Holy Hell | Josh White | Episode 19

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi, this is Grant Lockridge and Jared Tafta on the Across the Counter podcast, where we create space for real people to have honest conversations. Today we have on the podcast Josh White, who is one of the guys behind the Holy Hell podcast. He owns a coffee shop and I thought he was a local pastor, but maybe not. Josh, just tell me a little bit about your personal journey and how you got started.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Yeah, first, thanks for having me Excited to have this conversation with you all. Yeah, my name is Josh. I like to tell people that my life's work is to make things to tell other people's unique spiritual faith stories. So a lot of the time I'm in the studio that you see behind me, I'm in here making things, making different stuff for different stories and different videos and films. I own a coffee shop called Heretic Coffee Company. It's locally here in Portland and, yeah, one of two folks behind the Holy Hell podcast that's myself and Savannah Correno. We just started up about three months ago three or four months ago so pretty new and pretty fresh into that and also do a lot of film and opinion documentary filmography as well. It's the newer space that I walk into. A lot of people ask me like, what is it that you do? And sometimes my response is all of it. That's all I say because my hands are in so many different buckets and I feel like that's the way I was designed to be. Just go to the next step and see. Whatever life's work takes you there. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:36

So what kind of introduced you to Christianity and the whole faith journey that you're a part of now?

Speaker 2: 1:44

Yeah, so I grew up in rural Midwest Indiana and a little backwoods Baptist church literally like literally the middle of nowhere. To give you context, my hometown was about under a thousand people and my graduating class in high school was three people. I was the valedictorian in the salutatorian graduating class it looks great on a college resume, by the way and I think there was always something a little bit innate and distinct inside of me, knowing the adult years of my life are not going to be existing in this space. I think my human existence, my human experience is not going to be defined by the Midwest or the Midwest culture, but by something different. So when I was 17, no joke, I had about 50 bucks cash in my wallet. I had it sounds like a lifetime movie but my guitar, my backpack got my first playing ever and moved out to San Francisco when I was not even a legal citizen yet, not even a legal adult. I moved out to San Francisco and went out there to study in college a little bit, but mainly to get a different experience or a different essence of life, and from there traveled around a little bit, but always found myself back in San Francisco and spent about 10 years there and that was for me like a bit of the timeline journey. But during all of that, with my faith experience, with my spirituality, in my introduction to Christianity, that was always deeply rooted in some way. I remember seeing the old school like flannel graph Y'all remember flannel graph like the little, like pieces of paper they would put like in Sunday school, like up against the felt horns they like tell the Bible stories. I was also a bus kid and so I'm sure some of your listeners know what that is, which basically means literally a church bus would roll around the neighborhood on Sunday mornings pick up kids. So I was one of those kids, one of those bus kids, and there was a few times, I think early on, I would hear things and I would have what I would call a holy flinch, meaning I couldn't put words to why I feel like I did not resonate with the thing that was just said on the stage. But there was something, whether you want to call that reality or a gut check or spirit or even God, there was something about it that just did not, did not vibe with the way that I saw humans existing with something beyond us, like a God. So I carried that throughout my life, went to go study music, was a worship leader for several years, I think, fell into a more teaching role, quickly learned that the art of the sermon was something I was way more passionate about than making music and slowly started to walk my way through that, found myself back in San Francisco, was a teaching pastor there for a church for several years and then, at the very end of 2020, december of 2020, moved out here to Portland to start a more decentralized, more decolonized church community, as well as, at that point for me, pursuing a lot of different other ways of telling other people's stories in their faith experiences as well, whether that's through film or through podcasts. I think, along the side of that, it was also, for me and my personal journey, a lot of undoing what I would consider false or toxic theology and trying to reclaim a more true theology, and I think, on the service level, a lot of people would call that a progressive theology. I'm actually not a big fan of that phrase. I think it's a little bit generic and bland, but for me, it was more about how do we have everyone have a seat at the table, whether that's our queer brothers and sisters, whether that's different people of color, how do we bring in different cultures and experiences to really create something that looks like the kingdom? And then also, how do we read the Bible correctly, like how do we read the thing to make sure that we're not just looking at a surface level version of the Bible but actually digging in to the cultural context of the scriptures and making sure that we see this was a book written by slaves for slaves? And how do we read this as an essence of liberation, an essence of freedom and hope, but also know that the Bible is written by people who lived in the margins and not reading it as a very privileged white cis man, but knowing this was written for people who are constantly occupied by the other regimes, that are marginalized and even abused, and so we've tried to create a little faith culture out here through that lens as well. Yeah, man, it's a little bit about myself and my life's work and what I'm currently up to.

Speaker 1: 6:10

That's awesome and what is the? I'm just curious what's the main theological things that you've had in your past that you've wrestled with and your new age kind of solutions, now that you've had some experience, kind of deciphering those?

