Doubt as a Tool for Faith | LIVE with Brian McLaren

[Music] sarah and mandy are once again being so cute oh i like that people sort of have meet-up dates on our show it's real cute that's real cute so if i i'm not putting the card before the horse but if you get married can we officiate virtually i'm so sorry for his awkwardness so sorry welcome to a good portion of our life that's fair welcome to tonight's show everyone i'm colby i'm kate this is the kate and that's nope that's not brian see i'm doing it again your pointing skills are really that's brilliant yes yes brian mclaren is in the house tonight are you so excited i'm so excited he's not literally in our house that'd be cool brian quick come down we started uh we'll get to brian here in a bit before we get to brian we've got a few things coming up such as our viewer check-in which is when we ask you a question and we want you to respond like what's up let's all say where you're watching from and what your answer to our question is then we've got a new segment that we're calling [Music] consumer report yeah i was just going down the list he loves to throw him to me he doesn't surprise me when i look at you that's the cue oh see i don't even see what's okay that's on the screen yep i get it i get it now we've worked it out we know how this works this is only episode two yep ignore the other times we've gone live this is the only one this is all that matters okay anyway we're doing consumer report which is when we report the things that we've been consuming and then we're doing a new segment called parent corner tonight yep so i think that's all we have that's it yes i think we said we've got to say welcome to the kate [Music] [Music] i love how i just teased you oh we both had something we were going to say right no i'm saying like yeah they've already talked about it so as awkward as i am i also wasn't wrong and if you're just joining us you don't know what i'm talking about you're gonna have to go back and watch the replay to figure that out but uh hey glad everyone is here with us what i actually was gonna say though is that i just teased you about having to apologize for your awkward and then i made that whole cold open so awkward like that was all me so now um we've got erie pennsylvania in the house you saw sunshine today uh congratulations melanie that's awesome uh jennifer would totally have us officiate man we could we could get some business here we always say if you had another wedding our ceremony wasn't in english no idea what we vowed that's fun what language was it i need to hear that whole story later all right so we this is what we call our viewer check in are you ready ready play the bass set how do you play this it's slow hi it's whatever you need baby it's whatever you need all right a question about that for you tonight is is this this is timely because this sunday is the super bowl so this is the one time of year where we can ask a question like this are you are you planning to watch it if yes that's the question no this is follow-ups it's like a little infographic yes oh again read the screen kate read screen i do try to help if if yes who are you rooting for and if not then how come why not which you don't actually have to defend your reasons you could be like no no you can say whatever you want like i'm going to say this yes and no i love the super bowl but i don't watch the super bowl hmm i like your distinction there i love any excuse at all to throw a big to-do so we do a super party super bowl party always which this year we'll have four guests that we're allowed to see but whenever we're still still even in quarantine we're gonna party it up because any excuse at all especially any excuse to be partying yeah yes rooting for kansas city who's that friendly championship championship games i love it they make me emotional that's kate you've got ken's king spirit me too i get so emotional even though i don't watch sports at all um yes tampa peter says yes tampa so we've got a tampa bay in the house peter uh irma jean's also rooting tommy tommy which is another way of rooting for tompa yes let's go brady we've got another another more tommy so there's one chief and three bucks so far okay uh susan says no not since 1979 because why that's fair season although what was the super bowl in 1979 julie says nan never been much of a sports ball watcher yeah that's fair hi is that uncle clifford that's uncle cliff uncle cliff martin kansas city putting him on there because cause good to see you we love you uncle cliff hi uncle cliff another no not that's a chief so oh ben and i says um yeah probably my team isn't playing so both and neither who is the halftime show oh yeah i don't know ben and i always love that inform us uh ali kirkpatrick get out of here aly hi it's good to see you you don't have to actually get out of here no you're not watching couldn't even tell you who's playing yeah another one nope not gonna do it gonna do puzzle and play card games mm-hmm good choices good choices um oh yes julie so making yummy treats ooh and a brand new nephew oh that's a good reason bethany bethany you probably won't be watching but commercials after i love it um we got a new chief so for those who don't know the chiefs quarterback is patrick mahomes and the tampa bay buccaneers quarterback as tom brady tom brady is officially the goat the greatest of all time and uh patty mahomes you know is the only one that might one day take that crown he's very very good so my i have no idea what you just said i'll probably say it again on sunday and you still won't know what i'm saying but actually here's my answer to this is i'm watching it but only because it's a super bowl because i gave up on watching football about three or four years ago i walked away for specifically specifically the nfl and then i found just football in general kind of boring to watch but super bowl is fun so we're watching the weekend the answer is the weakest oh nice yeah yeah we got a couple people answering that question and actually three people answering that question thank you for hooking us up with your smartness um okay so i guess in the end what did we learn here we learned that slightly majority of our viewers are going to watch it sure maybe like a 65 35 split and then of the watchers based on my quick math it was about 50 50 between chiefs and tampa bay maybe a little more tampa bay all right so we wish you well i'll move along tonight we got brian okay okay speaking of brian oh we're going to do something yeah this is how we keep you hooked why we do all ours give away three copies of look faith after doubt faith after doubt everywhere this amazing new book by brian that we're here to talk about tonight we have three copies from the publisher thank you at st martin's essentials and we're giving them away to you but you have to now do a thing to enter you'll just give away for free we make you do a thing so the first thing that we invite you to do is this if you're watching on youtube would you please click subscribe on our channel kate and colby show and or if you're watching on the facebooks would you make sure that you like our page this is simple this is easy the bar for this is so low it's just a subscribe and or a like and once you've done that let us know in the comments because i we don't have a magical way i see your pick me's i see you're please knees but just let me know that you did that yes i'm subscribed i'll add your name right now and or yes i've liked your page and then kate will add your ad the name so do that you shouldn't even have to leave the feed i don't think i think you can just click subscribe all of a sudden everybody's gone that'd be kind of sad so this is so this is the one of three ways to enter this is the first of three ways to enter kate's gonna write all your names down and then in a few minutes we'll do number two and then later on we'll do round three and then at the end of the show we'll announce our winners and you've got to be present to win because we'll be like and so and so on send us your information so if you're not present then i guess we'll give it to whoever did the most letters in their submissions like mandy system next or jacob a need okay well you know what to do subscribe uh and or like us on fb okay all right keep going with that we're gonna move on to our next segment uh and you which i might not be very present for because i'm writing no you're doing a lot of names good you're good you're good