Latest / Future Christian / Alan Roxburgh on Why the Church Isn’t in Revival—And What Comes Next

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Alan Roxburgh on Why the Church Isn’t in Revival—And What Comes Next · Future Christian

• 0:05
  This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and the future of the church. Martha Tatarnic
• 0:18
  Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Loren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with Alan Roxburgh. Alan has served as a pastor, seminary professor, consultant, and mentor in leadership and missional transformation. He lives with his wife and extended family in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has written 15 books on mission, leadership, and culture change. In his work, he addresses questions of church and mission. Convinced the Spirit is fermenting a movement of God's people that can't be contained in narratives of renewal, reform, or fixing existing systems. His latest books are Leadership, God's Agency and Disruptions with Mark O'Branson and Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling with Roy Searle. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Loren, Martha and Future Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an email at lauren at resonatemediapro.com with comments, questions or ideas for future episodes. Your support and voice mean a lot to us in making this podcast possible. Loren Richmond Jr
• 1:42
  Hello, welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren Richmond Jr. and today I am pleased to be joined by Alan Roxberg. Hello and welcome to the show. Alan R
• 1:52
  Thanks, Loren Good to be with you. Loren Richmond Jr
• 1:55
  Yeah, thank you. And I'm looking forward to having this conversation. Before we begin, anything else you want our listeners to know about you? Alan R
• 2:02
  Well, I am a Canadian who is an immigrant from Liverpool in England, ⁓ living in Vancouver in a multi-generational household. That's me. Got two wonderful dogs, love to bike and exercise. Loren Richmond Jr
• 2:24
  Awesome. My dogs might make an appearance here too. always do during a conversation. Share with me what you about your faith journey and background, what that's looked like in the past and what that looks like today. Alan R
• 2:38
  okay. Very briefly, ⁓ so I grew up in post-war England in Liverpool, which is a very depressed working class city. And so I grew up as a almost total pagan where the church had nothing, no relationship to what we were doing whatsoever. And my faith journey really, well, I I can talk about all kinds of... intimations of God's presence at that time. But certainly the Church had nothing at all to do with my life and shaping it. My parents emigrated when I was 14 and I, when I was about 17, sort of bumped into a church because I was in a hockey league in ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr
• 3:33
  Hmm. Alan R
• 3:34
  in Canada and it was a church hockey league and from there I began to and I discovered just amazing people and so I became a Christian because I had not encountered love like that before. That's where my faith journey began in my late teens. I went off to university to study philosophy and was being set up to teach philosophy. I went off to a grad school in California where again God encountered me and it became a call to the church. Which is a difficult thing because when God calls in those days there was only one place where you could fit as you become quote a minister or a teacher. So that began my faith journey. And ⁓ I don't know how much of that you want me to talk about but. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr
• 4:23
  Yeah. Alan R
• 4:31
  it by growing up in Liverpool always made me skeptical about power and authority. And so I was always asking questions about why do we do this? Why does it work this way? How come we're playing church in this way when most of my generation is going we're gone, we're not there anymore. And I never found that actually. I found Loren Richmond Jr
• 4:33
  Yeah, where's that taking you today? Yeah. Alan R
• 4:59
  That just created a lot of resistance in people. And then it was in the 90s that I met Leslie Nubergen. And it was Nubergen, as I met him personally and in his writings, that I found someone who was actually engaging the questions I was addressing. And that became a whole journey in what was called the Missional Movement. So maybe that's enough for now. Loren Richmond Jr
• 5:07
  Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for sharing all that. What are some spiritual practices you find meaningful you're willing to share? Alan R
• 5:34
  Yeah, well number one, I think that the most significant spiritual practice is living by a rule of life. And the rule of life for me is one that is borrowed. It's borrowed from ⁓ the Northumbrian community in the UK. And the rule of life is availability and vulnerability. And ⁓ so I seek to practice that because Both of those are characteristics that I would not naturally bring with me out of my upbringing. ⁓ So part of my practice of life is how can I be available and vulnerable to others? And the ways in which I live that is daily office. That's one major practice. The second is choosing to live deliberately in the local, in the neighborhood. Loren Richmond Jr
• 6:22
  Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 6:31
  So rather than having a car of my own to go everywhere, I got rid of it and sold it so that I'm in the neighborhood. I practiced it by living in an extended household. ⁓ My wife and I practice ⁓ almost every day the examen. ⁓ So these are the sorts of practices that ⁓ have been important in the shaping of my own life. Loren Richmond Jr
• 6:52
  Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's great. Thanks for sharing all that. I'm finding that very interesting, the availability and vulnerability. So I suppose you're practicing both, or at least hopefully with me today. You're certainly available and I hope you'll be somewhat vulnerable. suppose you already have. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Well, we're here to talk with Alan about his book that he co-wrote with Roy Searle, Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling, Leadership in a Changing World. Alan R
• 7:16
  I will do my best, yeah, yeah. Loren Richmond Jr
• 7:30
  And Alan, think we communicated before, you know, before setting up this interview, like how much I thought the book was frankly fabulous, so important. And I'm hoping we can, I'm hoping we can, you know, communicate that to the listeners here. I want to start with this. Alan R
• 7:50
  Well, thank you. Loren Richmond Jr
• 7:53
  because I think this is what makes this book so shocking and grabs a reader's attention. Y'all write, what lies before us, talking about, you use the word Euro-tribal church in North America, what lies before us is a dark night, not a new dawn. So I want to ask this because I think... Alan R
• 8:06
  Yes. Loren Richmond Jr
• 8:18
  I hear so much rumblings, whether it's in, I think I hear this primarily in evangelical circles in the States right now, but there's so much of this hope and want to believe that revival is imminent. So I think why this assertion that what lies before us is a dark night, not a new dawn. Alan R
• 8:35
  Yeah. Sure, sure. Well, I think there are lots of different ways of coming at this, but ⁓ certainly the very notions that are built into the bones and the fibers of many of us in the West, and I talk particularly of North America, UK, Europe, ⁓ we've been schooled. Loren Richmond Jr
• 9:07
  Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 9:10
  in notions of progress, ⁓ that things continually get better. And in fact, since the end of World War II, the generations that have been born after World War II have really been born by and large, particularly what I call Euro-tribal peoples, onto an escalator that keeps going up, or had kept going up. Loren Richmond Jr
• 9:13
  Yeah. Alan R
• 9:38
  in terms of jobs and income and medical things just getting better. And so built into us is this expectation that things get better. And part of what I'm arguing is that that has been a profoundly unique, distinct, aberrant period in human history and even in Western history, and it's coming to an abrupt end. and we are confronting the emergence of a whole different world. You just pick up your newspapers and read, you don't need a lot. So how do we as God's people prepare for that? When most of us have created churches of sunny skies and happy, clappy life and ⁓ I don't believe that's where God has taken us. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr
• 10:24
  Right. Alan R
• 10:32
  I think, well, I mean, could say so much more about this, that the very economics that we've built, and I know this is controversial, the very economics that we've built in terms of capitalism. in terms of the ways in which money and capital have become the defining center of all of life. again, you don't need erudite arguments for that. Just look at the television ⁓ and it convincing us that buy, buy, buy, spend, spend, spend, that money is at the center of everything that we get. All of these things are increasingly Loren Richmond Jr
• 11:04
  Yeah. Alan R
• 11:18
  not working. ⁓ So again, I don't know how much you want me to do this, but so what I'm saying is that just at those levels, at the economic and the social and political, when things are not progressing and getting better, something else is going on. But much more significant than that, at the theological level, you have to keep asking that Loren Richmond Jr
• 11:38
  Yeah. Alan R
• 11:48
  God's renewal, even if we are wanting to glam onto some revival notions, which I think are silly, but even if we do that and think of God's renewal, then go to the biblical texts. And in the book I begin in Jeremiah, like God's renewal comes out. Loren Richmond Jr
• 12:05
  Yes. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 12:16
  of God's chiding, of God's breaking, of God's bringing God's people into dark night. It is only in the midst of that that we discover the hope that God has for us. So this is not a dour, dark thing I'm talking about. I think this is looking realistically what's going on, but at the same time, theologically saying, look folks, Loren Richmond Jr
• 12:24
  Yes. Alan R
• 12:44
  The ways in which the Spirit of God brings God's people or the Spirit of Jesus brings God's people into places of hope is in the place of dark night, not in the place of the kind of progress that we have as modernity. But let me stop and see if I'm answering your question. Loren Richmond Jr
• 13:04
  Yeah, this is all, I think, great stuff. So early in the book, probably in the, I think in the introduction here, y'all say that we are proposing there is no renewal or revival or reformation just around the corner. Like, I feel like that's the predominant narrative I keep hearing again and again, like, especially in America, like, revival is coming. Revival is coming. You say this unraveling will go on for a long time. Three, we are entering a new dark time in which there'll be no solutions. answers or fixes for a long time. Therefore, four, this period calls for radically different leadership responses. And five, it requires a readiness to trust that God is ahead of us. And I think this is the most important calling us on to a journey for which right now we have no maps. ⁓ And while there's, while y'all say there's no maps, I think what is interesting is as I read it, this is where y'all draw from the book of Jeremiah, not necessarily as a map, but as a, I don't know, guidance? How would you say that? Alan R