Speaker 2: 6:31

Yeah, I think there are three that immediately come to mind. One is the relationship of God to humanity. It was always given to me as a transactional relationship, meaning I believe in this thing so I can receive this thing which is salvation, so I can go to a good place, not a bad place. One of my favorite theologians, abraham Joshua Heschel. He says that the message of God, or the message of Jesus, is not about evacuation from the earth but participation with the earth, and I think that was always something very key and central to, I think, my human experience. But even as a young kid, I didn't have the right language and then eventually I found the right people to listen to for myself and found that language, and so I think that was a big one. For me, the message of Jesus means it's here and it's now, and it's something you participate with other people in this world. Your home is not somewhere else, you're not just passing through. This is home for you right now. So live it fully present and fully alive. I think that was a big one that changed for me. Another one was just straight up, queer affirmation, queer theology and advocating for our queer brothers and sisters, our LGBTQ plus community and what that looks like. I think for me, there's just not enough credibility throughout the scriptures if that's going to be your landing point to create an essence of that. Homosexuality is a sin. It's just not there, and Jesus literally never talked about it, and so I think that was one thing that I very early on saw. And then, yeah, man, I think a really big one for me was just how we read the Bible. You can advocate for owning slaves by reading the Bible literally. If you read on the service level, it's the actual reason why slavery was permissible in our country. So not only that, but other ways of reading. It has literally started wars and has been misused in very extreme power dynamics, whether that's within organized religion or within churches, and so, for me, it is more about reading the Bible Literally, not literally meaning. What was the century, the first century context this was written in. Whom was it written to? Because that deeply matters to the story, and what does it mean for us to utilize a very alive message and a very alive book in 2023? Specifically, when I am a privileged cis white guy, how do I read this for the ones that are needing liberation? How do I read this for the ones who are sitting in the margins. And how do I then partner with those that are in the margins? By utilizing this faith system. So the rules were the three, the really big three for me. That started to pull me a different direction, and I think there were definitely moments where I knew I have experienced something that I can't ever look back and see. Something different Then was for me, reading the Genesis creation poem in a literate sense, not a literal sense, was captivating. When you find out that the Genesis poem is almost a verbatim copy and paste of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian creation story, you start to wonder what does that mean for us who read the Genesis poem literally? Then you start unraveling that a little bit and you go oh, it makes sense, because they were in occupation under Babylon when they wrote the creation poem, when they brought it down from oral tradition to written tradition, which in Hebrew imagination is a very big deal, and that was their first act of resistance was. We are here to create peace, love and joy and creativity and equity and inclusion for people, whereas the the a new Malish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the creation poem for Babylon, was all about chaos and destruction. But it. It literally starts out the exact same ways that our creation poem starts out, and there's many other facets that I began to become curious about. There's 12 different resurrection stories from Egypt that are thousands of years older than the Jesus resurrection story. So what does that mean? The historical element that Jericho literally never had walls like it literally historically never had walls, which then means that was a exaggerated war epic from the Jewish people to then get their folks ready. It was war propaganda in a beautiful way to get their people ready for the next battle, for the next war. So there was like undoing, that kind of scares you. And then you get to the thing actually humming underneath that story and you go oh wait, hold up, this is actually written by real people in real time. This is actually happening and it makes sense. It was written this way and when you begin to read it that way, many curves. There are many curves and deep moves, many forks in the road with your theology Once you begin to read the Bible a different way. So I think it was a big one for sure, with some different switches in my theology.

Speaker 3: 11:42

You mentioned the idea of living here and now versus this not being our home, and then the follow through of some of the details of, obviously, the issue of slavery or sexual identity and Jesus not talking about some of those different things. Specifically, some of my theology is based in the idea that there is a spiritual existence that's underneath the physical existence, and some of the things that Jesus didn't talk about weren't because they were not right or wrong, but because we were looking toward a heavenly resurrection like a different fulfillment of that promise. How do you hold those in paradox, like the now but the not yet? Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 12:28

I think so. I think so. Yeah, I think for anyone that's going to go on that journey, you have to become first comfortable with knowing you're never going to receive the ultimate answer. It's never going to be black and white. It is very ambiguous. Much of spirituality is a gray space because it is not mass, it is not something you can pull towards yourself. We're doing this thing with some of our folks in our spiritual community here in Portland right now, and last night we were discussing and deconstructing the idea of God, or just God as a whole, and that's a very. You have to walk into that with more intuitiveness than intellect, because it is literally not something that is something you can see and it's not something you can process. It is way more of spirit moving within someone or an ultimate reality. Also, I don't know if you can hear the sirens outside, but definitely in downtown Portland and it's getting nuts already outside today I can hear it, and so I think that was yeah, I think I first had to start there with knowing I'm going to continue to walk forward into this and I'm never going to have it figured out. But at the same time, if I had a way to figure out God. I think that would actually terrify me, because if Josh's human mind can understand the thing that moves the entire universe forward, if I can actually fully understand that like if I can't understand quantum physics, but I can understand the thing that probably partnered with the idea of science to create the world that terrifies me I need God to be something that I can't fully understand, to know it is bigger than this little evangelical box that I've been handed. So to become comfortable with that, I think it was my first step towards in some ways seeing having a safe space inside of myself to begin to unravel a lot of the theology that I was handed.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Yeah, and one of your taglines for Holy Hell is that you're a Christian, and I'm just curious what that means, because obviously Christians like just a term that we just made up. So really the better way to ask that is are you a Jesus follower? Or like how do you? How does that kind of go about in your life?

