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Episode 64: Theology Beer Camp 2026 - Singing a New Song · But is it Biblical?

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Glenn.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Lydia.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you're listening to, but is it biblical?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_04: We invite you to join in as we evaluate church tradition and discover what scripture truly teaches.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: And that is how Theology Bear Camp 2026 started.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to But Is It Biblical.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hi.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: This is episode 64.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_04: If this is your first time listening, you have a lot to catch up on.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_04: But this week we are going to reflect on the time that we just spent in Kansas City at Theology Beer Camp.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, last year was a full onesie bunny suit, is what the host wore.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this year it was a sailor suit.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_04: With shorts.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: With shorts.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was quite a way to kick off the weekend.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I know it really sets the tone for not taking yourself too seriously, delighting in the community that was gathering and you know, online as well as in person.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was a blast.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It really was.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I'll explain the whole Billie Jean thing here in a little bit.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: There might be a little bit of explanation that's needed, yes.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_04: There were what?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_04: Somewhere around 800 to a thousand people this year.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: It was a packed church.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_04: We met at Pine Ridge Presbyterian up in Kansas City.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Kansas City, Missouri.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who know how the city is kind of two parts.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and we actually got to see all of Kansas City because a couple that we met there, yeah, they were fellow Baptists.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And well, there's a whole backstory to how they found out that we were some of the Baptists in the room.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_04: But uh they offered to take us on Sunday because we were staying an extra day.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: And uh we met them for some barbecue good old Kansas City barbecue at Rosedale.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently, so you know, every region is known for certain elements of barbecue.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this is that was a very broad statement.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to get too specific, but apparently Kansas City is known for its burnt-ins.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the brisket burnt ins.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Which were amazing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, thank you.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to our new friends.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You guys were amazing hosts and hostess and showed us Kansas City.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, we, for those of you who've listened long enough, we used to full-time RV.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we're used to pulling into a city, research, kind of find out what's there.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my research was not going well.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've lost, lost my knack.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of, you know, the first day we were there waiting in the airport or whatever, I'm pulling up what to do in Kansas City and was completely drowning.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then we met our friends, and they have lived there for years.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, 20 plus years, if not even longer.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, it was an answer to my heart's desire to see and geek out on the history.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: We went and saw where Lewis and Clark landed.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they spent some time.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Little reprieve where the Kansas River and the Missouri River meet.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a little place that if you were not local, you would not have known that that point was there, like where the rivers meet.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: But once you got down there, then there's a whole park and plaque and a little like silhouette cutout of Lewis and Clark pointing out over the river.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who knew?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: There were no state park signs or anything until you got to the water.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we appreciated the locals showing us.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_04: They also took us downtown and the World War One Memorial, which has the national World War One Museum.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was beautiful.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's called Liberty Hill, is what I think that whole area was called.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: A beautiful monom monument at the top of the hill, overlooking all the things that make Kansas City Kansas.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because apparently, like some wagon trails have have their start, which I knew that from teaching third and fourth grade history, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Independence, Missouri is where a lot of the wagon trails, trains a bunch of them.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Santa Fe, Oregon, and I can't remember the third one.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: There were several wagon trains that got their start in that area.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a building downtown that is the oldest building in the whole city, and it's where they would get their supplies.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And head west.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_04: And of course, we had to bring the kids back, uh, souvenirs.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: And what else do you bring?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_04: But Kansas City Chiefs.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_04: Shirts.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think the uh junior high son knew you know he would wear it with pride, but at the same time, maybe be careful where he wears it.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:02
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: We're in cowboy country here.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yes, this is an awesome t-shirt.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait, when can I not wear it?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, whatever.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_04: And our oldest does not care in the least about football.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: So we brought him some uh bacon brittle.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_04: Brittle and some rub for beef.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's as good as the one that we had at a a different restaurant in a different time, that restaurant, that seasoning on that meat was amazing.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping what we bought him is what we ate.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was really good.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_04: But back to beer camp, Trip, uh Trip Fuller is the founder, and he outdid himself again.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: Next year is actually gonna be the 10th uh anniversary beer camp, the 10th annual beer camp.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_04: So we're expecting him to pull out all the stops.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know how the you know how the story goes.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: He started this 10 years ago saying, hey, some of my friends want to like, you know, kind of pub crawl type thing and just go get some beer and talk theology.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And his goal was to go to different breweries, I think it was, like a brew crawl.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you I don't know what you call it, but that was his goal.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think he invited maybe 15 friends and 100 people showed up, and that's he was like, Oh, okay.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that was 10 years ago almost.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's grown every year.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: And we got to meet a lot of really cool people.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my word.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: And we caught up with people that we met last year.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: So that was neat.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It I, you know, I didn't I'm a face person, not necessarily always a name person, but it was fun to see the familiar faces from last year.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was surprising how many familiar faces there were.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: But some of the, I guess, theologians or speakers and stuff, there was Kristen Dumay, uh, the one who wrote Jesus and John Wayne, and she has a new book, Live, Laugh, Love.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, Cynthia Schaefer Elliott, Jamar Tisby, Tim Whitaker, James McGrath, Diana Butler Bass, Cornell West.
