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Clint Schnekloth on Why Progressive Churches Matter · Future Christian

0:07
>> Paul: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
0:10
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
0:12
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
0:16
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
0:19
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
0:21
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
0:24
walk boldly into the future. Whether
0:27
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
0:30
of your faith community, this podcast is
0:33
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
0:36
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
0:39
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
0:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
0:47
Loren Richmond Jr. Welcomes Clint
0:49
Schneckloth to the podcast. Clint
0:52
is pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in
0:55
Fayetteville, Arkansas, a progressive church
0:58
in the South. He is the founder of
1:01
Canopy nwa, a
1:03
refugee resettlement agency and queer
1:06
camp, and is the author of a guidebook
1:09
to progressive church. He blogs
1:12
as Lutheran Confessions on
1:14
Substack. A, uh, reminder, before we start
1:17
today's conversation, please take a moment to
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email@laurensonatemediaprouh.com
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with comments, questions or ideas for future
1:37
episodes. We appreciate your voice in
1:40
how we faithfully discern the future of the
1:43
church.
1:53
>> Loren: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren
1:56
Richmond Jr. And I am pleased to be joined today
1:59
by Clint Schneckloth.
2:02
Did I get that right?
2:03
>> Clint Schneckloth: You got that right.
2:06
>> Loren: Thank you. Welcome to the show. Is there anything else you'd like
2:09
our listeners to know about you?
2:11
>> Clint Schneckloth: Huh, huh. Well, apparently we're both calling in
2:14
from cold locations this morning.
2:17
Colorado and Arkansas. It's
2:19
ah, kind of rough out there.
2:21
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
2:22
>> Loren: Mhm.
2:24
Well beyond the weather. Why don't you share just kind of about your faith
2:27
background, what that looked like in the past and what that looks like today?
2:30
>> Clint Schneckloth: Oh, sure.
2:33
Well, I was born and raised and
2:35
still am, ah, in the
2:38
Lutheran tradition. Uh,
2:41
ELCA is the denomination.
2:43
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
2:44
>> Clint Schneckloth: And so I grew up as a kind of a
2:46
Midwestern mainline kind of
2:49
guy.
2:50
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
2:50
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, that's
2:54
got a whole kind of shape around it, I would say,
2:57
uh, you know, like, um, liturgical,
3:00
but also informal and campy.
3:02
And
3:03
um,
3:07
I've been thinking a lot about this lately too, just because
3:09
when I was growing up, I remember there being a pretty
3:12
broad spectrum of
3:15
politics and kind
3:18
of perspectives within the one denomination. There,
3:21
uh, was always the joke that they told, you know, that,
3:24
um, why are there altar rails in Episcopal
3:27
and Lutheran churches? It's to divide The Democrats from the
3:30
Republicans. But it was like a
3:33
60, 40 split. It'd be like 60%
3:36
of the clergy were Democrat and 40% of the
3:38
parish. And so I grew up in a
3:41
large church in Iowa,
3:44
St. Uh, Paul Lutheran. It was one of those that was kind of like
3:47
a big church before the mega churches.
3:51
And my grandpa was a state representative
3:53
Republican, uh, in the state of
3:56
Iowa. And so I had a lot of exposure to some,
3:59
some of that kind of stuff, kind um,
4:02
of the connection between care and
4:05
community and political decision making
4:08
at the state level.
4:11
Um, and then I went
4:14
to Luther College in Decorah,
4:17
Iowa. This is where I kind of
4:21
um, had a big transformative moment. Had
4:24
a lot of friends and colleagues who were queer
4:27
and I made a shift. I started
4:30
out college being uh,
4:33
literally anti lgbtq. Like I even
4:36
participated in campaigns, various uh,
4:38
sorts against
4:40
um, more full inclusion. And
4:43
I ended my college career
4:46
as the congregation president bringing
4:49
uh, Luther College in as a reconciling in Christ
4:51
congregation which is like the
4:54
movement for full inclusion in the denomination at that
4:57
time.
4:58
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
5:00
>> Clint Schneckloth: And then I went to Luther Seminary,
5:03
that's up in the Twin Cities and did my
5:06
seminary and along the way I've just
5:09
always done church stuff. So I'm just a church guy
5:11
in a pretty significant way. I uh,
5:14
worked at a, and then was a camp director at a
5:17
Lutheran Bible camp in Iowa. My wife and
5:20
I served as missionaries in uh,
5:22
Slovakia with our denomination for about three
5:25
years. Did some youth director
5:28
gigs and stuff like that. And then I served some rural parishes
5:31
up in Minnesota and Iowa or excuse me, Minnesota
5:34
and Wisconsin before I came down to Arkansas.
5:38
>> Loren: Yeah. Cool. I can only already hear like
5:41
in your background perhaps.
5:44
Hopefully. I'm not making assumptions, but it feels
5:47
like I can hear how your experience
5:50
has really shaped the book we're going to talk about
5:52
here.
5:54
Share if you can just about some spiritual
5:56
practices that are meaningful for you.
6:01
>> Clint Schneckloth: I don't know if I'm very good at them to be honest.
6:05
Uh,
6:08
or I would say that the way that I think about
6:11
spiritual practices maybe is a little bit different than
6:14
the
6:14
um,
6:18
than than normal.
6:20
Um Like I
6:23
am not the get up in the morning and journal.
6:26
Mhm Kind uh of guy.
6:29
And um, I'm not very good at meditation.
6:32
Although when I do meditate or do those kinds of
6:35
things, I appreciate doing it.
6:37
Um, my spiritual
6:40
practices are more along the lines of
6:43
um, how can I pay attention to the world
6:46
and then um,
6:49
be annoying
6:51
in gospel centric ways.
6:54
M. Um. So a lot
6:57
of my spiritual practices are
7:00
around drawing attention to
7:03
injustice,
7:05
um,
7:09
using uh,
7:10
uh, platforms and
7:13
communication methods to draw
7:15
discourses in particular directions.
