Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / "I don't think Jesus was a good person": Deconstruction and Difficult Conversations || SLP663

Transcript

"I don't think Jesus was a good person": Deconstruction and Difficult Conversations || SLP663 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: There's a massive cultural churn right now.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think of the person of Jesus?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_04: I love Jesus.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_04: Jesus is wonderful.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: The God man embodied in the flesh.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: I don't believe that Jesus was necessarily the Son of God.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_08: The person of Jesus is a great example of how to treat others.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_08: I don't think Jesus was a good person.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Hey.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Does a conversation where you disagree and where there's tension and it's it's difficult automatically equal a bad conversation?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like nice conversations where we're skirting around the topic, there's an elephant in the room, we're not actually addressing it, getting them to the meat of it and wrestling something through and then coming up with some discovery of a genuine common ground.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: If we're not actually doing that, it's just all superficial.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, it's boring.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_07: Lots of people are talking about deconstruction at the moment, especially in faith conversations when people walk away from Christian faith, especially a Christian faith of their childhood.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_07: What does that look like?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_07: And what are people turning to?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_07: All sorts of denominations that people are drawn to at the moment.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_07: But how do we, as Speak Life, join that conversation?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_07: Welcome to the Speak Life podcast.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_07: My name's Thomas, and I'm joined by Naomi.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm Glenn Heller.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_07: Brilliant.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_07: And we were at Breakwater, which was a space that was trying to enable these sorts of conversations.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_07: So it was put on by Paul Van der Clay and Cassidy van der Kamp.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_07: And they had people on the panel from a range of backgrounds: Christians, ex-Christians, Mormons, people of other faiths, and basically asking how we can have good conversations.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_07: But towards the end, Naomi and I decided to go up to some of the attendees and ask them who they are, what they believe, and why they're here.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_07: Should we check them out?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_07: That's it.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: Aiden, have you got particular spiritual or religious belief?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_05: I do indeed.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um although I was raised Catholic, I spent essentially the last 10 years of my life as an atheist.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: And then since I started hopscotching around churches just like Jared, my view on spiritual spirituality and the existence of God has completely changed.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_05: And actually at the moment, I I practice Krishna I practice Krishna consciousness.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: Krishan consciousness?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_05: Krishna consciousness.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, Krishna consciousness.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, what is Krishna consciousness?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_05: Krishna consciousness, more commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement, is a form of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which is Hinduism.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so I I chant on my Mala beads every day the holy names of God.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um they're kind of like prayer beads, almost like a rosary.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and I chant every day, and I sing and I chant and I do kirtan, which is like devotional singing and dancing, and so that's that's what I that's what I do, and I meditate every day.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now, what would you say you think of Jesus, the person of Jesus?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_05: I love Jesus.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus is wonderful.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_05: I think um the teachings in the New Testament of those who are without sin, cast the first stone, love your enemies, and and the golden rule, you know, treat people you would like the way you would like to be treated is wonderful.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_05: I have uh an intense love and nostalgia for the person of Jesus.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_05: I wouldn't be surprised if he you know had some kind of divine or spiritual powers, but I I love Jesus.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_05: I have a massive um tapestry of Jesus in my flat, it's absolutely huge, and I have my icons of Jesus from when I was a Catholic that I got given during my first Holy Communion.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_05: So um I might not think I don't believe in the Trinity or that he's the Son of God, but I think I I I think he's wonderful.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_05: I love Jesus.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_05: I wouldn't be surprised if he was divine, but I don't think he's the son of God.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's really interesting.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love Jesus, but just not what he says he is.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: I love I love a version of Jesus that isn't.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_09: But he wouldn't he wouldn't be surprised if Jesus was divine or something, which is basically that is that is basically the doctrine of the Trinity.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_09: Like, like, like so because I I think the doctrine of the Trinity gets a bad name, as though it's okay, I've got to believe these, you know, five truths um that are philosophical, but that that sounds too dogmatic and institutional.