• 8:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, and Ilia Delio.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_04: She's a Franciscan nun, but not only that, she also has a doctorate in pharmacology from Rutgers Medical School and another doctorate in theology.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_04: She was amazing to listen to.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and sometimes some of you might relate to this statement.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: You hear what their credentials are, and you kind of know even just the book titles that they have published, right?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not quite sure.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I understand the words that this person is about to speak.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: She was amazing to listen to.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was I I was delighted that my non-theological mind could listen to her share and and and understand and process what she was speaking on.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I was happy.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_04: So we get there and go through, you know, the registration, we get our lanyard and our names and all that good stuff.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_04: And went to the opening ceremony.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, wait, you missed the second step.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_04: What was that?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You get your beer glass.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, right.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_04: You get your beer glass and you fill it up.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Fill it up.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then you go to the opening.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: I had wine, not beer, because that's what Jesus would do.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: We'll give you that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_04: You fill up your glass, uh, you go into the sanctuary, and we had the opening ceremony.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_04: And during the opening ceremony, Tripp went through some podcaster stats of some of the godpods that were there this year, including us.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And godpod is a really weird word.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I know that's like, what?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I first heard it.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So Tripp collect not collects, but you know, he invites fellow podcasters to come and be a part of this weekend and and features them in different ways.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were invited back in March to be one of these god pods.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, whatever level of involvement you felt like you could do, some would be part of a panel, some would have other podcasters on their podcast, but it was really just a great opportunity to fellow like-minded podcasters to mingle with all the other people, which were the other people anyway.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like does that make sense?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're just one of the people.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_04: And there were like 20 or 30 featured uh god pods this year.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we were one of them.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: He went through these, he there were about, I don't know, six or so statistics.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_04: Statistics that he went through.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, for example, the most commonly used phrase in all of the god pods this year was I don't know.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_04: I love that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_04: Which honestly should be the most commonly heard thing from the pulpit, too.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_04: If your church claims a whole bunch of things as facts, maybe it's not a church, but a cult.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: Did I say that?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but there were other categories, such as longest average episode duration.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Which, if you've been around long enough, Glenn was not the longest.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: There was another podcast called It was almost three hours.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_04: If you thought my revelation one was long.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Religion on the Mind, Religion on My Mind.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: He he beat Glenn.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was 256.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_04: And then other stuff like least and the most mention of politics.
