this. 

01:15:30

But churches evangelical churches are really stepping up. You know my son works with the distress center. The warming center in Calgary is at Journey Church or one of them out in the Northwest. They are stepping up. They are meeting the needs of those people. So I am not in the business of trying to shut down evangelical churches. They do great work.

01:15:53

Absolutely they do great work. However, I believe my call is to create a space for those people who don't fit anymore, to experience God in a different way and to expand their life and their experience of what the sacred means. That's our call, I believe. 

Ricardo

01:16:16

And their live studio audience. Joanne and I have just done a deconstruction. You wanted an example. 

Bill

01:16:26

We've just done a deconstruction At a church that I worked at. One of the first things that I had to do when I started there was to go around and visit with all the folks that had been burned by my predecessor and quite substantially relationally burned by my predecessor for all the wrong reasons. And I did it. I don't even know why I did it. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life. It wasn't a decision I had made for these letters that had been sent to them to be sent to them. I just didn't want that to be the last thing they ever heard from the church, right, and I felt really strongly that I wasn't doing it with any kind of intent, that I was going to see them on Sunday morning ever again. I just wanted to make sure that there was a that grace was the last word, um, more than anything else. And uh, and I remember, uh, sitting with so many of them and having them say you know, like we had, we had kind of already decided that we were, we were done anyway, right, and this was just kind of the, the, the, the final straw, um, and and and I. 

01:17:25

I started to learn really quickly that, like in that moment, my sense of like, my only role, was to say can I help you find the place you're going to land, because if it's not here, that's okay. 

01:17:38

Right, and again, like there will be things that I will probably disagree with, that we will be on opposite sides of a line about, but, as we try to do, even at this table here and at the table of Jesus on Sunday morning, like, surely we can still disagree with dignity and still recognize that even at our worst, even at our wrongest, we're still children of God, right? So if this community, and what it stands for, believes in at its core, is not your spiritual home, can I at least set you on the path to finding the right one? Right, if the only options are nothing or help, I'd much rather help. Right, because, again, you can't deny that every single time we hit minus 40, it's the evangelical churches that are, like, able to staff, you know, opening their doors just to get people off the street in a way that we can't like. We're still trying to figure out what committee we're going to strike to figure out the logistics of how that's going to happen. 

01:18:39

So so, yeah, like again, like the, the trouble for me always. The trouble for me always becomes again kind of a manifestation of what Joanne said um, when it, when it feels like it's an issue of dignity, um, it's a really different conversation, right, right, um and and so. But even even like I learned so much just from um, I last summer well, joanne, you'll remember this, actually last Last summer, I decided like enough's enough, I talk a great game and I'm kind of done being all talk and no action. And I went and I stood outside the public library at Saddletown when Reading with Royalty was happening inside and the protesters were amassing outside and let's not make it sound like more than it was it was a two-minute walk from my front step to where it was happening. 

Joanne

01:19:30

There wasn't a lot of work involved in getting there, it wasn't a civil rights march like we thought it would be. 

Bill

01:19:35

It wasn't uphill both ways in the snow right, yeah, but to see the just like to see folks who had been living it and doing it and and never missing the opportunity to simply stand and hold space. This was not about engaging and screaming at people who were screaming at them. This was not about picking the fight with the bat crap crazy preacher that had his own megaphone and sound system, the cops were having a really hard time extricating and was doing it all for the show and the news cameras and the whole nine yards like it was. It was a totally different kind of an experience to to just kind of have to. 

01:20:19

You know what, like your only job here is to show up and to just show up and stand there and hold space, right, and and not to, not to disagree vocally, not to disagree loudly, not to even disagree in a way that you know puts yourself above them or in a threatening kind of relationship with them. You're just there to hold space and to not let that be the only message that's out there, right, and to actually be a part of that work for the first time was like there's something really life-giving about it. Right To recognize that, even with everything that I know and believe about God and God's love and the place of every person on earth. In that abundant grace and love of God and that constant care, learn like, wow, like there are still better ways to do this than again my scorched earth approach to everything right. 

