Progressive vs. Evangelical: A Dialogue for Clarity

we are thankful that you're joining us because we have a very important and timely conversation today about evangelical christianity and progressive christianity now just so you know right out of the gate this is not a debate i've had a lot of debates before i enjoy them they're fun there's value in debate uh kobe maybe you and i will follow up and have more of a why conversation this is more of a what conversation in other words the whole goal here there's really two goals number one model just a civil conversation between people who differ pretty substantively on important issues and also bring clarity where we agree and where we disagree so my guest today is willing to come on the show with a christian apologist we had never met before emailed you out of the blue uh so kudos to you for coming into this lane i know you have a background apologetics you know how these things can go but colby martin has written a book called the shift in which he says it's his move from conservative christianity to progressive christianity and as a pastor of a progressive christian church in san diego really about an hour from me so clearly qualified to engage in this conversation colby thanks for coming on thanks sean thanks for the invite too by the way kudos to you for extending the invitation it can often feel a whole lot easier and safer to just have the conversations with the friendlies and that's good that's important we need that too yeah and i share your value of we also need to continue to figure out how to talk to one another when we disagree on things so anyways thanks amen to that you're welcome well some it's kind of obligatory in these conversations to start with somebody's story what i don't want this to be is story time taking up your story my story back and forth but stories do help us understand where somebody's coming from and in your book you talk a lot about your personal story and how this shapes your journey so why don't you gotta just kind of give us the the synopsis of going from conservative christianity to becoming a progressive christian pastor yeah you bet um and please feel free to cut me off at any point because i can be a bit verbose sean my life motto is why use 10 words when 50 will do uh so feel free anytime if you're like all right end up moving on but yeah in a in a nutshell i would say this i was born and raised in a uh baptist home and then went to a like a generic evangelical church in my high school years after my parents divorced and really fell in love with kind of evangelical culture and doctrine in high school went to a four-year christian liberal arts baptist college got my degree in pastoral ministry from my baptist college uh and then got a job uh shortly after college at a christian missionary alliance church as one of their worship pastors um and then you know did full-time ministry for a number of years after that all within this larger tent of what i guess we could just for the sake of today called evangelical christianity sure and uh i i absorbed it all i almost said bought it all hook line and sinker but you know that's a real i think cynical ways as people were selling something no people were legitimately passing on what was meaningful and true for them in fact uh and forgive me i'm sure you're on one hand tired of hearing this on the other hand may be grateful for the legacy but your dad's book evidence that demands a verdict was one of my favorite books like that and lee strobel a case for christ like i knew these books inside and out and loved to draw from them and quote them and point people toward them and so uh yeah i was i was just cruising down that path sean of thriving in the evangelical world um and then like i said a couple years after college as i was working at a church was really when i began to for the first time be exposed to or even be made aware of that there have been different ways that good-hearted uh men and women of christian faith have understood what it means to be a christian like for two thousand years there's been there's been there's been different answers than kind of this narrow for me narrow baptistic evangelical way uh and that was super fascinating to me like wait you mean people have been asking different questions and coming up with different answers like you mean christianity is a lot more diverse than than this little narrow like romans road uh sort of way of thinking about it um and that you know for lack of a better word that just sort of opened my mind to this place of i need to i need to look into this more i need to i need to ask better questions and i need to be open to the fact that maybe there's different ways of responding and that uh led me on probably a number of year journey of reading different authors and asking different questions um and then i don't know when maybe 2008 2009 is probably when i pulled the last stake out of evangelical christianity and was like i don't think i belong there anymore or i don't think they would have me anymore uh and now like the past decade or so i've i've used this label for lack of a better one progressive christian because i think it fits me for now um okay but yeah there you go okay fair enough that that's a great summary to start with when i read your book it's full of some of some serious hurt and pain and rejection and it's pretty raw at times so i'm wondering in your experience how much of this is due to the hurt looking back on the way you were treated at times like go from a church from other people and how much of it is like theology that drives it or is it both what's the the you know the train kind of driving the caboose so to speak yeah now i appreciate that question because that is you know for for for those who are watching or may watch us back later if you've ever had a conversation with someone who has left evangelical christianity um you don't have to scratch the surface much to find there's a lot of pain there there's a lot of hurt um and so i think your your observation is spot on for me you know i come i come to the table with all sorts of uh what we call now uh layers of privilege so my my fact that i identify as white as a as a straight male like in this world i just the world is sort of bent toward my favor in many ways and so i don't have a lot of the same hurts that those who might identify as queer do or those who might be people of color um women certainly have the have their own unique pain in this in this space um so i'm conscious of how while i do have pain from my evangelical background it's it's it's of a of a different kind for me a lot of the pain was when i started to shift away from some of these evangelical uh like tried and true answers when i started to shift away from that or even just get curious about it it was met with um it was met with shame it was met with rejection it was met with uh if you don't believe that anymore then you're no longer a christian you don't believe that anymore then you're no longer saved if you don't believe that anymore then you know you are outside of god's favor or however that might be described and that sort of messaging is is is just painful to tell people like you have to believe this or else and then when you know as i talk about i reference it a little bit in my book the shift my book before that tells more of the story of how eventually i was fired from my church when my theology on sexuality shifted um so yeah so in terms of like real world pain losing your job losing your house losing your livelihood that sucks um granted i'm really glad it happened because my life now is full of so much joy and light and hope and goodness but um yeah it was hard so that's one way to answer that question so i guess kind of what i'm good at getting at is when somebody goes through the shift you're talking about how does how do you how are you careful to say i'm not reacting against something emotionally because of this pain but i'm really seeking after truth because i'll see some people who will go through the hurt that you describe and say you know what this is an example of a church that just didn't live the model of jesus it's not the position it's the way people treated me so i'm not going to reject the position other people are like i've been hurt and throw the whole thing out so what does it look like for you in your thought process because my journey is a little bit different i went through doubt and i want to come back to this idea of certainty with you but i thought things were black and white and someone wasn't a christian because they literally just hadn't read my dad's book like how hard is it evidence it demands verdict there's the proof then you grow up and it's like okay things are a little bit more nuanced and grained it's not that simple but when i went through a period of doubt pretty significant doubt i told my dad who's this apologist and his response was like son