all right we're gonna move into what we're calling consumer report we're going to report to you what we've been consuming did you already say that if they've already subscribed and like the most things then they can say that yeah i see people doing that and that's great okay so it's my goats the point is is we just want you to be subscribed and or be liked so well be like we want us to be liked but amy want you to be you are like okay so uh consumer report the idea here is that we're going to share with you just quickly i don't know what we've been watching shows that we've been enjoying what we've been listening to podcasts and our music and what we've been reading books okay uh so i'll go first because kate's furiously putting all in you could just do first names but then we won't know who it is you're right i shouldn't micromanage shouldn't even manage to be honest even though free okay so i'll go first because you're typing on that what i'm here is something that i just started watching and i really want to know by the way feel free to respond to this as well love to know what you're watching listening to and reading uh i just started the other day watching it's called the expanse it's an amazon prime tv show and it is just the sci-fi hit that i've been craving so you have been i have been craving so a couple months ago and i shared with some of you in season five for with us that i was reading christopher paolini's newest book to sleep in a sea of stars and it just got all my my juice my my jones jonesing for the sci-fi world going and i was just desperate for some good sci-fi and i've been watching like the aliens movies and and star trek movies which are great but i wanted a series to really get into the world of space and space travel and anyway the expanse on amazon prime i think they have five seasons and i'm only like three episodes in but i am loving it it is so good um i would i almost said if sci-fi is your thing but i don't know maybe you would like it even if not sci-fi uh then for podcasts man you people are so are thank you oh this is great this is great this is awesome i am just doing your first name if your first name i love it um unique then i uh for listening to podcasts i kind of have just um i only i've only listened like two podcast i don't know what it is i've sort of simplified my podcast life lately uh so i listened to a lot of bill simmons podcast bill simmons is a nba long time nba writer sports analyst guy and the nba season has started and i love the nba so it's just a lot of bill simmons sports podcast sorry i'm in some ways very much you're good jamie you're in you're on the you're good okay yeah uh and then i i love me some pete holmes pete holmes podcast is still one of my favorites um enjoying his episode with dane cook right now it's not quite the same that they're all digital as when you know they have a person in the actual room but it's still good and then for reading uh i'm reading you know i've got always got a number of books going on amazing but i'm currently reading um i think it's it's called everyday wisdom but it's like a 300 so it's one 365 day kind of like a devotional but not really it's by leo tolstoy and tolstoy curated like a bunch of wisdom teachings from all sorts of spiritual teachers and sages and thinkers and for every day you get like these different readings and thoughts and i'm really digging it i'm really digging it so that's kind of been my morning routine as i wake up and i read wisdom from leotos tolstoy then i will do some breathing meditation with sharon salzberg and i'll do push-ups and sit-ups and shower i don't know why i told you that i think i'm part of is i'm stalling now because i realize it's a lot of work for you to type those names then i know i'm good though i got them all and i love our podcast listeners what do you call them when it's the live stream i don't know what we've been calling our podcast i'm saying this i like our podcast i love our pod fam every time we share things they start sharing in the comments theirs and it just like i can't tell you what it does for me this is how if you have to engage this is how we connect right now right and our people are always so engaged i love do you see some of these things people are sharing and it's beautiful really good love y'all hope you can see each other's comments youtube works but um can i share one of mine i don't know rachel's with me on the expanse oh nice applause that no no what is that these comments down there a bit high they're all up in our real yeah okay won't you go oh yeah i have a couple things um so i've had a few i really wanted to share this with you i've had a few things over the years just a few books that have this is gonna sound funny but y'all know me already they have replaced the bible for me like in terms of you know what the bible you just you would pick it up and maybe you still do but um for me it's past tense you'd pick it up and you'd just like open up to a spot you'd read a section here and it was random and it was just whatever you needed whenever the spirit would guide you to exactly what you needed shut up anyway you know what i mean like it's not a book that you just pick up and read cover to cover and then nope you're done um that kind of thing when you walk away from the bible or maybe you don't love the bible so much anymore you miss that you miss having something that you can pick up and have all collected in one place and i don't even know what it is i can't even put words to how great that is but over the years there's been two books so far that have replaced that for me and have been just but so much better than the bible because i don't pick them up and randomly open to like weird violent you know so um the first book that did that for me was when women run women who run with the wolves came out and um i devoured women who run with the wolves um and immediately got a wolf tattoo and just like i still i'll just go over to that book randomly open it up on a page and read a section and it's just everything and then just recently braiding sweetgrass um is my new bible you've been jamming on that well i read the whole thing through and then now i come back and i just open up sections breeding sweet grass indigenous wisdom scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants the teaching of plants that's your thing yeah that's exciting this is plant spirituality it is the best thing in the world it's by robin walker and if you uh need if you need a new bible check it out any recommendations just follow the comments i know i told you people are so rad yeah david billy the experience of god and that all shall be saved covered diversionary reading agatha christie novels uh melanie's watching just starting season six of shit's creek delightful is that heather cox richardson reading jesus and john wayne season and untamed by glennon hart glennon um man some good stuff all right do you have any you all have amazing pods i don't have any pods right now i've been taking a break from podcasts i only listen to i listen to my friends heathen podcast y'all probably are like that's the craziest click that has ever existed on the face of the planet of clicks but that's okay real quick we like it um even podcast that's all i listen to but um i don't have a like watching like a show i'm watching but um a movie that we just watched oh have you all watched your you need apple tv have you all watched just one moment wolf walkers speaking the spirituality that's not the bible beautiful animation it's made by the same creators that made um song of the sea which is my all-time favorite remember last week with uh brenda and i said i was on the spot and i said my favorite movie of all time is patch adams i love pat gems but my real favorite movie of all time of course colby knows that my favorites changed constantly but my real favorite movie of all time is song of the sea and wolf walkers is made by the same people it's just amazing i love it um oh good captain sarah just watched it nice well all right we should get to the next statement we should get to the next step actually do we need to skip it no we're going to what we should do though is go to the next way people can enter for the giveaway all ready ready yes i'll be typing again but that's okay because you're going to share the next segment yes i am um so i'm going to do this one so [Music] okay [Laughter] talk amongst yourselves for just a minute you guys this system is brand new i'm