[00:00:05] Speaker A: We are a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: How can we allow for true wholeness, true unity, true oneness, to coexist within the reality of multiplicity?
[00:00:18] Speaker A: We're talking about hybridity. We're talking about mutation. We're talking about change.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome back, collective table podcast. We are so excited to be kicking off season nine, episode two. Here you've got Claire in the studio, and I am here with Jason for his first official episode as a host. And we're so excited to be here together.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited, too.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: How's it going?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: It's going good, but I want to talk about something that we don't have on the agenda. I want to talk about inside out. Inside out, because you and Jenell had this great conversation in the last episode, and I was so struck and inspired by what the two of you talked about around fear. So I just thought that conversation was so helpful. So I want to ask, what is it about inside out that's so helpful to you?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Good question. Well, I also have to go ahead and apologize for that, because my husband listened to it and said, Claire, you just spoiled the whole movie for everyone!
[00:01:25] Speaker A: And I was like, well, I guess inside out, too, is new, but, like, the first one's been around forever.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. I think something that was really powerful to me - again, this is yet another Disney Pixar movie that's actually for adults - at the very end of the movie, all of this little girl's emotions that are personified in these little characters, they all learn to coexist together. And that's such a simple idea. But in the trajectory of a story like that, you're kind of, at first, trained and already wired to think like, oh, this emotion. Joy, she's the protagonist. Fear is going to be against her. This anxiety character is out to get it, and kind of like the evil force in this. This good versus evil. And at the very end, it's not good versus evil. It's about coexistence and about transcending this dualistic reality and letting them all sit together.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: And so what is - I think - so fun about that is that we, I think, are, in our culture, socialized to be disembodied, to separate ourselves from, well, really, any emotion at all, right? Like, I mean, in western civilization, we're socialized to be analytical and to only trust analytical processes. And so by humanizing every emotion, we're encouraged to integrate them in a way that coexists, I think. And I think that's super profound. Like, the idea of making friends, even with emotions that we tend to vilify or marginalize. Right. So I bring it up partly because it was such a great episode. Like, I really enjoyed listening to it, but also really feeds very well into this one.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: There's so much. Yeah, I don't want to spoil it.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Right. But, like, you know, all that internal, well, fragmentation, because that's what we're going to talk about in a second, really is projected into our relationships, into our politics, our religion, you know, all of that in really obvious ways that we're kind of blind to.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: In the entirety of season nine, we are going back and picking some of our favorite episodes from collective tables passed, and today we are actually, it wasn't even an official episode. TCT used to do book clubs where we would invite authors to be interviewed by a group of people about a book that they just wrote. So this was recorded back in late 2022, late November, early December. And if you go back and listen to it, it's really great because there are many hosts. We have an entire group of people at the congregation that TCT used to be a part of raising their questions to Brian and just really having a conversation about what does it mean to be a Christian in 2024? Is it worth continuing to pursue this despite all the things and all the junk that the church and religion and Christianity carries? So this was definitely a standout episode that Jason selected, and I'm excited to hear more about what you. What you've pulled from it.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Well, they're really Brian's thoughts. Right. So thank you, Brian. This was one of my favorites, and it was one of my favorite episodes because Brian refers to something in the conversation with Chelsea that I really appreciated. And so just to maybe set it up, and this bit from that episode, Chelsea's talking to Brian about what you just said, about how many people who are Christian feel like they have to in some way, like, distance themselves from that identity because of what has come to represent in the political discourse in the United States and popular media and television, all of that. There's this sense of, like, I'm a Christian, but not that kind of Christian are the words that Chelsea, I think, uses. And it's so common. Like, Janelle and I just met with one of our collective table groups in south Orange county last week, and they brought this exact phrase up, right? And they hadn't heard this episode or anything. They were just like, I feel like I have to tell people I'm a Christian, but I'm not that kind of Christian. And I thought it was so, such a great way to characterize that dilemma for so many people. And Brian responds to that question, I think, in a way that is super helpful.