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_09: But but actually, what if the doctrine of the Trinity just is?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_09: Have a look at Jesus.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_09: If he is what God is like, bad luck, you're Trinitarian.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, it's that's kind of how it works.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_09: I spoke to Aiden, I love Aiden.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_09: We had a great time.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't realise that the thing he was carrying around was his um beads.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and that phrase nostalgic for Jesus is maybe emblematic of a lot of people at the moment who have walked away from some kind of Christian faith but have a renewed interest in spirituality at the moment.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_09: And it reminds me of in in Acts 17 when Paul talks to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, and and they think he's babbling, but he's just he's talking, he's preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_09: So he's just like totally focused on Jesus.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_09: And good news, guys, he's back.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_09: You don't you don't just have to be nostalgic about him.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_09: Like there's just two bits of good news for Aiden.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_09: Number one, he is what God's like.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_09: Number two, he's back.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_09: He's not dead, you don't have to be nostalgic.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_07: Well, let's check out the next one.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: Cassidy, what are your spiritual or religious beliefs?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh I'm uh Eastern Orthodox Christian, but I I did not grow up that way.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up as an evangelical, non-denominational Protestant in America, but uh somehow found my way into uh traditional ancient Christianity.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: And for you, who is who is Jesus?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: What do you make of him?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: Who is he in your life?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good that's a big question.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um just want to quote scripture.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: He's the way, the truth, the life.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah, he's uh the the personal god, the the god man embodied in the flesh.
• 6:00
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_07: That's an interesting counterpoint to Aidan's, isn't it?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: I suppose it's similarity, it feels like they both come west to east.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe uh well you said Cassie has more of a traditional thing, but like we were just saying about prayer beads and chanting and dancing and the the practices that Aiden enjoys actually do have more perhaps tradition in them as well.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_09: And and notice the way she sort of described the non-denominational, sort of immediately Protestant, American.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_09: You know, she did get the American thing in there as well to to give that sense and and and I think there is probably I I might I might be over-exegeting, but there might be that sense of that kind of very hyper-protestant sit loose to everything churchy, everything sacramental, everything embodied.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_09: Um but yeah, what's at the center of things, the the god man, that's yeah, that's good.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_07: And next we have Emile.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: Emile, have you got any particular spiritual or religious beliefs?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I'm a Quaker.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um I've been a Quaker since I was 16.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_04: I guess the best way to describe Quaker beliefs are the testimonies, which are peace, uh truth and integrity, simplicity, uh equality, and the planet.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_04: There isn't like a typical Quaker, but we all have our own way of seeing how truth is sort of revealed constantly.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so for you, uh a question we asked before is what do you think of the person of Jesus?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: What part does he play in that?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_04: I don't believe that Jesus was necessarily the son of God.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um I believe Jesus' message was that you know we are all sons and daughters of God, or we are all aspects of the same thing.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_04: I believe he was a learned person who had, you know, some kind of spiritual inclination that was maybe like higher than most people, um, which is why he was able to teach in such a profound way.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_04: And I view him in in a similar way as you would like Mohammed or or Krishna.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um these are all people that I revere like very highly, and I think they've all had some deeper connection to God.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_07: I know very little about Quakers other than the fact that one, they make good porridge oats.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_07: Um sorry.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_07: And uh they played quite a big role in the abolition of the slave trade, didn't they, alongside the evangelicals.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, interesting here he was saying that Quakers have quite a variety of beliefs about who Jesus actually is.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_07: They do now, yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_07: They do now.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_09: And so so they're sort of in the Anabaptist tradition of the Protestant Reformation and and um quietists in lots of different sense, quietists politically, interestingly, and um in terms of their worship, and so a lot a lot of um a meeting house will just involve silence and and people sort of sitting and and um but uh I I think there has been a sense of of being confessionally Christian to begin with, and then over time, you know, the sort of the the the next generation kind of assumes the confessional Christianity, and then then the the the next generation kind of forgets the con confessional Christianity, which which quite often happens in these kinds of things.