7:19
Um, and a lot of my spiritual
7:22
practice is really trying to be
7:24
embedded with and know the communities that I
7:27
especially advocate for. In particular
7:30
if I'm not part of that community. So
7:33
like, you know, we have residents who live at our church. We've
7:36
started taking in, uh, more and more
7:39
unsheltered people just into the church building.
7:43
So some of my spiritual practices are like, how do you build
7:46
reciprocity between providing
7:50
shelter for people and also having
7:52
them really think of themselves as
7:56
also, um, contributing something
7:59
to you? You know, one of our residents the other day had
8:02
gone and put a frozen pizza in the oven and then she was walking by
8:05
my office while I was working and she's like, brought
8:07
me a slice of pizza, you know,
8:10
um, and so how do I kind of, you
8:13
know, keep in mind that I'm hungry too.
8:15
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
8:16
>> Clint Schneckloth: And um, that we're kind of all in
8:18
this together. That's a, that's a big part of my,
8:21
uh, spirituality, I would say.
8:24
>> Loren: Yeah. Uh, the awareness, if I'm hearing
8:27
you right, the awareness of recognizing and
8:30
receiving the gifts folks are trying to make.
8:35
>> Clint Schneckloth: Yeah. Or even not just gifts, but like
8:38
that we literally just are in community
8:41
together. And so you just shared stuff.
8:43
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. Thanks
8:46
for sharing that. So
8:48
I'm looking forward to having this conversation. Clint.
8:51
We're going to talk about Clint's book, A Guidebook
8:54
to Progressive Church. Is there a subtitle?
8:57
I'm not seeing a subtitle. There's not, I guess, no
9:00
subtitle. Okay. A Guidebook to Progressive Church.
9:03
Uh, it's out, it's available for folks. So I want to
9:06
start because I think this is the most interesting. When
9:09
I first talked to you, when I was first introduced to the book,
9:11
I want to start by why you chose to
9:14
write about progressive church rather than
9:17
progressive Christianity.
9:20
>> Clint Schneckloth: Yeah,
9:23
because I'm committed, uh, my
9:26
whole life to
9:29
uh, church community. In spite of
9:32
the way in which, uh, a lot of the people
9:35
around me in their spiritual lives struggle
9:38
with or maybe have even been harmed by,
9:41
uh, prior Christian communities.
9:43
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
9:45
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, there's a really,
9:47
um. There's a good
9:50
reason why many people have left
9:53
church and are never planning to come back. And I
9:55
totally, uh, like identify with that and
9:58
can see why some people would make the decision that for their
10:01
own, like, spiritual well being, personal
10:04
well being that they just can't cross the threshold of a
10:06
church.
10:10
But I've also seen repeatedly how
10:13
for many people it's coming back into church
10:15
community. That's been the way that they
10:18
heal.
10:19
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
10:20
>> Clint Schneckloth: Um, I write about this in the book,
10:23
um, in some of the content around
10:25
religious trauma and church. You know, there's
10:28
some really good studies now coming out that show
10:31
how getting re engaged in ways that are
10:34
affirming of yourself can be incredibly spiritual healing for
10:36
people. Um, but I'm
10:39
also committed to the church because I'm simply not
10:42
willing to let
10:45
uh, the abuse of something disallow
10:48
its proper use.
10:49
>> Loren: Right, right.
10:51
>> Clint Schneckloth: Which that's something I say often in the
10:54
book. You know, just because I mean
10:57
the analogy would be like so just because you don't
11:00
like McDonald's therefore you're not going to eat burgers.
11:03
You know, if somebody can make a really good burger, why are you going to
11:06
reject all the good burgers? Because McDonald's
11:09
make fakes, makes fake burgers. You know. And
11:11
the same goes for like church community.
11:14
Um, just because some people really abuse it or use it for the wrong
11:17
reasons doesn't mean that church rightly
11:19
organized.
11:21
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
11:21
>> Clint Schneckloth: And practice isn't one of the most
11:23
incredibly impactful and powerful things in the
11:26
world. Um, so
11:29
that's why I wrote about progressive church. There's also a
11:32
thing in publishing. There's,
11:35
there are more books on progressive
11:37
values.
11:38
>> Loren: Right.
11:39
>> Clint Schneckloth: For progressive. An understanding of
11:42
progressive Christianity. But there's a lot less out there just
11:45
about progressive church practiced as
11:48
community.
11:50
>> Loren: So I think this kind of leads into. Again,
11:53
I don't want to get too,
11:56
too deep into this because I do want to talk about
11:59
the book but I really feel like this is a
12:01
philosophical point if even that's the right
12:04
word that really kind of undergirds the
12:06
overarching theme or philosophy of
12:09
your book. Uh, this, this kind of
12:12
willingness to accept
12:14
or work within
12:17
church and Christianity and not
12:20
kind of throw the baby out with a bathwater to use another
12:22
phrase. And
12:25
uh, I feel like that's a, I'm kind of
12:28
already getting off topic here in some ways but I feel like this is a trend
12:31
that I'm seeing at least again and again and again
12:34
in so called progressive Christian
12:37
circles. And I that
12:40
it, that it's almost like folks see, I mean
12:43
I'm literally like working on a substack on this. So
12:46
that's why I really appreciate your book that
12:48
it's like again it's kind of this throw the baby out with the bathwater like
12:52
it's all too corrupt. And I think you have a quote to that.
12:54
Uh, but yeah, what comes to mind
12:57
for you There.
13:01
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, I've got this neighbor
13:03
who recently went to Yale Divinity School. She
13:06
lived here in the northwest Arkansas and she just recently
13:09
moved to Yale.
13:11
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
13:13
>> Clint Schneckloth: And we, uh, were in a running club together.
13:16
That's how I met her.
13:18
And she has never
13:21
really gone to church.
13:23
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
13:24
>> Clint Schneckloth: But she's going to divinity school.
13:26
>> Loren: Yeah.
13:27
>> Clint Schneckloth: And we were talking about. She was
13:30
asking me for like a guide,
13:33
guidance or advice on, you know,
13:35
like, what should I do when I'm going to divinity
13:38
school. What are your insights? Because
13:41
she, and she was asking me this because of how I
13:44
practice Christianity in our church. Even though she doesn't go to our
13:47
church.
