Episode 87 - Not Christian

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[Applause] hey everybody welcome to the final part of the christian series before we get rolling just one announcement i'm actually going on tour with my van gunger and the brilliance who you've probably heard david gunger on the podcast have you been a listener my brother he's got an amazing band called the brilliance and then propaganda who you may remember from black and white racism in america and it's going to be great you can find tickets for that tour it's going to be in february and we may add some later spring dates as well but find tickets at gungermusic.com tour it's called the end of the world tour which i'm really stoked about that name and we're going to be playing around with that idea through the night but do check out those tickets hungermusic.com tour we just announced so we're excited to get on tour again and we will be finishing our last couple gatherings for the year the liturgists gathering i tell you to buy tickets for nashville but it's sold out um but keep your eye out for gatherings next year we are working hard on adding some more liturgist states if you know a venue that might be nice for us go ahead and email us about that hope you enjoy the final christian episode called not christian it's a little different you'll see welcome to the literature's podcast everybody so we've been doing this christian series and at the beginning we had mentioned that i michael gunger if you haven't learned my voice by now this is me hi sometimes they call me vishnu i am the only one of the hosts that doesn't identify as a christian and then we were talking recently and william's like come on now i'll make you a christian we're like well we're gonna do an episode like that so william in this episode are you gonna make me a christian william here we go it's just william and me today nobody else nobody else it's just mono imano this is a this is a come to jesus a literal coming to jesus is happening here are you ready i am ready because my heart and mind are open good so if you would allow me to i would love to preach the gospel come on baby can i can i take about five to seven minutes okay well actually instead of preaching the gospel in the tradition like i grew up in church too my dad was a minister my grandfather was a pastor um i i feel like i was given in many ways similarly the same type of gospel you were which always you know started with this you know story of the cross and then the resurrection and easter the whole easter bit right but actually i would love to share four stories with you all right yeah okay story number one emmett lewis till was a young african-american man who was lynched in mississippi in 1955 and at the age of 14 after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store he was he was murdered during summer vacation in august 1955 he was visiting relatives in the mississippi delta um the woman he spoke to was 21 year old carolyn bryant she was a white mary proprietor um of a small grocery store there although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute till was accused of flirting or whistling at brian and in 1955 she testified that till made physical and verbal advances against her decades later bryant disclosed that she had fabricated the whole testimony regarding her interaction with till specifically the portion where she accused him of grabbing her waist and uttering obscenities that part's not true she said in a 2008 interview with historian historian timothy tyson till's interaction with bryant perhaps unwittingly violated the code of conduct for an african-american male interacting with a white woman in the jim crow south several nights after the store incident brian's husband roy and his half-brother j.w milliam went armed to till's great uncle's house and abducted the boy they took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the tallahuche river three days later till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river in september of 1955 brian and milam were acquitted by an all-white jury of till's kidnapping and murder protected against double jeopardy the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with look magazine that they had killed till story number two around the same time there was reese taylor she was born december 31st 1919 she was an african-american woman from abbeville in henry county alabama raised in a sharecropping family in the jim crow era on september 3rd 1944 rissi taylor was kidnapped while leaving church in gang raped by six white men [Music] despite the men's confessions to authorities two grand juries subsequently declined to indict the man no charges were ever brought against her assailants now before we go any further with these other stories i want to share a little bit about the history of lynching lynching is a premeditated extrajudicial killing by a group it's most often used to an alleged transgressor or to intimidate a minority group it is an extreme form of informal group social control marked with the display of public spectacle for public intimidation lynching is to be considered an act of terrorism and punishable by law instances of lynching and similar mob violence can be found in every society so in the united states for instance lynchings of african-americans typically by hanging became frequent in the south during the period after reconstruction era especially during the decades on either side of the turn of the 20th century at the time southern southern states were passing new constitutions and laws to disenfranchise african-americans and impose legal segregation in jim crow rule most lynchings were conducted by white mobs against black victims often suspects taken from jail before they were even tried by all white juries or even before arrest the political message the promotion of white supremacy and black powerlessness was an important element of the ritual lynchings were photographed and published as postcards they were popular souvenirs in the united states and this was done to expand the intimidation victims were sometimes shot burned alive and otherwise tortured and mutilated in the public in some cases the mutilated body the parts of the mutilated body were taken as mementos by the spectators particularly in the west other minorities native americans mexicans and asians were also lynched the south had the states with the highest total number of lynchings according to tuskegee institute 4743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the united states that includes 3 46 african americans a thousand two hundred and ninety seven whites a lot of people don't know that more than seventy three percent of the lynchings in the post civil war period occurred in the southern states so let's fast forward i want to tell you the third story let me talk to you about trayvon benjamin martin trayvon was born in february 5th 1995. he was a 17 year old african-american teenager from miami gardens florida he was fatally shot in sanford florida by george zimmerman martin had gone to visit his father at a townhouse the retreat at twin lakes in sanford and on the evening of february 26 not too long after his birthday martin was walking home alone after purchasing a bag of skittles and an arizona iced tea at a nearby convenience store george zimmerman a self-appointed member of the community watch saw trayvon and reported him to the sanford police as suspicious moments later an altercation between the two individuals took place and zimmerman fatally shot trayvon in the chest let this sink in a man with a gun stalked a black teenager approached him after the cops told him not to pursue when he had called 9-1-1 and that teenager is dead unable to tell his side of the story zimmerman was acquitted fourth and final story i want to talk to you about cain and abel in the book of genesis cain and abels are the first two sons of adam and eve genesis 4 the story goes like this and the human knew eve his woman and she conceived and bore kane and she said i have got me a man with the lord and she bore as well his brother abel and abel became a herder of sheep while cain a tiller of the soil and it happened in the course of time that cain brought from the fruit of the soil and offering to the lord and abel too had brought from the choice firstlings of his flock and the lord regarded abel in his offering but did not regard cain and his offering and cain was very he was a very mad and his face fell and the lord said to cain why are you so mad why is your face falling for whether you offer well or whether you do not and the tent flap sin crouches and for you is it's the longing but you will rule over it and cain said to his brother let us go out to the field [Music] when they were there in the field cain rose up against abel his brother and killed him and the lord said to cain where is abel your brother and he said i do not know am i my brother's keeper spoiler the answer is yes and he said what have you done listen your brother's blood cries out from the soil and so curse shall you be by the soil that gaped with its mouth to take your brother's blood from your hand i would like to submit to you that we are caught in a history where the powerful tend to win where the conquerors maim kill and oppress and ultimately live to tell their side of the story [Music] we see it in these first three stories that these are founding murders though not the first of their kind they were catalysts for movements of justice and equality and non-violence emmett till and rissi taylor inspired the modern civil rights movement there's a whole story about emmett till how his his mother laid the casket open so that everyone can see and they took pictures of how bruised and broken his body was you can still find these pictures on the internet it's unreal and the pictures of his main body is what the civil rights movement was founded on trayvon martin inspired the current movement known as black lives matter all these stories fundamentally changed a generation however it is the fourth story that is the foundation of these recent movements i would even argue that it's the fourth story that creates the foundation that they all sit on [Music] the fourth story of cain and abel has grown to become the biggest catalyst for social change but not in the way that you think the story of cain and abel resolves in a hidden story an underlying fifth and final story there was a poor man of color in the ancient world marginalized by rome because he was a jew and belong to judaism born of the unwed woman his life was meant to be despised and forgotten we know him today as jesus of nazareth or yeshua yeshua challenged the political and religious institutions of his day by feeding the hungry touching the disease laughing with prostitutes and a whole host of unsavory characters there are many stories to tell about this man but there's only one in particular that stands out to me and it's about a woman named mary of bethany in the book of john six days before the passover jesus came to bethany where lazarus lived whom jesus had raised from the dead here at a dinner he was being given honor martha served while lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him then mary took out a pint of pure nard an expensive perfume and she poured it on jesus's feet and wiped his feet with her hair and the whole house was filled with fragrance of the perfume but one