i think that's great and i literally looked at him i was like did you hear what i just said you're this apologist defending the world and you know my dad's like the glass is 99 full he goes son you got to follow truth you can't just live on my beliefs you have to follow what you think is real and i'll love you no matter what and he said to me he said don't rebel against what you've learned because you're hurt or angry i see that a lot only reject it if you're convinced it's not true and that was actually really good advice so i see what you're talking about in the evangelical church that like doubt is a sin we don't know what to do with it we freak out but like jude 1 22 is like have mercy on those who doubt so how do you separate the hurt and the pain and the treatment that's there from saying okay this is christians treating me badly or does that mean it's false what's that process for you i don't know that the separation is super clear or clean and cut sean because a lot of the hurt is a direct result of the theology is a direct result of the beliefs i understand that it takes the manifestation of the humans doing the hurting but it stems from harmful beliefs so for instance when a woman is told that they are not allowed to teach a man that they're not allowed that they are 49 of a marriage and man is 51 when they are given these like those are just inherently harmful ideas um so i for me it's not uh it's all it's all connected it's all related and i would not and i do not in my own practice i do not begrudge people i'm not saying you do by the way i'm just saying i don't begrudge people who do ultimately say i need to leave this thing because of the hurt independent of as you call my or as you might have referenced independent of what may or may not be true i don't begrudge someone who's like you know what the the the pain is so intense and the harm is so severe that i want nothing to do with it and i don't know how a a comp i don't know what other response other than just looking them in the eye and being like yeah that makes a lot of sense i probably would too if if that was me if that was my story i probably would too and to ask that person to like return back to the source of pain to have some sort of intellectual theological query to make sure that they really want to leave for me is like although not totally similar obviously it's a metaphor is like a spouse who is being abused by their other spouse that person doesn't need to remain in that to figure out well are we really gonna be compatible if we can get things figured out it's like no there's there's legit harm trauma pain happening here um it's time to leave so anyway i just i don't know if that was an adequate response it's just for me it's not necessarily an either or it's it's it's at both end okay so that that that makes sense that's helpful i'm trying to get at the source and the basis of our beliefs like for me the bottom line whether it's true or not is the primary question that should trump all other things and i think i'm guessing you would agree with that when it's all said and done um i think this might be an area where we differ in terms of partly it's not just the way you were treated but the theology itself is harmful so one question i want to ask and you might have already answered this is had you been treated differently because there's a quote i pulled up here i want to read you said many of us left conservative christianity because of the lack of space for doubts and questions you had to be perfect and shame thrives in those conditions there's there's a lot of truth to that i agree that sometimes like doubt is the worst thing you can do in christian circles and we put shame on people who doubt that's why some studies show that kids don't leave their you know evangelical faith because of doubt it's because of unexpressed doubt that they don't feel the invitation to express it do you think your journey or other progressive christian journeys might be different if doubt and questions had been invited as a part of the christian faith absolutely i so two quick thoughts and i will make them quick one yes absolutely i do think that a ton of traction would be gained by more churches being open about uh inviting people to have questions and doubts and just changing their entire posture around that 100 but then also i when i wrote that in fact if i could go back and re re-write it today i might try to get a little more clear because i think it was maybe being a bit reductive there it's not so much the questions that weren't welcome even if that might have been true in some individual instances it's more like the questioning wasn't welcome which is to say huh people could like you know i could think back my youth pastor he was totally fine with people asking him questions as long as when it's all said and done you land on the right answer and for him he had a very clear so it wasn't just that questions are bad it was you can ask the questions just know that here's the answer and what you can't be you can't remain in a state of questioning right you can't remain in a state of what if i just don't know what if i just stay in this place of not knowing is that okay well the answer is yes it's okay but what i was told was no it's not okay and then two what if i land in a different place so that's why maybe i regret the way i worded that just because it's not so much the questions weren't welcome it's that questioning as hofstra and attitude was not welcome um and then landing in a different place then sort of the uh the correct positions as stated by whatever church it was um was not permitted sure that makes sense yeah it does and i think that's an area where we're gonna find some agreement between the two of us and i see that in the evangelical church like questions are fine but questioning people freak out there can be shame i see that in the church that wasn't my experience i mean my dad distinctly said he goes son i love you no matter what you believe that's not at stake and i think that really freed me up to be like hey if i don't think jesus is god we're gonna have a different faith but we're in relationship he loves me he cares for me and it's that kind of posture that i don't think we do super well in the church now let me ask you something you probably don't expect this question but imagine you're still an evangelical and you believed probably what i believe that christian is true but you want to invite questions what would you do differently as an evangelical pastor pastor to teach young people what you think is true but not in a way that's dogmatic requires certainty and undermines questioning that young people might have ah man that's like that's like asking somebody imagine you were to play golf but you couldn't use clubs how how would you hit it off the tee um because because i think my number one and that's probably a terrible metaphor but i i use about 27 metaphors and hope that one of them is worthwhile um i think i get i get the heart of the question it's a fascinating question but i think where i get tripped up sean is it is and this forgive me this is overly reductive but at the heart of evangelical christianity is the belief the assumption that what god cares about most is what we believe a way to say that differently is evangelical christianity is built upon that you have to have the right answer to at least one or two or three questions right this is the whole premise like you want to get to heaven when you die you have to be able to have this correct belief the whole thing is sort of built on this idea that what god what what the creator of everything cares about most is what humans think that they have the right data in between their ears and i find that um i find that wrong i don't know how else to say it uh and the progressives love the word problematic so i'll drop that i find that incredibly problematic um so when i think about your question it's like well what i would do is i would start by saying when jesus was asked what's the most important thing he said yes love god love your neighbor love yourself when jesus wanted to describe how people knew that they would be followers he said they'll know this that you love one another when he when jesus asked peter do you love me and peter like of course i do jesus said well then make sure you get your theology right no i'm sorry he said well then go feed my sheep which is to say friends let's take the idea that we have to have the right answers off the table entirely and no because this is what your dad this is what your dad did this is what your dad did for you sean is what i heard is your dad provided for you a sense of belonging that you belong in this family sean regardless of what you believe or think and once you have belong once you know that you belong you have freedom to flex you have freedom to move you have freedom to ask and inquire and all of that because it none of