13:47
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
13:49
>> Clint Schneckloth: And I was like, well, when you get to Yale you should find a
13:52
church.
13:52
>> Loren: Yeah.
13:53
>> Clint Schneckloth: And you should. And you should connect to a church because
13:56
that's going to be your incubator, uh,
13:59
for testing out whatever it is you're thinking about or
14:02
coming up with in seminary. And her
14:05
response was, well, is it okay if I, if I just
14:08
think of my garden as my church?
14:10
M. And
14:13
um, I, I'm not
14:16
at all dismissive of that. I think that there
14:19
are probably very spiritual people
14:21
for whom gardening is the
14:24
incubator for their
14:26
spirituality. And that's fine. You
14:29
know, that's like. I'm pretty respectful of lots of different
14:32
religious traditions. But if I
14:35
would argue that if you want to work
14:38
for uh, justice
14:41
and progressive values in the world
14:44
in the way that I do it.
14:46
>> Loren: Yeah.
14:47
>> Clint Schneckloth: You have to do it in a community.
14:50
And um, it might be
14:53
that that community has very loose,
14:58
uh, porous boundaries with other kinds of
15:00
organizations. But to
15:03
ground it in the gospel of Jesus Christ
15:06
and to influence the world in the
15:09
ways that I think church uniquely does, you're going to
15:12
want to commit to a local church. That's
15:15
kind of a deep,
15:18
uh.
15:21
And that comes out of my lived experience,
15:24
you know, like, of uh, of how I've
15:27
seen. And there's like, there's so many
15:29
just practical examples like at ah. One
15:32
practical example would be
15:35
churches are third spaces.
15:38
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
15:39
>> Clint Schneckloth: They're not a business and they're not the government.
15:43
And so they are able to provide this kind of
15:46
space and intersection that other
15:49
organizations can't do because like a business is trying to
15:52
make money so you can't look political because you
15:54
know that's. Politics is bad for business. You know, they always say,
15:57
right, so businesses are always going to
16:00
test the winds and see what's going to be most
16:03
marketable. Same with politics.
16:06
You know, politicians have to get elected.
16:09
Um, it's only the Church. And you
16:12
saw this illustrated super well last week with this Bishop
16:15
Budi, how to say her last name.
16:17
And in D.C. it's only the church that can
16:20
kind of whimsically step out and
16:24
do that. That she did with all the
16:27
attendant risks. I think
16:30
that's part of what I really deeply believe.
16:33
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I'm
16:36
reminded of this quote and I'll read it here.
16:44
Uh, you write this in the context of the importance of worship, which again I
16:47
think is interesting.
16:48
And I want to talk more about this, why worship
16:50
matters. Because I think this is a key aspect of
16:53
church in this kind
16:56
of progressive sphere that
16:59
seems to get diluted as either
17:01
unimportant or less important than the
17:04
so called work, justice, being on the streets,
17:07
whatever. So you're right. Progressive Christianity is much
17:10
more this worldly than other forms
17:12
of Christianity focused on the imminent frame and action in the
17:15
world. Worship, which is assumed to be primarily about
17:18
the transcendent frame and otherworldly focused,
17:21
is to those of this perspective simply
17:24
perceived as at best a waste of time and at
17:27
worst a distraction from the weightier matters of social
17:30
justice and love and love of
17:33
neighbor. So I want to stay on this point because this is something
17:36
I feel strongly about and this is one of the reasons I really resonated with the
17:38
book. Um,
17:41
I think that we are seeing this trend where
17:45
again, as you say, worship this kind of
17:48
gathered community to worship God is seen
17:51
as at best a waste of time or at worst a
17:54
distraction. So you argue
17:57
really in
18:00
these pages, from what I read, from what I understood
18:02
really
18:06
as the importance of grounding oneself in these
18:09
Christian and spiritual practices as a way to then go
18:11
forth and do justice. So talk more about
18:14
why this worship and such really
18:16
matters.
18:20
>> Clint Schneckloth: Well, one thing I try to say to progressives
18:22
who aren't sure that they want to go to church every week
18:25
because this is a huge dynamic. I think this is a huge
18:29
split on the conservative, liberal Christian
18:31
side, You know, conservatives are all in
18:34
on weekly worship.
18:37
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
18:38
>> Clint Schneckloth: Sometimes it's because of demand, like it's an actual
18:41
Roman Catholic law, right within canon law that
18:44
you're supposed to worship weekly and go to the Eucharist. And
18:47
I think a lot of fundamentalists and conservatives on the
18:50
Protestant side probably just have an internal legalism
18:53
around that similar.
18:54
>> Speaker E: Yes, right.
18:56
>> Loren: Uh, sometimes it's sometimes explicit legalism of
18:59
you better show up to church.
19:01
>> Clint Schneckloth: But on the more positive side, also a
19:04
lot of conservative Christianity, it takes place in
19:07
rural areas where people don't have a lot of other community
19:10
Right, right. So people are like, this is where they get
19:12
it. Progressive, uh,
19:15
liberal church tends to be,
19:17
uh, a little bit more on the,
19:21
oh, urban,
19:24
uh, diploma.
19:27
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
19:27
>> Clint Schneckloth: Ah, busy.
19:28
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
19:29
>> Clint Schneckloth: Side of the equation where they've got a lot of other social
19:31
connection and so they're uncertain whether church is even
19:34
necessary for their total social life.
19:37
And then, and then does it have any value
19:41
when so much of progression,
19:43
progressive Christianity is focused on love
19:46
neighbor. So my first
19:49
point to progressives is
19:53
you should show up to church for other
19:56
people. H m.
19:59
Uh, if you really think that progressive Christianity
20:02
is primarily about love of neighbor, what better way to
20:05
love your neighbor than to show up every week with other people and
20:08
check in with your fellow community
20:10
members? Um, that might mean that we need to
20:13
redesign worship so that there's more
20:16
capacity to do that because so much of worship in
20:19
our traditions is very passive.
20:22
>> Loren: Right, right.