of the disciples julius iscariot who would later betray him objected why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor it's worth a year's wage he did not say this because he cared about the poor i love how the bible interjects this but because he was a thief and a keeper of the money back and he himself uh he couldn't help himself leave her alone jesus replied it was intended that she would save this perfume for the day of my burial now i know you as well as me we've heard this story a million times and uh we've heard it preached a million different ways particularly about mary and her undignified response of worship but i would like to take a different approach and stop to think about this for a moment here's mary violently weeping over the body of a living man she pours expensive oil washes his feet with her hair her snot and her tears now imagine the horror that the scene would cause right in the ancient world mary a woman marginalized by society and religion knew the trouble jesus had caused by raising her brother from the grave mary knew all too well the power structure that had just been interrupted imagine her gathering the oil heading to the party knowing in her body what what happens when you challenge the power of men you pay for it with your life mary's disruptive act was not just a foreshadowing but she erected in that moment a public memorial over a body marked to die the public mourning of a tragedy yet to come she was a prophetic signpost to a coming murder the first she was the first prophetic signpost to the coming murder it's why jesus said whenever the gospel is preached this story will be told as a memorial to those who would be the first to see and unmask the tragedy among us the story continues religion and politics plot to murder jesus the collective blame gets put on him and the crowd including the disciples who once adored him betray him and the sacrifice is complete michael this is the formal structure of the gospels it's the same story as any tragedy or mythology a divine person god or hero is acclaimed and blamed for a crime they did not commit put to death usually by other divine beings and rises again the resurrection of a god or hero brings a new blessing on the community and a new peace in the new order i'll rest my whole case on the anthropological work of scholar rene gerard renee says all mythical and biblical dramas including the passion story represent the same type of collective violence against a single victim the bible and the gospel see the victim as innocent unjustly murdered by the deluded lynchers and persecutors is the unjustifiably sacrificed lamb of god all such victims are what we would now call scapegoats innocent targets of a senseless collective transference that is memetic and mechanical meaning there's a rhythm and a pattern to the human behavior of all human behavior while myth and history go along with the charade the bible and the gospel do not far from surrendering to some morality of the slaves as nietzsche claimed the biblical tradition punctures a universal delusion and reveals a truth that has never before been revealed which is the innocence not only of jesus but all similar victims rene gerard continues on and he says in the ancient history or in any mythology no one ever questions this guilt in the gospels the revealing account of scapegoating emanates not from the unanimous crowd but from the dissenting few jesus is not demonized by the false unanimity that puts only a temporary end to collect a violence he is an unsuccessful scapegoat whose heroic willingness to die for the truth will ultimately make the entire cycle of satanic violence visible to all people and therefore inoperative perfect example is martin luther king and selma the visible display of that type of violence with african-americans being beat by the white police officers on that bridge being televised across the nation was a pivotal moment and shifting the collective consciousness emmett till's body open being publicly lynched murdered was the image that was catalyzing for the civil rights movement the bible is unique in its disclosure of the standpoint of the victim which means god takes the side of the victim not all religious narratives do this but a new perspective emerges in israel god siding with victims is especially prominent in the book of psalms you see it in the story of joseph you see it all through the story of job you see it all through this text meaning you hear consistent sustained cries from the oppressed so from a purely anthropological viewpoint the bible unveils the victim mechanism that lies beyond polytheism and mythology the bible unilaterally unveils everything we fundamentally need to know about human culture the bible recognizes this in the story of cain and abel the story in genesis 4 tells us in fact that the sign of cain is the sign of civilization the cross of christ is the sign of salvation which is revealed as the overcoming memetic desire and violence through non-violence of love and forgiveness therefore the resurrection of christ by the power of the holy spirit is the vindication of the victim and as dr james cohen says we must not look at it from the perspective of those who win but those who have power and no matter what the powerful may do there is a humanity in a spirit that nobody can kill meaning christ is the force at work in the cosmos that allows you and i to resist the memetic desire of scapegoat the memetic desire that causes us to kill and empowers us to lay down our lives for the weak in the vulnerable as brian zone tells us in beauty will save the world all civilization is based on a founding murder and revolves on an axis of power and forced by violence but jesus uniquely jesus compared to any other religious deity inaugurates a new kingdom and refounds this world on an axis of love expressed through forgiveness in fact jesus is the only clear representation of unveiling the scapegoat mechanism at work in world literature and human history thus jesus dismantles the power authority and hierarchy of satan's sin and death and builds civilization on a new logic with christ being the chief cornerstone it is because of the cross of christ that we now you and i live in a world that is concerned with victims a world where the stories of emmett till reese taylor and trayvon martin have significant impact on you and me where their lives and the lives of other people like them matter this is why you michael gunger aka vishnu das do not need to be convinced to be a christian because you already are one [Music] it's normal at so many different points in our life to feel like something is getting in the way of being present or happy something stopping us from achieving the goals that we have for ourselves or feeling connected to the people that we love betterhelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist to help you work on all those things you can connect with someone in a safe and private online environment for that reason it's so convenient you don't even have to leave the house you can start working with someone in under 24 hours when working with someone through betterhelp you can send a message to your counselor at any time and get a timely and thoughtful response plus you can schedule weekly video and phone sessions betterhelp has licensed professional counselors who are specialized in treating things like depression anxiety navigating family conflicts and so much more they're committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed anything you share with your counselor is confidential so many people have been using better help that they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states start living a happier life today as a listener you get 10 off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com liturgists join over 1 million people taking care of their mental health again it's betterhelp h-e-l-p-com liturgists so i'm trying to i don't want to argue about please do um [Music] but i guess for the sake of conversation there's no if i don't push back on anything there's no conversation to be had um i love all that and outside of i'm trying to think of a couple of the it's it's usually the exclusive claims that bother me the most about christianity um putting it an exclusively a world figure that demonstrates the scapegoating mechanism i'll have to think more about that i mean there's there are obviously other martyrs and other religions that have shown grace upon dying [Music] um i don't think the story that comes from you know when gandhi gets killed i don't think it's quite the same [Music] not not quite it's not to any degree the same effect that christ's death has upon human civil civilization and what happens as a result of that but i don't think he's the only loving person to have been needlessly yeah and publicly so that claim is is a claim from rene gerard um someone who has researched and studied myth like greek mythology uh world literature as a whole and so the claim about the bible being the the most obvious place where the the the victim is actually empowered he actually argues from world religion standpoint and world literature standpoint there's no clear idea up until that point of human history where the victim has a voice and their voice matters up until that point history is dominated by the conquerors um and and he's actually arguing that the the greek mythology um is actually hiding a ritualistic violence he goes these aren't just stories made up about divine beings he goes these are actually deified victims he argues that in the telling of these stories of deified victims they become gods over time and that's kind of the story of mythology and there's like a covering up of this violence that through the story of mythology they're covering up ritualistic collective violence and he argues that in human history the story of jesus is the story that for the ancient world that completely unmasks the scapegoat mechanism that's at work in human cultures and ritualistic violence in religion um which i think i don't i've had not heard an argument against that um when i've read contradicting work on on rene gerard which to me is why christ then would be the the ground up the invisible ground by which we all live and walk on meaning that revelation that logic that cornerstone of truth is the floor that the modern world is actually built on i actually agree with all that um and for that reason would always if i had to try to describe my views of reality and my favorite myths of human civilization could never leave out christianity as a part of that story and part of my metaphors and part of the um meta-narrative of my life i think that you see in indian and chinese and japanese and some different eastern thought traditions that have more of a oneness foundation you see victims not having ground to stand on very easily so like the caste system and the the people that are in horrible poverty that uh that can suffer unspeakable abuses with not much recourse with not much value of their individuality because at the bottom of it all they're part of the same godhead as the ruler as the oppressor and that is troublesome for building society for trying to build an equitable just loving peaceful honoring society to every being to every living being it's hard to honor every living being if you can't find a way in your story to say god is with those who everyone else has forgotten yeah