Speaker 2: 14:51

Yeah, now, I actually love answering that question. We get it quite a bit from the podcast. So if you're not familiar with the podcast, the podcast Holy Hell is with myself and someone else named Savannah Carino, and she calls herself an atheist kind of, and then myself being a spiritual director or a pastor, someone who follows the way of Jesus, I call myself a Christian kind of, and it's because the idea of atheism and Christianity, they are tools in which to understand the realm of spirituality, to understand God, meaning those are going to switch with how the current modern world moves forward, and so when I think of the idea of being a Christian, there are tools in the essence of Christianity that I'm going to utilize to understand God, but there's also other things in multiple different versions and iterations of it that I'm not going to touch with a 10 foot pole Meaning again, christian nationalism is a massive movement inside of America right now, and when I think of myself being a Christian, depending on who I'm talking to, you could see that as me being a right wing, like radical, or even a full-fledged, like leftist, fundamentalist on a political spectrum, whereas Jesus was very bipartisan in a lot of things, like his whole thing was how do you create peace through the soul and the system through nonviolence? And so me saying I'm a Christian kind of is me going. I don't really align with the different versions of all of it out there. What I do align with is who Jesus says he is and what the message of Jesus brought to the world. And so for a lot of people they'll ask me, like, what does that mean about you being a disciple of Jesus? And for me that means that it is interior and exterior work, it is work on my soul, and then it's also work on the system as well. It means I am here to understand how to live a full life and to spread in the Jesus way of goodness and justice, which then does mean you have peace and love. And then sometimes you have to shake your fists at the thing to make sure that person does not hurt and marginalized once again. So, yeah, when I think of the idea of being a Christian, it means I'm going to follow what Jesus says and, a lot of times, how we choose to live that out, aka Christianity or Christendom. I'm not going to probably fully align with that. At the same time, when I explain that most people go, yeah, I guess I'm also a Christian in that same aspect as well. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:23

It seems like that would be the response when you said there's ambiguity in kind of in truth, when you share. That it makes me think I guess that would be by that definition, we're all right because you're not in perfect alignment with anybody to any degree. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 17:43

Yeah, that's it. That's it right there.

Speaker 1: 17:47

That kind of leads me to question, more curious than anything, about what your church slash spiritual group looks like. How is that established and how does that not fall apart? I'm curious about that.

Speaker 2: 18:03

Yeah, that's a great question, which is interesting because I've been since I was 17, involved in some sort of maybe even before that involved in some sort of leadership in churches. When I say churches, I mean like an established, institutionalized. We have church services on Sunday. You're shown up throughout the week serving, giving, growing, doing all the things right. I've been part of that and I've helped create multiple iterations and particular versions of that came here to Portland to start something and did start something like that as well. And, yeah, man, we started and this was maybe about gosh, maybe about six months ago, maybe about a year, maybe about a year ago. I sat down. So you give some context behind this. Our church started in January of 20, are we in 2023? Yeah, so 2021, I think, yes, 2021. And we launched and I gave a good sermon and we were 40, 50 strong. I sat down at this desk on a Monday morning after that and was like, okay, so the rest of your life's work is about church growth. And there was just something in me that was like I don't know if that is, that is important, that is good work, that is needed work in the world. I don't know if that's my work and I think a major part of that for me was the way that we approach the message of Jesus is Not necessarily through this might be a bit of a big word but like through indoctrination, meaning it is very this thing here, so believe this thing and then, if you are a part of this thing, you can be involved in part of this church community. For us, I told our folks time and time again when I would stand on the stage and give a sermon I would say, like my job here is not to give you the answers, it's to ask really good and really hard questions so you can go on like you can explore your spirituality honestly. Whatever you then define your spiritual existence to be, it's not through me, it hasn't been filtered through someone else, because there will be one day where something I say does not line up with you and I don't want that to undo all of your, the ways that you follow Jesus. I don't want that to undo all of your spirituality. And when you have that, you have a Big influx of people who come in and it been big influx of people who come out, because for some people they will double down on the idea of Jesus. For others, they deconstruct the entire thing, and for a lot of people too, man, there will be things that I begin to affirm, whether it's in their sexuality or the way that they choose to move through the world or what they choose to do with themselves, and I begin to affirm things as a pastor, from a stage in a Christian space that have never been affirmed in from a pastor in a Christian space, and it gives them a sense of permission to then be open with themselves, and for a lot of people, that means Exiting church in some way, and so, like I had to pull back and go. What does my life's work look like in the context of shepherding and pastoring people? And I Think, just as last like couple weeks, we really decided really where my not only my gifts, but I think my energy goes is Helping people remove toxic theology from their lives in order to resurrect good and true theology in their lives, and so we do that. We have a small little group of folks who go through a nine week I'm not a big fan of the word, but like a nine week deconstruction course, for lack of better language and then from that I do a lot of spiritual direction with people here with a lot of people online and Walk with them through Some of the nuances of their spirituality. And again, I'm just here to ask really hard and good questions to people so they can explore God in Jesus honestly. Yeah, so what it looks like here very, I don't go to church on Sundays it's. That's not like the thing that we do here, but, at the same time, a pastor it's was a very esoteric version of what it means to shepherd a group of people, and I think it makes sense for me and I think it makes sense for the city that we're in as well.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Yeah, also with the, with your congregation, so to speak. I was just wondering what led you to formulate some of these ideas, that To be affirming of almost everything, because that's something that I've been wrestling with and thinking about. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:43