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: And I wonder if you ever run into this tension of saying, I'm Christian, but not that kind of Christian, and, like, what does that look like? Or how fair is that? I always struggle with how fair that is, but I'm wondering how you respond to that.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: Well, you know, it's the first thing that comes to mind when you say that, chelsea, is, I just think, gosh, I'm an american, but I'm not that kind of american. And I'm male. I'm not that kind of male. I'm cisgendered and straight, but I'm not that kind of cisgendered and straight. You know, it feels like on so many different, in so many different ways, our identities are contested. And years ago, a christian writer from Canada whose name I'm forgetting. I'm forgetting a lot of names tonight, he said, it used to be that we lived in a pluralistic world where you had Catholics meant this, and Protestant meant this, and Jewish meant this, and Buddhists meant this. He said, we don't just live in a pluralistic world anymore. We live in a fragmenting world where christian Protestants are fragmenting into many different kinds of things that are mutually hostile. You know, it's not just they're opposite and oppositional. And Catholics, who would have guessed ten or 15 years ago that the kind of schism that's being threatened by Pope Francis, enemies in the catholic church, and similar things are happening in every different religious community. It's sad, it's difficult, but it also is a moment of real possibility for reasons we could discuss. But I think. I think the fact that we have to add those qualifiers in some ways means, first, it means that our communities themselves are changing. Second, it means that we're changing. And third, it means that we're more and more of us are becoming adults, and we're saying, I'm responsible for what I support and what I don't support. And I want to make that clear.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Okay? So I just loved that, that whole bit. I mean, there's so much, I think, contained in that one little response that Brian gives. But the first thing that jumped out at me is that Brian sort of characterizes a shift that happens somewhere from, you know, being part of a world that's pluralistic to being a world that's fragmenting. And that really, like, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Like, if Brian were here today, or if I were part of that conversation and it felt like there was room, I think I would want to push back and ask for some. Maybe some clarity, right? Like, what's the difference between something being pluralistic and something being fragmenting? And the reason is that word fragmentation or fragmenting is so destructive. And he even uses the word hostile. And of course, it's true. Like, I'm not trying to say we don't have hostilities in our world. Clearly, we have very serious disagreements with each other, even with a. In one identity, like Christian. But I think the emphasis on how our world is fragmented tends to bias us against the idea that multiplicities of being are a good thing. It would be a little bit like saying, going back to inside out, like, I'm so internally fragmented now, that could mean, like, a bunch of things. It could mean, number one, you know that I'm double minded, right? Like, that I have an opportunity before me, and I'm ambivalent. I want this, I want that, and I'm not sure how to decide. And there's a kind of contest or hostility between those choices, then obviously, that's a real state of being for all of us at different times in our lives. Or it could just be a reference to the fact that I have a multiplicity of feelings and thoughts, and that's not a bad thing. Like, that's actually quite a good thing. And I think Brian sort of alludes to that, which hopefully we'll get to. But first, it really jumped out at me that there was this discussion about fragmentation.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: This message of unity and diversity in so many different circles, religious or non religious, it can be used as a guise for control and wholeness being more of a. A goal, then. Not that unity is bad, but trying to distill everything and make everything homogenous. I would call it a guise for control. And I was thinking about the word unity and the idea of unity being oneness. And we would say, God is one. Or I would say that as a Christian, but at the same time, God is three and one and the same time, God is like a multiplicity of things. And that is one of the great mysteries of our faith, is that somehow God is one and three and one. And I wonder what that might say to us as a possible blueprint or something to look towards as a model for what wholeness is. And as Christians, wholeness in God, how can we allow for true wholeness, true unity, true oneness, to coexist with the reality of multiplicity?