• 14:11
  ⁓ The Book of Jeremiah, I think, is illustrative of the ways in which God shows up amongst God's people. the, what's, mean, to simplify, but it's present in Hosea, in Isaiah, ⁓ in the Deuteronomic texts, that, Loren Richmond Jr
• 14:15
  Yeah. Alan R
• 14:41
  the overarching word that God brings out of covenant is you have forgotten me. And that language of you have forgotten me, ⁓ which is full of Hosea, is addressed. This is a horrifying thing. It's not addressed to the people in the towns, it's addressed to the religious leaders. You've forgotten me. You've neglected, you've lost. so that's, I mean, part of what I think is going on is that that's actually what's happened in the Euro tribal churches. their chasing after the culture with all of its models of leadership or all of its methods and shows of success. We've forgotten God's Loren Richmond Jr
• 15:22
  Yeah. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 15:38
  central place in covenant amongst us. And so what does God do? God does not judge in the sense of, I'm going to wipe you out. God says, I'm going to love you back toward me through, and that's where the dark night comes. That's where, you know, Jeremiah, for example, you know, Jeremiah, this gets at the revival stuff, is that it's when people feel disoriented. Loren Richmond Jr
• 15:47
  Mm-hmm. Hmm. Alan R
• 16:08
  When people feel like their worlds are coming apart and when things are not working the way they used to, which is what I hear from many, clergy, is the very natural response. It's a default built into our... It's where we... Is we turn to the stories and the narratives that we've lived in, which are stories and narratives of success and method and technique, and we look for them. How do we find them? Loren Richmond Jr
• 16:16
  Right. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 16:38
  And what's going on in Jeremiah, for example, is that the story and the method and the technique that the captives lived in was how do we get back to Jerusalem? And of course, you expect that to be the primary question, because here's why. Their leaders, the temple priests and others who are brought into captivity, Loren Richmond Jr
• 16:55
  Mm. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 17:07
  They don't know what to do when they don't have a temple. So they want to get back. They want to get back. But Jeremiah's instructions from the Lord are, if you want to know what I'm doing, don't try to go back. Now that is an invitation into a dark night. Because it's an invitation to stay for them in the most God-forsaken place there is, which is Loren Richmond Jr
• 17:09
  Right. Alan R
• 17:37
  Babylon and amongst these terrible people. So that's the background of what I'm talking about. But that background has to be heard in the context of the larger text, which is that you will hear me, you will see me, you will become my people as you root yourself down in a strange place and you begin to build a life there amongst a people. Loren Richmond Jr
• 17:38
  Yeah. Now talk about these three practices y'all propose. ⁓ Dwelling, discerning, and exploring, right? Alan R
• 18:12
  Yeah. Correct. Well, there's lots of ways of talking about those. You just begin with dwelling. Dwelling at many levels is Asgard's people learn again to live in the place where you are. To dwell in the place where you are, which means, and there's lots of talk about this today, and I don't mean this as a technique, be present. Loren Richmond Jr
• 18:24
  Yeah. Alan R
• 18:45
  walk with, live with, engage with the people who are your neighbors in your community. Now, the interesting thing about this, and again, how long you want to take, I don't know. So I've done a lot of work with ⁓ all kinds of churches all around the world. And one of the fun things I do is I get a congregation to take a blank sheet of paper and to draw a ⁓ kind of a diagram of where, draw a diagram of where you live, whether that's on a street in a neighborhood or it's on a high-rise condo, just draw it. Then I go, okay, now what I want you to do is I want you in the boxes where the houses are or the apartments are, I want you to put the names of ⁓ the people who live there. And it gets quieter at that point. Loren Richmond Jr
• 19:38
  Yeah. Yeah. Alan R
• 19:44
  And then I say, I want you to write something about each one of them that you can only know because you've been in their house and sat at their table. And over and over and over and over again, what they will tell you is, I don't know people like that. I hardly know my neighbor, you see. And there's lots of literature on this, but. Loren Richmond Jr
• 19:54
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alan R
• 20:12
  And as one woman said, I'll never forget it, just beautiful, beautiful, Presbyterian woman from South Carolina said, well, you know, Alan, here's the thing. I could write the names of all the people in my church, God bless them, but I don't know the names of the people in my neighborhood. And what we've done, we've created a church culture in which all our relationships are buried in those places. And they're... Loren Richmond Jr
• 20:38
  my goodness, yes. Alan R
• 20:39
  and they're homogeneous and they look like us and they quack like us and they Loren Richmond Jr
• 20:39
  Yes. Yes. Yes. Alan R
• 20:44
  believe like us and we hardly have a relationship with others. And so part of what I mean by dwelling is simply learning to become present with and in and among the people of our communities and learn to be in relationship with them. Now, the reason for that is Loren Richmond Jr