Yeah, man, I think, when I think of my spiritual journey, there was a lot of hard work that I had to do behind the scenes, especially being I was in San Francisco at a, for the most part, very conservative, theological, evangelical, hillsong, esque sort of church, right, and so it looks great on the outside, but the theology is actually pretty Antiquated. It is pretty, pretty surface level, pretty generic. All of it is. We're gonna look at this one verse, we're gonna pull out like a sticky statement and we're gonna say God is good, nine different ways, nine different times, and that's really it. And then you have someone sitting there with their gay neighbor and they're like okay, but what about me, though? Because that person, in many ways, has always told me I'm going to die and go to hell. So that was a lot of me's behind stages and behind closed doors, just talking to different people and discovering how to read the Bible honestly and correctly, and that made it difficult to stay in certain institutions and certain congregations. When you realize you're a leader in a place that may actually be Causing harm and violence to marginalized communities, it does something in you, especially when you're a person helping frame and mold and construct that culture, and so I don't. I think those were some of the first Like, first moves. And so for me, here, standing on stage and talking about queer theology or queer affirmation, talking about how to read the Bible, literally number one, that's not what you do to grow your church, because that is very ambiguous meaning people do not feel like they need to be fully Doctrinated into a thing, and I wanted to remove that essence from our church. I wanted people to know if you choose not to stay in church. But you needed this as the as, like the freedom card, so you can then go on the correct exploration. If that's what my life's work turns into, then let me Essentially be the filter for you so you don't have to go behind the scenes like I had to and do all that heavy work. Regardless, if you're going to undo something that you've probably built your life on there's a lot of back-end work for everybody involved in that but if I can at least be a little bit of a spark, just a little nudge, a little appetizer, just a little push forward for you to get enough of a taste of what God truly is, then I will absolutely start a church so you can experience, yeah, god, honestly, I love that. Jared, you got anything.

Speaker 3: 25:20

I was processing the idea of the idea of affirming you like grants of the words, like affirming everything, and some of the like, some of the difficulties, regardless of our like personal beliefs Come to mind, which is like, how do you think we as a community, like when we're building community? A lot of times community is based on the things that we, we don't affirm, and it's not because we're like sometimes pointing fingers as much as saying this is what we are and this is what we're not. So how do you process the idea of what not to affirm, if that makes sense, because the human being can go so far in so many different directions of the things that they Claim identity in. So, yeah, absolutely with like ambiguity and like fundamental truth. What are your thoughts on that? Because that feels like a Almost like a really unanswerable question to me.

Speaker 2: 26:18

Yeah, and I'll really blatantly answer that. And like affirming everything, I don't think I affirm everything, because the message of Jesus doesn't affirm everything. One of the things I've told people is your, the curiosity around your theology is widely open, except and accepted, until that theology begins to marginalize and oppress someone, and sometimes that comes through being Radically inclusive and affirming of different sexualities, but also like selfishness in that culture can easily seep in and go. This whole thing is only about me, which is why we very much talk about sin at our church, but it's not so much about personal sin, because personal sin throughout scripture wasn't a big one communal sin, societal sin. We are doing this as a culture over here and oppressing these people here was a Major rhetoric throughout, not only the New Testament very widely was a narrative and character in the Old Testament as well, and so there are many things like when we talk about we just did this sermon series about a year ago called the soul in the system. We talked about war and guns, and there are many things throughout the message of Jesus that affirm peace can be found through non-violence. And what happens when you build empires based off of your military Economy? That was literally the Empire for Solomon. He built war Empires around his major cities in the Queen of Sheba, literally came and Disaffirmed that their God, yahweh, was all about Peace, not conquering lands through swords. And so there are many things that you do not affirm, but the same time you said it really well, jared. Like you, you go to be a part of something because all the little points of that culture it makes sense for you, right? I'm not gonna go to a gym or I'm not gonna. I'm a runner. I'm not gonna go on a run with like really shitty like running shoes. I'm gonna get like nice running shoes, I'm gonna use those and I'm gonna trust that brand to continue make good and better running shoes. I'm not gonna go out in like my iron ranger boots right, and go for a run. Those are good for my work days when I'm working and making something here in the my studio, but not for running. And we use the same method and models in our culture as well. There are many versions of what I'm a part of that have micro cultures in our coffee shop heretic, completely widely different culture than our church space. The podcast Really has no connection to our coffee shop or really to our church. It is its own little culture over here, and so I think inside of that we have found like the core arc of our cultures, for like different things. For our church is helping people deconstruct their theology, for holy hell it's hearing two different opinions. For heretic it's all about excellence and the art of drinking good coffee, but then also creating community, like knowing your neighbor and knowing the person you're making that coffee. For. The films that I work on, it's about telling other people's stories and if you can find Little pockets of how you belong in those sections. I think that's beautiful because at the end of the day, all of us have moved back and forth between churches or even schools or neighbors or friend circles, and a lot of times it Revolves around the idea that there we've been, given this idea that every single piece of it has to work for us, and when it doesn't, it's time for us to move on. And I'm not saying if you're actually in a abusive, like marginalized space, whether it's your church or even at your house, it's time for you to find safety and shelter. But a lot of times the idea of communal sin that we talked about throughout the Bible was First centered around the idea that it's all about us, and that's a huge thing that Jesus talked about. The whole thing isn't just about us. The whole thing is about you, and Not only about the people, but also the earth. How you steward the earth, how do you literally steward the ground, the land in the people who inhabit that land now Went from a political sense to a literal, like climate sense as well, and so there are many things that by I'll put it this way by affirming certain things, you immediately Nonaffirm other things. So if you affirm peace through nonviolence, you're immediately nonaffirming Violence as a way through the gun, through the sword, to take over lands and conquer people.

Speaker 3: 30:44

So, yeah, yeah yes, this what I was asking you're getting at, because, because we're also dancing around the topic of like absolute truth outside of ourselves, like whether or not we're the little individual judges that affirm, versus whether or not there's existent Principles outside of us that, and so to some degree I hear you saying, like the idea of peace or a piece instead of war, like they're, grant, and I talk about that in terms of they're just principles of reality that we in our human sense choose to affirm or not affirm. But then you go out and you swing that paradigm at the world and then see what happens. So to some degree it's like you you're still taking your quote Perception of reality and then you're going and living and then learning where they're not that perception aligned. So another question that comes in mind for me, josh, is can you think of a time that you did not affirm something and then you swung too far in affirmation and Then had to recalculate like a mid ground or like a paradoxical middle, because I think sometimes we, like human nature, tends to overcorrect Is that makes sense? So, not to get super philosophical, but how have you dealt with that?