that impacts ultimately your belonging and i think that is a just a microcosm of what is true about all of us that we are by virtue of being human beings on this planet we are loved children of god who belong you might say in the family of god and the idea of belief can just really be set aside for a moment and and that gives people the freedom to flex and to be curious and ask questions so that's that's what i would do and then i would ultimately still not qualify as an evangelical pastor anymore no no fair enough um i i think this might be another distinction i i don't think scripturally what god cares most about is what we believe i mean james 2 says even the demons believe and shudder demons have correct theology i think what scripture says is what god cares about most is that we love him and love other people but we can only properly love people if it's informed by certain theology about the character of god the character of man the nature of salvation so i saw a couple statements in your book that are like i i don't have them right in front of me but like if you think it's all about just getting the right answers you've missed the boat and i hear that i'm like yes it's not just about getting the right answers but that doesn't mean the right answers don't matter it means we better know those answers and then be able to apply them like if i read a letter of paul he spends a lot of time on theology say the book of romans then he gets to romans 12 and it's like now that you understand salvation and jews and gentiles what does it mean to love people in practice so i think that may be just a little difference between the two of us that i would say christianity is not just god is not just interested in what we believe when it's all said and done that's a fundamentalist way that sometimes in christian circles we overemphasize at the expense of how that doctrine applies to relationships um let me know let's get can i respond can i respond to that real quick um i love that you shared that what's coming up for me sean is that it feels like a little bit of smoke and mirrors a little bit of like look over here because what i mean what i mean by that is and and maybe you do maybe you are entirely different than what my experience as an evangelical was and and i totally hold space for that uh by the way so um but and hear what you're saying that that but don't you don't isn't your sort of take that the when it comes to if we just might say heaven and hell and sort of the classic evangelical doctrine of heaven and hell that for a person to sort of enjoy eternal bliss with god that there has to be like a a belief there has to be a confession there has to be an acquiescence to an idea so my answer is correct beliefs are necessary but when it's all said and done the christian life in evangelicalism is not about having right beliefs it's about being in relationship with god and in relationship with other people so even my relationship with my wife is going to require certain truths about who she is how i love her the nature of our relationship the same is true with god so i'm not taking away that we have to believe certain things to be saved that is true i think that's clear in scripture but the most important thing is not just about beliefs for the sake of beliefs it's about loving god and loving other people it's about taking those beliefs and applying them in relationship that fundamentalism i think is about just beliefs for the sake of beliefs we agree there it just it sounds to me like you're saying one a if i could one a is the correct beliefs and one b is working that out in love but but then you say at the end of the day and you say it's one b but it's not because at the end of the day it still sounds like one like it is one a for you at the end of the day you do have to the right bleed if those were ordered the other way oh did i okay if those are ordered the other way my understanding my experience of evangelical christianity is that that wouldn't count for eternal life is if you ordered if you if your beliefs were incorrect but you're lovingness was correct we don't have to get hung up on this i just feel like okay i just feel like the that i hear what you're saying and it sounds like you're saying the right thing but i feel like if i dig just a couple inches further i don't know that you can really get out and we're not here to debate so it's not about that i guess i'll just say from i'll say for me for me i still don't know how evangelicals don't at the end of the day say beliefs are what matters most even if it's a like i said a 1a1b sort of thing well to me i guess it's easy and i'll give a response we'll come back and then we'll move on is that jesus asked what is the greatest commandment so we're supposed to have a right belief about the commandment to love god and it's love other people that's why we're here we're putting a garden to be in a relationship heaven is described as a relationship a city is relationship we're here for a relationship with god and other people that's what we're made for and that's how we thrive so during cove you can sit around with the right beliefs but if you're not in incarnate relationships with people we suffer so in our minds we can separate right beliefs from action but i think in principle god is looking that we have the right beliefs about him and we live that out together that's why faith did you talk about in your book although we would differ a little how to apply it really means a sense of trust well to trust somebody i have to know certain things about this person and have certain beliefs about the nature of our relationship to trust this person trust is so much more than just having the right beliefs but it's no less is that does that at least make sense and maybe that's just an area where we differ over it yeah no it's good yeah we can move on thanks oh all right okay fair enough want to make sure you have a chance to speak let's get to what we mean by progressive christianity because this is where i think some of what we're going to talk about might be most helpful to people so you have a definition in your book but just tell us when you say you're a progressive christian and i know you don't speak for all progressive christians i don't speak for all evangelicals tell me what you mean by that term yeah no i appreciate you you stating that um because i've had a couple other youtube videos where some progressive christians have been on there like this guy doesn't know he's talking about he doesn't speak for me it's like no it's absolutely true i did not speak for all progressive christians um what i try to do so i i think about it like this if evangelical christianity is like classical music then maybe progressive christianity is a bit more like jazz which is to say within classical music you have pretty tight parameters around what can be done with any given piece of music and if you fall outside of that it might still be a nice piece of music it just no longer would be considered in sort of the classical genre whereas jazz you have real loosey goosey porous boundaries you have a general sense like here's the key that we're playing in here's a little bit of the the time signature although hey if you want to go from 6 8 to 4 4 just for one bar ain't nobody going to stop you here's the here's the tempo and then there's just a lot of room to breathe in that so when i think about progressive christianity sean for me it's it's more like that it's more like a movement than it is um uh you know evangelical christianity i i hear what you're saying there's some diversity there and also there are organizations whose purpose is to stamp people with the approved you are in the evangelical world and not like i remember in college one of my professors had to argue like no i'm not an open theist like don't take my credentials away i'm not one of those scary greg boyd types um so but progressive christianity for me is much more like a a movement it's like a modality of christianity it's a way to practice your faith and in the book i named for what i call marker i don't know if i call it marker i call markers now four markers of progressive christianity which is to say this doesn't define progressive christianity it just says that chances are if you move along the spectrum from conservative toward progressive christianity chances are the more you get this direction the more likely the people will sort of have these four convictions one of them is an open and affirming posture towards those who identify lgbtq um one of those is an egalitarian attitude and belief as it relates to the men and women that they're equal none of that complementarian nonsense uh three is that uh there is an acceptance that the idea of white supremacy is a real thing and that um that needs to be dismantled and that there needs to be work to uh undo the damage of that and then uh four is there's what i call an agreeableness