[00:11:10] Speaker A: I mean, this tension is so well represented by, like, just the different flavors of Christianity that exist around the world. So, like, even when you use the word oneness, the, the form of Pentecostalism that's predominant in the global south, but exists here in North America too, and in Europe that is non Trinitarian is generally referred to as oneness Pentecostalism. And because that's their emphasis, right? Like the reason they reject the notion of the Trinity is because they're emphasizing wholeness. One of the struggles for protestant Christians in Mexico is that it doesn't appeal to the indigenous concerns and sensibilities of Mexicans, right? Which reaches back to the conquest of Mexico by Spaniards and by the Catholic Church, and then another kind of conquest of a different kind of Mexico by mainline Protestants who attempted to come in and sort of thwart Catholicism. And in the midst of that, like, struggle, oneness Pentecostalism is born amongst these pastors who just determined for themselves that, like, their beliefs need to come from nothing but the Bible. So they're trying to like, distill their faith down to something that hasn't been corrupted by these people who have done great violence to them, you know, either in the form of Catholics or Protestants. The one is Pentecostalism of Mexico, of these mexican churches correlates almost perfectly to every one of the tenets of trinitarianism. Oneness Pentecostalism is not a deviant form of theology. It's simply a highly contextualized expression of trinitarian theology. What really struck me about it is there's correspondence. There's connection between these two forces that are at odds with each other, but theirs is indigenous to their circumstances, and there's a way for us to be okay with each other. So I just love when we look nonjudgmentally at what others think and believe and try to practice, it's easier for us to find those correlations, on the one hand, the similarities, and then, I would hope, easier to respect those differences too. But I think that's hard.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Oh, totally. I'm even thinking since the beginning of Christianity, really in any religion. I think of all these councils that go on hundreds of years after Jesus death where they're trying to figure out, I mean, they're killing each other over what they want to agree on or disagree on, what books they want to keep or throw out, what ideas they have about the Holy Spirit and want to put in a creed or not. And we're still doing that in many ways. One could argue that we're still killing each other over that very thing, even if we're not, like, having sword fights in the middle of a courtroom. I don't know. That's how I always picture it. And I'm thinking, this example that you give, it's yet another example of, ironically enough, trying to crack down control, find homogeneity, find unity. I know. This is an audio podcast. I'm using air quotes.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Air quotes, yeah.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: But in that it's named highly contextualized. It's not in a vacuum. There are so many forms of Christianity and culture eclipsing and coming together in this, like, big crescendo of a doctrine that gets a new form, new form of Christianity that gets developed. It's impossible to separate ourselves from that, even in our efforts to do that.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and it's. And this is, I think, the problem with creeds, right? Like, and I don't have necessarily a problem with people having creeds. I have certainly my own creedal beliefs. The issue is when I want to impose that creed on you and say.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: This is true for you, because it's true for me and it should be true for everyone else.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Right? We can't be in communion together. We can't be in relationship together unless you come over to my side of thinking about this. Years ago, I saw there's a christian author named Richard Beck who I like, and in one of his little blog exchanges, because I've always enjoyed reading his blog, and somebody made a disparaging comment about this in his blog one day, and his pithy little comeback was, people were killed over the creeds. We prefer not to romanticize them. And that's just always stuck with me. Right? Like, so people often, you know, come here and visit or have questions about our church, the oceanside sanctuary. And oftentimes they'll say, I just don't know, like, how I feel about your church not being credal, like, not having these, like, defined boundaries of belief. And I often find myself saying to them, people were killed over the creeds. Right. We prefer not to romanticize them. Which I usually don't give Richard Beck credit for when I say it, but. But that's where I got it.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: You heard it here.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Which leads me to, I think, this second clip that I really loved from this episode.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: By more of us having the courage to say, I'm a Christian, but not that kind of Christian. It's us saying, letting people know there's options here. Not everybody is like that. And that gives not only me freedom to be true to who I am, but it, in a sense, the more it happens, it opens up freedom from.