Responding to Deconstruction

Those who are just deconstructing and listening, let me know.

I would imagine it's a really emotionally exhausting experience to deconstruct.

Takes a lot out of you intellectually, emotionally.

Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke.

And I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast where we have uncut and honest conversations about faith,

life, and ministry.

Today we are not in our normal recording studio. Not an astute observer would notice actually we've just green-screened,

today Yeah, we green-screened this fantastic back window window,

Behind us. No, where are we actually? I don't know. Where are we? I just followed the GPS directions. You gave me,

Geographically speaking. I'm not gonna let anyone know our location. Oh, that's smart given how many views we got on our last episode

We're getting pretty famous. Oh, yeah,

271 whole views No, so this this week we are we took a little retreat,

We rented a cabin out in the in the grease the great wilderness Have a nice stream

That we're sitting by and we're just spending this week in,

preparation sermon prep and planning and praying.

For Next year 2024. Yep. So if you go to conduit if you go to our church and you wonder how we,

You know like Maybe decide what we're gonna preach on or what the church calendar is gonna be or like,

If we just kind of pull things out of a hat and do them randomly, I would say that we're,

Maybe a notch or two above complete randomness We're not we don't have like expert level,

Intentionality or expert level planning, but I will say that we are trying to get better,

every year at creating more long-range plans and goals. And so we planned the whole sermon calendar for 2024. So-

We did. We tentatively know,

kind of what we're going to be preaching every Sunday.

Yeah. At least the general series.

Yeah. Not what the individual message is going to be. Right. I think we have one Sunday that we didn't plan and it's the last Sunday of the year.

Correct. Yeah, we got to that point. We were too tired to do anything else but we did want to come back onto the podcast and,

Talk a little bit about,

Well, we wanted to be able to release an episode on Monday but we also wanted to,

Talk about actually our last podcast episode. Yeah,

follow up from last week and kind of that conversation,

generated a lot of I guess not a lot of but more than normal Comments on the YouTube video and some good discussion and some thoughts down there and we thought those were definitely worth,

Talking about yeah, so if you don't listen on YouTube or you don't watch the podcast on the YouTube

You might benefit from going to the YouTube the YouTube I meant the episode on the YouTube the YouTube episode. How about that?

If you don't listen on the Internet's Pop over to YouTube and hit the podcast the uncut podcast channel and,

Look at some of the comments underneath the video from last week because they,

were I Will say this,

We've been talking a lot about deconstruction lately it seems to be a really.

Interesting topic for both of us. Yeah But in the space, in the online space of deconstruction.

Deconstructing your faith,

the dialogue can be really disgusting.

Like really bad on both sides. Christians who are interacting with those

have deconstructed, or I should say not just Christians, people, and then people interacting

with people who haven't deconstructed.

And,

And a lot of times those conversations just get really really ugly. Yeah,

um but what I will say is that Although I don't agree with everything that has been written in the comments specifically of this last video,

I think the tenor Of the conversation was excellent. Yeah, and I really appreciated it

And so if you're if you happen to find your way back to this episode

Mm-hmm after commenting on our last one. I wanted to say thank you. Thanks for your good comments,

Thanks for your interaction a lot of good things to talk about and in respond to we're gonna try and get to some of them,

today and Yeah, I feel I feel I,

Feel honored that people would interact in a yeah a nice way about it Yeah, I and I the thing I thought that resonated with me is like you,

You you know, not everyone who comments on a YouTube video or comments on a particularly a long YouTube video like ours

Like listen to the whole thing and I did get the sense that most people really did listen to it

Yeah, and you know, and so that's you know,

Thank you. Yeah, so yep.

So there were several different types of responses or comments to the video and,

I think Some of the questions or concerns that people had about some of the things that we said, I think were valid,

and So it might be important I think it is important to address some of those as it pertains to deconstruction and the reasons why,

people deconstruct mm-hmm because I Think what was the I think what people understood us as saying whether or not we were actually saying that is,

that,

People there's two there's two reasons that people,

Accused us of believing that people deconstruct one was about like.

What would be apparent fringe Fringe theological beliefs like really really obscure. Yes, because we did lat

We did admittedly talk about some pretty obscure biblical interpretation. We did we did so,

So I want to address that.

I want to address fringe theological beliefs as the basis for deconstructing.

There was some other comments about how we may have leaned a little bit too hard on the

angle of the church hurt me therefore I deconstructed and I will admittedly say that you know

Yes, I do think that that is often a reason that people deconstruct. Yeah, it's from some emotional hurt,

But it's fair to say and as I talk with more people who have who or who are,

Deconstructing I'm becoming I am I'm learning that.