gonna make sure that we're gonna be worth it i'm gonna mute but you're going to be fine here here's a little bit of background music for you okay so i'm a little worried that if you go through a different tab that you'll use [Music] [Music] they heard the whole thing i needed just my mic but not the actual system so anyways you heard the little thing but oh it's so good we didn't see anything nothing incriminating so what we're gonna do is uh we're going to now give away one of the books so um so what so settings and then confirm okay so here we go so i'm gonna put on the screen here here we go the winner of is i don't have any clue because it it's [Applause] the substitute is if the winner is not still on the stream so jamie oh there's jamie you got a follower you got to claim it so message send a dm to the kate and colby show's facebook page or um very excited for you whatever like contact us and let us know where to ship it to and hopefully you're still watching and then now let's go to the second way that you can enter and here is the second you can enter yes and it's this would you go to the instagrams either now if you can or just commit to and follow both yay congratulations jimmy follow both at kate and colby that's our show and at brian underscore maclaren's you got to follow both of these accounts and if you already do then great you qualify um mandy's like send it to me when you're done and if you can't oh i like this just a little cross pollination um cool and then yeah let us know in the comment section like julie just did saying done did it followed and then kate will start putting your names into this time i'm being smart i'm just initial okay all right cool so do that go follow both kate and colby and brian underscore mclaren on the instagrams and that's how you enter in for the second giveaway if you're just joining us welcome to the caden colby show i'm colby this is kate tonight we're going to be joined by a special guest brian mclaren best-selling author and dear um beloved friend of ours who wrote this new book faith after doubt and we're going to talk to him here in just a few minutes but we're now letting you in on the chance to win a free copy and all you got to do is go to at or instagram follow at cait and colby and follow at brian underscore mclaren and then let us know in the comment section that you did that and kate will add you to the list so you all are doing that great all right i'm going to go to the next segment and we're almost ready to bring on brian brian if you're watching we're just a few minutes away from y'all parent corner parent corner what's this you ask i don't know you just made it up it's a this segment is just a chance for us to reflect on i'm sorry that was me i'm writing names and i was trying to be fine we're fine it's just a chance to reflect on uh what it's like to be a parent and this could be anecdotes this could be lessons learned this could be mistakes made whatever it is uh and tonight i just we're just sweet little or just sweet little clips so tonight what i'll say about this for parent corner is that uh i have i don't know that i'm the best at finding ways to connect with my four sons um i more some are more natural than others i think this is true for all parents and their kids that some you know you just more naturally click and connect with some personalities um but i i think i try to at least be aware of when there's potential moments for me to connect with my sons in ways that hopefully they'll remember and recently our oldest son was was given a laptop computer from a friend of his uh but his friend took out the hard drive so we had to get a new hard drive and so right now my oldest son and i are working on installing a new hard drive into a computer but then in order to do that you got to install the operating system and so i'm beginning this process with our oldest son of like really getting into the world of computer building and programming and all that and as i'm doing this i'm remembering oh my gosh like so some of you might know my story but i grew up and my parents got a divorce when i was like eight nine ten separated lived primarily with my mom so i didn't have a lot of time with my dad in those uh in those growing up years but one of the things that i remember best the most about my dad was how much he taught me about computers and i you know he wasn't you know like i said i wasn't around him as much but i remembered constantly calling him from the house being like dead trying to do the thing on the computer it's not working he would like talk me through how to code on ms-dos some of you if any of you know what dos is and help me learn like how to take computers apart and put in hard drives and restore like anyway so it's just been a super fond experience for me to start digging into this with my son because it is one of the things that i look back on with my dad with yeah with great joy in my heart the world of building computers so that's that's my parent corner is figuring out how to connect with kids especially the ones as they grow older and teenagers i imagine it might get a little more challenging than when they're no one will ever doubt if i actually put all the names in because they've seen me sitting yeah that's what you've been doing kate has spent the night just typing names in um i love your little parenting anecdote though i was thinking about it as you were talking i'm like oh i definitely can't think of my parallel like i don't think i've had any moments with our kids we're like this reminds me so much of the thing i used to do with my i don't think i have any of this it's really sweet that you it was that your first experience with that do you want do you think or have you maybe had more i just don't have memories period yeah yeah there's nothing to pull from like i don't know what did i ever do with my parents read the bible and i don't read the bible with my kids oh dear lord that's fun that's why i don't have those because i don't oh sorry that was okay precious well oh julie said this moment brought me to tears in the best way i love that then she's got a sweet story oh i love that that's amazing oh shane remembers dos i'm pretty happy about that okay shall we we could bring in brian and then do the giveaway okay so now we are going to bring in our special guest for the evening captain brian mclaren [Music] hey mr mclaren hi great to be with you too great to see you okay what a gift it is to be with you virtually digitally thanks for staying up late all the way past the country oh you're the one to california thank you yeah it's uh yeah thanks for staying up late we get just so viewers so you know we gave brian the option to pre-record and he's like no i want to be live with the people so you are the you're a man of the people my heart brian mclaren well they are happy to have you here tonight let me tell you yeah and we have been doing um giveaways of your book thanks to your wonderful publishers and so we're gonna announce the second winner yes yes okay we're gonna okay so here's what we're gonna do we're going to do this i don't know who i think this will work yep there's the enter you already did the entering by i'm going to clear that then i'm going to add the ipad and i'm going to add brian yes over there okay so this is for the second winner for faith after doubt we have 18 participants and the winner is rachel wagner rachel's the lenny's the sub sorry lenny you had a moment of jubilation uh rachel rachel you want a copy of faith after doubt so please direct message us and let us know where to i don't know i tried to disable that but hey if rachel's not watching then gets it yeah then lenny lenny gets it sorry lenny brian thanks for thank you and thanks uh st martins for providing those giveaways for us so congratulations on your victory um okay brian hi enough shenanigans we are here to chat with you and to listen to you and your wisdom and here's where i'd love to start tonight is i'd love to just know because the book your book's been out for i want to say a month now what has been the response from people what have you heard so far how are people responding to this new work well uh gosh this may be the most positive uh rollout and response i've had for a book ever at least in a long time i usually have a lot of haters you know who want to jump on right away but uh boy there's just been so many positive and kind responses but i'll tell you two that have been uh touching um you know there's