01:21:14

So but at the same time it wasn't just like it wasn't just United Church folks that were there, right, and to start to really kind of plug into more and more opportunities and see that, you know, see that there's even a Roman Catholic church. That's well, whether or not they're actually a church or not, I still question. 

Joanne

01:21:32

But I believe they're a church right. 

Bill

01:21:34

Yes, um, but, uh, that that are at citywide pride every year, right, and to go like, like, yeah, there's, there's a lot of people that are are working really hard at this kind of stuff. Um, that are not just. You know from my tradition or from my school of thought, and I guarantee you, if we were all to sit down around a table, we'd still find something to argue about right. 

01:21:55

It might not be the affirming topic, but there's going to be something somewhere. I can remember sitting at an affirming table one time, and it ended up actually being Greta Vosper. That became the thing we had to fight about. Right, yes, Right the one time, and it ended up actually being Greta Vosper. That became the thing we had to fight about, right, yes, uh, right, the atheist minister in the United Church, um, which is so funny, because it's not like I'm an apologist for her um, but I still felt like I had to defend the faith, the atheist, yeah well, yeah right, so I. 

Joanne

01:22:23

I'm with you. I do the same thing all the time, you know, yeah so, so, yeah, like I think that so. 

Bill

01:22:28

So I I'm aware that we need to wrap this up, which is really unfortunate, because it feels so great and I could do this forever right, but, um, so I guess, uh, I'll. I'll wrap up a few loose ends that are kind of on my mind as we've been talking and I'm going to leave you, you two, with the last word. 

01:22:44

Um, if that's all right so um, because I'm, because I'm aware of some things that are probably either questions or concerns, either from folks who are sitting here in the room or from people who are listening to this podcast after the fact, and one of the ones that I know always comes up, because I hear it all the time. We encountered it even in some of the recent survey stuff that was done through our congregation, all that kind of stuff, and again in this sort of go woke, go broke kind of culture that we seem to have going on around us in the world, there's always the question of church and politics, and certainly even tonight we have talked about political issues in a church context, and I'm trying to. I guess all I would want to say is that, from my perspective, churches have to engage in the political world. It's a responsibility that we have, and it is my hope that every parishioner that ever hears me preach and likes what I say considers those things when they go out and vote right. If we're going to preach about social justice and preach about the value and worth of every human being, it is my hope that people are then going out and choosing parties or platforms that are reflecting those same values in their voting right. Where the line shifts is when your church starts to promote or belong to or champion the cause of any party or politician, or when a party or politician becomes your figurehead or your sponsoring organization right, whether they're actually financially sponsoring or not. So there's something weird about the way we do politics in the world right now. 

01:24:33

Um, and and I don't believe it is the church's role to engage in that kind of character assassination or, um, removal of dignity from anybody. But I believe as christians we're called to work for a better society, and part of how we do that, at least in Canada, is through our democratic process, which is certainly not perfect, but is the best system we got right now. So, checking in with what the values are that we uphold as a Christian community and engaging in that work in the public sphere, in the political sphere, that's important work that we do. So anyone who's going to listen to this, I always try to think about what are people going to write this off because of right? So, if it's because, oh, they got political, that's part of the role of the church to do that. But you have not heard us say go vote Green Party. 

Joanne

01:25:24

Well, small P political, not big P political. 

Bill

01:25:29

The second thing that some folks may be wondering, and maybe the last question that I'll ask before I give you guys the last words, is what would you say to somebody who knows somebody who is in the process of this work, right? So hey, we've talked about deconstruction tonight. Now I know this person that I've you know that's in my life that I've never even considered that's going through this kind of stuff, and so the only so what would you say to somebody who wants to know how to support someone who is in the middle of this? I guess is the question I'll lead, because then I'm done and to say that, as much as you have heard two people talk about reconstruction here tonight, having never gone through it but having walked with a lot of people who have, it's not like there's a clear roadmap. 

Joanne

01:26:21

No. 