While it usually is a part of someone's story. Mm-hmm It's almost never the whole thing. Yeah, I think the other reason that we were kind of at least our,

Our focus in that episode was somewhat in that direction,

was We had just we were just talking about an account on right online I'm gonna check that account real quick. Yeah, there there is there's a,

Local account that's exposing a christian institution uh in our area over some.

Really just abuse uh, some pretty awful things, um Including like the the nephilim,

Mm-hmm. Was it enough? Yeah, it was the Nephilim thing. So like we actually, you know, we did pull that from like,

somebody locally taught that And some people, you know sat underneath that teaching and it's and it's harmful implications and all of that. So,

So that was a little bit of what colored our direction a little bit is because we were in part off,

Even though we didn't talk about it on camera. I don't think we were responding specifically to an account,

that was in our local area addressing some spiritual abuse and things like that, and just actual abuse.

Yes, yeah. So yeah, I don't actually believe or think that people are walking around deconstructing

their long-held Christian belief or faith or whatever

because they can't get behind a theological belief about the Nephilim or some idiot somewhere,

talked about the mark of Cain being dark colored skin and like right.

Think even it does happen. It does happen. But admittedly, it's but it's very it's more friend

I don't know that it's ever been like oh,

That's the reason I'm deconstructing. Yeah, suppose I'm wrong, but I could be wrong, but,

Like those fringe believe so it's the fringe theological beliefs,

We don't believe that they are like the at least I don't believe that they're like the main reason that people do I think they?

Contribute They can contribute But even there, I don't think that it's actually the belief system,

I wonder if it's that the actual belief system that people,

deconstruct from in that way or if it's the spirit behind which,

That thing is taught Or that thing is believed by the person that's like how a gating it like how could somebody who holds my belief system?

Also believe that particular thing,

Or are you saying like,

The hate like I don't know make help me understand your point a little bit I,

think that there is a I.

Think that there is a spirit that comes out of a lot of those fringe

theological interpretations that is, that does not have, that it's very difficult

to find any evidence of the love of God in?

Yeah.

You know? And so... Well, even in some non-fringe...

And even in some non-fringe, of course, yes. Non-fringe and biblical interpretations, there are camps of the church that certainly,

don't demonstrate the love of God. And we talked about this, I feel like we've talked about this a

lot this year on the podcast and often just in ministry in general, of this really unhelpful,

way that Christians have kind of identified what it means to be a.

Like mature believer this idea of like I just need to know things. Mm-hmm. I need to know more theology

I need to be able to read the Bible. I should be able to teach the Bible and if I can do those things Then I'm mature,

when Really like the biggest mark for maturity that Christ and the Bible in the New Testament gives over and over again is love

We will not be known not by how much theology we know but by how we love yeah

We won't be known by our view of what the Nephilim is or whether or not,

Mentally and physically handicapped people now are Nephilim right we will be known by,

When I interact with this person do they?

Like do they know that I love them right is my is love being expressed right and incarnated in my interaction with them.

Yeah. And so, the thing that unfortunately, I think, happens in some church cultures and churches

and organizations is we put people up who have teaching...

You know, gifts, or like, are really good at teaching, or at least seem to know a lot,

but don't demonstrate a maturity in love that they perhaps should. And so you've, you know,

and you can see this in, you know, lots of people, you know, a less fringe theological

thing that a lot of people wrestle with is like, biblical teaching on gender, and gender roles,

and complementarianism is not, at least I don't think it's fringe, and so, but there are some

expressions of complementarianism in church and home life that definitely lack love, right?

And to a point at which I don't think they're complementarian anymore, I think they're,

something else, but they would call themselves and the world, it would be called complementarianism,

I would just say that's just abuse.

12.20 Yeah, it's just a veiled form of authoritarianism. 12.21 Yeah.

So, yeah, is that what, so you're saying just kind of like there's this absence of the love of Christ, and if that was there, that would make a difference?

12.25 I think so, because we could normally, I think even agnostics and even some atheists

are not necessarily hostile to a Christian's belief even in the

supernatural. Believe what you want, bro.

You know believe what you want I think what they react strongly against is the is the um form of,

um spiritual or just any type of superiority the spirit of superiority the spirit of judgment,

The spirit of hate even in some cases that comes from the person that holds these,

what they consider to be deeply held Christian convictions. And so I think much of.

The disagreement that those who have deconstructed or those who are just abjectly agnostic or atheist,

have with those who still attest to or hold to the Christian faith is not necessarily that,

hey, you're an idiot for believing these things.

Yeah.

But it's more of like, the way in which you believe them has preached them to me as being not,

could not possibly be true, or at least not something that I want to be a part of.

And so I think that's a growing edge of understanding for me.

Because a lot of those who I've been interacting with, like in their deconstruction in the last few weeks

and months, are like, you really don't understand. I didn't deconstruct to get away from Jesus.