especially with those um and that's what i love about christianity but i feel the same about christianity on the other side of the coin by itself does not work for me because if god is only with the oppressed who is this god what how does this god function in the world is does god not know does god not have the power to fix things is is this a weak god is this an ignorant god is this a a malicious god that put these people in the situation to be oppressed in the first place um how can we judge how can we put the judgment anywhere else but the ultimate authority and power of the universe well i would i think i think the gospel would actually i think the gospel would actually argue that that god is weak and vulnerable god is co-suffering love that jesus on the cross emmett till being lynched is a representation of power expressed under not power over so the idea of god being powerful mighty and strong is an idea of the conquerors it's the it's the perspective of those who win that that we would deem god to not be penetrable to the very creation that he or she created that it's not subject to it as well that god is not in time and space with us co-suffering in the same way that we are yet is the energy on the ground that keeps rising up inside of weak and broken and poor people the energy that actually empowers them the spirit of god that empowers them to know that they are human to know that they are loved in spite of whatever the conquerors are doing in the oppressors and the suffering that's taking place i don't think the gospel really promises us that we're going to get rid of oppressors necessarily as much as it's promising that the that god will raise up the humble and in one sense bring down low the mighty but it's through the lifting up of the of the of the salt of the earth but if god has the power to interact with space-time it has the power to somehow become involved in human affairs why only to the degree that he she would empower what bold a little bit of extra boldness for somebody who's being who feels under the boot of somebody else to stand up and say no is that that's the extent of what god can do i think the extent of what god can do is still unfolding through the cosmos right like taking an evolutionary point of view with this no one is saying or having to claim that it that there has to be or justice is accomplished in a short amount of time that we are we are unfolding with this story that we are actually still in the story that christianity wasn't the end of the story it was actually a new unfolding of the story that we are still and so you see through the text from genesis to revelation an idea of a garden that eventually consumes the whole earth and becomes a city and this whole concept of a new jerusalem which is inequitable peaceful just just society that we still have not yet seen and i think that is the the now and not yet tension that we see in the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom is that it's here and it's also not yet that it's here but it's coming like revelation we see what about the bloodshed right cain and abel what about the bloodshed what about all the prophets that were killed right jesus addresses that in like matthew 24 and 25 you israel who killed the prophets right you say you would have never done it you adorn their monuments with you know all these beautiful things but look at what you're about to do to me the coming tragedy and murder and the cycles of this so i think we're in the story still breaking the cycles of memetic desire and and uh violence that is just tearing humanity apart and god is that you know you heard the parables right growing up of like he's the was it he's the he's the 11. you know like being like needed in like it's it's being worked out and we're in the process and we're in the journey of it and so i don't think any of us gets to decide because we're in a formation in a lineage and a legacy of time and space of in human history i don't think any of us get to decide why not here and why not now because i don't think any of us are able to even scope the long game that's that is that is unfolding um knowing that christ or god is working all things out for good um inside of that history so we'll see where history takes us um and where we land okay so a few other things for me that why christianity on its own feels lacking um i still think i could that a lot of that stuff is where i was at in 2012 with christianity um as far as it it wasn't so much about a divine being that was a powerful god at that point for me it was more like love and and the the way that we move into the future um through the love of god bringing justice into the world bringing shalom into the world um but that still leaves a hole at the center of what is all of this why was this made who what is the actual winning force in the universe why would i think it's love based on what i'm seeing um so i i feel i still think the problem of evil exists within this in this framework of how can a loving god that could create a universe and at the time i was getting into like the futurity of god and like some of that stuff that you seems like you were kind of hinting at where god calling from the future not just from a past like a great watchmaker or something but like calling from the future beingness into being um but i still think i think christianity and its metaphysical constructs of the world i still think it leaves a lot of unanswered questions for evil i also think that drawing such clean lines between oppressor and oppressed is extremely problematic because who draws those lines and who from moment to moment doesn't switch from being uh somebody causing the suffering of others well i think you see that story the switching of that in the story of israel when you like if you're gonna take the text as a progression of faith meaning israel is going on a journey through several thousand years right of spiritual evolution human evolution right um you see inside of that text moments where from from egypt in in israel right where moses gets raised up and god hears the chrisley oppress and he says let my people go all the way to israel is an established nation and solomon becomes the arms dealer of the region and he's exploiting his own people and making them slaves like a jewish man is king of the jews and he's still making them like you know where the you see this and you see the cycling of that and to me that's the whole notion of the prophets like what religious text actually includes its dissenters other than the bible the prophets are the dissenters they're the ones that are constantly critiquing israel and telling israel their pile of shit right and then israel's doing well for a while and they're on the path of justice and then they instantly move into exploitation and the psych and then the god raises up a prophet right here comes jeremiah here comes hosea israel you've gone astray and and then here comes like jesus says the fulfillment of the law in the prophets right and so i think again it it's not a strict binary of meaning this per this group is forever oppressed and this group is forever oppressor it is a fluid thing depending on like exploitation and it is based on culture because this whole story and our story situates in a context in a culture so i think for that question it makes sense to me that god is always seeming to put his thumb with the ones that are being oppressed and that might change because the oppressed might become the oppressor now are you saying as an identity or as a moment-to-moment lived experience how do you mean it when you say god puts his thumb so the most oppressed person in the world a literal slave a person who has no autonomy who has been who's being completely abused and oppressed still eats if they're alive if they're still like they're still taking resources or drinks water at least for at some point if you're going to stay alive for very long you have to be eating drinking this is just at the very fundamental level of existence you have to be taking resources from the earth you have to be stomping on top of other life forms just to be an alive human being so that's and that's thinking at the absolute bottom of the ladder everybody else what about all the way up until you get to whoever's at the top trump and this cronies of the power ladder i mean anybody that's listening to this podcast is certainly in the upper echelons of of power as far as human ladders go um you don't have a lot of people that have to walk 10 miles to get a bucket of clean water with their iphone listening to this show probably um but that i don't think that means to to label somebody as an oppressor and even or or just as oppressed i think can can what's problematic about it i think is that it can take us away from how we're living in each moment who's who says it it it has to take us away from that why why why why why would they not have to because if if just because you are oppressed or oppressor doesn't mean that you don't have moments of joy doesn't mean that you are there are moments where you are grateful what i'm saying is what oppressor doesn't have moments of being oppressed himself and what oppressed doesn't have moments of oppressing yeah but there there are so we're talking about individual and collective right we're talking about individual sin or or individual moments of uh unfairness maybe or and and also collective unfairness uh we're also talking about unconscious sin and conscious sin right like like willful ignorance and actual ignorance um and so i think those obviously are internal dynamics that are at work inside of people on an individual level but as well as people on a corporate level to me what's striking about the gospel is regardless of where israel in this story was at here comes the christ showing up in a moment and putting his thumb here and saying i'm with these people not to say that and the same was true with moses and pharaoh right and using these these myths and these stories hey pharaoh you have an opportunity you are the oppressor but you're not beyond love you still just do the right thing and you will enter into shalom so there still is the the invitation and the call for people to enter in no matter if you're oppressed or oppressor into it like the the wedding feast is invited for all like everyone gets to come but not everyone's going to choose to and i think that's the indictment of the gospel to human behavior which is the son of man came into the world but the ma the world loved its darkness right which is the idea that even when given grace and opportunity and moments of clarity to see and hear not everyone's gonna choose it people are still gonna willfully choose whether in an individual sense or in a collective sense we're gonna choose oppression and i think in that way god does parse out god judges he judges nations and i think there's something personal about that god rather than because sometimes to me with the oneness argument it can it can lend itself so big and so vague that you can sometimes even get lost in the feeling of in this moment in this time in this cultural context in this scenario sure are there scenarios where where an oppressed person compared to another oppressed person might be better or less oppressed or more like more sure we can you can parse those things out but oppression at the end of the day or suffering at the end of the day is is like you're saying it is universal