20:23
>> Clint Schneckloth: You can sneak megachurch, uh, you can like sneak
20:26
in and sneak out and not talk to anybody, you
20:29
know, um, so maybe that
20:32
needs some reshaping. But the point
20:34
is still valid. And when I raise that with people,
20:37
they're frequently surprised
20:40
because I think the majority of people that think that
20:43
worship is for you and your
20:46
spirituality. I go to get fed is like the most
20:49
common, um, thing that people say. And I kind of want to be
20:52
like, don't go to get fed. Like, go to like,
20:54
take care of somebody else. Somebody has
20:57
gone to church who's alone,
21:01
who's recently divorced,
21:03
who's traumatized by
21:06
the inauguration in this new regime,
21:09
whatever, go to church and,
21:11
and care for somebody. And you do it weekly
21:15
because that's about the rate that a lot of
21:17
communities care for each other. The German Stamtisch
21:20
or the, you know, whatever the
21:23
thing is that you do, that's, that's about the pace you need to keep
21:26
up. But man, that is a hard sell for progressive
21:29
Christians. Yeah, on average.
21:31
>> Loren: Yeah, it is.
21:32
Um, I want to move on here to, to kind of
21:35
stay on this theme. You write about why a strong
21:38
Christology and theology really
21:41
matters. And I guess this really kind of ties into
21:44
something else. You wrote about the problem of Christian
21:46
progressives abandoning faith commitments.
21:49
Uh, and I think this, this broader trend, at least as I
21:52
understand it, of like, we want to be as
21:55
inclusive as possible. And being inclusive,
21:58
kind of that, uh, translation means like, let's just remove all
22:01
barriers and any kind of, I don't want to say
22:04
boundaries, but also kind of like
22:07
markers of who we are and what we're about. Does that make
22:10
sense? And in the book you really, as I understand
22:13
it, you really argue for, I wouldn't say
22:16
like firm or rigid but also pretty solid
22:19
theological foundations and groundings. Is that fair? Am
22:22
I understanding you correct?
22:24
>> Clint Schneckloth: Yeah. Uh, I like
22:27
to joke that we're where people
22:29
come sometimes when they've been
22:32
going to the Unitarian Church and they need more Jesus.
22:37
>> Loren: Yeah.
22:38
>> Clint Schneckloth: You know, our, our social perspective, our
22:41
values or whatever is very aligned with the Unitarians.
22:44
So um, I'm often um, showing up in spaces where there's
22:47
Unitarian leaders and we do similar things.
22:50
But Unitarians are literally.
22:53
You get to pick and yes, yeah.
22:57
Progressive Christianity from my perspective is still
22:59
grounded in the theological
23:01
tradition that ah, comes out
23:04
of scripture and is grounded and centered in Christ.
23:09
And uh, I
23:12
do think that I like, I try to flip that
23:15
around and say like our openness comes out of
23:18
our groundedness.
23:19
>> Loren: Mm.
23:19
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
23:21
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, because I feel
23:23
secure.
23:24
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
23:25
>> Clint Schneckloth: In Christ in the sense of who
23:28
Christ is. For me. It allows me to
23:31
be open in my stance toward a lot of
23:34
other things and also
23:37
a lot of the things I'm opposed to and that Christ kind
23:40
of teaches me to be opposed to. It's not like
23:43
tarot card reading or my Muslim neighbor.
23:46
It's more things like the
23:50
divide between the rich and the poor and how many
23:53
billionaires we have and.
23:54
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
23:56
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, how we treat immigrant neighbors and all those kinds
23:59
of things. That's where I get rigid is around
24:02
those things.
24:03
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:06
So I think again I'm just going
24:09
to keep mentioning these kind of random things but because I
24:12
think again this is what so stood out to me from your book
24:14
because uh, of how anti cliche
24:17
it was for like a book that's written
24:20
as from a progressive lens. You write about the importance
24:23
of leadership. And again, I don't want to like
24:26
broad brush here but I feel like in progressive circles leadership
24:29
is seen as this like oh man, we can't have any
24:32
leaders. We can't have anybody like you know, an
24:35
authority. There's just this anathema toward leadership
24:38
or authority. And it becomes, I think like you said about
24:41
that UU church, we're just like rather than you can pick
24:44
whatever, just everybody just doing whatever because there's no one
24:47
like offering any kind of vision or leadership. What? Talk
24:49
more about that.
24:53
>> Clint Schneckloth: Well, I think that my perspective on this
24:56
is shaped by my
24:59
commitment to
25:01
phenomenological realism.
25:03
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
25:05
>> Clint Schneckloth: It just is the case that
25:07
leaders matter. You don't
25:10
see major movements
25:13
for change in the world that gather
25:16
significant energy behind them.
25:18
>> Loren: Mhm.
25:19
>> Clint Schneckloth: That don't have a face of a person
25:22
at the front of it or it's very, very
25:25
rare.
25:25
>> Loren: Yeah.
25:26
>> Clint Schneckloth: Every once in a while you'll get something like Black
25:29
Lives Matter, which is more like a team.
25:32
But most of the time it's a person.
25:35
Martin Luther King Jr. For civil rights.
25:38
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
25:38
>> Clint Schneckloth: Donald Trump for MAGA.
25:42
Uh, who, who's everybody like me looking back
25:45
to and thinking, oh, man, we wish this would have happened eight years
25:48
ago? Bernie Sanders.
25:50
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
25:50
>> Clint Schneckloth: Who's our last remaining light right now? Alexandria
25:53
Ocasio Cortez. You know, it's like, I mean, it's a
25:56
person. It really is a person. And in my
25:59
church, uh, I would say that if you talk
26:02
to people, they would be like, everybody feels super empowered.
26:04
They think it's very lay level. And if they, if
26:07
you really press them on it, they would be like, the church is like this
26:10
because of the way Clint has led it over 14 years.
26:13
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
26:14
>> Clint Schneckloth: And for better or worse. And that
26:17
what I mean by the phenomenological realism is it
26:20
just functions that way. And so you can either try to deny
26:23
it or you can say
26:26
leadership really has a kind of charism to it
26:29
and try to handle that in
26:32
as, um, ethical a way as
26:35
possible.