Like, I deconstructed to get closer to Jesus. Now granted, it was a Jesus of a,

it was what they would consider to be a fresh interpretation of Jesus,

not the Jesus of evangelicalism.

Right. Not the Jesus of conservatism, not even in some cases, the Jesus of progressive liberalism, just some other Jesus. Which...

Would say has its problems But I also understand it. I I,

Want I want to follow the Jesus that is free of the labels and biases that we have in the world now Yeah, who doesn't?

But I think it is I think what ends up happening a little bit is that the baby gets kind of thrown out with the bath

water, yeah, and we begin to We begin to discount or just completely throw away,

Maybe things that strike against modern sensibility or cultural sensibilities.

Saying that well this can't possibly be true or this this belief must be it must be a product of

of toxic evangelicalism,

because it really, really, really seems to be ugly,

or makes me uncomfortable or doesn't, what I'm learning here,

some of the things I wanna talk about here, or is not conducive or not representative

Conducive or not conducive or like not representative of what like the reality of the world that we can see

Actually is yeah. Mm-hmm. That was a reoccurring theme at least in the comments that we had. Yes,

So, I mean, maybe this is maybe this is an unhelpful now And this is the analogy at least that immediately comes to my mind is we as pastors

We have a lot of people in our church who are.

Ex-catholic,

And in some… As much as anyone can be ex-Catholic, I don't know.

Yeah, as much as anyone can be ex-Catholic, yeah.

Well, but that's… They grew up in the Catholic Church. Grew up in the Catholic Church. And what we find, and I think has been like a generational

thing, not unique to our ministry in particular, but what I've found is that like, people who've

grown up in the Catholic Church, left the Catholic Church and came to non-denominational

evangelicalism, sometimes have a little bit of, like, fright or scared of, or scared of,

like, things that are seemingly Catholic.

Catholic, yeah.

And... I don't do that. It's too Catholic. It's too Catholic. It's, you know, and what happens is we end up rejecting a caricature,

of Catholicism, and we end up throwing away some things that are really treasures of the church,

but for some reason we feel like, well, that's just gotta be wrong because of

maybe the way I experienced it in an unhealthy Catholic way, or some Catholic priest explained

it to me this way, even if that priest wasn't representative of accurate or good Catholic

theology, you know, so I guess it's kind of a, it's a somewhat niche analogy because,

you know, not everyone's going to quite see what I'm saying there. But it's, it's,

do you see the way, see what I was trying to do there?

Yeah, yeah. So one of these things that I would like to, one of the things, the questions that I would like to look at, or one of the statements I would like

I'd like to look at. I kind of have it in a bunch of different places here, so I, you know, like, maybe try and give me a second to put it together, but...

There's a so there's a few there was a few comments one is that This comment was made is that your your beliefs aren't?

Aren't he was talking about I think like the a lot of people reacted against,

a Lot of people reacted against the discussion about like choosing your belief and.

I think Yeah, like choosing it because we believe it's true. Yes, or yeah choosing rather than just reacting to what is true, right? or right and,

And so this one guy said that your your beliefs aren't necessarily less strange than then the guy that,

Has his own beliefs that are different you're just used to your beliefs. So they're not they're not strange to you,

Yeah, right. So And and so that brings up like well, have you ever is there any,

Spiritual or intellectual honesty with your beliefs. Are you willing to be wrong?

Mm-hmm. Are you willing to? Are you willing to acknowledge?

That any of the beliefs that you have Could be wrong. Yeah, because I said in the last episode

obviously I believe that the things that I believe are true.

Otherwise I wouldn't believe them. But are you willing to acknowledge

that the things that you hold as true could be wrong?

That's a little bit of a philosophical statement. Because, you know, am I willing to acknowledge,

that the things that I believe are true could be false?

Well, I mean, I think you would have to assume.

Think that that makes the assumption that I have not examined the things that I believe and,

Have already at least in whatever way is comfortable or reasonable for me,

Have determined that any objection to the beliefs that I have,

are That I just like that I just haven't I've put my horse blinders on and I've said okay

Okay, no, this is what conservative evangelicalism tells me to believe, and I'm not going to look

at any of the periphery evidence, and I'm just gonna believe the thing

that I want to believe without being like,

oh, I'm gonna look over here to see what this is.

And I'm gonna look over here to see what this is.

Okay, I examine that, okay, I examine this, I examine this, I examine this.

Okay, what do I, what am I gonna believe?

What do I believe now?

Okay, I believe this.

I think it, like.

I can't speak for the way in which all people develop their belief. Yeah.

But I can say with a fairly large degree of certainty that the beliefs that I hold are not untested.

Mm-hmm. They are not unconsidered, right?