• 21:06
  Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 21:09
  profoundly from God. Because the only way God has come to us and knows us is in relationship. It goes all the way back to the creation stories where God comes to walk with Adam in the cool of the night in conversation and that. So that's part of dwelling. The other part of dwelling is the retrieval, and it's now broadly present, is the retrieval of Loren Richmond Jr
• 21:13
  Right. relationship. Alan R
• 21:39
  an ancient practice called lectio divina, or holy listening, or holy reading, in which rather than this profoundly modernistic, ⁓ syllogistic, ideational Bible study, ⁓ it's how do we listen to God through one another? And how does that listening become a listening of the people of God, not the Loren Richmond Jr
• 21:55
  Yes. Alan R
• 22:09
  educated pastor telling them. so again, dwelling involves learning actually whole new skill sets of listening to scripture and through and with one another. And that sounds easy, but it actually takes time and it's profoundly transformative. ⁓ So that's another way of doing it. Now in both of those cases, Loren Richmond Jr
• 22:11
  Yes. Yeah. Alan R
• 22:39
  Part of what we're doing with dwelling is reconnecting with the stories of people. And you see, the thing is that what we've done, I think it's still the case, is we have created churches, particularly in Protestantism and the mainline churches, run by professionals, the reverent so-and-so. And if... Loren Richmond Jr
• 22:46
  Yes. Yes. Yes. Alan R
• 23:07
  If it's not sufficient to be a reverend, you go back and you become a doctor. So that you are a professional and an expert who knows. And what that professional and expert who knows communicates, intentionally or not, to people is, I know and you don't. And what it creates is a passivity of, we're here to get it from you. And inside of that narrative, Loren Richmond Jr
• 23:12
  Yes. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 23:36
  Another one comes that's never owned, which is most people in most of our churches will say, what I have to say is not important. I don't know how to listen to God, that's you. And so part of this dwelling process is to learn how, as leaders, the language I use, to become midwives who call forth. Loren Richmond Jr
• 23:47
  Hmm... Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 24:04
  what God is up to already at present amongst the people themselves. That's part of what dwelling is about. And that's what we're doing in our neighborhoods. Now, why is that so important? It's important because the answer to the question, what is God doing here in this time and age is not in experts. It's not in big leaders. It's not in conferences where, forgive the language, Loren Richmond Jr
• 24:28
  Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 24:33
  futurologist bullshit, it's present amongst the ordinary people of God on the ground. That's where God's future is present. And so in terms of the question, where are we going and what is God doing, this dwelling is critically important. So that's what dwelling is about. And we do all kinds of things to cultivate dwelling. That's where things like Loren Richmond Jr
• 24:36
  Yeah, yeah. Alan R
• 25:03
  dwelling in the word, dwelling in the neighborhood, doing examine, all those sorts of things. It's where our worship liturgies become so critical, ⁓ especially around the table, whether we call it Eucharist or communion. So that's dwelling. When, yeah, go ahead. Loren Richmond Jr
• 25:13
  Yeah. Right. Yeah, this is, let's, let's hold on there. Cause you've given so much, so much rich content that I want to emphasize Alan, cause I'm thinking of, I mean, you're speaking to me. I'm feeling convicted. Cause I'm thinking like I've lived in my neighborhood here for four years. I think I know the names of two of my neighbors, but also thinking I live very much in suburbia, which is what much of America has become. Alan R
• 25:41
  Yeah. Right? Loren Richmond Jr
• 25:49
  where I drive down the street and I, or I, when I come home, I drive down the street and I pull into my garage and I close the door and I, I never like actually interface with the outside world. And much of church is the same way, right? Where we drive from another neighborhood to a new neighborhood, pull into the parking lot. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Alan R
• 25:49
  Yep. That's how they're That's how they're designed. Yep. Yep. So let me break into that. Here's the thing. This did not happen by chance. The kind of social construction that you're describing didn't just kind of happen. It came out of the story. And what you're describing is the way in which we've constructed Loren Richmond Jr
• 26:16
  Yes. Hmm Alan R
• 26:34
  made material our deepest beliefs. And our deepest beliefs are that I am an unobstructed individual who has the rights to do what I choose, when I choose, and how to choose to do it. And we then construct our houses and design our communities to concretize that story. Loren Richmond Jr
• 26:37
  Yes. Alan R
• 27:04
  And so in many ways, and people are going to laugh when I say this, I think part of the vocation of the Church is to ask, how do we reconstruct, how do we remake the way we live socially? Now, people are going to accuse me of being a socialist and a Marxist and all of that, which is crap. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr
• 27:24
  Yeah, yeah. Alan R
• 27:34