26:37
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
26:38
>> Clint Schneckloth: Which is what I would encourage.
26:40
>> Loren: Yeah.
26:41
So talk more about what does that
26:44
leadership look like for you in
26:47
that context? What are some
26:49
kind of best practices? What are some ethics you
26:52
try to stand by? What are some
26:55
ways you try to empower others in leadership? What does that look
26:58
like, practically speaking?
27:01
>> Clint Schneckloth: Um, I can tell you what a couple of my parishioners have
27:04
commented on about me. To me that I think are
27:06
hallmarks. Uh, one of my council members
27:09
recently said that I'm the most available,
27:12
uh, lead pastor they've ever
27:15
encountered.
27:16
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
27:17
>> Clint Schneckloth: I don't separate myself off from
27:20
the congregation. I'm in the mix.
27:23
Um, and another
27:26
new member said that one of the things that had her
27:29
coming back was simply the fact that I am
27:32
not, I'm not, uh, avoidant
27:34
of helping in with whatever needs
27:37
done. You know, you're as likely
27:40
to find me in the kitchen doing the dishes as
27:44
preaching. And um,
27:46
um, I. So I think that part of this
27:49
spiritual practice that's different for me as a leader
27:53
maybe has, uh,
27:56
to do with
27:59
functioning in a lot of those grassroots
28:01
roles.
28:02
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
28:04
>> Clint Schneckloth: While also serving as
28:07
the.
28:09
>> Speaker E: Uh, the.
28:12
>> Clint Schneckloth: Lead on things, you know, like, uh, queer
28:15
camp. I'm both responsible for
28:17
having started it and I
28:20
also entirely step back and
28:23
then behind the scenes just doing grunt work the week of
28:26
because I'm a straight white guy. And it's not really
28:29
ideal for me to be the main
28:31
face of the camp.
28:34
Uh, so I'm more likely to be like running
28:37
security or volunteering, uh,
28:40
to lead a DND session. Uh, or
28:43
you know, some other thing. And then there's other people who are actually the face
28:46
of the camp.
28:48
>> Loren: I feel like it goes back to what you said earlier about the abuse of
28:51
something does not disallow its proper use. Because we could say
28:54
the same thing about leadership. Right. Like the abuse of leadership does not
28:57
disallow its proper use. Is that again, kind
29:00
of your argument here?
29:01
>> Clint Schneckloth: Yeah, I think that's.
29:06
Yes. And I think there are
29:08
some communities that kind of pull this off,
29:12
um, in a different way. Probably
29:15
the most famous
29:18
would be like the Quakers.
29:20
>> Loren: Sure. Yeah.
29:22
>> Clint Schneckloth: So I think there are some emerging ways or some ways
29:25
we could explore that might be,
29:28
uh, leaderless movement
29:31
organizing. So I don't want to completely.
29:34
>> Loren: Right.
29:35
>> Clint Schneckloth: Undermine, uh, like those as
29:38
a alternative. I just don't see
29:40
normal communities most of the time
29:45
sorting out how to do that.
29:47
Um, and, and I see,
29:50
you know, and you. I just see over and over again how like
29:54
a school that has a good principal runs better.
29:56
>> Speaker E: Mm mhm.
29:58
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, the, the police department's better
30:01
if the police chief is a. Is a good guy
30:05
or gal, you know, like that. That just is a
30:08
real frequent thing. I don't know how to get around.
30:10
>> Loren: That country that has a good president.
30:14
>> Clint Schneckloth: Yeah, yeah,
30:16
right.
30:17
>> Loren: Um, I don't want to take this off the rails here.
30:20
I think one thing I really liked here is you
30:23
talked about place sharing as
30:26
a model for mission and evangelism. M. So
30:29
talk more about that because again, I feel like we're in
30:32
this context where like a.
30:34
Anything E word. Evangelism is
30:37
obviously very seen as problematic
30:40
and sometimes for good reason in progressive circles,
30:42
but so much so that again, it kind of like
30:47
they want to throw it all out. So I really was intrigued by
30:50
your idea here of place sharing. So talk more
30:53
about that.
30:55
>> Clint Schneckloth: Well, like a good example of this, it's been
30:57
emerging at Good shepherd over the last number of
31:00
years is we are now the, um, location
31:03
where Food Not Bombs cooks meals.
31:07
Uh, Food Not Bombs is an organization
31:09
that
31:10
um, it's
31:13
a mutual aid organization. It's a group of people
31:15
who oftentimes they do food recovery
31:18
and sometimes they buy food and then they prep big meals
31:21
and they go down to like Walker park, which is where a lot of
31:24
our unsheltered people hang out when the weather is
31:27
okay. And they, so they, they go to where people
31:30
are and, and take meals and
31:32
um, they cook on Sunday mornings.
31:37
So our church smells like the meals they're preparing while
31:40
we're getting ready for church and they're around while I'm doing other
31:43
stuff and getting ready for worship. And so I've got to know them.
31:47
And um, now they've started having
31:50
like their organizing meetings there. And when the
31:53
cold weather shelter opened this winter,
31:56
um, there was a shortage of groups that were going to serve
31:59
breakfast. And I was talking with the executive director of
32:02
the
32:06
shelter org and they had a couple of breakfasts
32:09
that they needed served. And so I messaged the leader of
32:11
Food not Bombs and I was like, hey, we'll take a day. Do you guys want to
32:14
take a day? And so then we started
32:17
coordinating together.
32:19
And I would
32:22
say
32:25
in some levels they've started thinking of
32:27
themselves as a member org of Good shepherd.
32:30
Even though none of the people that are in that funat
32:33
bombs go to church at Good Shepherd.
32:36
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
32:39
>> Clint Schneckloth: But
32:42
uh, when I serve the breakfast
32:44
with people from my church, half the people that
32:47
help volunteer for the breakfast are also people
32:50
who don't go to worship on Sunday morning even though they're
32:53
connected to the church. And I kind of ask
32:56
myself like, well, who's being more
32:59
religious here? The people who show up for worship on Sunday
33:02
morning or the people who make the biscuits and gravy on
33:05
Monday morning for the cold weather shelter? You know, but
33:08
the, the better way to describe it is
33:11
there's all these kind of like network effects.