They are not held ignorantly or in a sense of either theological or cultural naivete. Mm-hmm. I,

I have cultural competence,

I'm not disconnected from the culture that I live in and the world I live in and the reality that we see,

Yep, not culturally ignorant,

But I've chosen the things that I've chosen after I've chosen to leave the things that I believe

after a period of like pretty significant examination of those beliefs over the course of all of my adult life

and part of my adolescent life.

And in fact, in some ways, and you wouldn't, like most people who don't go to seminary won't know this.

And this might not be true in every seminary, but it was true in a lot of my classes,

is that your high seminary professors, and some of my other post-grad,

both pre-graduate work and post-graduate work would intentionally and actively like.

Would give us material that was the complete opposite direction of the faith tradition

that we had come from, forcing us to engage with it in such significant ways that it became,

an uncomfortable exercise to have it confront our long-held belief. And then we had to sort out.

What we actually believed in the face of what was a compelling argument for the other side.

Yeah, and virtually with every theological system and belief that we hold that was the task of seminary.

It wasn't to say, this is what you must believe and this is how you must teach it and this

is how you must lead.

It's like, okay, here are four books on human sexuality from four completely different perspectives,

progressive, liberal, conservative, evangelical, Orthodox, Western, Eastern, whatever the case

may be. Figure it out.

Them all and respond. And so I do think that the deconstruction crowd has painted a caricature,

of the evangelical crowd that says they are so blind in their belief that they are unwilling

to, that they are unwilling to examine other viewpoints.

Now, I've met people that are unwilling to examine other viewpoints.

I accept and receive that they are out there.

They exist. They do exist, right?

However.

I think Not everyone who holds our beliefs Also has never examined them exactly. There are those who have examined and said nope. This is this is it

That was one of the thing I haven't had this conversation in a while, but it's a conversation

I had multiple times and usually was someone who was,

Not a believer and it was usually the question of like well Did you grow up in the church?

And that was always there. That was their easy way of explaining saying what will you grew up in the church?

Therefore that's what you believe so like you can't make any truth claim on it because you having been brought up in it somehow nullifies your,

Wrestling with it and you know And then I was true for its truth and I would usually share my story with them and they were like, oh

So like you haven't always thought this I was like no at one point I thought there was no God like that was a point in my life where I was an atheist

I was quiet atheist because,

To out myself would have outed myself from like my family and all the stuff that I was around,

But like yeah, I thought Christians were full of a bunch of,

doo-doo.

But Yeah, I didn't think Christians were very good. I didn't like Christians very much. I thought they were a bunch of emotionalists, too

Yeah, I thought like it was a lot of emotional hype and that's still a critique that Christians

get a lot of times and not unfairly sometimes. But I do think, to kind of get back directly to

your point, I do, like, I resonate with that, but I also like, there is like a little bit of validity

in that like, I'm not a scientist.

Like a scientist creates a scientific theory and the scientist then has to say like,

well, this is my theory, right?

And point of a scientific theory is it's supposed to be tested, retested

until it is like driven down into the ground.

It's either proven false or it's been proven right so many times that people just give up

I'm trying to prove it false right there's,

and That's you know that takes scientific intellectual honesty and impartiality to do,

I like I'm honest if I'm honest myself like wow I'm certainly open to.

Having honest conversations confronting different beliefs Have done serious seasons of that in my life in the past

have wrestled with things, willing to do that potentially again in the future, I'm,

not willing to live my life in a constant test tube of constantly saying hmm I don't know.

Like maybe this is true. Maybe this is like I'm not willing like it's just not how I want to I don't think I don't think,

Most people can live their life that way,

I think one of the things that like I don't know those who are just deconstructing and listening. Let me know,

But I would imagine it's a really,

Emotionally exhausting experience to deconstruct takes a lot out of you intellectually emotionally

And so there is at some point where I kind of have to like,

set this aside and,

Say I'm I'm not going to continue to.

To search out those arguments necessarily or I'm going to continually Re-examine every aspect of my faith all the time because I simply just don't have the capacity to it

I part of me wants to live my life underneath, in faith, underneath that. And that's, I think, one of the things that,

came out in some of the comments is... I was just gonna say, like, one of the

comments essentially directly, directly challenges that viewpoint. Yes. It says, if,

you are wrong, do you want to know it?

I mean kind of yes kind of no um

Like I mean, I guess like do I want what I would rat would I rather know the truth than knowingly not know the truth?

Like Yes, I would rather know the truth. Mm-hmm but there also is a point and this is you know, and this is why i'm,

I think you probably fall in this camp a little bit But I know I fall into this camp and this makes having some of these conversations kind of weird for me

is because I'm not like a.