people experience suffering on very many levels but there comes a moment and this is what the biblical text is teaching us there comes a moment where oppression must stop or where god says enough i've heard the cries of the oppressed i've heard the people who keep mourning under the weight of bad policy the people who are who are dying under the brutality of slavery right like there came a reckoning with that and so i think there is this energy that is forward motion in the cosmos that is telling us that no matter the injustice of the moment just hold on there's always going to be a change in the in the scale like and that to me is the fluidness of of the universe and then the oneness too like it is it is in there's an intentionality to it i would argue um and i think that's what christianity is trying to make sense of in the polytheistic world is with all these millions of gods who's coming to like get me out of this pit as david is crying right my enemies have surrounded me like who's coming and i think the clarity and the breakthrough of a christ figure that comes and says you know what i got you i'm here right now in this moment i've come to set the captives free i could make we could maybe argue where were you for john the baptist where were you 400 years ago when the lord was when you were silent god right and you weren't speaking to the prophets where were you like you can always go back and maybe like try to parse those things out but the moment when liberation arrives you got to recognize it and own it and so i think that is what the gospel primarily is laser focused on and i agree with you in one sense the gospel is not enough right it's the beginning of the story it's just the beginning so there are there are beautiful other religious traditions that can help inform and add and and enlighten and enliven like some of our concepts of um this story because again it's an unfolding story but i do think we miss when uh something when we forget that our basic understanding of seeing particularly seeing the oppressed and seeing victims is a byproduct of this story it's the invisible ground the christ logic to me is the invisible ground by which everything's operating right now and that shift in human history was radical i think compared to any other shift it doesn't take away any importance that other traditions have brought to the table or ideas or conversations but the unmasking that happens in the text given to the jewish people and the way it resonates with the reason why i brought up emmett till reese taylor because if i can't put it together in the lynching tree if i can't put the cross together in the lynching tree how am i supposed to put it together on a cross 2000 years ago in calvary i can't actually put it together because i'm that's just fantasy so i have i need the current moment to to look back at history to look at time to like actually realize what was going on then and these stories of today trayvon martin helps me see the gospel because i see christ in the broken body of trayvon martin i see christ in the raping of reese taylor i see christ in the maiming and the throwing in the river of emmett till and every black and brown and white person that was hung and an asian and native american person who ever experienced genocide and to know that it's not okay and that god says it's not okay and he's coming for the oppressed yeah i love all that still again and i think the if there's any disagreement which i'm not sure there's much disagreement between us but [Music] my wife still feels disingenuous to a degree to identify exclusively as a christian i'll i'll give you two little stories all right my own two stories that i just made up go for it you know you just made them up right now right now you weren't even listening to me you were making i was starting i know all i just have i just wrote the name i had a example pop in my head i wrote the name down of each story so i'm about to make up the story the the first one um [Music] imagine that beyonce begins a thing at her shows where she like realizes that the people that have paid the the least amount of money the people in the back the nosebleeds she loves them just as much and whole concerts are always like built for the rich people in the front she wants to like be for the fans in the back and so she comes in the back and gives like most of the performance for the from the for the back of the arena people like holy shit it's so you know it'd be wild and everybody tough beyonce really but at some point if like that became the rule if that became you just know that that's what happens and you and it became like solid um eventually the back would become the front you'd be like well he just i'm gonna sit in the back because that's the front right um story number one second story imagine you have a a food kitchen i guess all kitchens are food kitchens what are they called food pantry or like a home homeless outreach or something and um you cook food and and everyone comes and like you have you put all this money into it you put all this energy into it and then whatever you've cooked is completely inedible for human consumption it's like dolphin food or something but it's poisonous for people okay so like christianity on the level that you're talking about all the stuff i love it but for me when i go down if you try to say that's how it is god has his thumb with the oppressed and you try to take that down to the atomic level you try to take that down to strings you try to take that out to the multiverse you try to take that in any way other than actual human political realities it starts to break down philosophically for me if the source of the universe is on a side if he's drawing lines where this part of my creation is in and this part of my creation is out and the part of that's in for me is the one that everybody else's says is out but they're they really are in it's you still have the same i think you're assuming a lot there so first off um i think the gospel liberates the entire cosmos right i actually think for you you would love um and recently i tweeted a a little thing from tahar deshardin my favorite painter at saint uh i think you would love his work because he was a paleontologist who also was a theologian and a mystic and he was espousing uh uh christic understandings like from like the perspective of the evolutionary process in terms of love and christ being at the center of all things and and the law of attraction like he was he was like there's tons of people through church history who have um brought christ to the cosmic level in the subatomic level even in the last uh hundred or so years um so there's that um also too i think you're missing the idea of uh oppressed so first off we know because of human pattern and behavior which is the memetic desire thing we know there are certain patterns and rhythms to what humans like and dislike like there just are like there are certain people who just in certain groups of people who do historically traditionally it just doesn't always like flip 180 degrees like it you know you do there's a lot of or long-standing patterns there in terms of why are these people the most shitted on in human history right like are these groups of identities or um or these people that live in this intersection of identity like are just the ones we just struggle with and have for like thousands of years like there there is that too but but the the state of the oppressed is a fluid concept i think i tried to explain that really well even with israel in terms of how they were they they were the oppressed at one time but then they would get on the wrong side of history and then god like raised the prophets or whoever to to like basically beat them and like lead them back um and so i think i think there are the beyonce example for instance is you're right if if the back becomes the stage by which now it's the new front then the front is the back and go and beyonce is going to go back to the bed like it's just gonna you know like there is this this push and pull with it um also i think too it seems to me that there and you've already said we agree on a ton um but also i do think there's you do seem to have a bit of uh or at least that i'm hearing a type of assumption that like if for instance i'm if we're in major agreement here then there's no reason for you not to be a christian first and foremost like like you know what i mean like if you majorly like you love your wife you are married to lisa i've seen it you love that woman y'all are married you don't agree with that woman on everything i've seen that too but you agree on the majority of stuff and there and so there is but there's still a commitment that is there there's a faithfulness there can be a frustration sometimes there can be a push and pull and i don't know whatever but the commitment is still there so if if you have a majority stake in what i would perceive what i presented but also beyond what i presented into like a real agreement with these things no one is telling you it has to be purely exclusive yeah no one is telling you it has to well some people are yeah there are some people that will say that the gospel coalition article today said otherwise yeah yeah yeah but you know who cares about what they think literally i don't know anybody down the street of your house right now that's like did you hear what the gospel coalition said everybody cares mike and mike no not my world no not not no one cares um and even the majority of the church feels like it's irrelevant so there's that for them shade shade um but you know like so if you're in like if you're in agreement with the majority of the the the understanding of what we're talking about then it's just a language issue for you mostly at this point but also i think there is a fidelity that happens when you um commit right you know this in your marriage once again like when you commit to a religious practice um and even if it's an inclusive religious practice that has multiple components to it but you're faithful to it in terms of like fleshing it out and wrestling with it uh wrestling with its inadequacies or because again we're unfolding the story still the story didn't end with jesus right like the to me that became the flash point right and if i i've got to put it together in the in the lynching trip i've got to put it together and who's the oppressed right now and that might change in 50 years or 100 if we can break some old patterns but i think for the most part much of what's considered uh oppression oppressor you i can read the biblical text i can read the prophets and really relate so much of it to today currently and you would feel like nothing has changed in 6 000 years and that's what's kind of funny about it and that's what the whole renaissance work on memetic theory and mathematics desire is so important because we often just find ourselves as humans in these ruts of desire and practice and ritual that are problematic for us as humans right like we copy that we become the satan when we accuse and blame and enter into the scapegoat and that is just as true now as it was three thousand years ago the only difference is christ unveiled the work he broke the scapegoat mechanism and the power of the authority of satan which is the accuser to so now we can see it now i can actually go that's scapegoating 3000 years ago people couldn't do that or say that that wasn't even an