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_09: But the yeah, the great irony is that they're sort of quietest politically, and yet um they were the pioneers of the greatest political change, moral, ethical, spiritual earthquake there's ever been.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_09: Abolitionism, you know.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_07: Um earthquake.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_09: Oh yes, earthquakers.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, maybe that's why um yeah, no, they're fascinating people.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_09: I'd love to talk to Emil more about Muhammad, because that this is not this isn't that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_09: I I don't imagine Muhammad sitting in a meeting house in the same way.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_09: I just don't.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_07: And yeah, is Jesus merely a special human being?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: Did didn't he say something like he doesn't think Jesus necessarily is the son of God, but that he taught that we're all sons and daughters of God.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_09: And you don't get the universal brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God without Jesus the divine son.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_09: You know, and and so it it's sort of it's downstream of confessional Christianity, but has yeah, has has lost the the the grounds to actually even have the the the kind of contemplative spirituality that you want to have and that we all want to have.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: We are we can only be children of God because we are in the child the the son of God.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: We are only sons of God because we are in the one who by nature is a son, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: And we by adoption are sons and daughters, and so you c you can't have you can't exchange Jesus being son for actually no, we're all that.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_09: Um He's the one and only Son in on that relationship by nature, and then he invites us to stand there by grace.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_09: By grace, yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_07: Trinity keeps coming up with these sorts of conversations, isn't it?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_07: Who would have thought of it this is already showing how much of a melting pot the the breakwater audience was.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_07: It was it was such a mix of beliefs, which is fascinating.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_07: What do we have next?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_07: Jeff.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_07: Let's see what he has to say.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, I know Jeff.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, Jeff.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: What is your spiritual or religious belief?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I became a Christian at four years of age, and it wasn't through being convinced of anything intellectually, because I'm not sure where I was intellectually at four.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I felt like I had some presence.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I had been raised in church, but I felt like I had some presence just come into the room with me at my home when I was four years old and say, hey, it's it's me.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one you've been hearing about.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, go ahead and invite me into your heart.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be really good for you.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, okay, sure, everything that I've heard about you is good, so let's go ahead and do this thing.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I've uh in in greater or lesser degrees, I feel like I've had that presence with me for my entire life.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_07: I love that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_07: If that was a review of Christianity on TripAdvisor, it would be really good for you.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: Invite Jesus Five stars would recommend.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Is this uh is it an American phrase?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: I or yeah, when I I spent some time in in Canada and the kids would often use that phrase of like, I've invited Jesus into my heart.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like we that hasn't necessarily transported over here in quite the same way.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_09: No, it hasn't.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_09: It hasn't.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_09: Like I yeah, I heard somebody Oh, was it Sophie Killingly in her book about autism?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_09: Um, kind of talking about how to an autistic person, like saying inviting Jesus into your heart for people who take things very, very literally might not be the best phrase.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_09: Like, oh, uh is the in the left ventricle, the right way.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Where does he sit?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: How tiny is he?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_09: But a presence, yeah, the presence of Jesus.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_09: And it's clearly not about intellectual ascent to a set of propositions.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_09: It's about a person.
• 13:02