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Okay, so this, I think, is where Brian gets back around to talking about the possibilities, right. The possibilities of what might be seen as fragmentation are that within the midst of all those possibilities, when we have the courage to say to somebody, yes, I'm a Christian, but not that kind of Christian, what we're actually saying is, you know, you don't have to be constrained by whatever version of Christianity you were raised in or whatever version of Christianity you see reflected in the Simpsons on tv. Right? Like, that can be true, right? The caricature of Christianity that you see in the system or in the Simpsons, it resonates because it's true. Even though it's exaggerated, even though for a lot of Christians who might feel like it's making fun of them or satirizing them, which I would say it is. Right. It's satirizing dominant expressions of Christianity that are oppressive. Right. And so on the one hand, it can be true that the Simpsons is making fun of Christianity. On the other hand, that's not the only way to be Christian. And I love how he basically said, instead of that phrase, I'm a Christian, but not that kind of Christian, instead of it feeling like you are apologizing or like making an excuse, what you're doing is you're giving the other person this amazing gift of saying, hey, you know, there's a lot of ways to be christian, and you could not be Christian. That's obviously a choice, too. Or if there's something about Jesus or something about the tradition that's still inspiring and appealing and helpful to you, you can do it in a way that's different. There are lots of possibilities, lots of choices, and I love that. And I wonder how that's been true for you. Right. Because as I was thinking about this conversation, like, here we sit in our church, in the recording studio of our church. Like, I'm a former evangelical in a mainline denomination. You're ordained Methodist, now on staff at a disciples of Christchurch, but were raised southern Baptist, I think. Right? Like, so you embody this choice, right? This way of being. Like, I'm sure at some point in your life you were faced with the question of whether or not you should remain Christian. Like, is it okay to ask, like, absolutely. How did you end up making the choice that you've made?
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's something that I think about every day. And my husband considers himself an agnostic atheist. And so, I mean, this is just in general a really beautiful part. Or has been a really beautiful part of our relationship and growing and watching each other ask these questions and figure out what spirituality means for us and what it's going to look like in our individual lives and our lives for our. For our own family. But for me, I really have to give credit to the very people who said those things to me. They didn't say the exact words, I'm a Christian, but nothing that kind of Christian. But I remember when I went to college, I met my very first female pastor. She didn't even have to say anything. Just her existence and her doing her day in and day out job changed me because I didn't know that that was a possibility. There was something inside of me that it resonated with and was like, that's what I've been wanting to do my whole life, and I've been trying to do these different things, but there was never anywhere for me to land that made sense. And this makes so much sense. Someone like her, who. She didn't have to sit me down and say anything. She just existed. And people who continued to see that drive in me and that resonance in me and point me to different sources. I started going to a Methodist church in college, and that was really when my world cracked open in the best way. We're talking about fragmentation, mutation, hybridity here in the most beautiful way. That is an experience for me. That was so much like that. Not that that's over. I think that this is something that will be a part of the rest of my life, which I'm so excited.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Well, and you're not done.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: I'm not done. That's what I'm saying.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And so, to me, that's the bit that Brian, in this episode, didn't get to is I love the freedom in this statement. Like, when you say this phrase, I'm not a christian. I'm not that kind of Christian. You're basically giving the other person permission to be free. I love that in and of itself. Right. And I feel like, to a certain extent, like, that's our mission at a church like this or on a podcast like this, is to expose people to all of the possibilities. You know, I had a conversation recently. Two weeks ago, like, I teach. I teach a class at the local college, and two Monday nights ago, we were. I was talking with my class, and I made the offhand comment, like, this was like the first class of the semester where everybody's introducing themselves, and I often, like, will introduce myself by giving little facts about myself. And one of the facts that I shared with them is that I'm a professional Christian, which people always are, like, jolted by that. Like, what do you mean you're a professional Christian? And I was like, well, I get paid to be a Christian. You know, I'm a minister. I'm a clergy person. I'm a pastor. And, you know, I always tell people, like, you know, I'm not here to convince anybody to be a Christian, but you should know that that's part of who I am, and that's part of what I bring. And hopefully it's a good thing anyway, in the class a couple weeks ago that this doesn't usually happen, but it sparked a bunch of questions from the class about my faith and about my Christianity. And I was like, you guys, we don't have to talk about this. Like, I'm not here to talk about.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Or they just were trying to delay you getting to that.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Or they're. Yeah, they didn't want to talk about the syllabus, but it was a funny thing, because one of the students raised her hand and said, so, like, if you're a minister, like, is there training that goes into that? Is there some kind of, like, education you need or qualifications?