intellectual concept or breakthrough and now we have it and that to me so to me even the questions you're asking are built on the framework of the invisible work of christ that is the foundation of the universe so in that way well okay of the yeah okay yeah i'm using i'm and i'm i'm pulling from tayhard which i i didn't bring any here today for you but that could be another conversation because i told you i have that book the body divine which is a reflective work of the story of the brahmin as a body metaphor and the body of christ as a metaphor for ultimate reality and how similar they are like there's actually a lot of crossover and similarity between our understanding of the body of christ or the cosmic christ which tahard uh espoused really well actually coined the term i believe as well as even some of the hindu understanding of the brahman and what what it means of earth and creation in the cosmos as a as a literal body um yeah by saying that's the by saying the work of christ in the universe i was saying yeah at first i said yeah i thought you meant christendom and our sense of morality our sense of justice our sense of equality all that has come from christendom which i would agree with and i would agree i agree is the wrong word because it's a metaphor i do also love the metaphor of saying that the work of the universe is the work of christ but saying that because you're calling the work of the universe the work of christ should equate with someone being a christian doesn't you're labeling both things it is language yeah it is a language thing and that's okay because we can shift and form language but the intent has to remain like the intent of what i'm saying i think is the same as you um because again it's metaphor is just language used to describe reality and religion ultimately is a grand metaphor type of theory of everything to describe a theory of everything that needs improvement that needs refining that needs outside instruction that needs to be critiqued that needs to be celebrated and uh i think there's still i you know i think brian's on says this and i love it he's like what if these are the early days what if this is the early church like we still we think of it as like yeah yeah you know but like what if this is still in light of human history the the the real early church and we're still fleshing out an intellectual psychological hundred thousand years from now what's going to be yeah exactly and so how we program our ai so i didn't explain the the food line one and this one maybe is the most important aspect of why i find it necessary if i say i'm christian to also include other stories in that description just and just to clarify the bible itself uses other stories to describe its story in the text you see street mythology inside the text you see uh poetry that is not like inside the text that doesn't come from that religious tradition so yes but the fact that you went right to the bible from christianity shows how the common usage of christianity places extra emphasis as the bible as sacred text where harry potter is not sacred text or no that heart sutra is not necessarily secretary that's an assumption because if you know you know me i know you but i consider the as a whole by the common understanding of the word christian if you said to most people what's what's sacred text for a christian the bible harry potter the heart sutras all of the above most people would say the bible i mean it's like common language must yeah yeah no no one's denying that i'm not denying it i'm also just saying it's it's there are other sacred texts and that's because you're an open christian and one of the is that what now you're labeling me why can't i just be a christian why would i be an open see that's also the way that that's also the way oppressive people inside religious traditions frame people they believe as unorthodox is to say oh you're the you're it's got to be an add-on right you can't just be a christian you've got to be a progressive christian you can't just be a christian you have to be a open cr like that is a type of like way of marginalizing right and that to me i know that's not what you're doing but that language is a betrayal of even what you believe to of like to me it was a is a complementary adjective of the kind of christian fair it wasn't a category of christian necessarily and i don't think all people who are open right now will be open next moment but as a person you are generally a fairly generous with your orthodoxy kind of a person in my experience with you yeah so in the food line in the food line analogy i think christianity does a great job at providing a framework especially christianity that in the way that you have described it which is my favorite way of thinking about christianity like the all the ticket to the afterlife stuff by saying a prayer that stuff is just long gone if that was all that christianity was it wouldn't even be having this conversation with you yeah yeah and i wonder if you thought that's what i was going to bring to the table i'm like now michael which we still can we can to pray a prayer and have you open and open let's actually end all that um i think so i think christianity does a great job at providing food lines literally and metaphorically um providing avenues for justice for hospitality for love and service and creativity and this the whole structure of the whole scriptural arc of humankind being the image of god that are co-creators in a way they're like naming the animals that are um creating the world with god i think that's all really useful stuff for building civilizations and building and building com complex social groups where we can figure out how to coexist and not kill each other i think it's really important really beautiful stories but i don't think christianity does a good job for the most part of helping an individual become enlightened no you're saying you're agreeing with me i'm saying you're wrong oh okay well let me finish i'm like nah so here's what i mean by that if the christian mission is a success if we get everybody in the world to come to our literal or metaphorical table for the food if every christian gets what they're wanting so whether that's everybody says the sinner's prayer whether that's everybody has opportunity for education access to to health care and and love and um self-expression creativity and all of it all the things was like everybody puts in their wish list what do you want and santa claus god's like yep you got it you got it you got it people are still going to be miserable oh no i disagree i i finished something oh i thought you were done sorry i think people will get to that food line and they will not be able to taste the food in their mouths i know i see that because we live in los angeles where i know people that have everything that they want and they've gotten all the things that they think they need and they still don't know how to they may have a finer stake for dinner than the poor person that had the rice and beans for dinner but if they don't know how to taste that steak if they don't know how to savor and be in that moment and and experience the freedom of being here and now fully all the extra all the justice all the equitable society in the world does not make a person free well where do where do you get that that's all that the gospel is about meaning i mean you know you quoted the scripture to me actually i think it was yesterday the day before right like uh mabel's today uh you know pay no attention what you know what you will like eat for tomorrow like like like do the birds do that like you see like i think what you're resisting is the lack of discipleship like actual discipleship that the church in our american western cultural context has like failed miserably at i think that's more of what you're resisting than the actual transcendence that is in the text because you can look all through the tests and see the mysticism see the awakening the enlightening i mean from the the book of john is literally one of the most mystical books like the the oneness metaphor of the vine and the i and you and you and me and like the and all the way to the book of revelation and the apocalyptic literature and the imagery and the and the like the metaphysical reality of what those things represent in time and space it's it's wild it's big the text the text blurs sexual lines i mean look at esther and that whole story with the king like i mean we've like sanitized it but it is a gruesome story about like a woman who you know does a lot of things she shouldn't be doing by our modern evangelical standards in order to have a moment with the king right like in the story of ruth and all these the story of rahab the prostitute like you there's to me so much wildness inside the text and i'm not saying it's the only wildness that exists in relation whatever i'm saying it is i think the text has been sanitized it has been poorly used and poorly preached and poorly taught and poorly executed inside a christian community and therefore has produced the apathetic american culture that we see around us but that has nothing to do to me with the core intention of what the text is trying to teach us so the lack of enlightenment i don't think that is indicted indicative of the christian faith i think it is indicative of our the way we have pursued the faith the way we have taught it and the way we have taught others about it and so to me i would love to see a restoring of the true mystery doubt and wildness and and blurring of lines that happens inside of the text and just the wild breaking of rules the of the rules that it says of itself and how it subverts itself constantly time and time again um this is right and then it subverts itself like the prophets come and just say some wild shit that just subverts everything and then they're like i thought god wanted this god said sacrifice and then david's like you know what a heart chief desire not sacrifice how do you say that while you're still doing sacrifices in the temple like that doesn't it's contradictory like there's so much things that are meant to break us out of the dualism inside of the text to me that i think we just miss i do think we miss it i think that i could make a similar argument that or somebody better than me could make a similar argument about why hindu oneness does not lead to injustice but it's people taking it wrong it's people there there can be arguments in and around that and i i i don't feel qualified to have that conversation because i haven't studied it like as nearly as much as you have i feel like i'm just on the tip of even understanding uh some of those concepts and words like the fact that i can't even say brahman is a miracle like and sort of understand what it means but it's only because this book that i'm currently reading but um so i don't even feel qualified to have that conversation in terms of is hinduism um somehow inherently as a theology um lacking in its ability to deal with injustice i've heard arguments around it but i i personally couldn't fight here or there about that but to me like to me the proof is in the pudding so you look at hindu culture and the amount of enlightened individuals who are completely free versus the christian trajectory i think it's quite clear that hinduism is vastly superior as a practice as a mythology to allowing people to experience nirvana moksha enlightenment whatever you want