a lot of stories in the book uh and uh i have had a number of people contact me and say that was exactly my story in other words i'm talking about somebody else yeah but they they said that was me one or two tiny details changed but that was me so that sense that so many people are having the same kinds of experiences with faith and doubt um that you know as a writer that made me feel okay good we're we're hitting the things that really are relevant to people and then a number of people have said that they felt that this was kind of my most personal uh writing yes talking about some of my own experiences as well so and i didn't i don't think i realized that but yeah yeah um i wonder if you could i imagine you can because i imagine this is a question you have been prepared for and been giving but could you just give us a so in in the book brian outlines four stages of faith i don't know if that's the exact phrase you use but four stages of faith which are simplicity stage one stage two complexity stage three perplexity and then stage four harmony and the book is about how doubt is this tool this catalyzing tool that moves us from one stage to the next which i just think is a brilliant way to articulate that and name that truth could you maybe just give us sort of a high view description of what these four stages are sure how it is you came to name them the way you did yeah sure and what i always want to say before i start life is messy life is complicated and any stage theory thing like this is always a simplification yeah but i i've been intrigued with stage theory and i've studied in pretty significant depth over a dozen theorists and so this is a way of kind of simplifying and synthesizing uh an awful lot of research and insight from a lot of people um but basically we all when we're children we're raised into stage one and stage one is really what being raised means it's the stage of i call it simplicity it's a stage of dualism where you think about children is this safe or dangerous is this poison or nourishing is this an enemy or a friend is this a family member or a stranger and so all of those dualisms in out us them that's what we learn as children and you can see why that's necessary unfortunately for a lot of people that's what religion is you know especially for me as a christian i have to realize that i was introduced to a form of christianity that was very well suited to people in simplicity yeah and for that reason a lot of people stay in simplicity their whole lives but uh at least they do in their religious life um but what happens to an awful lot of us when we're teenagers or young adults is we move into stage two um and staged what i call complexity because we realized that i learned one set of rules um in stage one and my friends across the street learned another set of rules and people in another country learn another set of roles and people 500 years ago had another set of rules and suddenly life is more complex than than the simplicity i was given um so i call complexity the stage of pragmatism we're trying to learn how to navigate all these different sets of rules and uh and function and succeed in our lives and i think um in my lifetime a lot of christians have moved into that stage too um in fact i think the mega church phenomenon is a stage two phenomenon really good all of those two yeah yeah like the five steps to happiness the six steps to a good marriage you know everything is a can do kind of pragmatic uh challenge and i think a lot of people stay in stage two for their whole lives and in fact what what happens now i think for more and more people at a younger and younger age the stage one dualism and the stage two pragmatism begin to fall apart you just stop believing those authority figures who told you all the easy in out binary rules and you stop believing they're easy steps you know the pastor who told you the five steps to a great marriage you find out is having a divorce because he had 10 affairs and suddenly you go that didn't seem to be working so well for him and you become disillusioned about the whole project and so stage three perplexity is a lot about disillusionment and relativism where i say oh these are just the different little games that people are are playing in their own context and skepticism is really big in stage three and and i think what's happened in you know the whole phenomenon of ex-evangelicals and so on is a whole lot of people from many religious backgrounds have reached stage three and their their faith community had no room for them um and a lot of people i think reach stage three and they have nowhere to go in fact they don't know that anything else exists they aren't even sure if they've ever met anyone who's you know it's someplace where they have never been um but i think there's a stage four i call it harmony that involves an integration of the previous stages i love that and you mentioned brian that you went through a couple names before you landed on harmony and i just i enjoyed that you shared a bit of the journey where you like i called it this and then that but then you landed i think you landed on a really good one well the word harmony had attraction i'm sorry the word humility had attraction for me because you know something that the first three stages have in common is you tend to think you're way better than the people at the other stages and i think when you get through stage three you have this sense that we are all such a mess and you become realistic about just our human predicament that it's harder to be to feel superior i i also think the word solidarity is good because then you understand oh look those people are at stage three i'd be there too if i were if i had you know been dealt their hand of cards or if i were in the repressive environment they were in or if i'd never had a chance to ch travel or get a good education and so we develop empathy and solidarity with people i think but stage four has this ability for empathy and solidarity and instead of judging everybody as you do in stage one or having a solution to everybody's problem as you do in stage two or seeing through everybody as you do in stage three we could hope that we would have what i call a non-discriminatory universal love in other words we our approach to people is you know you're a human being i love you and and i would hope that that universal harmonizing love would extend beyond human beings to animals and plants and to all of creation ultimately i thank you that's a great synopsis of those four stages anybody listening to this and people are saying anybody listening to this could relate to all of those stages and like feel like you're speaking to their lives i love it so much well then he says you're speaking to lenny's soul right now brian yeah everybody's like this is so relatable when he was describing stage 1 and state 2 stage 3 were you like experienced yeah were you experiencing your history and sort of watching yourself and your mind's eye move through this in fact at one point i consciously was like oh you're shaking your head way too much cause i was like yes because it's so much our lives yeah and even i was thinking about right now i think i um you talked about people could stay in stage two their whole lives is that the one you said is most i think people could stay in any of them forever yeah is that kind of the most common one to hang out in most well you know if we're talking about if we're talking about religion i think conservative religion catholicism or protestantism keeps people in stage one in stage one okay yes but then i think what's happened in the just in you know the last generation or so is more and more people have moved into stage two because if stage two is about success people like to make money and you know what i'm saying there's a certain sense yeah yeah they can buy it exactly right yeah and and evangelical protestantism has really excelled at stage at stage two right um i think if you go i think uh so i think america loves stage two because it's highly successful but i think what's happened in the last few years is a lot of people have become anxious and they're regressing back to stage one oh wow okay i can see that yeah well the reason why oh go ahead i was just gonna say you can see what happened on january 6th as this whole group of people who for for whom the world has gotten more complex and maybe even perplexing and they just want one authority figure to tell them how to think to tell them what