  That's how profound it is, is when we begin to open our eyes. Like I remember a denominational leader invited me into their area to help them understand how to actually, in those days it was how do you become missional kind of thing. And I remember I was staying at his house and we got in the car and we drove to his house and it was just like you were describing. Loren Richmond Jr
• 27:54
  Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 28:03
  We drove down this road and turned into a side where there were rows of townhouses ⁓ in an alleyway and there were garages all the way down. And as we drive down, he clicks and up comes the garage and he drives in and down goes the garage and that's it. Right? And like Loren Richmond Jr
• 28:03
  Right. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 28:29
  And you want, why is there loneliness? Why are people, why is there mental illness? You know, all of this, right? And so what you do is you create isolated individuals who, to fill up the isolation, get entertained, whether that's with the phone or the TV or whatever, and... Loren Richmond Jr
• 28:31
  Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Alan R
• 28:57
  and the promise that your needs are gonna get met. And we create churches that address exactly that. And so we create churches that tell people, you know, the greatest desire of Jesus is to meet your needs, right? And then we wonder why it's so hard for them to hear, folks, that's not where God's taking us. Loren Richmond Jr
• 29:02
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm... Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is good stuff here. I want to turn a little bit to this idea of hopeful action, if that's a right description, because I think this is something that's powerful. You emphasize, I'm thinking also of, I just read Eugene Peterson's run with horses, which also looks at Jeremiah. ⁓ The concept of, or the action of buying land, I thought in Jeremiah is very powerful as like a as a hope-filled, not like optimism, right? But as like a, a trust that God is still active and working. I'm curious, like, what do you think, like I'm convinced like in so many mainline circles, it's like, let's sell off property, let's sell off buildings, we're just in decline. Like I'm convinced that an act of, of buying land in the mainline is holding onto buildings. Like, what do you think is an act of, of buying land, so to speak, in ⁓ in our current context. Alan R
• 30:25
  Sure, sure. I mean, obviously there are different opinions on this one. I I am part of a church that doesn't own a building, doesn't have land. And of course, at times we'll read that as giving them the ability not to be focused on land, etc., etc., which I respect. At the same time, the... Loren Richmond Jr
• 30:31
  Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Alan R
• 30:54
  Land is not something that's ancillary to who we are as human beings. So I had a... I remember one of my colleagues told a story of a friend of his who was a pastor who moved to a town and two years in he still couldn't understand why there was a distance. And so two years in he went out and he did something very strange. This was a pastor. Loren Richmond Jr
• 31:00
  Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 31:23
  And that Sunday he stood up in church and he said, folks, this week I went out and I bought my grave plot. And what he was saying to people is, I'm here, I'm present, I have this. So land is important. ⁓ And so in terms of your question, I mean, obviously there's not one single answer to it. And there are a lot of buildings that... Loren Richmond Jr
• 31:35
  I'm here. Right, right. Alan R
• 31:51
  lying empty and there's a lot of needs. ⁓ But I think that my own view is that selling off church buildings and church lands is more often than not short-sighted. It's lack of imagination. ⁓ I'll never forget a number of years ago where my in-laws lived, which was more countryside than urban. Loren Richmond Jr
• 32:06
  Hmm. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 32:19
  I'd go for a walk along a country road and there was the United Church and it was all boarded up and it was empty. And I looked at it and I have to confess that in my heart I went, what a lack of imagination. And then someone bought the building and they turned it out in the countryside into a flower and a country shop and other things. And there were people all around it, all over the place, all the time. Loren Richmond Jr
• 32:33
  Hmm. Right. Alan R
• 32:48
  And I'm going, can't the church get some imagination? Because you see, now the building becomes a gathering place and a community center and everything else. Or you're probably familiar with Paul Kingsnorth. Does that ring of any bells to you, Paul Kingsnorth? You need to write it down and you need to look him up and read about it. Loren Richmond Jr
• 32:54
  Right. Yes. Yes. No, I'm curious, tell me more. Alan R
• 33:18
  He's just written a book on the machine. But Paul Kingsnorth keeps getting asked, what do we do? And what do we do where we are? And he uses the language of, rather than congregations, this is more my language, we need to think about abbeys and what abbeys were, right? And you can explain this more. So I'm saying, instead of selling off our buildings, Loren Richmond Jr
• 33:37
  Yeah, yeah. Yes. Alan R
• 33:48
  turn them into abbeys. Now, the thing about the abbey is it wasn't a spiritual retreat. It was the place that instantiated around practice as the working life of a community. And abbeys at their best, and I know a lot of them by the 14th, 15th century were not at their best, but abbeys at their best. Loren Richmond Jr
• 33:50
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 34:15