Speaker 2: 31:59

Yeah, I know that's a great question. The one that I think first comes to mind is I think most people would generally find themselves Politically on the right side or on the left side, right, and that means you're either a conservative or a progressive. That's usually the ready. You're a burning guy or you're a bush guy, and I think, in a lot of ways, when you talk about openness or exploration, your spirituality, and then Things about Jesus that didn't naturally politically align with the systems of his day, which also means the systems of our day, you get put on that side of the lefts, right, and I would argue like you have your right wing radicals, you have your very fundamentalist lefts as well, and what I love for I would say like, on the right side there's very little Accountability, but on the left side there's very little grace, there's a very little like movement of let's be like. Can we have conversations about? This is more about no, we're advocating for this thing over here and that's it. That's the only thing we're doing. And there were many times where, if it's something through COVID, blm, george Floyd, another mass shooting, you immediately condone the act of violence that happens there and you begin processing that. But I think a lot of times, too, I would immediately find myself slowly becoming a is an extreme way of putting it but like a left extremist in some ways, and I had to pull back and go. Okay, but not all. Of this is the way that Jesus would go about it, which is why I see through the message of Jesus very often. He's very bipartisan, and what's really fascinating about that is when you're in the middle. You talk off both sides, like you piss off the ones that are on the left and the ones that are on the right, and you're in the middle you're like okay, so they don't like me anymore. They don't like me anymore. So where do we go? Which is also hilarious, because Jesus found himself in that pocket, his disciples found themselves in the pocket of my parents, hate me, and now the tax collectors also hate me. What are we doing? What do we believe in? And so I think a lot of times, like they're, I'm giving many like. Anytime we talk about anything that has to do with a political nature of something, we almost always give asterisks, or I personally give asterisks under it. This is where I'm going, this is what I mean. So people know like I'm not fully aligning with a far like left thing, I'm not fully aligning with a far right thing. I'm right in the middle going. How do we make sure that violence stops in our country? How do we make sure that there are less guns that can get into schools? But also, at the same time, like, how do we make sure that people have all their needs met? How do we make sure that everyone can see a doctor when they need it? How do we make sure that the economy that is built off of capitalism does not full-fledged go into socialism? How do we find a common ground for common good in the middle of all that? And I think a lot of times when you say certain things, people will then perceive oh, you're all the way over here. People like to say I'm a Democrat, which means I am like pro-abortion right, so like they throw you on that side or they'll go. Josh said this, so he must be a conservative, like he probably voted for Trump because he said this thing over here. And I think that's one big thing I've had to do is make sure how I voice, what I see Jesus doing in the world, and in my inner world as well, does not capitulate to one side or the other. It's a very nuanced yeah, non, very again ambiguous gray space that you sit in with that right in the middle, and we are conditioned to think black and white it's either this or this, and that's just in a lot of ways. That is literally not how the human experience works.

Speaker 1: 35:57

Yeah, and I love you have to evaluate pretty much each individual policy or idea, right? Because that's just. It's crazy to me how most people think that way about the right or the left, where in any other facet of our lives we'll evaluate individual ideas or individual things. So it's not. Oh, he's this in Enneagram 8, so he does all this. That's another one that people can typecast for and stuff like that. But like just the idea that, like why not just go through each individual idea and be like okay, abortion, here's pro-abortion, people, here's anti. I'm this and this is why. And then separate topic here's this thing, and then you know what you think about that. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 3: 36:50

That's the right thing.

Speaker 1: 36:51

So, yeah, I agree with you on evaluating different ideas like that. Now, something I don't wanna lose too this is something that I found super interesting that you said is the idea that most of the Bible is written to communal sin rather than personal sin. I don't wanna lose that idea, cause something that I've said before is if you wanna change the church, you change yourself, and that's like a recreation of a Charles Spurgeon quote. And would I be wrong in that of changing my personal sin and my personal stuff? Should I be more focused on communal things or explain to me that relationship between the Bible talking about personal sin and communal sin?

Speaker 2: 37:38

Yeah, it's like that old, the old taco commercial. Why not both? It's very much that I think. Right, yeah, I think inside of that, I actually think you are thinking communally by thinking about yourself personally. Again, my relationships and my friendships and my life will not be healthy if I am not healthy. And I think it's the same way, man. And so I think in a lot of ways, communal goodness, if you just wanna like, instead of looking the cynical, look at the joyful of it. Communal goodness that comes out of all of us living, out of an ethic, a personal, a particular ethic of goodness, of good, and so that first must start with us. But then also communal sin happens because a group of people have personal agenda in creating that communal sin. But the reason why the Bible is written through communal sin is because the Bible is written in two groups of people. Very little in the Bible Is it particularly written. It's only mainly through the message of Jesus that it is written to someone personally. And I've had those conversations and debates with people and they're like, what about Moses? Like receiving the 10 commandments? That was a personal move by God. Yes, and those were early ways for humanity to order the world, the 10 commandments. So, through a personal connection, Moses then had communal structure. Communal goodness, yes, it does start with you. It starts with how you decide to define your life and how you choose to move and order your world, your inner world, and through that, in the essence of community, you can either create communal goodness or you can create communal sin, and I think a lot of that comes with power, dynamics and structure. Who are the people that are helping us? I take care of the things inside of us. How do we take care of us, While also again, communal goodness or communal sin, is you shaking the fist out of system going? This is communal sin and we need to do something about this. My next door neighbor, because of his skin color, cannot get the interview. We need to fix this problem and that is an essence of communal sin. But it's someone's personal agenda that is structuring all that behind us. I feel like it starts with us first for sure. But if we only particularly focus on ourselves, then we have a problem in that structure. I also don't think there's steps with that. I think it's both and at the same time. I think it is. We need to work on us, but because we are always in community, we also need to work on one another and on the entire structure of our group or our community or our inner circle at the same time.