to do and that's so comforting it's sort of this this attempt to return to stage one okay that kind of just made me go because what i was gonna say is that as i was assessing my own life through all of that i was thinking about how tempting it is for me to sit in stage three forever that's comfortable for me and i think it's not just me i think that's kind of um as i see it where progressive christianity kind of wants to hang out um skeptical and um cynical and and i'm very comfortable in that space and anti and against but in different ways than maybe you're stage one where you're sorting it all but um yeah but then what you just said made me realize that when you're hanging out in that stage three space i think it can be super tempting to jump or maybe what happens even is that you jump to that stage one that you're so skeptical all the time that you kind of end up pulling from and borrowing from those stage one um tendencies and and habits i see that in myself of like it's kind of flipping fundamentalisms and you're just picking a different bad guy um i don't know that's fascinating but i think that's pretty yeah one of the things that stood out to me brian is that exact point in chapter eight you uh is about it's called doubt is love and that's when you're talking about how at that point like doubt moves you from simplicity to complexity moves you from complexity to perplexity stage three but then when when you talk about that move from three to four how doubt plays that role you talk about how we have to start to doubt our own suspicions we have to doubt our own critical deconstruction like we have to doubt all the tools that we used to get us from stages two to stage three like oh maybe my own way of sort of deconstructing or questioning should be doubted and i that for me is like okay i can see that as the path forward because i'm not in harmony i'm not in harmony brian mclaren um i can be honest with you about that i'm a proud stage three year but i want to move forward so is there any way you could help me and anyone else be like what what does that process begin to look like of doubting your own suspicions doubting your own deconstruction well look i i don't think there's nothing wrong with being in stage three in fact i think you i think you need to be in a stage to do the work of the stage and and i think a lot of us who grew up in very stage one authoritarian settings or somewhat shallow stage two settings um we've got a lot to deconstruct we have a we have a lot that deserves to be doubted we have a lot that deserves skepticism we have a lot of bs that we need to detect and uh and name so i don't think that anybody should feel the need to rush through that but but one of the problems with stage three is that you can become critical of everything and and it feels like nothing is left um and when you have to get up and live another day and you have children and you think i want to give my children some meaning in life i don't want to lie to them with some stage 2 simplicity and i don't want to just game them with some stage 2 scheme and i i don't know what i give them there's almost the sense that life is calling you to find something deeper to offer them that is better than what you previously had you know it to me it's almost something that pushes us forward as a culture and as a species that need to keep giving something better to our children if we have children but i'll tell you the other thing that i think does it is we all meet people and we have this feeling i don't totally get that person but i think she's ahead of me you know i think she knows something i don't know i think she's got something i don't have and um i think i need that you know that for me when i look back on my experience because obviously i didn't have any language like simplicity complexity perplexity harmony but i would just meet people and they didn't fit in my current box and i thought they've got something bigger i think that's one of the things that attracts us you know all the stories both in the christian tradition but there's a whole lot in the buddhist tradition of some young guy wants to go study at a monastery and he goes and uh you know he's on a quest for something and and uh he and he goes to the monastery and the monk makes him go through all of these trials and uh you know challenges to to really prove that he really wants to be there i think all of those stories are almost metaphors for this sense these people have something i want and it's going to be a struggle but i'm going to try to get there yeah thank you for responding and i really like that surround yourself with people that are like hey they might be a little farther down the road than me um brian i'm going to put just a few comments on the screen of people who have so far found resonance with uh and i don't know if you can see it on your screen but uh here's julie middleton that says yes each stage has important things to teach us there's work to do thank you for allowing us to have grace for whatever stage we are in i love that can i just make a comment about that colby so i'm speaking very hypothetically here but let's imagine someone who is born into a super rich family and never learned stage one that you don't tell lies and that you treat people fairly like they never learned those basic rules and they had so much money that they could get more and more money and power but they never learned the basic stage one skill of telling the truth that person could go really really far in the world maybe even become like the head of a nation you know and and caused a lot of damage and set a really bad example for a lot of people so you realize stage one is problematic when it sort of traps people but my gosh if people skip through it they go through life missing something wow okay that blew my mind yeah like we can't disparage these stages like it reminds me of um you know ken wilbur's work with spiral dynamics that it's not that one color is better than another like we you just it's it all belongs richard roar it all belongs um yeah it's the movement and those are all necessary and gifts they give us gifts for the next stage and without them yeah we can cause a lot of havoc i really like that a lot um walter asks is so is your book about the shift and i think that's a call back to my book the shift and i uh i don't know what do you think about you read the shift so totally totally totally we were talking about the same kinds of processes exactly right yeah exactly right yeah i like i like brian's better if anybody's keeping score at home but um that's just me i know i love this shift and and you know really so many podcasts that are out there right now are really helping people yeah in stage three because there's so few places that help them yeah i wanted to i wanted to read you something brian that i wrote on my first book on clobber because and you know this because i've told you personally when we sat on a bench together in florida and then i wrote it in a book so now it has to be true but you are the one i hold responsible for moving me from helping me move from stage one to stage two the the doubt of that simplicity um and so i i write this in uh in on clobber as i sort of share with the readers my my trajectory my journey i say that reading brian's book a new kind of christian was an eye-opening experience for the first time i discovered that there exists other expressions and understandings of christianity than the western protestant evangelical baptist version that i had consumed hook line and sinker in church and in college through brian i learned it was okay to ask questions it was okay to not know all the answers this was simultaneously terrifying and liberating for me as i had always prided myself on being the bible answer man the guy people could come to with questions about god the bible and faith and so brian i want to say this my life was pretty awesome before reading you i knew it all but you you brought me to this place of complexity and it was through this gift of doubt and i'm just i guess i'm curious what's that like for you to hear people like me not the buttering of your bread that's not the point the point is what's it like for you to hear how your work has helped people move through these make these i would say necessary i know we're honoring all stages are good but also the necessary movement from one stage to another what's it like for you to hear people like me say yeah you and your writings was the catalyst