salvation satori where does it matter if you're eating dirt or the steak or whatever you are okay you're free you're there is no more suffering that you're imprisoned by and versus the proof for the in the pudding for the christian story to me is the society that it has built it is a more equitable just society for people on the margins than east most eastern cultures are so i don't i would i would never want to make an overly generalized final say that on either side of it that christians cannot be enlightened and that hindu people cannot be just i think that's ridiculous and unfair but as a general movement and as and as like uh but but as well that time space culture right is playing a part of that right if you go to certain parts of the church in underground china you're going to experience a type of transcendence that won't you don't get here right like the passion and the fervor that you see in south korea from christians now there are some things there that i could say oh that's that there's a moralism there and a like a legalism there that to me has been taught from america that they've ingested but the type of fervor and passion you see they say they have a whole style of prayer they have like a whole mountain of prayer and like when you say prairie korean style you instantly it's like you get chills what happens in that room like and you just have tens of thousands of people literally like praying at the same time with the most sincere conviction you'll ever hear like i i don't i think it's there's so much culture around the world that we don't partake of when we think of christianity and and and flavors and expression that i think we can we're only generally and we both i think we both can be guilty of this judging it through the american lens only as it relates to this expression but i think there's parts of the world that experience a vibrant enlightened form of christianity that leads them to the present moment in a way that i don't think we get here um so but i hear you in the sense of um [Music] in juxtaposing india to america like that seems in my little understanding to be somewhat right um however i do think and this is my my way of imploring you like hey michael there is a whole host of mysticism in your christian roots that still can sing to you and it does it does that's all that's all i'm and actually in that like i argued in my my spiel i think you already are a christian yeah and here's for me it actually comes to language because what we haven't really what you for me what you haven't necessarily done is connected what i love about christianity to the necessity of calling yourself a christian i know you said being faithful to the story and that was i liked and appreciated that being as far as faithful to like like you would be in a marriage faithful to a practice to a community to a movement of these are people that have called themselves christians for thousands of years you came up in that story in that community why not evolve within it is that kind of what you're saying rather than yeah yeah sure and that's right but i also feel faithful to the people that have left it i also feel to the people faithful to those who have said you know what christianity has gone far enough with like certainly most people associate christianity when you say it's a word say christian jesus wasn't a christian right so you're saying but you so we associated with jesus so okay there's a point for if you like jesus that's a point for being a christian because most people would associate it with jesus but most people would also associate most people would it depends where you're at um but a lot of people i should say would associate it with bigotry a lot of people would associate it with white supremacy a lot of people would associate it with colonialism a lot of people would associate it with um forsaking the here and now for the sake of some future goal um and i fully understand and agree actually with anyone that makes that indictment against christianity today in the american con particularly in the american western european context i would fully i would not even argue it wouldn't bat an eye against it i would say hell yeah you're right you are absolutely right but you know what i'd also say too but we're living in the dark ages though like these are the religious dark ages like we like to think this is the height of christianity in america but these are the dark ages truth is far from the public square it really is and the way we express our faith has it's it's not even relatively close to the history of this judeo-christian movement like it's not even it's so often apostate that i don't think that so that i but i think both things can be true yes i think but like and that is the heart tension about the here and now and so if i if somebody wants to leave the faith because they in no longer this religion no longer serves them god bless you or whoever bless you or nothing bless you but what does it mean to leave the faith yeah i personally i don't think you can because i think it's it's part of our story it's embedded in our politics it's embedded in our culture it's like i don't think you can really leave it but that's how i feel like i can't leave i've i can't leave the i can't leave christ what i call christ because it's everything yeah because christ that but that is the metaphor of christ christ is a metaphor for reality in everything it's just you know so i can't forget that i know and like that metaphor i guess i could not like the metaphor but i know yeah but but the reality the language is used in this culture in this context i mean i i i i like your this being the dark ages i like that perspective i don't know that i would see the past as better i think oh i'm not saying the past is better either i'm saying it's all the dark ages but but it's like a flicker in the in in the dark that's happening and more like and the flicker in the flame i think is growing and expanding but it doesn't mean that it's still not relatively mostly dark but what i'm what i'm wondering is is part of the flicker getting rid of the label you know what i can't unilaterally make that decision if if collectively moving forward that is the decision that gets made yeah the label is the label like i could literally care less about the letters that comprise the word christian and them being in that order because i i do think and this is why i think we're in the dark ages because we treat christianity so superstitiously we treat it so like i mean it it actually feels more like harry potter than harry potter truthfully and much of the vein of the church it is it is like a a belief system it's like a spell and like a belief says like where you have to just like you say it and something magically happens right and then no disrespect to the to the to the witches out there who maybe can cast some real spells i don't know but i don't i don't know i'm not claiming to know i'm just saying maybe there are some i've heard some of you they're like no there's nothing that happens over there and then i've heard people say they did so i don't know i don't live in that world i i just there's a little bit of witch insurance yeah yeah for you right now i dabble no no i'm open but i'm not that open like but you know i mean like uh i think we live in such a it's meaning it's there's a fear based to it like using the spiral dynamics thing it's so purple right like if i gotta like pray to the gods to get my crop water right like and it's we treat it so super still we hold it so superstitiously that's why i think we live in the dark ages we we can't even have an intellectual conversation without getting offended right like we can't explore other religious traditions and let that reaffirm reinform what we believe because we're afraid we're afraid of being labeled universalist and pluralist like that's a dirty word interfaith is somehow a dirty word in the church you ca i'm like y'all we just literally appropriated a whole other faith called judaism and you know and then like christianity was a cult of out of judaism like and then we just like made it normal and then somehow like anyone that deviates from that is like it's so bizarre like it's we are in the dark ages of of the early church like we just are and we're unraveling white supremacy and it's hold on the world and colonialism and imperialism isms but i do think there is a wildness inside of the story that is still currently unfolding in and through us and we're going to be part of that sacred text i i think that's we are the sacred texts we are the living epistles we are holy and this whole earth is holy and everything is coming together as one and that is the whole thrust of the cri of christ so yeah we're in the dark ages we're going to come out help lead the way liberate some people along the way and then we'll pass it on to the to the generations following and they'll continue the work and i i guess there's there's a lot of people that think the better way forward is without the label and confines of needing to put everything through the christian metaphors and language and practices and structures of authority and and so i mean when you think about um two polar opposites of human beings within christian dumb meaning western civilization post-christian dumb um let me take like a richard dawkins and uh john piper they there's a lot more that those two agree with yep than they actually disagree with they're on opposite sides of a culture war but there are two middle-aged white dudes that speak english that have money and operate in a capitalistic society and like they've got a lot of similar like if you put everything of what they do down on in their day like they wake up brush your teeth eat breakfast do like they share so much of their perspectives about what it is to be a human being and what they should be doing with their day uh and then and then to get into like god language they're like no i'm your enemy and so yeah i think all this stuff that we're talking about i'm like yes of course i love the story of god being with the oppressed and and and christ and through jesus jesus revealing the scapegoat mechanism of humans desire to shed innocent blood for the sake of their own guilt and shame in their own hearts and all this stuff is amazing and but there is also a stream of thought within christianity that does ten that is a bit like colonial and it's in that it does try to claim this just happened uh with some loved ones of mine i won't say who they were but one person is not a christian one is and it was a similar thing to what you're saying you are well i think you are a christian which i came from it enough to know that i hear love in it i hear like i'm not on against i'm on the same team as you but what it can sound like to other people is your language and your metaphors are not the correct ones and you just don't know it that is that is all fair and i i just want to say for anyone that hears that from me or feels like my insistence though i'm i'm i feel like i'm so lightly insisting on it uh yeah i'm not offended from you but yeah um if but anyone listening that would hear that i want you to know that i do think this is a collective project meaning and this is what i mean by so the argument you're talking about with your loved ones to me is a perfect example of this right um i do think that maybe because of my understanding and my history as a black american i know