  were ways of reconstituting the social life of a people around Christian practices and habits. the, so, so I'm not a big fan of selling land. I mean, my nephew, I wrote about this, you'd see it on my Facebook page, my nephew who's been the pastor of a church in the city for 30 odd years is, He and his church are just breaking ground on their land, another land that they bought on a high-rise tower for housing and subsidizing. But, but, but, but, they didn't sell the land to a developer and say, do that, and then go, are we good? Look what we've done. No, no, no, no. Right beside it. Loren Richmond Jr
• 34:47
  Hmm. Right. Alan R
• 35:11
  They're building a community center and a worship center. I mean, there's imagination. And we need way more than that than just this time to sell our building. Loren Richmond Jr
• 35:14
  Yes. Yes. Yes. I suppose Alan, it goes back to that story you've already talked about of this kind of single, I don't know how to describe it other than like a single use idea of like, you know, we've kind of built churches like they can only be for worship and uncertainly like I'm, a big believer in like sacred space, but this kind of like isolated or isolationism, right? That we have to overcome that and look as a- as part of the core being, I'm not sure how to say it better than that, of the community. Alan R
• 35:59
  Well, I think that part of what we do and who is the we, let's talk about Christian leaders who are thinking about this stuff, what we have to do is recognize that we have constructed a society that isolates people. And we have bought into an economy. Loren Richmond Jr
• 36:09
  Right? Yes. Alan R
• 36:25
  of winners and losers. In other words, we live in a whole world that breaks people. And to a large extent, what we do as pastors is we find all kinds of of serving people inside of those realities. We do not ask the question, which I think is the... question of God's mission. How do we form an alternative society here in the midst of all of this? Now, I'm not talking about becoming, you know, going out into deserts to create something different, but right in the midst of this kind of society, which is heading, I think, to a dark... Loren Richmond Jr
• 36:59
  Yeah. Right. Yeah. Alan R
• 37:27
  in the midst of it, in small places, how do we create communities of hope? And by that I mean these practices and these ways of living with one another that demonstrate we don't have to be alone and we don't have to be stretched on the torture of capitalism. Loren Richmond Jr
• 37:53
  Well, let's stay on this because I think one of the counterpoints, critique that someone might say and say, hey, we're addressing this loneliness, but we're doing it through affinity groups. And y'all in the book specifically say that the crises confronting our societies cannot be addressed by affinity groups formed around issues and ideologies. So say more about why you think that should be true. Alan R
• 38:17
  Correct? Sure, sure. Because you see... Somebody used to say congregations are the most segregated gatherings and blah blah blah blah blah blah. Because you see, if you look, most churches, and my work has been spent in what I call Euro-tribal churches, are to a very large extent, they're gatherings of people in the same socioeconomic levels, the same cultural, racial... Loren Richmond Jr
• 38:29
  Right, Dr. King, yeah. Yes. Alan R
• 38:52
  In other words, they are echo chambers. number one, they're echo chambers. Number two, they've all, almost all of them have been formed in what I call a therapeutic culture. How does Jesus heal me? I mean, you go into churches these days and you listen, what's the dominant language going on in here? And in many churches, I just keep hearing the language of hurt and... Loren Richmond Jr
• 38:55
  Right, right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Alan R
• 39:22
  brokenness and my need for support and all of these. And therapy has become for the Euro-tribal churches the cultural core of their identity. ⁓ And then what we do, coming out of the, actually these things come out of the 50s and 60s, they come out of the ⁓ human potential movement. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr
• 39:36
  Yeah, yeah. Alan R
• 39:51
  We form small groups. And these small groups are affinities groups. They all look the same, quack the same, and say the same sorts of things. What I'm saying is that kind of church life is antithetical to the Gospel and it doesn't have the resilience to engage a world that's coming apart. Because you see, Loren Richmond Jr
• 39:53
  Mm-hmm. Yes. Alan R
• 40:19
  Let me ground this. The imagination of Paul is that God in Jesus, that in Christ's death and resurrection and in the coming of the Spirit has done what? Has called forth a whole new creation. And using gender language that he would, a new man. But who is this new man? And this is particularly in Ephesians where he describes this. Loren Richmond Jr
• 40:42
  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 40:54
  It is where there is no longer Jew, no Greek, male, no female. In other words, it's the crossing of the differences. So what I'm trying to say there is that our vocation is to form gatherings of God's people. I don't like the word congregation, but to form gatherings of God's people who begin to demonstrate this breaking down of the walls. Loren Richmond Jr
• 40:57
  Yes, slave nor free. Mm-hmm Yeah. Alan R
• 41:23
  It's only in listening to the other across difference that we can ever hear God. When we come together in small groups and we're all homogeneous, we are not hearing God. We are forming echo chambers in which we are reaffirming our own ideologies. Loren Richmond Jr
• 41:49