Speaker 1: 40:19

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's what I wanted to hear you say, yeah, that kind of thing, so that's awesome, you got something, jared.

Speaker 3: 40:31

Yeah, you made me think of talking about scripture. There's one book in the Bible that I think of in terms of a personal letter and it's the book of Philemon, which is the letter to Philemon from Paul, and he's referencing Anissimus, but he doesn't even deal with the personal issue of slavery as his anchor point in defense or authoritative directive about sin. The letter is written from the reference point of community, of Philemon and Anissimus being in community, and to me it feels like even Grant's question or the statement that he made. If we want to change the church, then we need to change ourselves. There's two statements of change. Even in that statement, like one is referencing a desire for communal change. Therefore there is a need of personal change because we are made it familially. So I just I don't know that. I have a question, as much as I think about even that idea we were talking about earlier. As far as, like principles of truth, I think it's impossible to find those in an isolated space. If we're made for community, then to me that also means that we need to be open and honest and sharing our convictions and what we're learning and then having healthy conflict so somebody can say, yeah, I know, that's all put together in your head but that's not real or it's not real for me. And then two people say this isn't real for me and it's not real for you. So there's something in between. What's that space in between? And I just, like you said, life isn't black and white, like I'm super simplistic. So if I think about it in terms of if the earth is black and heaven is white, like some intersection of perfection, to me feels like that, like being stretched on a cross in between those, like there's an intersection of one, one coming down from perfection and then relating to us in relationship and I don't know. I just the idea of staying knit into community and us being relational at a core. It just feels it feels like the one thing that could save us, if that makes sense like from ourselves.

Speaker 1: 43:05

Yeah, yeah, that's huge. And another thing about think about just the temptation of Jesus, like when and how he tempted him. It was when he was away from everybody in a desolate place and nobody was there and then the devil decided to tempt him. And I feel like that's a lot of the ways that we get tempted in our own lives through spiritual forces, devil, whatever you want to call it but like just that ripping out of community and isolation of people and then you get torn apart. It's not usually hey, me and Jared are gonna get torn apart together, or 60 people. It's usually he'll isolate and he'll try to devour through isolation. So I think that the reverse of that, like Jared said, I think that's huge of just that aspect of being strong in community, yeah, that's it yeah, yeah you both nailed it. So just another thing I wanted to discuss with you. Yeah, tell me a little bit. So there is absolute truth. At least I believe there is absolute truth. So there is some line of black and white, even though, which I totally agree about like gray, like the world is gray, how we? I live in a constant state of gray, so I completely agree with that. But there is some line somewhere that is absolute truth. One, do you agree with that line exists? And two, what do you? I hear you say all the things about affirmation of LGBTQ and that sort of ideology, which I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm not saying it's completely correct, I'm just saying that I hear that and I think of is there a line that exists? Is it just we don't want to oppress people, or is there an actual sin to that? Because anything could technically be oppressive. If let's just say somebody is murdering a person like you, killing them would be oppressing that person that is murdering them. So there is a line of oppression and what it do you get where I'm going with that? That's convoluted.

Speaker 2: 45:31

No, I like it To answer that. I think I'd love to ask you a question. What would you then consider absolute truth?

Speaker 1: 45:40

That is an easy and one of the hardest questions ever at the same time. I think absolute truth is the person of Jesus, because he said he is I'm the way the truth in the life. I think the person of Jesus would be absolute truth, which means which sounds weird, but he said it, so we gotta dive in more to that. So what kind of where I go with? That is basically all his teachings, and he does quote scripture and that sort of thing is all that is absolute truth. The person of Jesus is absolute truth and just the discovering the relationship with God would be the realest thing. And then at a base layer, there is also things like 10 commandments that are actual commands from God. And then there's things like go and make disciples commands from Jesus, and there's things like that would be absolutely true. So I would say the line for the absolute truth would be the person of Jesus Christ. But then you get into all the things about how you can gray that up of what does he mean here and what does that say and how does that blend our lives. So that's why it gets hard, because it's a person. What is absolute truth? It's the person of Jesus, but what did he say about himself and how do we interpret that is a whole different thing.

Speaker 2: 47:15

So one of the reasons why I asked is one of the episodes I'm working on for an op doc that I'm currently filming and interviewing folks I've we're in Palestine, I'm talking to Palestinian Christians, and they would say the same thing that you're saying, but through the lens of Allah, and we're talking about wildly different cultures. We're talking about which is fascinating because of what we're talking about here is a Middle Eastern culture that has been integrated into Western American culture to begin with, and so what would that then say about our Christian brothers and sisters who look through the lens of Allah as a way of truth in life, which, literally? In the Quran? There is a verse that says that Allah is the truth in the way. And so then, how would you and just for clarification, I am not looking for a debate on this, because I'm actually pretty linear with what you're saying, but it does help me like answer my for me to answer the question as well what would you then say about those who believe in a version of God that is very linear to ours, but simply has a different name?