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_07: And maybe what all these stories so far have in common is experience.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: The experiential side of what faith can mean rather than intellectual.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_09: Which is interesting because the yeah, breakwater is all about these estuary con conversations, or as Paul Van De Claire calls them, conversations.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, so why is it called that?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_09: Estuary.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you've got the fresh water of the river and the salt water of the sea meeting together.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_09: And uh so you get, you know.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_09: The church and outside of church having these conversations.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_09: But but yeah, for for all of them, it's not uh yeah, it's not about doctrine downloads or you know, um di debating the finer points of philosophy.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_09: It's let's let's talk about our spiritual experiences and the and the kind of stories of the world that make sense of them.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_07: Very good.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_07: Let's see what Nemo has to say.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, Nemo.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: Nemo, what are your spiritual or religious beliefs?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_08: Uh I'm Nemo.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_08: I was excommunicated from the Mormon church for apostasy two years ago.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, big.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so previously Mormon, no longer.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um now for you, who who is the person of Jesus to you?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_08: Person of Jesus is a great example uh of how to treat others.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_08: So there we go.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't really and he'd I was thinking about this the other day.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, he actually didn't tell us what he believes now.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if he knows what he believes now.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if he has made it more clear.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: So he's he's got a YouTube channel, Nemo the Mormon.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_09: Mm-hmm.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_09: Maybe he speaks more explicitly about it there, but it's I spoke to him a little bit afterwards in the pub, and I and and again, I I think he's he's processing all sorts of st stuff and going in greater depth with various people, but uh whether he's publicly ready to kind of and that that's the one of the problems with social media is a lot of people are kind of processing this in public, which is a weird kind of a thing.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_09: Um so but yes, uh his yeah, his his YouTube channel is is talking about exposing a whole bunch of stuff about Latter-day Saints that is that is quite eye-opening.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_07: He talks uh at points over the weekend about the pain of you know holding confessionally to the Mormon teachings, but seeing issues with the institution and wanting to call those out and then feeling shunned.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_07: So that that must have been a really hard thing to live with.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_09: Really hard.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_09: And and you lose such a thick community as well.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_09: Uh Latter-day Saints very much believe in family and community and those sorts of things.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_09: And so to To be excommunicated.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_09: Um I mean to be a lapsed Catholic is is one thing if if that hasn't been a massive part of your life, but but to be excommunicated from uh a church where you know he did the two-year missionary thing and um was was very into that thick community, that's a that's a massive loss, and it's uh it's an existential and it's a social loss as well.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_09: It's a s as it's a theological loss.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_07: Just very briefly, what is the Mormon view of Jesus?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_07: Not necessarily that Nemo still holds to it, but what would they say to the question, who is Jesus?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_09: The Son of God.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_09: And so, you know, they they believe in the New Testament as as well as a whole bunch of other scriptures that Joseph Smith uh allegedly discovered and and you know, and and translated from uh other languages like Egyptian through um through the goals that he was um uh given to uh to interpret them with a Mormon will say that there is Father, Son, and Spirit, and Jesus is the Son of God.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_09: But you press into who is this God, who is Elohim, who was a man like you and I, who lived a life and and he ascended to Godhood the same way that you can ascend to Godho Godhood.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_09: And and Jesus is pre-existent, but then so are you, and so am I.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_09: Um that we we all had a pre-existence as souls, and then and then we became embodied, and on the surface of things, they can affirm Father, Son, and Spirit, but they they don't affirm the Trinity the the way that Orthodox Christians do.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_09: Um and they can say that Jesus is the Son of God, and they can aff they can affirm the New Testament in that sense.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_09: But when you press behind it, it's actually a radically different gospel, and it's a it's a different Jesus, I would I would say, you know, it's it's interesting that um I'm always sort of saying to people in in evangelistic conversations to to get get specific, which God are we talking about?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_09: Are we talking about the God of Jesus?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_09: But I think with Mormons as well, which Jesus are we talking about?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_09: Are we talking about the biblical Jesus?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_09: And I yeah, I I think that's really important.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_09: And in fact, in these sorts of conversations, I would I would want to get specific on which which Jesus are we talking about here?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like with Aidan's, oh I I love Jesus, I think he's wonderful.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: If you just heard that, you could infer all kinds of things that he doesn't actually believe.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_07: Should we watch Jared's?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_07: Because this is a curveball, isn't it?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: Jared, what are your spiritual or religious beliefs?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I am an atheist.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_06: Um I'm an ex-Christian with a couple of degrees in theology, and I love studying and exploring religions and cults.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think you do something that I have often wanted to do, which is church audits.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: I've thought about doing it from like a Christian perspective, being like I'm a secret Christian who's pretending to be an atheist who's walking into your church.