33:13
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
33:14
>> Clint Schneckloth: People are using their time in the way that they
33:17
believe has value and we're building
33:20
community together in these kind of loosely
33:23
affiliated ways that I think
33:26
preach, you know,
33:29
uh, and I think can have really good long
33:31
term impact in terms of if you want to talk about
33:34
evangelism, like I think that
33:36
shaped the perception that that group of people who are
33:39
largely irreligious, uh, their
33:42
perception of what church can be.
33:44
>> Speaker E: Yeah, yeah.
33:47
>> Loren: And it seems like that's far
33:50
more likely to have an impact than folks working
33:53
alongside you, for example, rubbing shoulder to shoulder,
33:56
seeing how you live out your faith
33:59
is going to be far more appealing.
34:02
Then you know, again, imagine
34:04
walking up to like
34:07
someone in Walker park and being like,
34:10
hey, accept Jesus and come to church. Like that's going to be
34:13
a hard sell.
34:14
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
34:16
>> Clint Schneckloth: Well, yeah. Not to mention the fact that really
34:19
most of the time when I go serve meals anywhere
34:22
like that, uh, they are more religious than I
34:25
am.
34:26
>> Loren: Right, right.
34:27
>> Clint Schneckloth: And much better at preaching the Gospel to me than I am ever
34:30
preaching it to them. Yeah,
34:32
yeah. I served a meal the other day and one guy
34:35
came up and I was like, how are you? And he says,
34:38
uh, well, the world
34:41
isn't fair.
34:43
>> Speaker E: Hm.
34:43
>> Clint Schneckloth: But God is good.
34:48
And all the progressives would have just stopped
34:50
with the world isn't fair.
34:54
>> Loren: Right, right.
34:55
>> Clint Schneckloth: You know, uh,
34:57
uh, so yeah,
35:01
so.
35:01
>> Loren: Let me ask this question then. And I, I think
35:04
it's kind of like I'm kind of repeating the same question. So
35:07
forgive me if I'm, I'm beating the same horse. But again,
35:10
I feel like we're in this context, broadly speaking,
35:13
in progressive Christian circles where it's just
35:15
like we want to, we
35:18
want to like kind of push out any kind
35:21
of religiosity and worship and kind of
35:24
turn. I mean I literally saw this
35:27
the other day of like a church wants to be a food
35:30
pantry that worships rather than a church,
35:33
which feels like a whole other conversation.
35:36
But why, Just why. Again,
35:39
repeat this if anything for me.
35:42
Why should progressive leaning
35:45
Christians and faith groups like
35:49
retain, I'm not sure what the word is
35:53
ground themselves still in as a church,
35:56
as a worshiping community?
35:58
>> Clint Schneckloth: Um,
36:00
yeah, I, I think I
36:03
have a complex and evolving
36:09
understanding of this, uh, that's developed over
36:11
time. Um, I have
36:15
one parishioner who
36:17
we were working on a grant and the way she
36:21
phrased it in the grant was that we are
36:23
a community center that
36:26
has a chapel.
36:27
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
36:30
>> Clint Schneckloth: Describing Good Shepherd.
36:31
>> Loren: Right.
36:33
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, because we do radically do way
36:36
more community, ah, center
36:38
type stuff than a lot of churches.
36:41
We're, you know, uh,
36:44
and because people are used to church
36:47
being almost exclusively church.
36:49
>> Loren: Right, right.
36:50
>> Clint Schneckloth: Even doing some of that seems really large to
36:53
them. And then the amount that we do it is like next
36:56
level. And so you could see where people would come to that
36:58
perspective. But the
37:01
base, like the base of people who still support our
37:04
church like that, make it happen
37:07
with their donations and that kind of thing is still the
37:10
group that worships there, you know.
37:13
And I think that the part
37:16
that you're asking about that I haven't really talked much
37:19
about is the way in which having a
37:22
posture toward God.
37:25
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
37:27
>> Clint Schneckloth: Is related to the posture that we have
37:30
toward uh, our fellow humans and
37:32
creation.
37:34
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
37:35
>> Clint Schneckloth: And I do think that if we're
37:37
fully materialist in our
37:40
perspective as a church, uh, that the
37:43
one problem there is.
37:45
Well, one problem is I don't think that the world
37:48
is fully materialist.
37:50
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah. And that's something that
37:53
you just kind of hint at your book Which I again was really
37:56
intrigued by. But go on.
37:58
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, even though that's my main posture, like I've been calling
38:01
the church back to prioritizing neighbor love and neighbor
38:04
care. I do think that there's much more
38:07
than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. You know, like
38:10
that's really true just on a scientific
38:13
level. But from a Christian perspective,
38:17
uh, Jesus's freedom towards his
38:20
neighbors in love was grounded
38:23
in the freedom that he felt
38:26
and experienced in relationship to his father.
38:31
Those mhm. Are related. At one point he even
38:34
says they're the same thing. You know, what's the greatest commandment?
38:37
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, and love your
38:40
neighbor as yourself. And the two
38:43
are essentially the same
38:45
commandment, you know, uh,
38:48
so I think that when we let go of
38:51
the worship side,
38:53
sometimes that can be a problem too,
38:56
because then it makes the neighbor without
38:59
remainder and never puts you in this,
39:02
uh, posture of the bigger. It can result in a number
39:05
of things that are probably problematic, maybe not the least of
39:08
which is, uh, perhaps
39:11
a good focus on God can remind us that neighbor
39:14
is not just the human, but all of creation.
39:17
M. You know, uh, that
39:20
somehow that uh, the ground of
39:23
being posture shapes how
39:26
big our perspective is in terms of our
39:29
values.
39:29
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting stuff. I really
39:32
want to recommend the book. There's a lot more in it that we
39:35
haven't really touched on, I think. So again,
39:38
the book is a guidebook to progressive
39:41
church, I think Clint, I
39:44
said this on social media. I think one of the things I really appreciate about
39:47
the book was just like, it was simple, but not in a
39:50
simplistic way. I found it quite
39:53
brilliant, but in a very digestible, readable
39:56
way. So I really encourage folks to go check it
39:58
out. Um, um, let's, uh, let's take a break.