• 11:51
  unknown: Oh yeah.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_04: Which we don't get into very often.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: My the one that really made me laugh was the most use of profanity.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like this one, this one podcaster, it was like if it was a bar graph, his bar was like way high.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then the others kind of fell medium level, and then there were a few that had like no, no profanity whatsoever.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was an interesting one.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_04: But we got a shout out to.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Unexpected.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my word.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_04: Tripp said, Who is it that drops the most Bible quotes per episode?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: And then up pops our podcast logo on the big screen.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_04: And he says, It's the Southern Baptists.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_04: They might be backward Southern Baptists since they're back at theology beer camp, but they still know Bible verses while they embrace the heresy and go down the slippery slope.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And by then we were all cheering.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_04: Here's the audio clip.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: It drops the most.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, don't leave yourself out of this.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm not doing the quotin'.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_04: You're just as much at fault.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm just doing the listening.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, that was me cheering in the background.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was so fun to see.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, we didn't expect any of that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was fun.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_04: But this this episode is going to bring our average down, maybe just a little bit.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Average zero.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_04: But to end the opening ceremony, the whole congregation had a sing-along to the Michael Jackson song Billy Jean that you heard at the opening of our episode here.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_04: Now, everything at Theology Beer Camp, as you can guess, has theological undertones.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_04: Even though you may not recognize it sometimes, this camp really is named well because it has a youth camp vibe with a bunch of adult theologians who like to drink.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_04: But Billy Jean.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Michael Jackson wrote Billy Jean because he and his brothers were constantly getting fans claiming that they were the fathers of their children.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_04: So what is the theological undertone here when a bunch of theologians, Bible scholars, church pastors and priests and nuns all sing Billy Jean together?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_04: The lyrics of Billy Jean say, Be careful of what you do because the lie becomes the truth.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_04: And Billy Jean is not my lover.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: She's just a girl who claims that I am the one, but the kid is not my son.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: Alright, those lyrics summarize modern Christianity pretty well.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_04: The religion that we see in today's churches is not the offspring of God.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_04: Modern day Christianity is not God's son, Christ.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: We do a lot of things today, and it's the same throughout the history of Christianity.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: We do things claiming that we're doing it in Jesus' name.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_04: But in reality, what we're doing looks nothing like Jesus.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_04: We're just using him as an excuse to get what we want money and power, domination over others.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_04: We use our beliefs to stoke fear.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_04: We don't want to appear weak.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_04: We want to appear strong.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: But as Jesus told Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, My grace is sufficient for you.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_04: My power is made perfect in weakness.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: True Christianity is not about strength, the way the world sees it anyway.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's about humility.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: Where is the humility in telling women they can't preach about Jesus?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's a power play based on a lie.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: That kid is not God's son.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_04: Take citizenship.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_04: Where is a Christian's true citizenship?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: In a country?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: Is that how we're supposed to differentiate ourselves?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: That's a power play, too.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_04: That kid is not God's son.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_04: Or women's voting rights.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: Believe it or not, Doug Wilson, uh, the pastor, the guy who founded the denomination that Pete Heggseth belongs to, believes only the man of a household should be able to vote.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_04: Another power play.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: Not God's son.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_04: What about sexuality?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_04: Do you think that one's different because your pastor tells you it's a sin?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_04: That's based on a lie, too.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_04: A lie by a bunch of pastors that are too lazy to actually study the Bible.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: Where is the humility in having a publicly broadcasted execution?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm not talking about the politics of this, I'm talking about the church's stance on it.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: Robert Jefferess, the pastor of FBC Dallas, has expressed support for it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: And Doug Wilson supports it as well.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, look, the guy's guilty and his crime legally calls for the death penalty, but what did Jesus say when he encountered a similar thing?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_04: The woman was guilty.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_04: And it called for stoning.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: And Jesus said, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_04: That's in John 8.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not debating governmental or political roles here.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_04: I'm talking about what the Christian response should be.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_04: God's Son.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: Our response should be different from the world's response.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_04: When Jesus came, he clarified the law and said it's about mercy and love, not retribution.