Classical or evidentialist apology apologist by nature so for those who don't know what that means like,

Traditional defenses of the faith like I think have importance you should know them like, you know,

understanding why we believe what we believe the site like the evidence of the world around us that seems to indicate that the

Philosophical arguments that support that but at the end of the day the way I live most of my life is not in those camps

Which is where I'll dip my toe into them and come in and out of them,

But where I live most of my life is in a Fideist camp. Yep, which by that is faith. Yep,

it's a it's the kind of an acknowledgement of that like my lived experience and,

the way that the world From the view from which I am able to take it in,

Seems to line up with and my own personal experiences with God are,

the Testament to me that I have found God and that I'm following after him. Yep,

and so to the listener who is intellectually got,

objections to the Bible to some of my personal convictions That's not a very compelling argument. Not to me at least to me. It's not right you it's not right and so I,

Acknowledge that like but there is a point was it?

So one of the commenters mentioned him, um, Aquinas Aquinas, was it Aquinas that said?

Faith is Or faith seeking understanding faith seeking understanding. Yes,

Which is this idea of we don't like like there is a point at which Faith is required to have faith,

For pretty much and there's also you know, there's a this required to have understanding faith is required to have understanding

understanding, and faith is required for pretty much anything, right? We could go down Descartes,

like you know, find the one unmovable truth and then move from there, right? He, in a

sense, deconstructed everything, including sensory perception, saying you cannot trust

it and came to the truth. I am, right? Or I think, therefore I am. You know, the one

Thing he could not doubt was that his own consciousness existed and that's a,

Unsustainable place to live in life now granted. He built it back up and went other places from that place, but,

There is a point at which we have to trust that like I actually am sitting in a chair

And not deny that this is maybe part of the matrix or something like that,

blue pill, baby.

Yeah, that's good, that's all good thoughts so So, okay, I want to move on to something

that's maybe semi-connected, but still a little bit different is,

the response in many of the comments is a, what I would term,

and I don't mean this pejoratively,

but what I would term as a,

like a people are often deconstructing, And one of the reasons they're deconstructing

is because of a sense of like anti-supernaturalism in the reality of the world that we live in.

Yeah, it is somewhat connected to what we were just talking.

You know, it is apologetic, essentially. Someone asked about miracles, I think.

Yeah, you know, he said essentially that there's a huge disconnect

between what they see in the pages of scripture and reality.

Yeah. You know, in the pages of scripture, they see things like donkeys talking

and man walking on water and water turning into wine.

But it seems like the best that God can do now is send someone's cancer into remission.

So what then, how can we possibly take the Bible seriously.

In relationship to the reality of the world that we see? Yep.

And I,

I, let's hold that for a second. We're holding it, and then we're going to a second comment

or an additional comment that talks about the,

and I think they were asking an honest question about either what we thought about it,

or what Christians in general think about essentially the authority of scripture,

which for most Christians is the basis upon which we build our belief.

Yeah. Right?

And ask this question, am I wrong in saying that by faith the Christian is trusting Paul's claim

in 2 Timothy 3.16 that essentially says the Bible is true because the Bible says it's true?

Yeah.

Basically, are we just taking Paul's word for it? That was the crux of the comment there.

And we've actually addressed this quite a few times, somewhat on the podcast, all the way back,

even like the first or second episode of the podcast, about what is scripture and what is authority.

We've also taught, not that anyone out there would know this unless they were part of our church,

but we've also taught whole classes at the church and what the Bible is and what the Bible is not.

And while we probably don't have the space in this week's podcast to rehash many of those arguments.

You know, I think that there is a,

I'm continually convinced that there is a,

not only is there a biblical illiteracy in the church among Christians, but there is a biblical illiteracy,

even from the stance of like a prolegomena about the Bible outside of the church,

and what it actually is and what it actually isn't because a caricature has, again,

a caricature has been built about

what the evangelical thinks the Bible is.

And so they attack the caricature rather than what really is the history,

of both biblical interpretation and the development of the canon and all of that.

So I guess, Um,

How would you begin maybe in the time that we have to respond to like some of those.

Some of those comments I mean, I guess like I would just continue to say a little bit of what I was already saying in that,

If you were looking for something Where zero faith is required?

You probably just shouldn't believe anything.

Like, I don't know, like, right, if you, well, I mean, this is kind of a back and forth, right?

You.

Like, people have been arguing philosophically about proving God or disproving God. And the

thing is, is that neither side is necessarily definitively one, right? Or at least, if we were

to talk from like a, not from our perspective, but from a large perspective. And, you know,

And the burden is not only on us to prove that God exists.

There's also a burden on the opposite end is… Trevor Burrus Prove that he doesn't.