40:01
We'll come back with some closing questions.
40:07
All right, we're back with Clint Schneckloth. Thank you,
40:10
thank you so much for your conversation. Really
40:12
appreciate, uh, your insights and points, uh,
40:15
here. So closing questions. We always tell folks you
40:18
can take these as seriously or not as you'd like
40:21
to. So first question, if you're Pope for a
40:23
day, what does that day look like
40:26
for you? What do you want to do?
40:30
>> Clint Schneckloth: Hope for a day?
40:34
Does this take place in, uh, the
40:37
Vatican?
40:39
>> Loren: I mean, I leave it open. We leave it
40:42
purposely ambiguous.
40:44
>> Clint Schneckloth: Okay. Huh.
40:46
>> Speaker E: Huh.
40:50
>> Clint Schneckloth: I, uh, guess that
40:53
I have. I, I, I. All I can
40:56
think of is that I love Rome enough
40:59
that I Kind of just want to go have coffee
41:02
and some pastries.
41:04
Yeah. And I think I might get
41:07
distracted by being in Rome or
41:10
the Vatican and forget to like,
41:13
actually do anything serious or helpful.
41:17
>> Loren: That's fair, that's fair, that's fair.
41:23
Um, a theologian or historical Christian figure you'd
41:26
want to meet or bring back to life.
41:30
>> Clint Schneckloth: Oh, wow. Well,
41:33
I probably have to say Alan Eccleston
41:35
because I've been doing a lot of work around him
41:38
here the last couple of years. Uh,
41:41
Alan. I went to
41:44
England last
41:46
November and visited with some of his family.
41:49
Uh, Alan was a,
41:53
ah, Church of England clergy person who was
41:56
also a lifelong member of the Communist Party in
41:59
England and understood
42:02
those two to be directly related to each other.
42:05
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
42:05
>> Clint Schneckloth: And uh, uh,
42:08
just had a very unique way of
42:11
leading, uh, parish life in, uh,
42:14
Sheffield, England, where he served. And,
42:16
um, I came as close as I could
42:19
actually in. By going there to, you know,
42:22
like, meeting him in person because I got to spend
42:25
time with his son and his wife. They're now
42:28
in their 80s. And then I went
42:31
and went back to London and spent a few days walking
42:34
around London with his granddaughter.
42:37
>> Speaker E: Hmm.
42:38
>> Loren: M. Wow.
42:41
All right. Another ambiguous question. What do
42:44
you think history will remember from our current time and
42:46
place?
42:49
>> Clint Schneckloth: Wow. That we
42:51
allowed the, uh,
42:54
oligarchs to win.
42:57
>> Loren: I mean, I hope. I hope they have not won, but it does
43:00
appear they are winning for
43:02
sure. Present tense.
43:05
>> Clint Schneckloth: Yeah.
43:07
Uh, well, and we
43:09
seem to. At least so far. One of the most
43:12
prescient novels I've
43:15
ever read around this whole thing is the
43:17
Circle.
43:19
>> Loren: Okay.
43:20
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, by, um,
43:25
Dave Egger.
43:26
>> Loren: Okay, I'm gonna check that out.
43:31
>> Clint Schneckloth: It's a. Ah. Basically the premise is that
43:34
like, Facebook buys Google and they become
43:37
the Circle. That's the company.
43:39
>> Loren: Oh. Cause they did a TV show on this, didn't they?
43:42
>> Clint Schneckloth: Maybe. I don't know.
43:44
>> Loren: I feel like I. Or there's a movie. I feel like I saw
43:46
something could be.
43:48
>> Clint Schneckloth: But there's like the main character,
43:52
she infiltrates the company and she keeps introducing
43:55
really bad ideas because she thinks that'll tear it,
43:58
finally tear it down and every single one of them.
44:00
Instead, they take it and they run with it and everybody loves it.
44:03
And I think this is the way. This is the big problem of
44:05
neoliberalism is it can take all of its
44:07
opposition and bring. Subsume it into
44:10
itself like the Borg, and just make it part of
44:13
itself. And that's what we're seeing over and over again.
44:18
>> Loren: Yeah. Oh man. That's kind of.
44:21
What's the word of Dystopian. Uh, that's kind of
44:24
dystopian. Uh, how about something positive?
44:26
>> Clint Schneckloth: Oh yeah.
44:27
>> Loren: What do you hope for the future of Christianity?
44:31
>> Clint Schneckloth: Um, well,
44:35
what do I hope for the future of Christianity? I think
44:38
that
44:43
we are seeing right now,
44:45
uh, on some level, some increased interest
44:48
in it.
44:51
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
44:52
>> Clint Schneckloth: And I guess my hope is
44:55
that. My hope
44:58
this week is that the counterbalance we
45:01
saw that was so
45:04
shared so widely from that sermon
45:07
of uh, the bishop in dc.
45:09
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
45:11
>> Clint Schneckloth: Will be understood to have
45:14
arisen out of the
45:16
grassroots life of the
45:19
church, uh, in progressive
45:22
communities. That that wasn't just
45:25
some vague, idealistic thing that
45:27
a woman in D.C. said, but arises
45:31
out of the culture and the community that has
45:34
lived out, practiced that enough that she was
45:37
free enough to say that there.
45:39
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
45:40
>> Clint Schneckloth: And I've seen some of that in the media that's been following up where they
45:43
point out like, you know, this is
45:46
not just a one off. This is also the woman that
45:49
brought, uh.
45:51
>> Loren: Yeah. Matthew Shepard.
45:52
>> Clint Schneckloth: Matthew Shepard's remains to the National
45:54
Cathedral. This is, you know, she's,
45:57
she's been in this.
45:58
>> Loren: Yeah. This is not just hot takes by her.
46:01
>> Clint Schneckloth: Right.
46:01
>> Loren: She's been practicing mercy her entire
46:04
career.