to get me into the next stage well sometimes i don't know whether to say you're welcome or i'm sorry yes that's a fake yes i remember i got an email one day it was on a monday and the guy says uh yes this morning my he was a youth pastor he said this morning the pastor called me into his office and asked me if i read any of your books and i said yes and he said do i agree with them and i said some of it and the pastor said you need to find another job so he wrote to me and said will you pick up my salary i knew he was joking but i know it's disruptive and i know it's difficult but you know yeah i mean you know i think a lot of us who are trying to help others in many ways are trying to do for other people what we wish somebody could have done for us and and uh so i just remember how i felt you know that it just wasn't safe to have questions it wasn't safe to to uh challenge some you know sacred cows and so on so it means a lot to me to know that uh if i've been able to help others feel a little place of safety that yeah that's a good thing that's a good thing uh looks like dave straussberg says a new kind of christian got me started on the journey too it's a great book that's great have you 20 years ago i was gonna say that's like okay i have to ask my question now because i have a question i've been dying to ask you and it's this is a great segue okay from the time that you wrote a new kind of christian just to pick a time frame in your life and then to now i'm dying to know if you could speak to how you feel about the landscape of american christianity and spirituality as not in yourself but you could share that too but like as you look out on what's going on with everybody else from the time you wrote that book to now how do you feel about how things have shifted are you like damn i thought things would change more by now or are you like wow we've really made movement or do you feel happy about what has gone down or do you feel frustrated or do you have feelings around the trajectory we've taken as a collective yeah kate i love i love that question and what i would say is the things that have gotten better have gotten better faster than i thought they would and the things that have gotten worse have gotten even worse than i thought they would in other words i i think if we were to take it and i think this would apply to the christian community i think it would apply to politics i think it would apply to you know the fossil fuel industry i mean so many different parts of life but certain certain sectors realize this isn't working and they really start to make some changes other sectors say this isn't working and they double down you know all the all the harder and i think that's what what we see happening um you know i mean really i think that january 6th scene uh just is like this brutal brutal mirror both to american politics but also to white american religion that says this thing has gotten pretty sick uh and uh you know if i look at my i try not to look at my facebook comments um but you know there are these people who are just meaner than anybody i've ever met yeah and they somehow think that being a christian gives them all the more reason to be nasty you know uh just this you know despising of people who don't agree with them and i partly understand it because you know for them to hear me talk about four stages you know and they realize that in my schema they're in stage one they think that means that i'm putting them down sure um i wish they could understand that what i'm really saying is i'm so sorry that you're part of a religious community that has put a ceiling on your growth and i'm inviting you to question some things about that community so that if you wanted to you could grow beyond it but uh but at any rate i i i just think that tension has gotten worse faster than i i thought it would follow-up question there's this um a concept in the therapy world of any time so let's say it's a couple couples therapy anytime one person in the couple makes a change the other person reacts right you know where i think we're all pretty familiar with that concept but there's this one person shifts makes a different dance move and then the other person kind of overreacts to that and they kind of shift backwards and um i'm wondering if possibly i don't even know if it's a question for you but as you were talking i was like i wonder if it's possible that our culture is kind of doing that of like there's this group here that makes this dance move shift and then the other group is like oh no and then it just kind of all jerks back and forth and that's why the extremes of some things have gotten way better and then some things are shittier listen i i really think you're spot on with that kate i'll give you a specific example you know you guys have been outspoken on lgbtq equality and um some years years ago in the obama administration i was invited to this white house gathering uh that brought together people from around the world on uh the well-being of lgbtq people around the world and what they said is the more equality that uh lgbtq people are given in some places the more they're attacked and stigmatized in other places and you can see how that would go together um uh people are being you know uh running for president and they're over uh overtly gay and uh other people then become overtly homophobic because now they feel threatened and they have to in some way fight back because they feel this is an assault on on them the the greater equality that women have been given the greater this toxic masculinity rises up in in uh in response so i think that is a great analogy to offer yeah i even realized we went from first black president to trump so that right there is a great example of what we're talking about yeah yeah van jones called it white lash yes yes stunningly painfully accurate on that even on the the people in a particular spousal dynamic shifting in maybe different ways one of the viewers brian jennifer beaumont says that she was raised in a house where one parent she's identifying this now one parent seems stuck in stage one and the other was in stage three and so she's hearing you i think it sounds like she's sort of reverse engineering oh that that's why that's that's why my experience was interesting and kate and i have uh numerous times over the years reflected with such gratitude on how our trajectories through these stages were more or less simultaneous we kind of did this you know we were moving a little bit in this but we were moving in at least similar direction and we're just so grateful for that because we know that's not every couple's story uh i wonder i don't know that i've ever heard you and you can feel free to punt on this question if you want but um what was what was your you and your wife's journey through this as you were moving through some of your stages yeah i think we were very much like you two we were sinking along with each other and i'd be afraid that i was you know going to really upset uh grace and she would basically say are you kidding you know speed it up you know so uh but i'll tell you uh i there are many stories you know that we've all come across where people get out of sync and i remember this one man telling me that her his father-in-law was a fundamentalist pastor and now here he's going through changes and his wife was psychologically under more stress than she'd ever been under because she constantly felt if she goes on this journey with her husband her father will reject her and it created this deep deep trauma in her to realize that that would happen um and to realize that that's the kind of father she had had all her life and it was you know as he described it i could just feel feel that pain and sometimes it's really complicated like i was speaking before covet in a city on the west coast and evangelical pastor heard i was in town so he came to see me secretly by night he and his wife and their son had come out as gay and that pushed them to rethink you know all of their stage one stuff and it really sent them right into stage three i mean they raced through stage two they just were ready and so here they're rethinking everything and they told their son we love you we accept you and then their son decided to join a fundamentalist charismatic church and went on staff where he now totally was denying his you know sexuality and praying in a way in other words and they just knew this wasn't going to end well um and you know you could just feel