Aaron Powell Prove that he doesn't, right? I guess like, and this is something that I do think unfortunately gets kind of not talked

about when people are making arguments for the Bible, arguments for Christian faith,

Because it is tempting as a teacher or as someone who's making the argumentation for

Christ, for the Bible, to gloss over the places where faith is required.

Like I do think that there is a point at which we do have to take in faith that what Paul,

says is true and you know with our own experience find it also to be true so I

guess like in an apps in an absolute way to some of that question is like,

somewhat yeah you you do have to at some point you know trust take faith,

Don't know. Do you agree with that? I mean, yeah, I do agree with it there comes to it there comes,

You know you you you walk a path far enough and you come to a point where the next step that you have to take

Must be a step of faith. Yes

But I don't think that necessarily that means that every step that you take on that path is one of faith

Yeah, I think that there are like,

there are,

Let's see what I think that he this one commenter was essentially asking was like is the does does it require?

That we just trust that the Bible says it's true. So therefore it is true or.

Which I don't believe I don't believe that we would just take Paul's words in 2nd Timothy,

Chapter 3 and be like well you see right here in these pages. It says trust this whole thing

thing right otherwise we would believe every movie that says based on a true

story or found footage and we'd believe like you know you know it's ever movie

well it becomes a it becomes obviously a logical fallacy of circle circular

reasoning yeah but it also ignores what the actual history of the development of

the canon is and and what the Bible actually is versus what it is actually not you know and and like what you know there was one comment towards the end

about like you know no serious you know no serious geologist no serious scientist or whatever believes that you know Noah's Flood actually happened

Mm-hmm right okay, and and there there are lots of really,

There are lots of people who have given their lives to you know to make those arguments from an apologetic standpoint

And I'm I'm not an expert in them, and so I don't intend to make them But I I do consider myself,

An expert in scripture and in like the history of scripture and what and what I would say is that like.

What I would say is that like there and we said this a little bit in our last episode is that there is

is we can't ignore things like genre.

We can't ignore things like literary context. We can't ignore things like historical context.

We can't just rip the Bible out of the context in which it was written, superimpose a 21st century

postmodern reality onto it and expect that we're gonna have alignment between all of those things

because they're not the same.

And the way in which we look at a text, a group of words on a page or a book,

is so incredibly different than the way someone in Sumeria looked at it,

the way someone in the ancient Near East looked at it, the way in which they saw literature back then,

the reason in which they were writing, right?

Or the purpose for which they were writing.

So like to say, to say, oh, like, Well, the Bible says, hey, just trust me, bro.

So then I guess we just gotta trust it. And I just can't, I just can't like get behind

that level of like, that level of,

like.

That methodology, I agree, I wouldn't get behind it either. But I don't think you have to get behind it

in order to be like, no, I believe the Bible is reliable, I believe that it is an accurate account.

Of the things that happened in Jesus' life, that there were eyewitnesses to the life

of this man Jesus in the first century,

both Jewish and non, who wrote accounts of his life from their perspective, and while there are some differences

in the details that they account,

there are not large-scale contradictions in the general thrust of his life and movement

that's recounted in the gospel.

And then we have this history of the church being, of his followers being like a group,

a larger group of his followers being developed and getting to this point where now letters

are being shared between different communities and leaders in those communities to different communities.

And as these things are being coalesced over time, and we're not talking a long period of time,

we're talking about a time period of like 60 to 70 years

between like the end of Jesus's life and the last essentially book in the New Testament was written.

And so we're talking about within a generation, Right.

These texts were being, were kind of starting to bubble towards the top.

And like I've said, I've used this analogy so many times in my teaching and in classes and in preaching that,

you know, the community of people.

At that time, who were gathering around the truth or their own experiences with Jesus,

and then were integrated into the Christian community that we see in like the Pauline letters,

had first-hand knowledge, first-hand experience of what was happening.

And so they actively went about,

Stomping down. I'll use that term. However violent it may seem stomping down snuffing out,

delegitimizing accounts written accounts oral accounts That did not faithfully represent,

the actual Experience of the commute the lived community that was there that was there to experience

Similar to a way that if we have a had a love like when I die If someone were to write a biography of my life that was just so far-fetched and like didn't happen

I would expect that those who knew me and were part of my life would be like,

Immediately go to the press essentially with like a this is not true,

Do not like we were there. We saw it. We know him. We like it was part of our life and so.

And that's essentially what happened in the Christian community in the development,

at least of the New Testament. Now, I anticipate that there's going to be a thousand comments,

about that in the next video about how, well, like, what about this? What about this? And

understand, like, my gosh, in a 50 to 60 minute… Yeah, I think we took, like, I don't know,

Several weeks of hour and a half long teachings to talk about some of this stuff and we didn't even scratch the surface. Yeah,

like, you know, of course, we can't hit every single nuance to the,

Building of the christian canon like oh, what about constantine?