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: Mercy and love are the church's response, and everything a true Christian does and says should come out of this mercy and love, because government and politics don't take priority over a humble heart.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_04: The belief that televised executions are a good thing, and all of these other examples, which are just a few of many, they are ideas that the church has given birth to.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_04: They are the modern Christian church's kids.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_04: But they are not God's children.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_04: And while we were having a fun time singing this uh Billy Jean song together and laughing, I couldn't help but think of those theological undertones and the significance of what Michael Jackson wrote and how much it actually applies to what we see today.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_04: Do your beliefs actually come from God?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_04: Do they belong to him?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_04: The only way to truly answer that question is to ask yourself: do my beliefs fall in line with a selfless and humble heart?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_04: Am I treating others the way I would want to be treated if I were in their shoes?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_04: Because selfless love is God's only begotten son.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_04: Literally.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_04: Anything else is not God's son.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: And as John says, when you believe and live in selfless love, you have the right to be a child of God too.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_04: So we all sang Billy Jean together as a community of true believers, and after that, we partied.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we did.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was a theme night.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: They had announced the theme of the whole weekend was this word that I still have a hard time saying, like Godpocalypse.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_04: It was Godpodcalypse.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: See, I still can't say it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: But what's side note the guy who designed the Stranger Things logo designed the logo for this weekend.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Godpocalypse.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_04: And he was there too.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So cool.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I need to go watch Stranger Things now.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, I just outed myself.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_04: I've already seen it.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So within that, you know, you got I guess you gotta get kind of creative with theme nights.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm I was blessed that they went this direction because they decided to have an 80s prom opening night.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it wasn't just an 80s prom.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what Lydia heard and understood.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, it was partnered with you could choose to dress up in 80s prom or apocalyptic garb.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there was, you know, there were a few people who looked like they had survived the apocalypse, kind of raggedy clothes.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: There was a Ghostbuster guy there, but most of the people who made it down to karaoke in the dance party were rocking 80s wear.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: And the decorations in the room.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you had Dune, Stranger Things, Battlestar Galactica, and then 80s prom neon.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: All just kind of mixed together.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_04: But we celebrated just like Jesus did at the wedding in Cana.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_04: We had beer and wine and popcorn.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's right.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: And we enjoyed the company of each other in the form of karaoke.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: My highlight that night was watching Lydia jump into.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: The line dance for It's Electric.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Boogie Woogie Woogie.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like one of the few things I still remember how to do.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't playing the Texas two step, so.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_04: But the best way for you to experience what we experienced is to listen to another audio clip.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, this is a couple minutes long.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's just a small taste of what it was like.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_04: So that was our night.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: But yes.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_04: My favorite, because I'm a longtime Southern Baptist, was the song Place in This World by Michael W.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_04: Smith.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_04: This guy sounded just like him.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what was really, really I just loved is the fact that looking around, we all knew that song.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_04: This one got everyone going.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't need the karaoke words up there.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_04: Listen to this.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_04: For the audio quality?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: All of it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: We subjected you to karaoke.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: An audio recording of karaoke.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: But you get the heart of it.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was a blast, and it was so fun to just begin the weekend with familiar faces, new faces.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had an awesome 80s dress.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to the local boutique store in Waco that actually has vintage clothing.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_04: It was poofy.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was poofy.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Stretchy at the top.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was fun.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I just wore a t-shirt that says 80s prom Crasher.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the way you roll, dude.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a t-shirt for that?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I got it.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_04: So that was opening night on Thursday night.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_04: We went back to our Airbnb, woke up early Friday morning.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, early.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_04: And went to the sessions.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: Uh what was your general takeaway?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me begin with maybe a comparative statement that I hadn't really thought about when Tripp announced the format that the weekend would kind of like the way they formatted the weekend.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't really thought of a comparison.