what it means to be a part of a lineage and a legacy that is bigger than myself i know it means to come from folk and a lot of people do especially people that have stories of immigrant stories like you come from folk that like you know there they didn't they're they were in a different world they made bold risks you know for me it was actually plundering kidnapping but like and but for other people it was like we're leaving the old world and coming to a new world and we're starting from scratch right um and in that there's a pain there because there's a forgetting of history and i think we have a beautiful opportunity because of the internet to actually reclaim our histories to reclaim our collective stories to reclaim what made what makes and has made who we like who we are great and like where we've come from great and so i think there should be this wrestle between your two family members about you're i think you are a christian actually i don't like that language i think that's the genuine confrontation that needs to happen right now because i think to acknowledge it is to say that it matters and i think there are a lot of people that are apathetic and shut down because of this the conversation of religion so i'm happy when i hear the arguments because i'm like at least you think it matters enough to yell about it to actually like fight for something and so as we have this conversation generationally i would love for that to be put on the table let's talk about is this label no longer working for us and in a lot of ways i think evangelicalism is a label that's getting ditched quicker and quicker right that you see that changing and maybe christian will go along with that too maybe i don't know but i don't get to solely say but neither do you and neither does that other person you get to say for yourself you do get to say for yourself but also knowing i'd the the only caution i would only say in that is knowing that and this is the oneness message too that i think is true regard outside of like any one particular religion is and also physics we are interconnected and interrelated on on so many levels that so the the tendency for self autonomy i think in our hyper individualized culture can go too far where you think you literally just make everything yourself as if you're not a product of your parents as if you're not a product of the religion you came from as if you're not a product of a whole host of people who sacrificed and died for you to be here or lived like asteroids zipping around that galaxy in the fire exactly like that there isn't this this thing that has created like there there are forces that have created a way for you some way and somehow and even if that somehow in some way is trauma rape or incest or like you're here and and you're a part of it and you're loved and so therefore we can we can reform the conversation we can we can add new things into the pot we can challenge certain things and so i would just say for anyone that considers himself not a christian or post-evangelical meaning like you're just like yeah whatever that's fine that's fair and actually for a lot of you you need to do that you need to go on a 10-year journey or 20-year journey maybe and just not relate to anything because of so much shame and trauma in your body around it like that's i'm not saying everyone's got to be in the fight at all times but i am saying i think it's important for us to get out of our individual views of our religious thoughts and to engage in in collective thought that actually can help propel and move all of us forward and and and it's going to be intense and it's going to be full of disagreement but it's a beautiful thing to do and to wrestle and to pass that wrestle on to our children yeah that that for me is the biggest argument probably for identifying as a christian as far as not being alone in the in the language not being an island off of the other continents um in the middle of the continents yeah and but part of part of a we that is forming what whatever the label is christian hindu buddhist agnostic non-religious you know i think that is one downfall of the kind of um not downfall one of the way one of the things that we're go those of us who have moved past a we a label that we feel cons we felt constricted by and now we've broken free from that now it's like now what you're by yourself how do we who's my neighbor who's my who's my neighbor am i my brother's keeper those were the right those are the questions and i said earlier the answer is yes actually the truthful answer is no cain you are not your brother's keeper you are your brother like that's the point so yeah you broke free you got free of the label you broke out of the toxic religion you you you saved yourself like you should be proud of that save yourself if it comes to you saving yourself in the like trying to protect your religion save yourself right like do it always right and then you have to ask the question what is louis who is my neighbor who is my neighbor who is my brother do i have a brother and that's how you practice the reality of what it means to be a christian regardless of any label is is the hospitality thing of the love and the serving of one another and submitting it to one another in love and and in those scriptures they come alive in a different way because then you've been able to i you've moved past the you've transcended right the the toxic elements of exclusive religion that is harmful and is regressive even inside the text and you begin to move into the the hope and dream of the texts which is the the new jerusalem which is this the the eternal city right like and i'm using that language again not to like you yeah apologize for that i just i just want people that language is broad and very inclusive i think you're on this podcast they understand that i hope uh but that's also why it's being in this podcast like that's why we started the liturgists and there's a lot of us like actually most of us according to science mike 52 of us that listen to this podcast do not call ourselves christian but they're still we're here and we get together and we talk online and on the patreon forum and we do different stuff to try to be together to say okay even if the labels even if the old skins are not functioning for us anymore um we don't want to be alone in this yeah for a non-christian podcast we talk a lot about christianity yeah it's like yes you know yeah well we're still sweating but 75 yeah yeah but 52 of the audience doesn't which is funny right yeah um because it still matters that's why we're listening that's what we're all interested in the conversation yep and we're all interested in each other and we all know i think on some level that we are each other's brother and sister and so can you open binary yeah can you open your hands right now yes i just want you to receive and i'm going to pray a prayer over you i have it brother i know and i'm just gonna pray for an increase are you ready i'm ready for the increase i am the universe but whatever's gonna increase yeah okay i am grateful and eternally thankful for my brother vishnu michael gunger i celebrate you [Music] i honor you i love you and i just want to speak over you that you are love you are light you are free and that we need you more now than ever and i pray that your journey of expansion leads you wherever it leads you and we're here for it we're thankful for it amen is that the first prayer of the liturgist podcast of all time maybe i mean we prayed in tongues at one time yeah yeah we did pray in tongues but that was the first english prayer you know and i didn't feel the need to say in jesus name because it's implied right like it's a reality that christ is at work reconciling all things to himself and it's a reality at work a force at work in the universe that that is so implied and is so built in that um if you name it awesome but if you don't it's still there and you have it and you know it and so i just wanted to celebrate you and let you know that you're loved exactly where you're at in your journey and there's no need to convert you because you are love and you have always been loved and you will continue to be loved so thank you william and i would say to you thank you for for continuing in the path and you have plenty of reasons to have walked away years ago from anything resembling religion you have plenty of reason to have given up on humanity you have plenty of reasons to have given up on love but you've kept fighting and you've kept enduring and following your heart of why you're you're you're living out and imagining a christianity that is worth keeping a term for if that makes any sense um yeah and so i love and that and partially why i joked that and it was a partially joke partial joke um that if you guys all said all right we're done with this we're not gonna be there really is a chance that i'd be like okay give me the name tag i'll be christian michael because i know there's something about this christian tradition that needs reform mm-hmm and needs protest i think part of the protest is walking away from it entirely is boycotting it i think that's necessary part for a lot of us i think a lot of us need to be science mike church-going uh people that don't fit any of the standard versions of what you would think a christian like if you ask mike about what he believes about the universe you just assumed he was an atheist um but somehow he's like a christian a church i think christianity and he needs that i think it needs what you're bringing today well i think he's what hillary's bringing the table richard rohr all the people racial health heavens all the people that we've had on this show and um i'm intrigued by it inspired by it um but i'm also mindful of the need to to not overlook the crusades and slavery that was done in the name of god at the name of like manifest destiny like this is our land god gave it to us and here's these people can help build it like taking away land from indigenous peoples all the things that have the blood shed the the suicides of lgbt countless lgbtq people because of the shame that society had built into it because of christendom um all that to to just be like yeah but we can have a better christianity if it it needs more than that it needs an element an energy the protest needs to be like no that's too far we've lost the ability to say that this is good and i i think god is saying that yes i actually think god in christ is saying that right now in this moment and it's ringing through the work of so many brilliant people that we know and people we don't know and i think that's that's what's exciting to me about this current moment of history is the voices on the margins are getting a say now they're starting to be heard because of the democratization of the internet like it is shifting religious power it is shifting political power we are in one of the greatest upheavals i think america in its history has ever been in outside of the civil war like ideologically speaking it's the it's the same thing physically i don't think we'll get there like because it's the different era um but i do think we're in one of the most prime times for that protest to be heard and to come forward and to be radical like like the rage of it needs to be heard too right and when i read the prophets i see the i see the lament and the rage of it too yeah and uh i think we've lost a bit of that and i think