They got all these white men in a room and they all decided what was going to be true. Yeah, that's like a wildly simplistic understanding of those councils

Council of Nicaea, Council of Constantinople, Council of Trent, or the Council of Trent,

like, wildly simplistic.

There are volumes of, there are volumes written on those historical councils,

by non-Christians that are much more clear.

About what happened and what didn't happen in those. But anyway, so yeah, understand that we're not gonna be able

to hit every single nuance, but.

But there are reasons to trust the Bible as reliable. There are reasons to trust it historically as reliable,

not simply as or exclusively as a matter of,

I just am choosing to believe this by faith.

Right, yeah, I agree. So I do I do think I will I will acknowledge that I do think that the caricature of,

like the Christian who is,

kind of just I Don't know kind of a uses the Bible as a bit of a hammer like it does exist

I think I think it's oh my gosh. Yeah hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think I,

Think our generation of pastors. I think we're becoming more,

I don't know. Maybe that's just too simplistic to say, but there is a growing group of people who are evangelical in faith,

but also are willing to understand genre and maybe not take things as.

Bluntly or as kind of like, I don't know I don't blindly blindly or as kind of simplistically right of just kind of saying like well

Like that's what it says and it doesn't matter that this is a poem, you know.

Right, right, you know, uh-huh, you know, that's why you do man. We're gonna get flagged,

That's why like there are like an amount of flat earthers who are Christian is because they take very, very, very seriously Genesis.

And if you read Genesis, it kind of describes a flat earth because that's what ancient Middle East people thought.

And so, you know, it talks about the pillars and the firmament and all of that stuff.

And so there are some people who. But it's also extraordinarily poetic language.

Yes. They weren't writing with a 21st century scientific theory mind right,

Mean you say that but there are people out there who don't right and land in flat earth land,

Oh my gosh, how could you be so dumb?

Trust me. I Met some of them Like no Jeepers. How did you get in here? Um, but anyways

But then what do you say I guess like maybe this is I know we're running up on the upper end of our of our time

but That's kind of talking about scripture. What do you would say? I don't want to leave miracles unaddressed. Mm-hmm. What do you say about miracles?

What I would say is that.

All right, well I would say two things one I would say that they're,

It depends on who I'm talking to okay.

And since we're we're talking about this in the context of Those who well, I don't maybe it's not completely fair,

But it's hard to talk to people who aren't here right well. Yeah it,

You know I think that,

if you were to sit down with someone and you were to say okay let's start at the

boat the most basic level of belief do you believe that there is a Christian

God and talking about Jewish God I talk about Muslim God talking about Hindu God

do you believe that there is a God,

The answer is yes, right which I think for a strong majority of people the answer is,

yes, right or a,

Or maybe or at the or maybe right? Okay, so you will even take that Say say, okay,

if There was a God. Mm-hmm.

Can we come to a place of agreement that he would be, God would be able to, willing to, and somewhat regularly have

the power to defy what we can see as the laws of nature in order to essentially,

insert a miraculous event into life. Yeah, essentially if you acknowledge the potentiality of God existing, do not view by that nature,

except at least the basic premise because he wouldn't be God if he he wasn't able to do something miraculous.

And so the question is not so much on, do or do not miracles exist or happen,

it's more of does God exist?

If you think God could even potentially exist, you need to at least be willing to accept

that there could be miracles.

Because if someone say, no, I completely and categorically deny

that anything could, that there is any God whatsoever.

I was like, okay, well, I mean, we're wasting our time talking about whether miracles exist or not,

because there's no outside basis for which the laws of nature could be flipped.

Right. But if you acknowledge that there could be a God. Then I think it's a,

it doesn't take a huge philosophical leap or even logical belief beyond even the agnostic belief

of maybe potentiality of God,

that that God would have the power,

to defy the natural laws, natural laws, which I think that's all the miracle really is.

It's like the reversing of the flipping of what we see as natural and observable law.

And so it is like I guess I would I don't know There's probably to take it another step further would be to say like, you know, why don't you know?

Well, why then don't we see miracles just all over the place Cameron?

Part of the answer is that well, they wouldn't be miracles then. Um, right, they'd be normal,

yeah, and the other thing too is that like, you know, when we read the Bible we're reading a,

condensing of history, human experience, and God intervening.

Actually in a pretty small chunk of the history of humanity. Right.

And so, you know, yes, God is on every page because it's the Bible.

But I don't mean to be disrespectful, but that's, you know, like, yeah,

there's gonna be miracles in here.

And, you know, in your span of life, even if you say you lived in the Bible, right?

In your span of life, how much miracle would you see?

Probably very little. Right. Very, very little. To us, reading it from our vantage point,

it seems like, oh my gosh, there was just always this, always these massive things.