  Yeah, this is good stuff. Let me ask one more question before we move to our closing questions. I think this is certainly underlying everything you've been saying. It's certainly something that we've been trying to emphasize on the podcast, that this is all dependent on a dependence on the agency of God. So I'm, I'm certainly thinking of, if you're familiar, Andrew Root. the churches in the crisis of Klein, this idea that we've given up this idea of a active God in our world. ⁓ Say more about that. Alan R
• 42:25
  God's agency. Yeah, here we have to go back to the emergence of modernity, of the modern era, ⁓ but even to the Reformation itself, which while in its writing had a strong penchant for God's agency, God's sovereignty, actually in the way in which the Reformations took place, ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr
• 42:26
  Yes. Mm. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 42:55
  downplayed that a lot. But let me talk more about the Reformation, not the Reformation, the Enlightenment. What emerges for all kinds of reasons that are rooted in actual Christian theology of the 12th, 13th, well the 14th century with Loren Richmond Jr
• 42:56
  Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Alan R
• 43:17
  Anyway, is that, ⁓ there's a Jewish sociologist who put it this way, that what emerges from the Enlightenment is the conviction that life can be lived well without ⁓ This is Charles Taylor's kind of the immanent frame that we live in a world that no longer needs reference to God. know, I mean, ⁓ for all kinds of reasons, which I'm sure you don't want to get into in this thing. And so what we've been doing since the 17th century, but became really very profoundly Loren Richmond Jr
• 43:52
  Yeah. Alan R
• 44:09
  deeply embedded by the midpoint of the last century is shaping a whole society in the West that found it could live well without God. And the churches were disoriented by that. They were thrown on the back foot. They were confused. They didn't know what to do about it. As, for example, politically Loren Richmond Jr
• 44:23
  Yeah. Alan R
• 44:39
  They were increasingly set aside in a secularizing society. And so that raised the question of what do we do? What do we do as churches? And what the churches did was glam on to whatever movement was going on in the culture itself and add Bible verses to it. And so, you know, the therapeutic, you know, the therapeutic became one. Loren Richmond Jr
• 44:44
  Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Yes. Alan R
• 45:06
  But so did the business world in terms of, you know, methodologies. How do we deal? Well, we could become more adaptive or innovative or go down the list. But if you notice to all these proposals that the churches are making to deal with their disruptions, none of them require God. Loren Richmond Jr
• 45:08
  Yes, yes, especially in evangelicalism. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 45:33
  They require God to turn up and kind of bless it, throw some water over it. ⁓ But you see, this is God's right? Even though at the level of the intellectuals and the elites and the educated, we live in this imminent universe, which I think is breaking down very rapidly. What we did is we shunned Loren Richmond Jr
• 45:33
  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 46:01
  that which is present amongst ordinary people on the ground, any sense of God's presence. But God is there. God is at work. God keeps breaking in isn't the right word. We've seen it. And so when I talk about God's edges, what I'm saying is that one of the habits, one of the practices, one of the works that we need is how do we order ourselves through these practices. Loren Richmond Jr
• 46:07
  Yes. Alan R
• 46:31
  to get, to become in touch again with what God is doing ahead of us. Because God is present on the ground. The problem is, and this is really, I found very helpful, is the work of ⁓ Ian McGilchrist, the philosopher, psychologist, get hold of any of his books, the master and the, I can't remember the... Loren Richmond Jr
• 46:36
  Mm-hmm. Alan R
• 47:00
  very, very important stuff he's doing, where he says what happens with the coming of the Enlightenment is, and he talks about right brain, left brain, what happens with the coming of the Enlightenment is that all of our attention, and that's the big word, all of our attention gets directed to the outcomes, the techniques, the methods that we can manage to get what we can want. Loren Richmond Jr
• 47:21
  Yeah, right. Yes. Alan R
• 47:30
  And when you've got those methods and techniques, you do not need God. Except at the end to pray over you. ⁓ So what's going on in our churches is that our default attentions are to therapy and to methods and techniques that we can use to fix and make things work. That's our attention. It's the default. And in that, Loren Richmond Jr
• 47:34
  Yes. Yes. Alan R
• 47:59
  We have lost the capacities to become attentive to God's presence and God's reality in the remaking of the world. Loren Richmond Jr
• 48:11
  So much good stuff you just shared there. Like I'm thinking certainly of how we are in the attention economy, we say or as often said. The book is Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Enraveling. I would strongly recommend it. Okay, we are back with Alan Roxberg and really have appreciated the conversation. Alan R
• 48:26
  go ahead. Loren Richmond Jr
• 48:34
  I could keep talking all day frankly, but I'm coming up on lunch and I'm getting hungry and I'm sure you have other things to do. So some closing questions. We always tell folks you can take these as seriously or not as you'd like to. But if you're Pope for a day, what might like you to do with that day? Alan R
• 48:38
  Yeah If I were Pope for a day, ⁓ okay, what would I like to do for that day? I'd like to do numbers things if I Pope for the day, which may not be very Popish things to do. ⁓ I would rise early. I would do my office, take my dog for a walk, and then... Loren Richmond Jr