to science which is to say if science reveals a thing to be true it fits within the larger umbrella of what is true and we don't have to fight that anymore so it progressive christianity might be more than that but i think it is at least it holds those sort of metrics um to help people as they move along in that spectrum okay so let's aim for some clarity here so take the first issue women egalitarian obviously evangelicals differ on complementarianism some are egalitarian even at biola we have some who are egalitarian a colleague of mine is so that's one you could hold and be in the evangelical church second one when it comes to white supremacy i'll say yes i'll say yes my point though is that there isn't going to be a person who identifies as a progressive christian that doesn't hold those four things so it's necessary but it's not sufficient um fair enough so what no it's necessarily impressive it's necessary implies that there is someone sort of holding people's feet to the fire and they can take away their credentials and that's not again when you're in a movement that just isn't really the case but i think i know i think i understand what you're saying i just would push back on the term necessary because there's nobody like demanding that it's just that you can expect that you can make some safe assumptions that these folks necessary meaning you're going to find this being the case whether someone's enforcing it or not it's going to be egalitarian second you gave the example of white supremacy now this is a whole another topic but you're going to find evangelicals who even differ over how to make sense of critical race theory kevin de young had a great piece from those who are totally critical and dismissive of crt some who see it more as a tool within evangelical christian of course this ties to how much systemic injustice is there another conversation but you're gonna find evangelicals with a range of views on white supremacy how entrenched it is and how we we fight it so that that doesn't seem to be when it's all said and done necessarily a dividing line um the third one let me see the third one you gave outside of lgbtq with science so there's definitely a strain within evangelical christianity that resists mainstream science so young earth creationism that's one strain that tends to have a warfare model with modern science yeah but there's a growing movement say organizations that embrace evolutionary creation i have a friend of mine who's an evangelical christian in terms of his views on scripture jesus who believes god used the evolutionary process believes there's historical adam would consider himself an evangelical so those three it seems to me you could hold at least i'm not making a point of whether i hold those or not i'm saying in the broader evangelical community people will hold those three and their space for it seems like it's the fourth one when you get to the lgbtq relationship that that's the dividing line where you and i are going to differ over this distinctly i'm going to say no doesn't represent scripture if you go to an affirming position you have left what i think scripture teaches and the evangelical church so is that really the dividing line if we had to narrow it down where now we've crossed threshold in your mind is that fair i think that is an accurate assessment okay that that is like yes you could hold uh a more progressive view on those other three markers but once you cross into a full affirmation of lgbtq people like that is for whatever reason and i have some ideas of what those reasons are for whatever reason that has become the litmus test i just want to uh i'm just watching some of these comments here so some people are just calling me a liar which i hope is not entirely the truth i might be wrong about things chuck canuck but i don't know that i'm a liar anyway i don't know if you're watching some of the questions but i'm yes i see him i'm coming up the questions dialogue with you it is what it is um okay so let me ask you a little bit more what you mean by by christian on on page 10 you say when i say christian i do so in the broadest sense my bars for what might render person christian are fairly low for me the term represents one someone who's decided that in jesus through his life and teachings there exists a trustworthy path for living full to the fullest and trying to live in that way so in jesus there's a path you should follow second makes an effort to identify with at least some aspects of the religious tradition and heritage that emerged in his name so he's got jesus is the person to follow this tradition he's left and identify with it in some fashion as i'm reading this i'm thinking okay a muslim would qualify because they would say jesus born a virgin did miracles was sinless the greatest prophet so and they would also say they identify with some of the christian tradition although muhammad was a later prophet that fulfilled it mormons would identify with this are you okay saying if they call themselves christians they're christians or where does this openness start to get a little leery in in your mind don't know that i agree with you that a practicing muslim would read that description and be like oh yeah that applies to me yeah otherwise why otherwise they wouldn't call themselves a muslim they call themselves a christian but i have a ton of muslims who say to me you and i worship the same god i hold jesus in high regard i'm tied to the tradition of jesus in the way you've written it here but they would add more to it interesting okay so you have muslim friends that identify with aspects of the religious tradition and heritage like they do they they do some things that are considered traditional christian practices and traditions and rituals i guess that surprises me but they might be out there okay um yeah as as i said in the section that you read i do try to hold a pretty big tent for for the term christian i'm not i'm not gonna be i'm not i'm i'm nobody's gatekeeper i was a gatekeeper okay for long enough and i um those days are well behind me uh so i'm not gonna be a gatekeeper for anybody if someone wants to identify as a christian uh i might have some thoughts on that like good lord there are people they're people that uh we don't need to get political but there are people that have identified as christian for the last four years and i would have some real questions about that like what the crap like that is that is not christian as i understand it um but you know that's how they that's the term that they use um so yeah i my point is in writing that is i'm trying to describe what i mean by christian as opposed to create a definition that i expect others to uh adhere to so that's really the point of that passages i want i wanted the readers to know right up front when i say christian here's what i mean by that i mean that someone sees in the person of jesus a trustworthy and reliable way to abundant life like i am the way the truth and the life and they're like oh yeah okay i really buy into that and also they make some effort or they try to engage in the heritage of christianity like they have some connection to this religion is really the point maybe they go to church maybe they don't maybe they read their bible maybe they don't but they have some connection to their like there's an institution known as christianity me to identify as a christian to say look in some way i'm connected to that okay all right fair enough let's talk about you have a chapter it's totally insufficient for people and i get it like i see the people in the comments and i understand that people do not like and they want me to stop calling myself christian uh and i respect that i used to be of that opinion too and it's just not where i am anymore well let's track with your position of god here where you say uh there's no progressive christian way to think about god right now you do seem confident that god is not a he um but my question is you also use the term that god is like an insisting force which sounds like a personal being in your mind is god a personal being or a force or something else that i'm missing i would say that was that was the hardest chapter for me to write and probably the one that i would most like to redo only because sean and i was just talking about this with my wife the other night like one of the this might be a quick tangent but it'll come back to the topic at hand one of the pieces of collateral damage that that has happened for me over the last 10 years as sort of leaving my evangelical roots behind and moving towards something more progressive one of the one of the pieces of collateral damage in this is i've i feel like i have lost a bit of the the personal aspect of god that i feel like i i i have necessarily needed to allow some of those conceptions of god to die for instance god is not a white man in the cloud those those ideas those metaphors