And while there certainly are big miracles in the Bible, absolutely, I don't think it's quite fair to say

that it's like, just, you know.

That- Everywhere, all the time. Yes.

Everyone. Right. And God does absolutely, like inside the Bible,

God does seem to change how, when, and what kind of miracles he does.

Like there's, you know, the other thing too, is if you acknowledge there's a God,

you acknowledge that he's free to do things how he wants to.

He doesn't have to fit into my categories. So, because God behaved one way at one point in time,

and he saw that fit, does not necessarily mean that he sees fit to continue

to do anything under my presumption.

I'd agree with that. Yeah. Last, the last comment I want to talk about,

Yeah.

Because I do think it offers for you and I in our conversations around deconstruction,

a little bit of a corrective. And I think this is, this is a really fair statement.

Is he says, because he was talking about how we may have, we may in some of our comments,

lean a little bit heavy to the side of like, who hurt you that you deconstructed?

And he said, the harm done acts as a jumping off point, an emotional impetus to start looking at belief.

It's not the harm that necessarily causes the deconstruction, it may be the springboard,

the emotional impetus needed in order to start examining belief.

I think that's a really fair and good statement,

and accurate and one that, as we're talking about deconstruction and kind of examining it ourselves,

that we shouldn't overlook. Yeah.

And I also think, who hurt you? Yeah. Who hurt you? Yeah.

Maybe tongue in cheek a little bit, but I still do think that personal hurt causes a lot of...

Well, as pastors, right? Like we, I would say particularly in our gifting set,

the things that you and I are particularly good at and called to do as pastors,

like I think the two of us are,

if I were to say like the two areas that we thrive in would be teaching the Bible and shepherding

or like pastoral care and counseling.

And we've sat in the room with enough people to know that if I were to sit down, I know this.

If I sit down with someone and they say, Pastor Luke, like, you know,

a lot of times the way I say it's like, what brings you in today?

You know, if they've like set up a meeting with me. And rarely is the thing the thing.

Almost never it's almost never the thing. There's almost always something else

And so I don't say that to be patronizing I don't mean that to dismiss the honest intellectual wrestling of people who are deconstructing. I,

absolutely understand that I Also have just done enough work with my own self and with other people to know that

the.

Hurt you've experienced even if it was the starting point and it is now morphed into some intellectual,

Honesty and wrestling. I would also say I would push back a little bit and say,

Can you be emotionally honest and admit that that hurt?

While is not the sum total of your deconstruction is perhaps playing a bigger role even now than maybe you

intellectually would like to acknowledge. So when you say, tongue-in-cheek, I get it.

Like, I never want to hear someone's deconstruction story. Like, oh, that's nice. Someone must

have hurt you. Like, and just kind of dismiss it out of hand.

It's not dismissive, no. Don't want to do that. But we also want to be what we are and pastors.

Yeah, right. Also, be honest. Like, let us be honest with you when we say, like, in my

experience I've been doing this for almost 20 years now the number of people,

that have sat in my office or that I've shared a cup of coffee with or that,

I've been in their living room as their life is falling apart right like the,

issue is almost never the issue yes and and that goes with all manner of people,

like well you never you obviously don't know someone whose life was really fun Listen man like.

We've seen it all There's not much that can surprise. There's neither you or I I would be shocked if I was ever shocked again,

at the reality of human experience, right and.

So we're not naive we're not naive it's we're not ignorant we don't know everything

I don't know everything but we're not coming at this from a place of just blind ignorance or naivety. Yeah, no,

Anyway, thanks for listening again, hope you enjoyed this conversation.

I don't have any idea if we'll continue this particular pathway, I mean, I suppose if we

get a lot of comments that continue, maybe we will, maybe we won't.

Seems like to be a growing edge with both of us to talk about this kind of stuff, but

we do have other things that we like to talk about.

We do we also have others we have a lot on our plate. Yes. Yeah, I Question are you gonna record an episode next week? Cuz you're gonna be gone. I'm gonna be gone. I'm taking a brief,

Vacation with my wife to celebrate our honeymoon or well try our honeymoon again. Yeah, I was just I was very very sick

I'm our honeymoon. So we're trying again,

You could maybe interview somebody. Yeah, I think maybe I will try. Yeah to do an episode next week

I don't know how I'm gonna edit it or get it up well

You can do it when you get back because you're gonna be back. Yeah, I'll be back. You can just record it

Yeah, you can just put it you record it, and you just put it in Google Drive

I'll upload it on Sunday or something like yeah cool. Okay. Yeah, maybe I'll maybe I'll have Jessica on or.

You'll do a monologue or I'll find I'll find something you'll do something yeah, yeah, all right

I love the energy all right Sounds good. Hey. Thanks for listening like comment subscribe

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