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: But last year, most of the sessions, not all of the sessions last year, were kind of a especially the main stage sessions, they were more of a lecture.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sit down and desperately try to open your brain and absorb.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's the way I felt for a especially a lot of the big notable speakers last year.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: This year, Tripp had announced, even from the stage when he and Sarah Heath were interacting, it was almost as if they were on a radio station.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: They had announcements for the sponsors, announcements for what was going on.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a radio station format.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of trickled into every session.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the sessions were more of a panel discussion.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_04: And with audience involvement too.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of liked it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, said said front seat, but I'm at front row.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the dork who will sit in the front row.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_04: You are a fallen Baptist.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love sitting in the front row.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: I that's me.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even since college.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's not because I can't see.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my eyeballs in.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I like front row, take notes, I feel like I can engage and understand better.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: But this year, I wasn't always in the front row, but for the most part, it was a panel discussion.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there was kind of there was a guidance, there was an outline.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was clear that they had talked about what they wanted to talk about beforehand.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I liked that.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was my overall impression was, huh.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually understood what was talked about because I was observing a conversation.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it was way more conversational as opposed to a lecture imparting knowledge.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Which again, nothing wrong with that.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: But when it's theology after when it's a theologian after a theologian after a theology, it was a lot last year.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like general first impression.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_04: And the first one we went to was uh the genealogy of religion's descent.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_04: So they went through history.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_04: This was Diana Butler Bass, Bill Leonard, and Tripp, and the history of Christianity from Christ, and then you've got Constantine, and then Christendom, uh Calvin, and then now we're at Christianity in America, and it just shows how it is how far it has come from what it was originally meant to be to what we understand it to be today.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_04: The original being love God and love others, and now we've kind of slidden or descented back and descended back into the legalism that was alive when Jesus was preaching against that.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_04: And they talked about following, you know, literal interpretation versus actually following the gospel, the actual good news of Christ.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And again, uh Diana Butler Bass is one of those people who gets up to speak and is very much a storyteller, a historian.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so to listen to her talk about her research, and a lot of this is you know, knowledge that she has gained as she researches and writes a book.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there are several books by her that track Christianity through the United, you know, America's Christianity, you know, how did we get where we are?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I just really liked that history, the storytelling of how our country and the mentality of some of the people who were arriving, you know, the the Puritans, the pilgrims, the the waves of people that came after.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then the perspective of how things, the waves of all those changes to where we are now, it was fascinating.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she went all the way back to 1640, kind of around there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was geeking out.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_04: Next, uh the next session we went to was reading the Bible for all it's worth.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_04: This one was Grace G.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_04: Soon Kim, Stacey Floyd Thomas, Angela Parker, and Carrie Aldridge.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_04: And they talked about reading the biblical texts in ways that are unethical.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, in other words, the Bible is not a weapon.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_04: If the interpretation is not ethical, then the reading must be taken with suspicion.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the Bible must be approached in community together.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and we shouldn't let someone else read the Bible and preach their interpretation at you.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_04: Instead, read it for yourself and let God do the interpreting.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_04: So you end up claiming the power and authority that God gives you to read the Bible.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: And if you're not shaking it and struggling through it, then you're not reading it or respecting it.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_04: We went from there to salvaging misused scriptures.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_04: This one was with Cynthia Schaefer Elliott, uh fellow Wake Owen.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Woo woo! I know.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I laughed that it took me going to Kansas City to finally meet her.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_04: She's a professor at Baylor.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_04: There, let's see, who else?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_04: Anna Seagas Beale, who is awesome.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_04: She's a professor, Gardner Webb.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Colin Connor, a fellow podcaster, and Alexis Rice, another fellow podcaster.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: So the my takeaway from this one is when they described religion as either Jenga or a mosaic.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_04: Jenga being where you remove one piece and the whole thing crumbles.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where I would personally put the Southern Baptist Convention.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the Southern Baptist churches, the ones who like to use the phrase slippery slope, because if you take one piece out, then there's nothing else that anything else can stand on.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_04: And then the other side is a mosaic religion where you might have missing pieces here and there, but when you step back, the picture is still beautiful.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_04: And you see the overall picture that God is painting.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And just a shout-out, because that analogy, that perspective, like how to view religion, it's actually Diana Butler Bass said that, uh kind of made that comparison in an interview that Alexis Rice.