those conceptions necessarily needed to die for me because they were untrue they were incorrect they were contributing to harmful ideas um but i've i've been aware over the last several years more specifically that sort of what was left behind shout out to tim lahaye what was left behind in that uh in the sort of the tearing apart of those conceptions was this amorphous i don't know capital s source like trying to figure out how to talk about a divine creator without there being like a being in the sky somewhere and language has just been entirely unhelpful for me in that it's just like i don't i don't know y'all i just it's more like here's what i can describe god isn't i don't know so when you say he's got a personal being uh the idea of a being i i do stumble on um as though if we could just have the right telescope we could see god somewhere as a being in that way but personal now of course i mean let me jump in here of course no historic christian would believe that that you see god in a telescope because god is not out there there's an interesting quote you have you said god cannot be contained by language and does not exist as a separate being out there so i would say god can't be contained by language in its exhaustion but that doesn't mean language cannot reflect in true ways what god is like like that doesn't follow from the fact that god can't be contained by language sure but god isn't a separate being out there because god is everywhere but he's a distinct ontological being who is personal that's all branches of historic christianity would at least concede that minimal point is that something you're not sure about you're hung up on you're changing your mind about i think what i'm trying because the way that you describe it is lovely and great i just don't think it's the boots on the ground way that your typical christian especially within evangelicalism conceives of god i think they hear that as sort of this high flute and philosophical way of describing god for them like when they pray when they sing their worship songs there is a belief or an assumption that god is a being that exists somewhere and that if we i know the tell us go by obviously nobody thinks we can have a telescope but the point is like when they think about isaiah chapter one isaiah in the throne room of god and their minds are like oh that's a real thing that could happen someday to somebody somewhere is that they could be in a throne room and see god like god is a being and and that for me is is just wholly inadequate and and not correct but i want to go back to the personal part because that's what i was trying to name for me sean is the thing that i've missed and it's been hard for me and i haven't been able to um i mourn that part and so i've been actually in fact i got a book right here i was just talking about it last night on our live podcast um i don't know if you know richard beck uh but he's got this new book out called uh sorry the camera didn't want to focus hunting magic eels recovering an enchanted faith in a skeptical age and for me i'm like i'd like to sort of re-enchant my faith a little bit because i've lost some of that so i do think that god is personal uh and i do think that one of the collateral damages as a result of my move towards progressive christianity as i have lost touch with that but that's more a reflection of my own journey than what i think is actually true about god okay all right let's let's uh let's flesh this out a little bit in terms of the characteristics of god uh actually let's actually focus on fun jesus for saying you have a chapter on jesus and you ask the question you think what do you think about jesus now we could talk we need an entire show on this but the question jesus asked was who do you say that i am some obviously said he was demon possessed some said he was drunkard some said he was the son of god i would answer that question obviously to our audience i think jesus was the god man in human flesh i believe that that's a standard belief of historic christianity protestant orthodox catholic how do you answer that question about who jesus was i affirm peter and his answer that you are the christ uh i affirm the early christians who saw in jesus the manifestation of the long-awaited messiah like they had anticipated that there would one day be another anointed one like moses who would come and free them and liberate them at that time from their roman oppressors and there were those that saw in jesus and his teachings in his um in his death and certainly in his resurrection like oh it's not the kind of liberation we were expecting it's not the kind of messiah that we anticipated uh but this he he is the one we were waiting for and i totally affirmed that i i agree with that i affirmed that um late you know it was within a couple centuries after that that then i think the early church started trying to figure out how do we how do we how do we name all this how do we talk about all this how do we who really was jesus who what does it really mean to be the christ the messiah and you know bart ehrman has some great uh research on sort of how jesus became god how jesus became christ in terms of being like looking back at his life and saying wow like the author of hebrews when we look at jesus he was like the exact representation of god which i totally affirmed bt dubs um he's like the exact he's the express image of god uh and then later on in the letter to uh letter one john um which added even even more down the road was like what if there's like this three different ways that god exists in the world what if there's god the creator and then we saw in jesus this unique express manifestation of god in human form that's interesting in a way that we've never seen before but then also guys we need to talk about the way that god seems to move in all of us and seems to reside what if we and so you have like this god the creator god the father you have jesus the son and then you have the holy spirit and so this doctrine of the trinity kind of was their way to try to put some language around their experience to try to name these phenomena that they had been witnessing uh over and over and over again and i think that's a really helpful and useful way to talk about it i really do um i i don't i don't begrudge those who hold to a real tight trinitarian theology i might asterix a little bit here in astrix a little bit there but i think jesus was i to some to sum it up i think jesus was the long-awaited messiah who uh provided a type of liberation and salvation um that was not in the way that the church or that the early jewish people in the first century thought it would be um and i affirmed that he was the an express image exact representation of so if you want to know what god looks like here's the end of the story if you want to know what god looks like look at jesus that's the best picture we can get of who god is okay so if i'm if i'm tracking are you saying that you affirm like the nicene creed classic christianity which been has been affirmed across different orthodox protestant catholic will differ over what it means that god is triune differ over what it means the relationship between faith and works but certain core beliefs have characterized christianity since its inception you're saying you embrace those core beliefs i think i'd have to know a little more specifically what you're asking what core beliefs okay nothing that matters all that much we're just a couple of dudes on a youtube channel so nobody's gonna hold me through this but it is more like yeah i think i would have to be a little more in order for you to answer with integrity because i don't want to just placate you or other people by saying yeah sign up from the nice scene i don't know if i do totally fair so like do you believe you say there's one quote i came here it said jesus was human full stop do you believe he was god in human flesh so you affirm his humanity would you equally affirm his divinity because that's something you don't talk about in the book the reason why i don't talk about that in the book and why i would even hesitate to give an answer that i think many of your viewers would appreciate which we talked a little bit about in our tech rehearsal like um just the way that i talk and the way that i answer is not sufficient for a lot of christians and i get i've even seen some people comment like he keeps saying i think and for me and i feel i'm like yeah that's how i talk like i'm honest about these are my opinions and my thoughts and my feelings and you don't have to like them or listen to them um when when you ask me that question was jesus fully god i say yes knowing that what i mean by god is probably different than what you mean by god so therefore if what you mean by god are you asking do i think jesus was that i would probably say no how's that so what i mean by god is the eternal self-existent all-good creator