• 48:56
  Mm-hmm. Yes. Sure. Alan R
• 49:23
  would want to gather some comrades, some other pastors together. I I do this in different ways. The image I have is a table, because a table, a round table around which we gather. And in the center of that table, there would be bread and wine. ⁓ But the table symbolizes that there are no experts here. There's no better than and more than Loren Richmond Jr
• 49:37
  Mm-hmm. Hmm. Alan R
• 49:53
  But it's as we meet with God, as we confess Jesus around this table and enter into dialogue together in which we're raising the questions that we're struggling and wrestling with, that that's the space where we meet God. And that's the space where the imagination for the remaking of society emerges. So that's what I'd want to do to spend my morning doing. Loren Richmond Jr
• 50:11
  Yeah. Alan R
• 50:21
  And then to be quite frankly, if I were the Pope for a day, I'd still want to about one ish in the afternoon, go for a long walk, think a bit, have some exercise. I don't know. I'm not sounding very Pope-ish. Loren Richmond Jr
• 50:38
  Well, I suppose, I suppose even what you're saying here, think represents something wise if I can be so bold to say that that. Wherever we're at in life, no matter our station, we should continue with those core practices of who we are and what we believe in. Yes? Alan R
• 51:03
  Yeah, I think so. I think so. Loren Richmond Jr
• 51:07
  A theologian or historical Christian figure you'd want to meet or bring back to life. Alan R
• 51:13
  ⁓ an Italian theologian of the last century, ⁓ Del Noce, N-O-C-E, who was a just a brilliant theologian who saw and anticipate what this modernity was going to do to us. So he's one. ⁓ An historian, an economic historian I'd love time to speak with is Carl Polanyi. Carl Polanyi wrote a book called The Great Transformation, which I think is a must reading for anybody. I don't know what kind of list you want. I'd love to bring back for a little while Leslie Newbigin. I'd love to sit down with Leslie and say, you know, in 2026, Leslie, as you look back at what you were doing in the 1990s, how do you assess that now? Because I have this impish instinct that he would be aghast at what we've done with what he with all of the stuff that he wrote. There's some of the people I would want to Loren Richmond Jr
• 52:10
  Yeah. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Alan R
• 52:37
  invite back. The other one is ⁓ this amazing missiologist Andrew Walz who, I don't know, he died about 15, 18 years ago. I would just love to spend a week or so just talking with Andrew and getting his wisdom on what he sees going on in terms of world Christianity these days. Loren Richmond Jr
• 52:45
  Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Alan R
• 53:06
  So that's some of my list. Loren Richmond Jr
• 53:08
  Yeah, that's a great list. That's a great list. Alan R
• 53:10
  You know, the other one is Simoneville. I mean, what an utterly stunning and amazing human being and philosopher who loved God so deeply. I'd love the chance to spend a week or so with her. Loren Richmond Jr
• 53:16
  Mmm. Mm-hmm. How about, what do you think history will remember from our current time and place? Alan R
• 53:40
  I think that I'm a baby boomer. I think history will look back on our time and place and go, ⁓ God, how self-indulged they were. Loren Richmond Jr
• 53:43
  Mm-hmm. Hmm Alan R
• 53:53
  ⁓ God, how self-centered and self-righteous and self-fulfilling they were, and yet had such potential. I'm talking about my own generation. Loren Richmond Jr
• 54:04
  Hmm. Yeah, yeah. What do you hope for the future of Christianity? Alan R
• 54:12
  ⁓ It's more than hope that all will be well and all things in all ways will be well and that this kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be where all peoples will come and worship and bow down. So that's the background in which I live. Having said that, Loren Richmond Jr
• 54:20
  Yeah. Alan R
• 54:43
  I think the scriptures are clear. We do not have control over that. We do not make it happen with our skills and abilities and plans. We are called to be faithful and there is no straight line of it getting better and better and better. In fact, I think the scriptures hint of the opposite. But at the end of the day, I get up in the morning with the whole, with something. Loren Richmond Jr
• 54:49
  Yes. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Alan R
• 55:13
  It's more than hope, that this is God's world and God's future is emerging. But what gives me life is that that future emerges amongst us. So how do we call forth God's future in each other? Loren Richmond Jr
• 55:14
  Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Alan, I really appreciate this conversation. Really want to recommend the book. Is there folks, if, can folks connect with you? Do you have any socials, anything like that? Yeah. Alan R
• 55:37
  Well, thank you. I do have website. No, I've just closed my website down actually. ⁓ Right now Facebook is the place where you can get a hold of me, or my email address. I write a lot of stuff that goes up on social media and I write a book every couple of years. I've got one in them. making right now. ⁓ But probably my address on Facebook would be the best place to get in touch with me. Loren Richmond Jr
• 56:15
  Okay, well, I'll make sure, Alan, before I post this, I'll get that and make sure I include that link. Again, thank you for the time conversation. We always leave folks with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you. God's peace. Alan R
• 56:22
  Okay. God's peace, yes, God's peace be with you.