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know we don't do shout-outs, but Alexis Rice has a podcast called The Sacred Slope.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she interviews Diana Butler Bass, and that is where Diana gave that analogy versus a beautiful mosaic.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_04: Heaven is about people coming to earth, not people going to the sky.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's another thing that was said.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Again, a whole conversation about the rapture, and yet the takeaway is, you know, what what really matters?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, religion is about God coming to our level.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_04: Not us rising to his.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_04: And then we actually split up and went to two different sessions after that.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Lydia went to listen to Kristen Dumay talk about her new book, Live, Laugh, Love.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, what was that like?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I don't know a lot about a lot of the authors that were there at Theology Beer Camp.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I knew Kristen Dumais had written Jesus and John Wayne.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know you had read some of it.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, family members read some of it.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I it comes highly recommended.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so Kristen Dumais has also written Live, Laugh, Love.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, okay, I'll go figure this out.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it was interesting to hear a historian share what she has uncovered.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's not like it was a mystery that she had solved, but really just a she used the the phrase, a thread that she followed.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the book it could be really quickly dismissed as, oh, a feminist book, and it is so not that.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you grew up in any sort of evangelical church, there is so much in that book that she unpacks and helps you understand the thinking behind the things.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, as a historian, Kristen Dumay helps us know the history and the shift that results from it.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then it helps us better understand why we are where we are, why Hobby Lobby has signs that say live, laugh, love, why precious moments are sold, why Christian romance are just so appealing to so many.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just the influence of these people that we don't really realize the influence that they're having.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps us better understand.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: We get to see historically how evangelical women were influenced to understand our roles.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_04: And while you were at that one, uh I went to one about meaning making.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_04: Meaning making in a disenchanted world.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that sounded like a happy topic.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_04: This one was Myron Penner, uh, Matthew Siegel, Sarah Lane Ritchie, and Dan Koch.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: And this was a highly philosophical discussion, so you would be happy to know that you made the right choice.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_04: But I loved it.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_04: Uh basically they were talking about what does it mean to matter?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_04: What does it mean to for you to matter to someone else?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_04: Because that can be transactional and doesn't bring meaning in that sense of it.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_04: But when you matter to them because of who you are and not because of what you can bring to them, then that brings true meaning in life.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_04: So who do you matter to and why?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_04: Like, do you matter to your parents?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: Why?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: Because you are you or because you agree with what they say?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_04: So meaning must be found in truth, which is what Paul was searching for in 2 Corinthians 12, when he's you know, he wanted this uh thorn in his flesh to be removed so that he could be all he could be, and the answer was no, it's found in your weakness.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_04: You be you, and in that you will see what true power is.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_04: So that was Friday.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_04: Saturday, uh, we did the same thing, got up early.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_04: This time, the first session was on reclaiming the dynamic God of Jesus.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_04: And this was a really cool dialogue going on between Ilia Delio, the Franciscan sister, and Dan Koch, uh, one of the God Pod podcasters.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: He's also a uh licensed psychologist.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_04: But they talk about how we practice a medieval religion in a 21st century world, and how once we start to name something, the mystery kind of goes away.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_04: So they gave the example of stars.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_04: You know, how you name the star, and all of a sudden it's not as mysterious to you, even though nothing changed.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_04: You don't know anything more about it.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_04: And it's not our job to protect God.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_04: He doesn't need protecting.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_04: They talked about the need to be in community and in relationship with others, how we're connected or we tend to be more connected to the internet today than to the person sitting next to us, who is probably on the internet as well.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_04: And the the kind of main takeaway of that was that bad religion is the source of all of our problems.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_04: And most of religion today, the way it is practiced, is bad religion.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I actually had an audio clip of that one, and I saw I listened to it and wrote it down.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: She said there's a gap between this New Testament story of Jesus of Nazareth and the kind of God that we have constructed that is being male being, that is a a superior being, and bad religion is the source of all our problems today.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: The inability to get beyond racism, genderism, the inability to come into greater unity among different religions and different communities.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of patriarchal structured religion is holding us back in a serious way.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was good.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was so much to think about.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_04: The next session uh was about algorithms and how they are eating our soul.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was light-hearted discussion.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, apparently there was a trademarked statement, no, copyrighted statement that that developed in that conversation, and it was to be in but not of the algorithm.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: One of the guys is like, I copyright that one, that one that one's mine.