of the universe stepped into human race in the incarnation and was fully human and fully divine that's the quick summation when i believe is that something you're leery to affirm you're like yep i'm on board with that oh no i don't i think the affirmation that was spoken over jesus at his baptism behold this is my beloved in whom i am well pleased i think that's an affirmation that can and is spoken over all of us i think that all of us are and i said this earlier all of us are are children of god and that's that's biblical i don't you know it's not just me pulling it out of my butt um i believe that we are all beloved children of god and so yes i believe that god was entirely and fully manifest in jesus of nazareth 100 and sean i believe god is fully evident and manifest and indwelling in you and in me and in nikki 103 and pudge net and redeemed five two five nine seven so i guess look i'm i'm just looking for clarity i look at jesus and i say he's similar in the kind kind in sense that he's human as both of us but he's different in substance because he's also divine do you accept that distinction and go yeah i was fully made in god's image jesus is following god's image but there's a qualitative difference in who jesus was and is that is different in terms of his divinity than you me and others yeah i i think if i can be so bold the reason why you think that's the case is because people who told the story of the life of jesus in the gospels and people who wrote letters later on known as the new testament have said as much so that's where you get that from and that's wonderful that's fine but what i would say is that was their way of trying to to name and describe and put language to their experience so i oh i lost my i lost my train of thought sorry my dog started barking and someone pulled up and i'm like oh crap can they hear the dog barking um what was your question so you were you were talking jesus i i just think that uh i i affirmed that the early church was trying to make sense of everything they were trying to make sense of who this guy was what he was saying um what their experiences were when they were with them and the way that they sort of concluded the the the the best way they could think of describe it was to talk about him as god i'm like you know what maybe i would have too like if i would have witnessed all that and seen all that maybe that's how i would describe it too so would you affirm the historical resurrection that jesus walked he was dead physically rose on the third day as the first fruits with a resurrected body do you refer that as historical fact because the way you talk about in your book is more like a metaphor not a real historical fact yeah i think if you were to go back uh and if anybody wants to here by the way you can go to sojourngrace.com that's our church's website and if you were to go back and listen to the last seven years of sermons on easter sunday you'd probably get a bit of a sign wave on how colby feels about this idea so there'll be some easter sermons where it's like yes literal bodily resurrection empty tomb 100 then the next year be like well i don't know y'all and then it just kind of goes like this so sean i guess it just i i i don't know i don't know some days it totally does not make sense to me like come on body coming back from the bed and then other days is like well this existence that we have right now is pretty strange like i can't explain this either some things are pretty weird in life so yeah maybe the tomb really was empty and this guy did come did come back from the dead so look this is helpful all i'm asking for is clarity because we want to know some of the differences between progressive christianity and evangelical christianity so you're given what you think is your best answer and that's fair that's all that's all i'm asking for and people are waiting there within progressive christianity you're going to have all sorts of different takes on that you're going to have your empty tumors which are literal resurrection and you're going to have now is a it was a metaphor that was like marcus borg that was just they experienced the resurrection in their heart all of that is within this large movement of progressive christianity yeah okay uh let's talk about your your uh your views on the scripture because this is really at the heart of a lot of it and you say that the bible is inspired now that's us using the same words but i think we mean something very different about this if i read your book correctly when you say the bible's inspired what do you mean by that yeah your instincts are you read it correctly so whereas i used to hold to the inerrancy of scripture the infallibility of scripture and then the inspiration which sort of fed those other two eyes you know now i recognize that the inerrancy of scripture is an untenable position to hold and the infallibility of scripture really just doesn't make any sense um but inspiration for me it's less now about a god who [Music] sort of uh uses humans you might imagine uses humans to be the exact pen to paper so god's like i really want to write a book i don't have any hands i need humans i'm going to like enter into this human and use their body as the meat puppet to write so it's less about that which is to say that every single word on the page is exactly how god would have written it had god had the uh fortune of having a pen and paper and a physical hand it's less about that and more about what i mean when i talk about god because i do i do i still believe that the bible is an inspired work of art it's an inspired collection of stories it's an inspired collection of letters and poems 100 so what i mean by that i guess is i believe that it is still it is a reasonable position to take that humans can be animated for lack of a better word animated by god humans can be sort of caught up into what is most true what is most real what is most good what is most beautiful and there have been times throughout human history when in that place or in that state whatever it is if someone's writing something and it reflects what is most true most real about the universe it's like well it makes sense to talk about that as being inspired by god that that is reflective of who god is um [Music] yeah it's it i'm conscious of the insufficiency of my answer when it comes to the inspiration of scripture um but i do hold that the bible is inspired by god and that it may not mean what we've always thought it means and i've been doing a whole series on my youtube channel by the way a quick plug on the authority of the bible um and how i interact with the authority of the bible do i take it as authoritative so i've been talking about that for like two months now um but yes i do think the bible's inspired no i don't think it's inerrant or infallible now you have you have a quote in the book where you said uh let me see if i can find this uh boom the idea was quote that god beam words to earth via meat puppet vessels known as moses jeremiah peter paul and so on i know that's just a turn of phrase that you're using yeah but i actually i know some evangelicals may think that but i don't think that's a historic view of inspiration that's why the greek in luke is different than say mark or john because god uses human beings and there's a divine source behind it it's not just inspired like michael jordan on the basketball court or michelangelo or van gogh there's a divine to be fair i believe by example was lebron james in the in the book not michael jordan yeah that that is a big source of disagreement between you and me who is more inspired but we will come back to that by the way um i noticed you said you could dunk easily in high school i played college troops and i couldn't even dunk in college so kudos to you there um but let me come back i i want to make sure i understand what mean by inspire because i would say jordan was inspired of course i would say lebron is an inspired basketball player uh michelangelo bach but that's humans reaching their potential in a beautiful way that's different than god coming down and being the source of something which is more of the historic christian view is that what you differ with did i characterize your view of when you say it's inspired fairly um i don't know maybe sean i'm i'm entirely conscious of how i'm coming up against the sort of the limits of my capacity to to articulate this um and in many ways it's because i have a limited understanding of it and and i'm and i'm okay with that i i i know that that you know i see uh i see some of the comments here people are really not happy with me and i totally i hold so i get it i totally get it i get that my answers are uh incomplete sounding and feeling uh frustrating um and that's and that's totally fine when you describe when you describe back to me sort of this low level inspiration no i'm not talking about that i'm conscious of how like there's