And I was like, well, it depends. Christianity is so big, it could run the gamut from, like, there are traditions out there where, like, all you gotta do is be a guy and a decent talker, and you're the leader.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, right.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: You're a dude, and you can talk now. You're the leader. And in other traditions, you know, you have to go to school for six to eight years in order to get a very classical education, and then you have to go through very specialized training and take, you know, psychological exams, and, like, there's a whole process involved. And I told them this thing, like, you've heard me say this. Cause it's, like, one of my favorite facts lately is that, you know, there are 10,000 religions in the world. Generally speaking, like, rough estimate, 10,000 known religions in the world, of which Christianity is only one of them, but there are 40,000 known versions of Christianity, and that just, like, blows my mind every time I think about it. There are four times as many expressions of Christianity in the world as there are religions in the world.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: I was going to say that doesn't just go for Christianity. I will never forget my Hinduism professor in college. He was telling us, it's not Hinduism. It's Hinduisms.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: And I remember coming to the realization later on and reflecting on that idea is you could really say that about any religion. Absolutely. It's not Christianity. It's Christianity.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: It's Christianity. Yes. And what the beauty of that is not just that there's choice. I mean, that alone is beautiful. Like, there's freedom for us to be whatever version of Christianity is genuinely helpful for us to live our faith in a good way. Right. But also, like, beyond that, it is constantly being formed into something new. Right. So you, a former southern Baptist kid, shows up at a college and engages with a Methodist campus group, and you go on to a Methodist graduate school and get your M div. And then you end up in a disciples of Christ congregation as a staff pastor. You're married to an atheist agnostic who often comes to church here, and he seems perfectly, like, comfortable here when he comes, but just not, like, obligated to do so, which is great. And so what occurs to me is that you are hybridizing your own way of being a Christian, and that's how, like, all this works. Like, culture is constantly, like, mutating and hybridizing and creolizing itself in a million different directions. It's why there's such amazing food in the world.
That is a good thing. It can also be a hard thing. Right. Like, and also can be a harmful thing. It can be a really difficult, even hostile or fragmenting thing. But at the same time, it also is producing really beautiful, delicious, amazing new expressions of humanity in the world. And that is fantastic. And we get to be a part of that, like, at least where Christianity is concerned. Yeah.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: I was thinking, as you were sharing just now, what a shame it would be to miss out on that.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: Absolutely.
You and Janelle, your conversation in the last episode, again, in, like, touching on inside out, made me think about, like, you know, befriending all of those emotions. And it occurred to me that, like, as we're talking about christianities, not Christianity, that there are all these versions of Christianity you could, like, have fun with asking, like, which version of Christianity would be, like joy and inside out. Like, which version of Christianity would be like sadness, which one would be like anger? Which one would be like. And that would, of course, egregiously oversimplify whatever. Like, you know, tradition or denomination we said was like anger.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Although. Although fear might be the easy one.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Fear is the easy one. Absolutely. Like, how much of Christianity is, like fear, an expression of fear? My brain wants to mash together two Pixar movies. Right. Like, inside out and ratatouille. Right. And, like, ask, how can those versions be, like, put together to taste better?