actually we again we're in the dark ages we've probably really never had it but now i think we're gonna start to get it and so i think that's the dawn that we're in right now the the age we're entering in yeah i think it's that and i also think it's i don't want to leave out the people that are casually dismissive of it because they're just like oh this is stupid because that part of the the ability to casually dismiss it is its own form of protest it is its own form of for those who are in the story trying to make christian a word worth using it's worth noting that a lot of society has just found it completely irrelevant to their lives yeah so i want to call attention to that as well that's a value that's a valuable yeah expression as well it's funny because some of those casual people are are some of the funniest to me i remember watching like the documentary do you know who gore vidal is you know oh we should watch it it's a he's basically the him and jeff buckley were two political pundits basically the whole arguing political punditry on tv was birthed because of an encounter that happened between jeff buckley who was conservative and he created the national review magazine and uh gorvidal who's kind of who was a liberal and uh and that clashing is kind of what made uh i think it was abc like like a formidable television statement a station uh politically speaking and whatever and abc news anyway gorbadol like if you interview them they would say he would they would say is it wrong to be gay and gorford i'll be like absolutely not and they're like where do you get this from he goes because i say so right like james baldwin did the same thing too and when asked about his sexuality he's like cause i say so like it's like whoa wow like i said you're right there's something wildly refreshing when someone just goes you know what no why because i said so right but here's what's funny about that i said the nene leakes right i told them for all you housewives of atlanta fans i told them what that was i said what i said like there's something beautiful about that too like it's not just the the i you know the man on the island by himself right there's there is this kind of thing that it's like i i almost in weird ways this is totally me being weird right i just feel the spirit of christ sometimes on stuff like that where you know somebody just kind of has this moment where they're just like no and it's like an inner resolve that isn't like simply self-defiance for the sake of self-defiance but it's just this like no i know it's like my grandfather was like that i think that's where i get it from a bit too like he was very just like that's wrong and sometimes he was actually wrong but like there was still this like i don't know there was this this spirit of christ in that rebelliousness in that like casual like dismiss of like nope won't do it yeah and i i respect those people too and i respect those of you who've been that and and some of you had to do it out of trauma so even more respect to you who've just put your foot down and said i won't be abused no more nope yeah and just call bullshit on it so or i won't be a part of the the team that is doing the abusing yeah literally yeah yeah like i opt out i can't tell you how many people in la that i've talked to that have said the main reason they don't go to church is the treatment of lgbt people like you said it's wow like like heterosexual people and i'm like really like wow that you would even leverage your own like relationship to church based on people that you don't like that's not your story and uh it's a it's a very common well actually i hear it everywhere it's not just in l.a i think people here are probably more vocal about it for sure but like it's kind of there's this beautiful defiance that i think people have said enough isn't it that is more christ-like than christian like far more christ-like yeah like and i know for a lot of people that's that's still so touchy and there's a lot of views and opinions on homosexuality that are out there and people are really in process in wrestling but it it's it's kind of interesting the moment we're in just to see where people are putting their thumb on and i think some places people are putting their thumb on it's not the arc of history and then some places are so we'll see yeah i'm here to watch but i'm gonna be here regardless so i'll see y'all in 20 years we're still gonna be having this conversation [Music] so we've spent five episodes mostly giving voice to how christianity can be practiced in a healthy and beautiful way and maybe what's worth salvaging about it and what needs reforming so we'd like to end this series by hearing from some of us that even though we see all of the potential beauty in the faith still say nah i can see the good but i'm not willing to take on that label christian anymore in so many circles that many of us grew up in we had language for people like that who backslid became apostate who left the faith and it seems to be rare in christian circles to celebrate those who journey in different places with different metaphors and labels and that of course is part of why we started the liturgists to have a place where people with differing perspectives different stories different metaphors can be together without fear of being ostracized or judged for asking questions for taking bold risks in telling new stories and even though 75 of the hosts of this show are christians it's never been the heart of any of us to try to make everybody else like us to try to have some sort of monolithic uniform culture where there's one identity or belief system or something that's the center and everyone else has to try to orbit so i thought a cool way to close out this series on christianity would be to hear from those who are not christians among us [Music] so on a forum for our patrons i posted a question for those who would consider ourselves ex-christians and in reference to this series saying we've seen how beautiful christianity can be so why is it that some of us still in good conscience cannot call ourselves christians and not surprisingly since we have the best online community in the world no bias is there but it's true we got a ton of really heartful mindful beautiful responses and i'd like to share some of them with you fred said christianity has been used by politicians and companies to increase profits create an in-out group and control people by creating social pressure and rules susan says there are so many beautiful texts where you don't have to work as hard to interpret them in non-hurtful offensive and harmful ways in my opinion the bible is not one of them maria writes i don't want a religion that's about buying me a ticket out of this evil depraved world and escaping this sinful place i want to be present with mama earth rather than longing for jesus to take me away to a new heaven and a new earth tori writes the exclusivity the self-claimed monopoly untruth the requirement to believe things that are scientifically impossible the toxic purity culture the lack of affirmation for lgbtq plus folks the shame and guilt associated with being a sinner she goes on to say mystical christianity can certainly be beautiful but i still can't quite be a part of it because christian writings believe symbolism are no longer any more important to me than other types of spiritual wisdom that is i don't think christianity is any more true than other ways of seeing things so it wouldn't make sense to give myself that label lucy writes i cannot reconcile my hope that love is the driving force of the universe with a story that places a requirement on human beings to choose to follow repent and proclaim a god in a certain manner even if there is an emphasis on grace humans are still required to act move towards accept and receive god's love and buy into the story in order to be saved the essence of the christian gospel message seems exclusionary brandon said i spent most of my life trying to believe only to fall short it was only when i embraced the fact that i didn't that i felt free i like who i am and how i treat people better when i'm not a christian [Music] holly wrote for so long i was trying to find the perfect formulaic christian worldview and trying on several different theological hats for all life's big questions trying to hold on to christianity finally i realized i was choking on holy water while everyone else was bathing in it and i just needed to set down the christian title so that i could breathe and now i feel more free to know and not know and be known one of the patrons on there named steven actually wrote a poem at the end and i liked it i asked him to record it on his phone and email it to me god you were my child i raised you in the womb of my perceptions i coddled you with words like infinite one while i cradled you in my arms you brought me such comfort but then dreamer that i was stumbling through a corridor of false awakenings i awoke to find that the sweet one i held was a bundle of ideas and fleshed around your shadow you were never in my arms belief was in my arms what arms could hold you what word could speak you when every time we shape our lips around the air a tower collapses we say love and before the syllable is erected we have eroded its foundation with our needs we say god and you turn toward us only to realize we had been calling over your shoulder to our traditions jason writes beautifully christianity is a religion of we love you but i'm tired of your pruning sniffing chopping at my roots i do not wish to be grafted into your vine or bread with careful selection so as to remove undesirable traits leave me wild intermingling with all those things not fit for your garden there's lots more like this there's like a hundred of them there are stories of abuse there are stories of shame and there's stories of freedom and i'm gonna be honest with you these people feel like my family [Music] i know what it's like to lose your community i know what it's like to have people think you're a heretic [Music] an outsider and ironically it is the christian faith of my upbringing that has taught me how god is with the outsiders and so that's where i've been hanging out lately out here with the outsiders and the heretics and the sinners but for those of you who do consider yourselves christians i would like to say something to you as well because you're my family too you're our family too i hope that you can hear the grace that has filled the hearts and voices of the christians that we've had on this series talk about their faith in a way that makes it safe for people like me people like these patrons whose words you've been hearing to follow our hearts and conscience and even for some of us to follow jesus into not being a christian and for a world that gets so bent out of shape about language as far as who's on this team who's on that team what i love about this space is that we share it together with people who are supposed to be on different teams believers and atheists catholic protestant agnostic mormon buddhist tongue talkers and psychedelic users we're all here to love to share to be connected in a place in a space that is brave where we can bring our true selves our true thoughts to the table and be welcome as we are may we never let labels get in the way of each other of love of synergy of creating a more beautiful world together thanks for listening everybody you