the tension of being at different places wow you know could i just say um you know there's a really weird passage in the new testament and i think suddenly it makes sense in light of what we're talking about where jesus says do not think i came to bring peace but a sword and then he says hey this is so interesting he says i have come to set a son against his father a daughter against her mother i think and then there's one more but each one is the younger generation against the older generation wow i have never we've thought about the like yeah divide families but never the generational thing for yeah i think that's what i think that's what he's saying i think he's saying i know that older people are so you know deeply indoctrinated in their in their old ways they're not going to be able to accept my message and i know this is going to cause trouble wow and that's that just reminds me one of the reasons why i identify as a progressive christian because that generational dynamic is not a one and done thing so we're constantly having to listen and learn and grow like it's just that's part of why yeah i identify as progressive because our best days are still yeah our best days are still in front of us and there wasn't some utopian culture that the first church acquired that we have to now get back to um yes okay kate's sorry we really have to do this last so that brian can go to sleep yeah okay so we are now um viewers watchers listeners at home um and by the way future pod fam listeners who are watching this on the podcast you don't get to win free books i'm sorry we told you we told you to show up live we told you okay so here is i'm gonna go now to the giveaway and the third and final way to enter in is to ask a question for brian some folks already have um should i start entering their names yes if they've asked the question they qualify okay i'm gonna i'm gonna change brian to a circle i don't like the square it's it's thrown off my they're throwing off my vibe okay good that was an important thing to stop and do all right ask brian a question okay so put in the comments whether we get to it or not we'll enter your name in the thing yep yep so put a question in the comments and uh we'll enter you in for the third and final victory um free book and while that's happening and while kate's furiously writing down the names um brian i have something else i wanted to say uh to you about all of this by the way if you don't win this last free book the rest of you who are watching and some of you several of you have said this i've already gone and bought it they said like all right i'm not waiting for these freebies like this just sounds so good it really it really is um it's since i'm trying to find the right adjectives i should have planned ahead of time it's just it's really really good brian and i know you know that i can feel that you feel that it's really helpful for people i you know what it is is it's going to i think both normalize for people what their experience has been like oh yeah that's why i have experienced sort of experience and i think it's going to give what i'm feeling even in my own soul is this going to give great hope for people because i have yeah i have for a long time now and i haven't identified it as stage three perplexity but i have felt um am i just in this perpetual state of i don't know deconstructing or just suspicion or questioning everything like i've i've wanted to be in this mode of building and [Music] having this more expansive love but i haven't been able to get there yet so anyway so your book offers me a lot of hope i i think it will provide all sorts of people hope but the last thing i wanted to ask you is you have this chapter called communities of harmony where you describe a conversation with a person you named karis whether or not that's their real name or you just decided to use the greek name of your wife to get your wife into the book we'll never know um and you and karis talks with you about her that she has felt like she's moved to stage three and has no faith communities available to her um and as you know kate and i we've seen this firsthand for seven years now since we started sojourn the oasis that a place like this is for those who are out there struggling in this sort of stage three individually but don't have a larger collective and community but i was just wondering if you could just speak to that a little bit about what you have seen because it's a hope-filled chapter for me but i'd love to hear you just share a bit about why i feel like you have hope for people in stage three finding community and all is not lost yeah just today somebody called me and said i live in such and such a city i'm desperate can you help me find a community and i think there are so many people who uh wish they could find a faith community to help them um and thank god there are more and more all the time there are lots and lots of obstacles and it's not easy one of the biggest obstacles is that the people who are sort of in the market looking for church often bring with them all kinds of assumptions that the people in these new faith communities are trying to leave behind you know and one of the other challenges is that if we succeed in creating stage four we succeeded creating four stage communities that would mean that the leaders would be working from stage four but they would be able to help people in stage three two and one yeah and what that means is the leaders have to look out over their congregation and say i really have four congregations i have people at these different places who need different things how can i make sure all of them get what they need now of course we do that anyway you know any preacher who gets up uh and and to talk uh knows some people listening just had the worst week of their life and what they need more than anything is comfort and encouragement and other people just had the best week of their life and what they really need is celebration and and happiness and some other people here are going to have the worst week of their life next week and they need to be prepared yeah you're gonna need to be there for them so we already have to do that but i think it's one of the things that people like you two are are figuring out how to do how do we create space for people to be where they are but from the beginning to know that wherever you are is not where you're going to stay you know and you'll you'll move to new challenges and opportunities one of the things we've been talking about lately at sojourn is we feel like you know i would say the majority of the people who come to sojourn or you know stick around for a bit are in that stage three and what we've noticed is that oftentimes people maybe in their own lives and i'm just using your language for the sake of the conversation but let's say they've moved to stage four in their own life where they've sort of moved to a place where like oh i don't really need church anymore i think i'm good and they sort of graduate beyond the church environment which on one hand were like yeah good yeah you don't you don't need like to show up here to be good with god uh you don't need yeah et cetera you know that how that conversation goes but one of the things we talked about is we wonder if my understanding of the recovery community is that part of why their model works is because once you make it through some of the stages of recovery you turn around then to the people who are just a little bit behind like you you stick in there and you're like this is working for me and how can i help it work for you like i may not need it anymore but i know that there are others that need it i'm going to stick around so that's we've been we wish we had that at our church a program where people could sign up to be your sponsor your spiritual spouse yeah like stay here we need people we need people to stay in these communities because these communities as you know they need funded they need people like they we need to exist and if people just keep graduating out of them it may not that may not work yeah and they need the counseling and the yeah yes so anyway yes um i'm ready to go here okay so you're ready for the giveaway were there any questions that as you were going you want to put up there all of them and i felt so bad i'm like these are all great questions this isn't a question but mandy brian says i just want to say that i feel safe and understood here i've never heard of other humans who are with me and think