46:05
>> Clint Schneckloth: Right. There's still an issue, I
46:08
think there's still an issue that, that came from the
46:11
most elite of the,
46:14
uh, mainline denominations. There's a
46:17
lot of other, like, horror,
46:20
uh, less prominent. You know, the Episcopal
46:23
Church is a little bit the state church kind of thing.
46:26
>> Loren: Right.
46:26
>> Clint Schneckloth: Uh, but so there's that issue
46:29
to deal with. I think we, we're gonna have to figure out how to
46:32
translate this into ways that make sense to people who
46:35
are poor and
46:37
uh, and country in ways
46:40
that we haven't figured out yet.
46:43
So I guess those are aspirational hopes of mine
46:45
too.
46:48
>> Loren: Let me stay on this. Even though we're supposed to be wrapping up here, let me just
46:51
ask you, because I feel like this is a huge disconnect. Uh, we're
46:54
seeing it from data like Ryan Burge and others
46:56
about this huge class disconnect
46:59
where folks who are more wealthy and educated are more
47:02
likely to go to church. Folks who are less educated, less wealthy
47:05
are increasingly less likely to go to church, less likely to be
47:07
involved in community organizations, church, et cetera, et
47:10
cetera. Maybe closing
47:13
question this, like, how do we make this progressive
47:15
Christianity, especially as I,
47:18
uh, love the way you wrote about it throughout the book,
47:21
accessible in a way that really
47:23
resonates, communicates, impacts
47:26
folks who are low income, working class,
47:29
you know, struggling to pay their bills, less
47:32
educated Et cetera.
47:34
>> Clint Schneckloth: Well, that's interesting. I had, I, uh, just
47:37
thought of something. I, I, I would have to process whether
47:40
I, I'm going to agree later with what I'm going to say
47:43
right now.
47:44
>> Loren: Sure, sure.
47:46
>> Clint Schneckloth: But a lot of times liberal elites are asking
47:49
me, what can we do to
47:51
overcome this divide?
47:53
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
47:55
>> Clint Schneckloth: So is it really dumb of me to say
47:58
go to church?
48:02
I mean, if you want to like,
48:04
identify with the rural
48:06
poor.
48:08
>> Loren: Yeah.
48:10
>> Clint Schneckloth: Or people on the other side of the
48:12
aisle, you could do a lot worse to
48:15
move toward them than to be as
48:18
religious as them in practice. So
48:21
that the way you live appears like the way that
48:24
they live in ways that they can kind of understand
48:27
and could cause some certain level of cognitive
48:29
dissonance. Yeah,
48:32
um, I'm always suspicious of saying that because it's maybe
48:35
self serving because I'm always wanting to grow the progressive
48:37
birch. It is an impulse I
48:40
have.
48:41
>> Loren: I suppose it wouldn't be growing your church though. It'd be
48:43
growing Southern
48:46
Baptist, Independent Baptist type, these very
48:49
conservative churches. And I think that cognitive
48:51
dissonance is, if I can
48:54
soapbox from it, that's essential. We're going to have
48:57
to see each other not as these
48:59
evil caricatures, but
49:02
as human beings who have
49:05
many of the same wants and
49:08
needs and desires and cares as one
49:11
another. And I'm also again to bring it back to your book and what you said
49:14
earlier. I'm reminded of your point about place
49:16
sharing. What's more literal about place
49:19
sharing in evangelism than
49:22
going to meet your neighbors? I mean, it's kind
49:25
of like you said about going to Walker Park, Right. You're going to a
49:28
place to share in life with them.
49:32
>> Clint Schneckloth: Yeah. Although I think I wouldn't go that
49:35
far. I don't think I would tell people to go to Southern Baptist
49:37
churches because I generally am not going to
49:40
encourage people to go to bigoted churches that don't allow women in
49:43
leadership or queer, uh, people to be
49:46
married. Um, so I was being selfish in the sense
49:49
of you should go to progressive churches. There's a meme right
49:52
now of like, if you're uh, hey guys, just so you
49:55
know, there's a church with a woke lady pastor within walking
49:58
distance of your house and if you're under
50:00
50, they're going to be super excited and they're going to give you free donuts,
50:03
you know, like. Yeah, so that's the meme I
50:06
have in the back of my mind. But I really identify
50:09
with that. But so what I mean is
50:13
it does make it Harder for,
50:16
I think, for the uh, for either
50:18
side to entirely dismiss
50:21
each other if a lot of their, ah,
50:24
practices and communal practices are the same.
50:27
I mean, it's not, it's not
50:29
inconsequential that the place where Donald
50:32
Trump heard that challenge have
50:34
Mercy was in a liberal church.
50:37
>> Loren: Yeah.
50:38
>> Clint Schneckloth: You know, like that's, I think that's huge. He had to go
50:41
there. It was part of the
50:44
whole inauguration thing. And so like.
50:48
>> Loren: Well, and this gets, gets me on my other
50:50
soapbox, which we don't have time for, which is the
50:53
essentialness of these institutions,
50:56
these liberal churches continuing to exist so that people
50:59
can go to them and hear these
51:02
have mercy messages. But we don't have time for that.
51:05
>> Clint Schneckloth: Perhaps that's why
51:07
I'm a progressive pastor in
51:10
Arkansas.
51:11
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
51:12
>> Clint Schneckloth: And it's hard to convince my colleagues to come here. It took
51:15
four years for the church to get a pastor.
51:18
All my, all my, all my liberal colleagues like to stay
51:21
where there's more Lutherans, you know, so Minnesota,
51:24
Iowa and.
51:26
>> Speaker E: Mhm.
51:26
>> Clint Schneckloth: There's a lot of reasons for that, you know, family
51:29
and jobs and whatever.
51:30
>> Speaker E: But m.
51:34
>> Clint Schneckloth: It's, it's, it's really crucial to, to
51:37
be a witness in some of these places.
51:39
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me do one last. I
51:42
think this is kind of a Lutheran thing too, right. Leave you with a word
51:45
of peace. You all do that, right?
51:48
Speaking of a shared practice. Well, let me leave you with a,
51:51
uh, word of peace.
51:51
>> Clint Schneckloth: May God's peace be with you and
51:54
also with you.
52:02
>> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
52:05
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52:08
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