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_04: And there was some discussion on AI and all of this, and I think the the consensus of the panel there was that you should value AI and the algorithm, but understand what it is that you're dealing with at the same time and not let it run your life.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's kind of how Paul viewed the Jewish scriptures because he he highly valued the Jewish scriptures and he would quote them when he was trying to tell Jews about Jesus, but at the same time he also called them the ministry of death.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_04: So he had this balanced approach to the scriptures of his day, which was both tread lightly and be careful of taking them literally and too seriously, but at the same time you can value them and what they have to teach.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_04: And we should treat AI in a similar way and your Facebook algorithm.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_04: And the things that seem to know you better than you do, right?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and they talked about basically casting a vision for the type of person you want to be and your values, and find a way to put that friction into your engagement with AI and the algorithms, you know.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she used one of the speakers used the word friction.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever worked with any of the sources of AI, you know you can tell it to behave a certain way and just being intentional in those interactions.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: And again, going back to that copyrighted statement, what does it mean to engage the algorithm but not be of or within the algorithm?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: Or consumed by.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was just an interesting thing to think about.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lighthearted, as lighthearted as you can get discussion.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_04: And the next session was the four horsewomen of the apocalypse.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_04: Called that because the four panelists were women.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, these are the hosts of the podcast, the Bible divas.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to Bible for Normal People, they have tabled the group that used to be called Nerds.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Residence.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so these four women have appeared in that other podcast as a nerd in residence.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so they've already had a relationship within that.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there are other nerds in residence, but these four women in particular kind of already had that relationship since that program was tabled.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's start Bible divas.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_04: And this session was about apocalyptic literature.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_04: And how it is actually weirder than left behind the book series.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_04: And it's actually a lot more dangerous to empire or big government or power.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_04: And the four horsewomen were Angela Parker, Cynthia Schaefer Elliott, Anna Segaspiel, and Jennifer Garcia Bishaw.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, they want to be called the Four Huntresses, apparently.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just putting that out there.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_04: They came riding in on stick horses for the panel discussion.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: In pink wigs.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_04: It was great.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: I loved it.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_04: They talked about iconography and a lot of history, stuff that we've gotten into about harmagido and where it sits and why it's important.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_04: That valley and the iconography that they used.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_04: Like we read in apocalyptic literature about monsters.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_04: We just did that a couple weeks ago about the beasts and all of that, but they really symbolize something bigger.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_04: And that's like people who read it back then understood that those monsters and beasts in that literature was not a literal thing.
• 45:41
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Cynthia Schaefer-Eliot was the one that presented on that portion.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: And she is not only an Old Testament scholar, but she's also an archaeologist.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: She had, you know, she has feet on the ground experience in the location that they believe, you know, well, they know where Megiddo is, and why on earth that reference point would mean something to the audience of that time.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a huge thoroughfare.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the audience understood that.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_04: And then the last session we went to was called Cinematic Bible Time, which is right up my alley because it's finding theology and cinema.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_04: We actually went through biblical cinema in this one, stuff like uh The Last Temptation of Christ, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Ten Commandments, Last Days in the Desert, Mary Magdalene.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ Superstar.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was in there too.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_04: But it was it was really interesting.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_04: And if I started going into all of that stuff, it would, it would, this would be way too long.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna fun is you could tell the panel, because again, this was a panel discussion, engaging the audience, showing video clips.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, Jennifer Bashaw shared, she goes, Well, right now I am actually have a class that I'm teaching that does you know something very similar.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I took one at Chris Well College too.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_04: It was one of my favorite classes.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and James McGrath was another one of the panel members, and he's a hoot.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you can tell you can totally tell this is something he just absolutely intellectually and just gets a delight out of.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_04: So he's got a great sense of humor, too.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_04: So that was the last session, and we went from there to the closing ceremony.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_04: In our last season, uh, our finale, which was episode 57, the song for that episode was Testify to Love.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_04: At the closing ceremony of Beer Camp, this song was turned into a community song.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_04: Listen to this.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_04: And if you weren't there to survey the crowd, without knowing the diversity that was present in that room, in every way, you would think you were in a small Southern Baptist church in East Texas.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_03: Here we are, tired, weak, and lorn.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: Precious Lord, take my hand.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's because we decided in our own bodies to show up as God did when the word became flashed.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so let us in our material rehound be the unveiling of a God who's refused to be God without us.