that sort of low level of inspiration and then the meat puppet idea is this sort of the plenary inspiration the this high level of god like taking over humans to writing and i just it's somewhere in the middle there and i i don't have a better way to describe it other than to say yeah i think god inspired the bible and the bible's full of errors and contradictions so that clearly can't mean this super high level of inspiration or it could and now we're stuck with the god who like willingly okay uh wrote in contradictions and incorrect things which i guess someone could hold that i don't know anybody who does that's a conversation about inerrancy and contradictions i would love to have obviously you know i thought about this that is another time but it's obvious to our audience that that's where we differ which is fine you mentioned the authority and you've been talking about this week so obviously i'm looking for like the summary of your view but i've been reading some you and everybody else man i mean i i so i've been reading a couple commentaries by dennis prager who's jewish and he writes one of exodus 1 and genesis and in the beginning i forget which commentary it was he says there's some really tough passages in the old testament and because he believes the bible's authoritative it motivates him to go deeper and look for answers and reasons and many times because of that he's found some very plausible explanations he wouldn't have if he had stopped and just said well that makes no sense yeah so when i look at scripture i think there's a sense of authority if i interpret it correctly whether i like it or not these come from the source of god and it would be above me and i'm not pretending i always live it fall short all the time that is not my point at all but there's authority because of its source do you hold that about scripture or it is does it have a distinct authority from any other book yeah i think i i had a similar posture as the gentleman you referenced which is to say when coming up against something that doesn't seem to make sense or that sort of initially disturbs us keep going with it like go deeper with it um and so that actual move i think about acts 17 the bereans who were who were called by the author of luke's is like more noble because they they dug deeper into this stuff like that was what i did and that was how that was how i got to where i am today was by digging actually more into it and asking more questions and getting more curious about it not just and this is one of the straw men that many conservatives make of those who identify as progressive is like oh you just are wanting to go where the culture's going or you're just you don't like it until you dismiss it like i don't actually know any progressive christians who got to their progressiveness that way like almost all of us have taken our faith taking the bible more seriously tried to get more curious about it and as a result have shifted away from from some of our old beliefs um so yeah so that is that's the same move i make sean when i come to these passages uh deuteronomy um yeah anything in these old testament words like that does not i said earlier that jesus is the right quoted hebrews jesus the exact representation of god anytime in the old testament where something is attributed to god but it doesn't at all resemble jesus i'm like let's focus in on that because something is going on here um this is not who god is so what else might be going on here because that's who god is that's jesus we can feel good about that this kill every man woman and child hmm there's something else going on here okay so if jesus believed that and he affirmed the old testament then there's got to be some reason for that if jesus is god in human flesh even if i don't get it i don't like that troubles me on different levels but if we have the scriptures interpreted correctly jesus really believed that and i think he did then i look at that and go jesus is god i don't have the authority to change his views whether i like it or not because as paul said we see through a glass darkly so i look at issues like hell genocide lgbtq relationships you name it and my lens now there's other ways i will look at this but a primary scriptural lens is what does scripture teach whether i like it or not it's my job to follow what scripture says it seems like you're saying correct me if i'm wrong genocide in the old testament you talk about some of the what you call the angry views of god that can't be right so how is that not a lens that's brought to scripture that it's interpreted through or is that not a fair question that's kind of what i'm trying to get at no it's great there's like three or four things in there to respond to so first i think you're smuggling in when you say that jesus affirmed the old testament that's fine to say that but that's not the same thing as saying that jesus would affirm a reading of this old testament passage where god commanded a genocide that jesus would then say that's how to understand that story and that's who god is so i don't i think we need to be careful about smuggling in our sort of protestant western american evangelical understandings of the bible and saying for the old testament saying well jesus in a couple places in the gospels seem to affirm something in the old testament therefore he affirms evangelical readings old testament no no like that is a big leap in logic that i cannot make at all uh second by the way hold on hold on right there that's not an evangelical reading i mean jews would affirm that catholics would affirm that throughout history and so far as i know it's scripture jesus says have you not read he holds the scriptures authoritative and those views have been understood historically so you're right i i would recognize there's a difference between an interpretation of those passages but this is not just an evangelical view this is the primary view throughout church history i think i think we have to disagree there sean only insofar as to say like the old testament itself is sort of a conversation between different traditions the priestly tradition and the prophetic tradition so there isn't even a unified voice in the old testament which is the the jewish bible there isn't even a unified voice there about the character of god um which is part of why you get to uh situations like um is it micah um i desire mercy and not sacrifice well what the heck we just had this entire books of the bible all about sacrifice and this whole system and now this prophet's saying no no no no it's about mercy and then jesus affirmed that i desire mercy and not sacrifice so i don't i actually reject your position that there is this unified view of who god is in the old testament and that i'm in aberration of that in my um in my position yeah i don't i don't agree with that characterization okay that's that's fair there are so many rabbit trails i want to go down there's already no it's great we're pushing time here yeah well you have to go don't you yeah we are you don't actually you're the host i'm sorry i'm not hosting this thing um can i shoot more if you got to go i'm already pushing the time i'm good you're good okay um back to the issue of authority part of the question was if so jesus embraces hell i don't like it do i feel obligated to follow and believe that whether i like it or not or would you look at that and go yeah a loving god can't believe in hell that is incompatible even if we interpret jesus correctly i kind of disagree with the question sean because jesus didn't uh uh jesus didn't well at least when you say the word hell i really have to ask like what do you mean by hell because if if by hell you mean like dante's inferno you mean that after life on earth a soul might experience eternal torment maybe even eternal conscious torment which is like the the most unjust unloving thing anybody could imagine that conception of hell jesus had nothing to do with like the only times that jesus referenced what we might call hell he was referencing hades he was referencing the the like a a sort of literal physical place on earth that became this metaphorical representation for judgment nothing to do with life after death jesus did great jesus didn't really care about life after death he cared about life before death um so yeah i was kind of disagree with the with the question if jesus were to affirm something akin to the evangelical doctrine of hell then that would be that'd be really curious that'd be like oh well i guess i do need to maybe reconsider that but you know when i did my deep dive into hell when i was in seminary it was like gee look at jesus when he talks about hell he does not talk about hell the way that evangelicals talk about how full stop okay that's that's obvious an area we're going to differ on which would take us aside i guess the heart of what i'm getting at using the hell and genocide is not so much