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: How are you gonna treat me?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: You actually do atheist church audits, I think is great.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um what do you think?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: So now, what do you make of the person of Jesus?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_06: This was not the easy question you pitched me on.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_06: Um I don't think Jesus was a good person.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_11: Oh, hey.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I'm figuring out how I can talk about that, if I should talk about that, and uh what it means for my art, my philosophy, and how I interact with people of faith.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's big.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, thank you for sharing.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_09: Any idea what he means?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: If Jared has come to a place of thinking Jesus isn't God, then I actually think it's a pretty logical conclusion to say he's bad.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's brave and I think he's brave enough to go there.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um if that is sincere, if there's I mean, there's a chance he's saying things that are just like, you know, provocative.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, provocative.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um as the the atheist among a bunch of people that have some kind of spiritual beliefs, but he's also landed uh in nihilism as the kind of logical outworking of his atheism, and talk to me about having a couple years where that was like really difficult and now he's kind of made peace with it.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe this is a similar kind of logical flow.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, if Jesus isn't God then to be the kind of guy who claims to be God and see the things he does, like he must be probably not a good person.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_09: Curses fig trees, talks about hell a lot.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_09: Um, he has a different sexual ethic to the modern sexual ethic.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_09: I don't know, what what else do we think it might be?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, if if it's not true that he's the son of God and he knew it, yeah, yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_07: That's a lie, isn't it?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_07: That's a mass deception that has uh a lot of people around the world and down through history have uh died for and uh devoted their lives to.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_09: Um He does also miss Jesus though.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_09: So on the panel discussion that I had on Paul Van der Clay and and um Nathan Jacobs and Jared Smith, and um yeah, I sort of pressed into a little bit of his deconstruction, and he said that um he lost his best friend.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: So you clarified, and you're like, and by that do you mean Jesus?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_09: He's like yes.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_09: So is I mean, is there a little bit of you kind of lose your best friend, you feel like you've been ghosted by him, maybe you've started ghosting him back.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_09: And then like, how do you feel?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_09: How do you feel about somebody who you thought was always going to be there?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_09: You know, but maybe maybe it's less about what Jesus says in the gospels, maybe it's maybe it's more about um you know, you Jesus Jesus says, you know, anyone who comes to me I will never cast out.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_09: And you're like, Well, I came to you.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_09: What happened?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_09: You know?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_09: I don't know.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah I don't know.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_09: I need to.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_09: It's almost slight stages of grief.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: I had quite a long conversation with him over dinner afterwards, but he I think he doesn't he doesn't make it particularly widely known or talk particularly freely about his actual the reasons for his atheism.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: He just talks about his I guess experience of going from being a Christian, studying theology at Wheaton College and then kind of in the middle of his first or second year losing his faith.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I guess the ripple effects of that, but he isn't particularly explicit with what what the thing was.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_09: But it's all sort of bound up together, isn't it?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_09: Which of course it will be, like if if Jesus is who he says he is, and if you know and if we are the sorts of creatures who live by stories and who cannot help but live by faith in something, then of course deconstructing something that is so powerfully important to you is going to have all sorts of other existential, psychological, social ramifications in in your life.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_09: And certainly when I when I talk about people who decon are deconstructing from um a childhood faith or a teenage faith, um it almost always, in fact, yeah, it it always has psychological, existential, social ramifications that are that are just not about, you know, do I believe every article of the creed?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_09: Like it's it's it's a whole of life, whole of whole of personal thing, isn't it?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's a bit like a Jenga situation.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: If you take out one of these if you take out this core middle block down here at the bottom, then all the things that you've stacked on top of it are just going to come crumbling down as well and it's going to affect everything.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_09: Which means like pastoring somebody, counseling somebody, evangelizing somebody, getting alongside somebody in that situation is not simply going to be about um no the historicity of the gospels really can be trusted.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_09: And there are five minimal facts about the resurrection and you need to, you know, it's going to be an all of life pastoring even as you're lifting up Jesus, I think.