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's the very nature of God to pursue us, invine us, and then turn us just like the disciples and the agents of a God who don't fit on any dominion systems.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, God, you know, you love us, and you've been here and blessed us with the gifts, the words, of preparation, the many speakers, hours of podcasting with so many of the gods.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: God's current preparation of the team, over 60 volunteers, a fake community in a region that made this space, and yet the thing this space really means is a sending that only you give because we tasted possibilities.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: The world, our algorithm, and our neighbors insist isn't true.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: And yet the end of each ending in this world is an invitation to an end.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: So let it say yes to all the good things we didn't know could find new beginnings in us in relationship with each other.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: And in the endings, it feels so apocalyptic we could seize up and deny the agency the living and life-giving God gives us.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was a purge to say yes.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: In all the places we're called design.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_04: As theology beer camp was coming to a close, we ended as they do every year with communion, the Lord's Supper, which, in the words of Reverend Sarah Heath, is a sacred table.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_04: God's table, a table of ultimate curiosity and humility, where you don't need to have it all figured out.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, you come to the table knowing that you don't have it all figured out.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_04: If you are hungry for God, there is bread for you.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_04: No matter who you are, it is the place for you.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_04: And Sarah prayed to God and said, You have heard your people crying out for a long time.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_04: Your people in Egypt cried out, and you did not wait for them to become worthy.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_04: Instead, you sent a wind.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_04: People were frightened and doubting and wanted to go back, but you brought them to the other side, and you've been doing that ever since.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_04: But you've never done it quickly, and that's hard for us.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_04: So in this time when we feel lost and cannot see what you are doing, but we trust that you are doing something, teach us to keep still.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_03: Hear and remind us of who we are.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_04: And then as we walked to the table for the bread, and yes, real wine, we sang the song 40 by U2.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_04: If you're not aware, that song 40 is based on Psalm 40.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm going to read the whole psalm here because it completely mirrors the way that I feel.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_04: It says, I waited patiently for the Lord.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_04: He inclined to me and heard my cry.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_04: He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_04: He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_04: Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_04: Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_04: You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_04: None can compare with you.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_04: I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_04: In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_04: Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_04: Then I said, Behold, I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_04: I delight to do your will, O my God, your law is within my heart.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_04: I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_04: Behold, I have not restrained my lips as you know, O Lord, I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_04: I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation, I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_04: As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_04: Your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_04: For evils have encompassed me beyond number.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_04: My iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_04: They are more than the hairs of my head.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_04: My heart fails me.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_04: Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_04: O Lord, make haste to help me.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_04: Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_04: Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_04: Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, Aha, aha.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_04: But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_04: May those who love your salvation say continually, Great is the Lord.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_04: As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_04: You are my help and my deliverer.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_04: Do not delay, O my God.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: This psalm was written by King David before Christ to a God who never changes.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_04: Verses six through eight are actually quoted later in Hebrews 10, 5 through 10, when David says, Offerings you have not required, and your law is written in my heart.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_04: God wants your heart.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_03: He wants you just as you are.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_04: Wait patiently for him.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_04: He will hear your cry, he will set your feet upon a rock, and make your footsteps fern, and you will sing a new song.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_04: A song of praise.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_04: And that song is our song this week.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_04: It was originally written and performed by U2, Bono.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_04: Nothing beats the original, but I'm linking to the version by For King and Country.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_04: And we'll end with a toast made by Trip Fuller as a benediction.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: There you are.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: As you go, remember this! No fingers crossed.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: The God who made everything knows your name, knows your face, gives a shit.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: That God's word that showed up in Sandals Metacross still has a word of blessing and love for you, your neighbor, and your enemy, and the spirit of that one meets this becoming, every becoming you've ever been a part of, and all those in the future, because the vision of the kingdom is one in which power and domination doesn't get the last world.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_04: After the toast, we all exited to the song Superstition by Stevie Wonder.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_04: Next week, we continue our series on the Apocrypha.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_04: We're going to be looking at Jubilees.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_04: Have a great week, everyone, and we'll see you then.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_04: Bye.