Speaker 1: 48:24

So the first thing I would say is one we're not a debate podcast. So we're definitely not gonna debate you on anything, because we just don't think that's beneficial. It is beneficial, I mean, we wanna fight with the fight. Yeah, let's fight. No, I'm just kidding. But it is beneficial to talk about things and it is beneficial to deconstruct bad theology and things like that. I truly believe that. But our platform is more just trying to hear from one another and figure it out together, rather than just say, oh, I believe this and you believe that, and let's go toe to toe, which there is some value to that, but that's not what we're really after. But so that is a really good question and something that I've thought about and constantly thinking of, and that would be so, basically, how do we come to terms with that other guy that is in Pakistan that says Allah is the truth, like, how do we come to terms with that? And the answer for me would be that's at some point you gotta hit the line in the sand of what makes a religion, and for Christianity, that would be the very bare bones of Christianity would be that Jesus is the son of God and it's the God of the Bible, which is the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, that kind of thing. So that would be what separates Christianity from that. So what I would do with that is that's the line in the sand For me is that Jesus is the son of God. I think he's the only one that can forgive sins. So I'm definitely classically Christian in that. But what I would then say to that man who thinks Allah is the truth is why not read about Jesus, as maybe I should read some more about his religion so that we could come to just that understanding and that? Because there's everything that Jesus said is just so profound and it's so actionable and you can see the benefits of it through thousands of years. And I wouldn't say the same thing about Allah. But that's just and obviously there's the inverse of that. It's okay, but there's the crusades and stuff like that. So there's a lot of gray area in that. But at the end of the day it's just a difference of beliefs on what do there is that line that Jesus Christ is the son of God. That's what makes a Christian or a follower of Jesus a follower of Jesus, kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 51:17

Yeah, grant, I think I'm I definitely track with you. I think for me, like when I think through, like certain phrases that we use which is like things like the Bible is clear, also clarify this is not me putting words in your mouth, I'm talking about the more universal aspect of some of the language that we all, definitely myself, use. But things like the Bible is clear, Jesus is the way, and so when I read those things, I go then where did that come from? Jesus is a son of God. Okay, where did that come from? And even like the aspect of son of God that was that phrase. Son of God was around before Jesus even shows up on the scene. Jesus is borrowing language from Caesar Augustus's adopted son, octavius, because when Caesar Augustus dies, he becomes a God, and when Octavius, which is coined as the person who has created this massive military empire for Rome, he would call himself Prince of Peace, son of God. So those are words that Jesus then took and essentially subverted what Caesar was using. So when Jesus shows up and says no, no, no, I am the son of the highest president, I am the son, I am the true son of God, and it's because there's a different way of us creating peace in this world. That doesn't come through the Roman sword. So when I see that I go. That is no longer for me a fairytale. That became real because Jesus actually said that and he knew what he was doing when he was using phrases like Prince of Peace and son of God and son of man. I think the hard part for me is when you go to Palestine and you sit there and you're interviewing someone, and or I have an Egyptian friend who is doing some work outside of Israel, in Tel Aviv, around the Gaza Strip, and I even think of how I think we have been conditioned to think about Allah or the Quran. The 9-11 did not help that and the way that our country talked about our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters. They took a whole side of the world and said what we saw from a very small micro regime, radical regime that happened to our country terrorist cells and terrorist groups in ISIS. That is a very small portion of a whole way of living, that almost indoctrinating half of this earth, and so we look at that to say and to define that's what's happening over there, and they would look at us and go, ok, yeah, we hear you, but what about all your wars? What about your presidents who are going to bomb whole countries and use Bible verses to advocate that? What about all the flags that said Jesus saves at a capital insurrection and so like? When you look at what we bring to the table in the essence of Christian violence, versus what I think we've been handed, which is everyone literally with a term in, is a terrorist, something that we've been handed in some capacity that many of us that grew up around the years of 9-11. We've had to. We've had to identify that and go. This is the rhetoric that was given to us, because that allowed all of us to feel safe going to war. We're going to war against all those people there. And so when I see that, I wonder have I missed something much more universal than just the Western American version of God that I've been handed, because this Western version first came from people like that in that territory, in that part of the world. So have we missed some of that as it seeps into Western, white, privileged culture? And so I think for me, like, when I think of absolute truth, there are many things you can walk through with that. I think of very generic pieces like, yeah, don't kill people. I think we know that. I think we got that one figured out. Don't cause violence and harm towards your neighbor, but then also, beyond that, make sure that your neighbor has all their needs met and so, like when I see we're talking about the Ten Commandments, when I see the Ten Commandments, I don't see that as this is your metric of what is good. I see that as anything under this is subhuman. Anything under this is your baseline. This is where you start. Don't hurt people, don't cause violence, do not steal, do not kill. And then you begin to understand what it means to be human. Beyond that, that is literally what's happening in Exodus when Moses receives that. You have to remember that these are the things that are happening. These are slaves that live for generations under Egyptian culture, meaning all they know is Egyptian culture, and so when God removes them from Egypt to become their their own people, god is saying I'm going to now teach you how to be human, how to be Israel, how to be your own people, and we're going to start at the baseline. We're going to start here. I've had many Christians over time which I find this kind of hilarious. Now Tell me that, as long as they're obeying the Ten Commandments, then they're living their best Christian life and I would argue we are talking about thousand centuries of years ago we were handed that as basic ways of being human, and I think the world moves forward and in 2023, there are many other ways that we can bring like absolute goodness in, and so for me, that means listening to my Islam brothers and sisters and going what is the beauty inside of this? And hearing them say things where I go that sounds eerily, suspiciously similar to something that I've read out of the book of Friskeens or the book of Timothy. So I see that and I hear that, and for me, absolute truth is more about absolute goodness than absolute knowing, not having all the right answers and saying that I'm praying to the right person. But going. Where does all this align to make sure that what Jesus talks about, or what God talks about Within the context of humanity, that we're doing, the things that advocate peace and love and curiosity and awe and wonder for that spiritual sense. How do we all do that under our own version or iteration. So when people ask me, what do I feel about, like, where do I start, where do I begin? I tell them well, I have people ask why do you still use the name God or Jesus? And I'll tell people my spirituality begins that I believe there's something beyond me, there's something within me, something around me that I cannot see as someone who grew up in Indiana and in California and now Portland, the, culturally, the thing that I was handed to understand that was Jesus and God. Therefore, that is the language that I use to understand the deity or the thing that is beyond and around and also inside of me. And so I think other people that I meet that are more open with their chron theology, that are in very fundamental aspects of the thing, would literally say the same thing. I have never met someone who follows Islam and looks at me and goes you're wrong because you believe in Jesus. They just go. Yeah, it makes sense. That was the language you were given to understand what God is and how to be fully human and be in partnership with God. And so for me, yeah, I think that's where I begin that journey of what it means to have absolute truth.