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: I read a really interesting book um about two years ago called Uncertain.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: The un is in little brackets like uncertain.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: Which is uh it says a collective memoir of deconstructing faith.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a a bunch of different people's experiences and um it's edited and kind of written by Olivia Jackson.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah in the introduction she quite helpfully defines deconstruction as an intentional examination of one's core faith and beliefs leading to a profound change in or even loss of that faith.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't necessarily mean losing a faith it might mean it landing in another denomination like lots of people did that we met at Breakwater.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um is this deconstruction thing is this a new thing?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is it an old thing by a new name?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_09: There's a massive cultural churn right now since the war we've been lulled into thinking that there's just there's faith as as a very um uniform experience that some people have.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_09: A lot of people can just get by as secular people they don't need the faith element of their lives.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_09: Some of the churn that's happening is that people who have identified in that block called faith heads um they're stopping that.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_09: And you might imagine that they're going from being a person of faith to being a secular person with no story of the world and no metaphysical convictions and they have gone from faith which probably means a a sort of a a vague Protestant mere Christianity that ascents to certain creedal truths about Jesus and then they stop believing those creedal truths and they start becoming a secular person.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_09: And really that's that's what needs to be deconstructed.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_09: What needs to be deconstructed is that that's not the way history works that's not the way people tick that's not how faith works.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_09: All of us are committed metaphysically faith wise existentially we're we're all believers in lots of different things and um and we don't just have this sort of faith element to our lives and some people just remove the faith element and it's and it's a little bit traumatic and you just have to figure out how to now live as a as a neutral secular person.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_09: It's that every everybody has different faith commitments and and switching is always going to be tricky but you're you don't switch from being a person of faith to being a a secular neutral.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe the the word deconstruction makes you think oh this is you know you've got some something you have built up yourself and then or or maybe by your parents you've inherited this house, whatever it might be.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_11: Yeah.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then you're gonna and then you start unearthing you know some maggots under the rocks and the you notice the brick that's a bit moldy you take it out and gradually there's like you're you're taking apart a thing that was built up and ending with just a bunch of rubble.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_11: Yes.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: That in my mind is what I picture when I think of deconstruction.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_11: Yes.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: And then some people manage to make a new nicer nicer looking house out of the bricks that they would but I guess maybe what you're more saying is faith isn't just okay here's my little stack of statements and things that I believe and now I'm like unraveling them and end up with nothing.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: Because actually we just we all have it's more like your centre of gravity is sh you're we're all putting our trust in something.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_09: Yes and it's you're shifting your weight onto something else or yes you're moving from one solar system you're orbiting around one star and then you sort of orbit around a different star.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_09: That's a good way to put it kind of maybe.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: So at Great Water there were two maybe three moments from things that Jared said that just really stuck with me.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: One was in the panel um discussion you had with him Glenn where he said it felt like he lost a best friend that kind of broke my heart hearing that similar to Aidan's like nostalgia for something he once had um then there was when I asked him about a person Jesus and he said doesn't think Jesus is a good person it's like gosh that's another big thing.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: We got loud yes and then um and later I asked him about that he said well yes because that's why it feels like he's lost the best friend because he know but no longer thinks that this person is good.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: But the third the third thing was in your conversation it was we're now having a conversation about a conversation that you had about conversations this is too this is too much.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: But at one point you were asking about the nature of disagreeing disagreeing with people in how do we disagree well in conversations and Jared just said something like I don't really disagree and I thought no but you do though you're you're very pleasant and charming and you find lots of common ground with people in conversations but then you go online and you you post all your disagreements with them on on the internet but but I I also thought that was quite telling for um a question you then asked Thomas which was like what does a does a conversation where you disagree and where there's tension and it's it's difficult automatically equal a bad conversation I came away came away from the a weekend of you know estuary different people mingling that had different beliefs feeling a bit like okay I've had lots of quite pleasant conversations but does a nice pleasant conversation mean a good conversation?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if it has I wonder if that kind of you know the attitude of like tolerance about Google's views and stuff as it's gone too far.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's just a bit boring sometimes like nice conversations where we're skirting around the topic there's an elephant in the room we're not actually addressing it getting them to the meat of it and resting something through and then coming up with some discovery of a genuine common ground if we're not actually doing that it's just all superficial oh man is boring.