Bill

01:26:22

Right, and some people would say, like I'm still in it and I don't see reconstruction ever happening, right, so reconstruction is not necessarily the goal. Because, again, we're talking about deconstruction, not destruction something totally different, right? So destruction in my mind, then we would need to talk about things like restoration, but deconstruction is potentially a lifelong process. Right, reconstruction is not the inevitable outcome of this thing. So, that being said, what would you say to somebody who wants to be supportive of a deconstructor in their life? 

Joanne

01:27:10

to be supportive of a deconstructor in their life. There was this book a long time ago I'm very old called Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus right, okay, do you remember that? And it said that, men, you come with a problem or how you're feeling, and men will want to fix it all the time they want solutions. And women aren't looking for solutions, they're just looking to be heard. And so there is uh, you know, my sister said to me once let's just practical, radical, self radical acceptance of each other. 

01:27:42

Joanne, and that's really in the deconstruction process is like, um, the alienation you feel from your faith and yourself are so, um, you know, just so difficult to navigate. Just love and listen and assure that God is in this movement too. Right, god has not left you, god is carrying you. That was, for me, the worst times in those seven years when I came on the other side. I had this strong sense that God was carrying me through that, and so I always say in this community, we get to carry each other and that's all you need to do, you know listen and to carry and to love. That would be me. 

Ricardo

01:28:41

When I first came to McDougal it was the first time I'd heard the term church shopping. I never had that opportunity in my life. There were still one or two more churches we chose, I think, to myself. I live just up the street from McDougal and there are four other churches within the same radius from me that I could have chosen. One of them was not going to be Fairview Baptist Church, which thankfully now is now Fairview Mosque. 

Audience

01:29:05

So it's nice. 

Ricardo

01:29:08

But I would say to people who are in this process right now self-reflect and find a home that fits your values. Don't change who you are Because, like you said, joanne, god is still with you. The outlet in which you use to worship and to praise God doesn't have to be your brick-and-mortar establishment, but if you find one, then join it. If you have to keep looking, keep looking, and if you find one and after a little while you don't think so, it's okay to move along and find something else. 

01:29:47

The big I don't know what the word would be in the queer community is your chosen family versus the family that you were born into right, because some people don't have that born into family ever again. And I think the same of religion in that sense that it's a chosen family and a chosen group of community that you have. It's a chosen family and a chosen group of community that you have. And you know, even though I haven't come to Sunday service in a long time at McDougal, I found a community and I found a chosen community for myself here, and so I think there's a piece of that for everybody. And if it's the Evangelical Church, then it is. 

Joanne

01:30:21

Right. 

Ricardo

01:30:24

Right. 

Bill

01:30:27

And if it's United. 

Ricardo

01:30:27

Church. Yay, you're right too, and that's the process of rebuilding, and I think it's all. I think deconstructing faith is also a process in which you can deconstruct and analyze yourself, because a lot of who we are and who we see ourselves as is crafted in what we were taught in church and in school and from our families, and sometimes I can only imagine what it's like for a person who's transgender to have that whole gamut of who you are meant to be and who you're supposed to be come crumbling apart when you realize that you're not born into the body that you see yourself in. So take your time and be patient. I'm not going to say you have all the time in the world, because we only have one life and the most important person that ever needs us is ourselves. But, um, when you find happiness and try it out it's writing a new story. 

Joanne

01:31:23

That's what it is, and we need to do that as a culture and as people, as a faith community. But that's the essence of deconstruction is writing a new story that gives you life. 

Bill

01:31:36

Most important person you need is yourself. The second most important person that we need is each other, right, yeah, wherever you are on the road, thanks for being here with us. And whether you're here in person or listening online, we are glad that you made it to the end and got to do all the administrative stuff now Got to say thank you to the United Church Foundation for their support of this podcast and this program, and we will be back next month with our topic Crossing the River Sticks. Is the world going to hell, or is it just you? And with that, we are signing off. Thanks a lot for listening. And so it begins. Thanks for joining us. We're glad that you're here. You can keep the conversation going by heading on over to our Patreon or by subscribing wherever you get. Your podcasts Prepared to Drown is recorded monthly in front of a live audience at MacDougal United Church in Calgary, alberta, canada. If you find yourself in the Calgary area, we'd love to have you come and join us for a recording Until next month.