Speaker 1: 58:39

Yeah, what you got, Jared.

Speaker 3: 58:44

I guess my answer is like a little bit different than either of you guys want to think about absolute truth. It's similar, but I think that Jesus is a like the truth is found in him, but like scripture, scripture refers to if truth. If earlier we were talking about what truth is, so if absolute truth is reality. So if you imagine there is what is and then there is what we think is so, the absolute truth would be what actually is and then there is what we think is so. I'm not trying to be too philosophical here, but there's, like what Josh said, what's outside of us versus what our perception is. So to me, I believe that the thing that is most absolutely true in isness is love. I believe that scripture says that God is love and the most absolute thing in existence. The greatest of these, that which was and that which will be in my heart and in my mind, I believe, is love. The idea of love is also related, in my opinion, to the idea of relationship, and then the idea of relationship is related to the idea of perfect harmony. So the part that I think that is broken is that human beings don't honor perfect harmony of love in relationship. There's a gap now. So the cross and Christ, in my opinion, are the intersection that allow human beings to traverse that gap, because one traversed it first because of the nature of absolute love. That's what I believe is primarily existent. Now, if I take that period down to be true, then I can ask questions like what are the conditions of that love? Then we can begin to talk about that. But for me, like what I believe those conditions are, and what uniquely defines Christianity from every other religion in the world, is, christianity is the only religion, it's been said, that is all inclusive and exclusive at the same time. Everyone is welcome Race, background, heritage, age, all are welcome. That's all inclusive. But they're every degree of center. But everyone is only welcome in one name and that one name is Christ as Lord. So the one difference about Christianity is to the degree that I understand it there and I could be wrong here but Christianity is the only religion that says you bring nothing, you do nothing, you earn nothing. Like it is, it is the freest gift and the most expensive gift that exists in the world because it's all of you and yet you earn nothing. So the idea, even if you go back historically to Lordship, it is that idea of submission to a greater power and the one degree because what Josh is describing on some level I think would be historically the concept of universalism at some level of there is a greater good and then we come to it from different degrees and that's a really a lot of times like that is really motivating, because it's hard to believe in the wrath and the judgment of those that are pursuing goodness but they are obstructed by the evil of humanity, like. I understand some of that perspective and I can even commiserate sometimes, but I think that the reason I have peace in the absolute truth of love found in Christ is that is the only area of existence that I have found that my eternal redemption doesn't have anything to do with my action. It's about the action of another. There's a lot of religions that say it's about just doing more good than wicked, but there's not peace and security in that. For me there's a line there of how do I know how much and I am the most wicked person I've ever known Nothing I do is pure. Nothing I do is complete and whole. Even if I serve the homeless in a moment, I may be doing it for a right reason and the moment I hand out service, I stand up and say, look at what I've done, and I make it impure. The reason I have to have Christ, like I'm desperate for there to be one to take all of my sin, and that I find him uniquely different, is that religious endeavor calls me to fall deeper into love, but not deeper into duty for the sake of earning anything. So maybe I'm just being too simplistic, but that would be where I find absolute truth coming home to my heart, because that absolute truth is I am absolutely devoid of the ability to do anything pure and I'm absolutely desperate of one who's perfect to redeem, and so that's the thing that I wake up and know every day, and I know that by knowing that I am dark, but he finds me lovely. It's like the black and the white. That's what I feel. I know like I'm torn in between those, and the cross is I'm absolutely bankrupt in and of myself, but then there is an absolute, perfect, perfect sanctifier. So maybe I'm being too simplistic and I like like we said, this isn't a debate podcast, but I do think Christianity defines itself as different in that one area, and that's one of the things that's often made it so hated, like human beings want to do something like that. That's what we freaking despise about. The idea of the Christian faith is like no, you don't get to bring your titles, your name, your wants, like it's an all in the air. So I don't know how that hits you, josh, but that to me, like in my soul, maybe, if I can't define the theology well, like that's what I feel like is absolutely known.

Speaker 2: 1:05:04

Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. And I think where I land is, I think it's beautiful that we all can at least have the essence of freedom to explore how we all get there. And when I say get there, I'm not talking about somewhere up in the sky, I'm talking about how we understand God, that there is beauty in all of us, have different ways of exploring it, in different curiosities and on wonders to figure out the language that we can identify with the most. Yeah, so I think, all three of our different ways, the beautiful way of exploring what and who God is, not only within us and for us, but also for this world as well.

Speaker 1: 1:05:50

Thanks for listening to the Across the Counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.