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah yeah yeah no there's gotta be that confrontation and interesting Cassidy said to me after so so she was sort of hosting the whole thing and and and organizationally putting it on she said she would um rather the a conversation lets in your friendships than your thoughts right yeah okay yeah and I think I think it totally did I I was thinking of Proverbs 276 is it the the wounds of a friend can be trusted but an end an an enemy multiplies kisses right yeah so performative agreement when they're an enemy is just like oh Rose you're you're multiplying kisses when when actually you're an enemy but the wounds of a friend so yeah actually let's let's disagree well and and so therefore you know well done Castady for putting on a con conference where we become friends.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah the We become friends so we can wound each other at Speak Life we want to help deep thinkers navigate modern life bringing clarity and joy by seeing everything through the lens of Jesus.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_07: Yes we do you'll find us on YouTube, Instagram all the socials we get around but here on the Speak Life Podcast we slow down in conversation with each other guests and you our audience.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah you hear lots from us but we would love to hear from you so drop us a line podcast at speaklife.org.uk and give us your NFL stats your name a favourite thing and location so for example I'm Sonorah my favourite fruit is mango I'm from London England and I find it helpful how Speaklife engages with issues in society and culture that there isn't time to talk about in church and the way that they really engage with those issues on a deep level and keep us bringing us back to Christ and how the gospel transforms everything.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: So give us your NFL stats name favourite thing and location and then fire away with your question or comment.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_09: That's podcast at speaklife.org.uk back to the conversation oh look a laptop has magically appeared with some listener correspondence so these were some comments left on the Spotify episode the Dan McClellan conversation that you moderated Glenn someone called Liam commented thanks for this great dialogue the tone really does change when people are talking with one another live and not at each other on social media that's exactly right that's exactly right and and and to his credit Dan after the after the recording um yeah said an apology both both to me and and josh um afterwards which was very very sweet as well so yeah it's it's very different to to speak speak at a camera for one audience instead of speaking to a person and they are the point of the conversation.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah yeah with no audience yes that is crucial isn't it have some kind of golden rules of conversation emerged from this episode.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_07: So don't talk past each other find out what they're actually saying be honest about the disagreement anything else?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: Be so open as yeah the curiosity human ask questions yeah don't assume yeah I might be wrong in this and yeah yeah um yeah have have faith that this is this is actually how resurrection happens by going into the deep valley of the of the conflict yeah yeah and not making assumptions is really helpful because I I just always remember a conversation I had with my friends where we we had met several times and had lots of conversations about faith and um she was in a completely different place to me atheist but sort of interested in connecting with nature and and things like this.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway there was a point where I realized she understood the cross to the point of being really offended by it and I was like this is actually quite difficult um but here we are going for a walk talking about this and she's saying I just find the cross really offensive and she she had the bravery to say that to me I just find the cross really offensive and part of me was rejoicing and I was like yeah great she understands she understands that it's offensive because you know it's declaring to us that we are we deserve this are you kidding me like that I'm I am a sinner in the that's I should be on the cross what then I realized wait I I need to not assume it that she thinks the cross is offensive for the same reason as I think it is so I said to her I said yeah I agree the cross is offensive why do you find it offensive?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_03: And she then said because it isn't enough she said because how could a serial murderer like how could a a a rapist be right be forgiven because one man died on a cross 2000 years ago and how would that be the the solution to my sin as well as someone else's sin I want to share heaven with a murderer all this stuff came out where I was like oh man I I assume she was offended by the concept of sin.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: She is not she is offended by God's grace.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: And if I had made that assumption and if I had kind of taken her difficult I find your face offensive thing and tried to skirt around it or or move the conversation on instead of pressing in and just with curiosity saying yeah it is offensive why do you think it is I would have never realized that it was God's grace that was offending her.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah um so that's just an example for me of a conversation which was a good conversation.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_07: That's really helpful not just what do you believe but why do you believe it.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: We love chats we have conversations don't be like this and it's been really one of the things I've most enjoyed about being part of the Speak Live team the last few months has been the behind the scenes conversations with people we meet at events like this.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: And we love going to events like this.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: We'd love to hear if any of you lovely listeners are going along to a conference a pint of knowledge talk in London like are there things we can come and get involved with and have some more good behind the scenes chats um one final thing that happened this last week we had the intensive we had breakwater we had Ark it was also Glenn's birthday oh happy birthday Glenn why thank you um I hope you enjoyed spending it in crazy crazy heat I did yeah I'm I'm used to spending it in crazy cold in in Canberra I was it was minus 10 the morning I was born was it minus 10 yeah oh gosh and look at you now 35 degrees I know in uh in Canberra I used to have winter birthdays I know I love having summer birthdays it's great indeed yeah well happy birthday um and we'll see you next time on Steel Podcast