[00:26:37] Speaker B: The grape and the cheese.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Like, he gets hit by the bolt of lightning, and then it's like his brain explodes with delight. Right? I think emotions work that way, too, right? Like, oftentimes what we experience is something good, even if it's bad, hard, or painful, is like, the bringing together different flavors of ourselves and to experience something new, just, like, taste, just like food. And I think about Christianity the same way, like, bringing together different ways of thinking about God and being in the world and following Christ. If we're christian, it's like creating a new dish. It's like being a chef. And so that's where, like, for me, like, the idea of mutation or hybridity or creolization, like, goes. Like, we're all doing that whether we know it or not. So why not give people the freedom to say, yeah, this is what we're doing. This is actually how it's supposed to work. Christianity gets appropriated by every individual, every group, every culture that comes into contact with it. And then if there is something useful about it, they make it their own.
And that's true all over the world. You know? It's true literally in every culture. And I think that's a good thing. And I think what's hard about this, right? Maybe to, like, circle back on Brian's comments about fragmentation and hostility, just to acknowledge that that's real, because I don't want this. I don't want to give the impression that, you know, I'm just, like, idealistic about difference. You know, like, there's real conflict in difference. I think the other thing that helps me in thinking about this as hybridity or mutation or creolizing the faith or even, like, bringing it back to, like, ratatouille, is. Is that not everything tastes great together. Like, some ingredients go really beautifully together, and others just really clash and don't work, and that's okay.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: And some people have. People have different palates. Some people are like, ugh, I don't like blue cheese. And you might be like, oh, that's my favorite.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: And some people have, like, different tolerances for their own emotions or their own range of being in the world, different tolerances for other people's differences. And that's okay, too. Like, I think adopting this approach of being free to live out your faith and allowing others the freedom to live out their faith doesn't mean you have to do it the way that they do or they have to do it the way that you do it doesn't mean you have to be in close relationships. It just means we have to get past the idea that somehow there's only one right way to do it. And it's my way. Right. And it's okay to say, some versions of the faith maybe don't taste so great together. And so we don't hang out with them a lot, but we don't say that they can't be the way that they are. And then the rub enters, like, well, what happens if the way that they are is harmful?
[00:29:32] Speaker B: That was my next question.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that there is just the truth that, like, Christianity is a. Just like everything else, Christianity is a contested tradition.
Right. There is a conflictive plurality about Christianity. We see it in the Bible.
The Bible represents, like, conflictive views about God and how to be. And again, I think that's beautiful. Right. It creates space for different ways of being and thinking, but it also acknowledges that those different ways of thinking and being in the world in relationship to God or faith or politics or anything are going to create disagreements.
The trick is for us to, like, not kill each other over those disagreements.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Now, how do we do that?
[00:30:21] Speaker A: I don't know. That feels like another episode.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Yeah, another episode.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: But I just love this idea that if we are attentive to those intersections of difference, that beyond freedom, there's also this possibility for creativity, for making something new, for helping to, like, birth something new. And I think we're so afraid of that, and I just don't think we have to be.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say back to fear and interrogating it with openness and curiosity.
Some questions to consider.
How could you experience faith as a more liberating part of your life?
How has your faith been hybridized in new ways throughout your life?
Have you ever found yourself saying, I'm a Christian, but not that kind of Christian? How have you experienced explained that, if at all?
And finally, how can your faith help you navigate the tension between giving others the freedom to be different while also allowing you to take a stand on issues that you care about.
Thank you so much for listening. The collective table is a progressive and affirming christian platform and a production of the Oceanside Sanctuary Church, a church community committed to inclusive, inspiring, and impactful christian spirituality. We are rooted in the love, peace, and justice of Christ. Check our show notes to find out more about our website and where you can follow us on social media.
And finally, we would love to hear from you, so send us an email at
[email protected], or leave us a voicemail at 760-722-8522 and you might be featured on a future episode. We can't wait to hear from you, and we'll see you soon.