like me so yes mandy that's beautiful oh should we do the giveaway or do you want to find a question okay all right so let's go to the giveaway here we go putting that oh you're already counting it's happening it's paul oh l is that paulie oh paul you won you won the third and final copy of faith after doubt by brian d what's the d stand for paul's sweet sojourner so we're happy he won that douglas douglas brian douglas mclaren uh paul you won so just direct message us paul your um mailing address and we will get that sent off to you okay um we have just a few i kept track of all you winners so i saw one of you say that you couldn't figure out how to direct message but don't worry i know who you are get your free copy for everyone who didn't win a free copy you can actually buy these books it's amazing and i see some of you in the comments section planning to borrow from each other so that's fun um all right was there a question that particularly stood out to you that we could throw to brian before we do our lightning round uh i don't know it's kind of funny that we had people ask questions but then we don't know all right so brian we're gonna put a few questions on the screen answer them as quick as you can channel your enneagram three efficiency um paddy pitts says what are you most hopeful about in the next 10 years oh i like that well uh let's see i'll tell you i mean this is what comes off the top of my head uh i think we have a chance to actually do something about climate change uh so to make some progress in that way to me would be great yeah um phil spencer ooh this is a good question brian what's the greatest challenge for those in stage four um you know i think uh i think being ready for stage four to become your new simplicity and then not becoming complacent there because if you allow it to you'll end up facing a new complexity and a new perplexity and the process will continue um yep that sounds challenging i don't know that i understand this question because i don't know what that word means but maybe brian will know oh nice alyssa's question how does one navigate the purgation in doubt you know one of the challenges of doubt especially in stage three is for us to become comfortable in not knowing uh to to be able to say i don't know and it's not because i'm lazy and it's not because i don't you know care it's because i honestly don't know and i can live with my not knowing you know the huma that's humbling to the to the ego that wants to be able to have everything figured out and to just say i don't know i don't know i think that humility does an awful lot of good for us i like that i love it um what's your next book about i always love when people ask authors when they're book when their book just comes out they're like and now what's your name she's doing next which i bet for you i already have answers literally the last couple days i finished my first draft of my next book which is kind of a sequel to faith after doubt and it's called do i stay christian [Music] obviously they're closer yeah yeah you're brilliant at titling your books um all right should we go to our lightning round this is great there's a lot of brian's sleep uh yeah we should let brian all right so this brian we call our lightning round these are kate and mines we just have one two three four like five or six pre-ordained questions it's fast and it's just fast and so you ask or you answer whatever comes up easy peasy what's your favorite movie of all time uhf by weird al yankovic what's in the world i did not see that lightning round man fill in the blank self-care is getting outdoors nice name something you're deeply grateful for right now i just had my five grandchildren quarantining with us for the last three months or oh so what's your weirdest fear uh oh my goodness say it's my weirdest fear um you know i mean this is not uh anyhow uh both of my parents both of my parents uh died with dementia and so i just hate the thought of not knowing you know absolutely who's a famous person you swear you'd be besties with if only you knew each other you know i like to think that saint francis and i could have been pals i affirmed that i believe that would have happened what's a book you believe everyone should read uh the overstory right it's a great novel it's a great novel i just forgot the other screen somebody might be able to put it in the chat room but it's uh it's a novel uh that is linked together by trees and i it's you know i was an english major so i love novels and i think it's the best novel i've read since college the overstory that's amazing okay last one what's sustaining your soul right now well i think i already mentioned having my grandkids around was pretty amazing and you know i think for these last four years a lot of us have been involved in resistance and so i think now trying to get beyond resistance to actually doing something constructive that feels like that's a relief to my soul i love that answer i just want to thank people out there such as lenny who didn't win but said whatevs i'm buying it thank you lenny mandy says i'm downloading it now thank you mandy susan neemi suggest this for a small group book susan okay susan goes to our church brian so i think that uh i think we accept your challenge patty bought it this is great oh thank you all i love it and yeah that's great well thank you brian thank you brian not only for joining us live staying up late and joining us live but thank you really for continuing to say yes to this calling on your life to be a person of great love and compassion and wisdom and insight who does not keep that wisdom and insight and compassion to yourself but you lavishly give it away you give it away brian and their people like myself and kate have been recipients of your wisdom and insight and love and compassion in some profound ways that will forever be grateful for and so you are to me the person that i'm like oh that's a i i have more work to do because i'm i want to i want to be more like brian mclaren i love you all that's that's we love you that's kind of you today and i love you guys too and thanks to everybody for being part of this tonight thank you all right thanks bud oh i just not just the best do you just sometimes go wait what we get to talk to brian from claire he knows my name every time he says it right you're like he just said my name it's just the best what a gift we can kick him off or he can leave himself or he could just because i was like is he feeling trapped he could have stuck around and kept watching but you kicked him out i didn't want him to pick up brian that's true we didn't go over how the how the guests believe we probably should figure that he was you guys couldn't see but he was in a little box still on our screen just stuck all right so we uh coming up on the kate and colby show we have some more beautiful wonderful amazing guests next week my buddy jared bias whose first book that he's solo read he might correct me on that but i think it's his first solo book uh it's called love matters more and i can't wait to find out what the end of that phrase is i can't wait to talk to him i literally can't wait to talk to him it'll be my first time talking to jared but we are internet buddies forever and like things he's my soul brother i i for years he and i have been just like internet buds and we'll finally get to actually chat so yeah i can't wait then we got candace zubernat incredible therapist who doesn't i told you last time she's literally the best christian closet to help people reconcile their sexuality and their faith and then the next week after that we've got uh adam and lauren coming down from the deconstruct they are some of the people brian was referring to when he said podcasts are speaking to that so make sure that you set reminders in your devices for wednesday at 7 p.m and this was so fun tonight we had our biggest crowd ever so thank you for all of you showing up we had at one point uh 50 combined viewers on youtube and facebook which is not too bad couple months ago and we had 12. just being vulnerable transparent a little too much for me i'm going to go i understand um we love you we wish you wellness and goodness careful and and and take care of yourself take care of yourself all right should we hit the end button yep goodbye [Music] you

Channel: The Kate and Colby Show

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Length: 78min 1sec (4681 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021