the particulars of how they should be interpreted but the authority of jesus if he says something about natural marriage if he says something about the afterlife that's uncomfortable do you feel obligated to believe that because scripture is authoritative or not or is there a third category i'm missing well when i talk about authority when i talk about the authority of the bible one of the distinctions i try to make is that there's different kinds of authority uh and for me in order for authority to be what i call an agreeable authority which is where a person willingly submits willingly says i acquiesce to the authority of whatever that source is in order for that to be the case there has to be a degree of freedom and trust and there has to be the source has to be good and worthy of respect and trust what i've noticed is that there is there's an expectation among some christians that the authority of the bible has more of what i would call like a a controlling authority which is well regardless of how we might think about it if it says this and basically what we mean by that is if it says that and i interpret it in this particular way then we're just stuck listening to it like a drill sergeant because we have to take its orders whereas i would say if for instance if this passage says something about women needing to be silent in church that should be an immediate red flag that there is something going on here that we should investigate further and we shouldn't just be like well the words on the page say it so we're stuck listening to it like no we need to get curious about that and maybe figure out what was going on and does that still have anything to do with us here today and if at the end of that exploration sean the answer is yeah then i'm like okay great then we acquiesce to it yeah yes yes jesus says um i tell you that if someone strikes you on the right cheek then turn to them or left whatever turn the other that classic thing for me it's like well once we understand what that would have meant to his early audience uh and we can see how that plays out in human relationships i submit i willingly place myself under the authority of that teaching and so when i get struck on the cheek i i might want to strike back um but the authority of the teaching of jesus that i have willingly said is good and worthy of my submission tells me not to and so it's got this guiding and correcting um authority in my life okay last last question for i i have so many questions for you colby oh my gosh i want to explore every single one of these rabbit trails but this is it i promise you have a lie in your book that says fundamentalism is a type of extremism and progressives can be fundamentalists just as much as conservatives explain oh i just good lord that was one of the the earliest surprises to me when i ventured into the world the movement of progressive christianity it was like oh watch where you step because there are progressive fundamentalists just like there were evangelical fundamentalists so i guess the idea of fundamentalism is can just be described as it is our way or the highway like there is just one way to think about things and there's one way to do things everything's black and white and that sort of thinking is not exclusive to any side of the spectrum it can show up show up anywhere so yeah in the within the movement of progressive christianity there are those that demand allegiance to certain ideologies there are those that say you know at our church sean we we have we try to hold a really big bucket for a lot of diverse beliefs and we do a lot of work at our church to invite those who still have a lot of resonance with traditional christianity and really like when the bible is taught and really like what jesus is sung about and then we have those who are fully agnostic and are there for the community and really just can't stand it when the bible is taught and they like they all are part of our community and the fundamentalism happens when those who are real sort of anti-bible teaching or really just i don't want to hear about jesus start making those who feel like they want that they start making them feel like they don't belong anymore so i guess it goes back to the idea of belonging fundamentalism is you don't belong here you need to fit in and the difference between belonging and fitting in is belonging is you just by virtue of being you you get to take up the space fitting in is you got to chop off this part squeeze in that part adapt that part in order to fit in here and for me uh fundamentalism is all about fitting in and having to change and be this uh and that can exist i think on on any side of the spectrum and it certainly exists within the progressive world colby fair enough man i can't thank you enough for coming on having this conversation on reminding folks who may be tuned in at the end the goal is a civil conversation i hope you feel respected treated well here i appreciate you pushing back at times going hey i differ with that but willing to listen have this conversation a lot of people are i think afraid to for a range of reasons uh i'm guessing our listeners didn't get all of the clarity they were looking for but that's or any of the clarity no no i think there was some clarity that came out that's helpful part of a larger conversation so thanks for your willingness to come on maybe we can follow up and have a b or c in in due time i think would be would be helpful for folks um yeah i think just one go ahead can i say one thing about the clarity just i i just wanted to honor that in people like i want to honor that a type of clarity is really important to a lot of people and that makes a ton of sense like and i i just i honor that like of course if you anybody if anybody is of the opinion that they have to have the right beliefs in order to be in right standing with god then that makes so much sense that they would then want to have a type of clarity and clear-cut answers and i just want to affirm that like that makes sense it's just not where i'm at anymore and it's not where a lot of people are in the progressive movement it's like you know what the the having the exact answer isn't what it's all about and so there's some comfortability with maybe having what sounds like a less of a clear answer it's not black or white it's gray and gray doesn't really always feel all that good i tota so i just i want to affirm that for the the listeners or the watchers that um you're not wrong when you're like why can't colby just give a straight answer well it's just not where i'm at anymore so okay that's fair enough we want you to speak and express where you're at and hopefully you feel like you had a chance to do that listeners can go back and watch it again see the answers see the questions and hopefully get as much clarity as possible for me it's a value whether i like on issues of politics what's the difference to democrat and republican and libertarian like clarity is just helpful on a range of issues and i find even discussions across political divides wouldn't necessarily talk about why but help me understand what you believe so we see where our differences are there's just some value in that there's not enough of those conversations today so those of you watching this was the what conversation we tried to get to the heart at where maybe there are some similarities and differences between evangelical christianity and progressive christianity maybe we'll follow up in due time and have the why are different views about uh hell different views about the nature of scripture different views about lgbtq we've both written books on that so maybe we'll have that conversation in due time by the way this channel is sponsored by biola apologetics so if you are new and just tuning in make sure you hit subscribe because we have behind the scenes interviews coming up with craig keener one of the leading new testament scholars in the world wayne grudem is coming up soon carl truman one of the best books on kind of the rise of the modern self and the sexual revolution he is coming on we have topics on mormonism uh this is a channel to try to bring value and resources to you on some of the most important issues of our day with civility and kindness as well if you've ever thought about getting a master's program colby this just be interesting for you to know we have a distance program now and it's gone fully distance starting this spring for people who want to study apologetics so since you have such an open church if someone says they want to study apologetics at biola send them our way hey thanks again hang after a minute wanna wanted to say goodbye but again thanks everybody for for tuning in it's a great car thanks sean it's been great all right bye-bye

Channel: Dr. Sean McDowell

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Length: 76min 24sec (4584 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021