Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: This is the Return, a podcast about religious reconstruction in a world of deconstruction. I'm Jordan Maddox.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: And I'm Dustin Maddox.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: We are not related, different spe, foreign.
We're going to be doing something a little bit different with today's episode. We're going to be sharing some book recommendations. Dustin and I are both avid readers and books are often the best places to explore topics in depth that we only scratch the surface of on a podcast like this. So Dustin sent in his book recommendations to me and I'm going to start by sharing mine with you. These are books not necessarily specific to religion or religious reconstruction, but were part of my process and beginning to think about how to approach religious reconstruction or an impetus to engage in that practice. So I'm going to start with the most recent one published. It's called Believe. It came out just a couple months ago. It's by Ross Douthit. The subtitle is why Everyone should be Religious. It was a big book for a moment. It has been called truly a mere Christianity for the 21st century. And that's a reference to the famous CS Lewis book Mere Christianity. That's kind of a seeker's accessible guide to what Christianity is as a belief system of philosophy. And so in this book Douthat explores why non belief requires ignoring what our reasoning faculties tell us about the world, how modern scientific developments make a religious worldview more credible, why it's entirely reasonable to believe in mystical and supernatural realities, how an open minded religious quest should proceed amid the diversity of religious faiths, something that we covered in a recent episode. And then Douthat shares his own story. So what I loved about this book is that it's apologetics, meaning it's a defense in some ways of religion, but it's charitable. Douthat himself is a columnist at the New York Times. He's a conservative that's been operating in progressive circles for a long time. And progressive in the United States these days often corresponds to unbelief. And he has a way, a diplomatic way of approaching the subject that I think is refreshing. He's charitable with doubt in ways that people that typically do apologetics are insecure about. You'll read apologetic writing that's more kind of insular in the Christian circles and it often has a tone of fear and black and white and this kind of dualist way of thinking either in or out. Douthed is much more open to a spectrum here. And I think that's the most helpful thing that particularly a person that's Thinking about re engaging with religion should have. So that would be the first book that I would recommend. The second book is a book I found recently, but it's a subject that I've been exploring since college. The book is called after and it's written by Bruce Grayson. And Bruce himself is a doctor and he is the world's leading expert on near death experiences. Near Death Experiences, or NDEs, are those stories that you hear when someone's on an operating table, their heart stops and they have these kind of visions of an afterlife or something. I remember I had a college class where a professor assigned the Handbook of Near Death Experiences, which is essentially just this long catalog of all these wild stories of people experiencing things that are hard to explain empirically. And what I love about near death is experiences. And the coverage of them is that it complicates our worldview. A lot of us have this kind of scientific worldview that the only things that exist are the things that we can measure. And obviously that worldview has limitations and it doesn't allow for the unexplainable in some ways. And so what I like about this book, after, by Bruce Grayson, is that he summarizes where the research is, what we know about it, and then tells fascinating stories that are inexplicable. He also has some OBE stories or out of body experience stories in this book. Things like people being able to see through walls, apparently when they're in comas. Just fascinating stories. And I think Indies and OBEs raise the biggest questions about a strictly materialist worldview. And if we move beyond materialism, that opens up a lot of questions. And that's where religion enters the fray and offers its own explanation. And so I really valued this book and I think it's probably the best summary of all the research and all the knowledge we have currently about what these near death experiences and these out of body experiences are. For my last book of recommendation, I thought I'd offer something fictional because oftentimes I have most spiritually enlightening experiences while reading fiction more than nonfiction. And the book I'm going to recommend is a long one. It's called Septology. It's by an author named John Fossey who is from Norway. And this book, which is really a combination of three volumes, one titled the Other Name, Second Being I, is another. And the third, a New Name, essentially follows a aging painter and widower who lives alone on the northwest coast of Norway. And it's really him reminiscing around about his life. He has a neighbor who he both interacts with and bothers him. He's got a gallerist who he works with in the city, who he has an interesting relationship with, and then there's a bunch of other kind of side relationships. But essentially it's the most confessional, fascinating look at a Christian perspective that I've read in a long time. It's just so different. And I think what's great about books like this is we get kind of locked into the way that we were given religion and it just can become ossified and it turns into kind of this fossil of our childhood that loses life. And I think when you read other Perspectives and other points of view on Christianity or whatever religion is we're talking about, I think it can re enliven the faith in a way. And so it's a fascinating book. And I like things that are weird. I like things that slant my perspective in such a way that it forces me to say, what do I really think Christianity is? Or what do I think religion is? And are there different kaleidoscopic ways to look at it? And this is a great book for that. I will admit. It's a long one, so I don't recommend it lightly, but it was one of the great reading experiences of my life. And so if you enjoy fiction and challenging literary fiction, it might be right up your alley.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: All right, here are my two book recommendations that have shaped and changed and challenged and convicted me in my reconstruction journey and in the conversations that I have with people about them. And these are the two that I hand out most frequently. So the first is When Everything's on Fire by Brian Zond. And the subtitle is Faith Forged from the Ashes.
And this book is about the.
About asking big, uncomfortable questions about faith, maybe after hitting a wall with rigid theology or experiencing personal disillusionment. And if that's you, this book is like a breath of fresh air.
Brian Zahn understands that modern faith can feel fragile in a world that keeps shifting beneath our feet.
So When Everything's On Fire isn't about holding on tighter to what's crumbling, but instead about rediscovering a deeper, more ancient way of being a follower of Jesus and brand. Zahn doesn't shy away from the hard stuff. He dives right into the reality that many people raised and Christian traditions, especially in the evangelical world, are walking away from. Not necessarily because they hate God or want to rebel, but because the faith they inherited just doesn't seem to hold up anymore. And yet, rather than tossing everything out, Zond invites readers into a journey of reconstruction. So what makes this book so compelling is that it doesn't offer easy answers. Instead, Zond draws on mystics and poets and philosophers like Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky and Simone Weil to point toward a faith that can handle mystery and suffering. He speaks pastorally but prophetically, reminding us that Jesus is still beautiful, still trustworthy, even when the structures around him fail.
And ultimately, Zond helps us believe that something richer and more rooted can emerge from the ashes of what was I highly recommend this book, but then next is Centered Set Church by Mark Baker. The subtitle is Discipleship and Community Without Judgmentalism, and this is a book that I hand up more than any other, and it's one of those books that sneaks up on you. It's practical but deeply theological and quietly revolutionary.
If you're someone who's tired of church being a place of in groups and out groups where people feel like they have to believe and behave perfectly in order to belong, then this book is like a healing salve. Baker unpacks a concept that he calls centered set thinking, drawn from an anthropologist named Paul Hubert and contrasts it with two other models. The first is called bounded set, where strict rules and doctrines define who's in or out, and the other is called fuzzy set, where everything and anything goes but there's often little direction or formation.
A centered set church instead orients everyone towards Jesus at the center, regardless of how far they are on their journey. What matters isn't where somebody stands, but the direction that they're moving.
The beauty of this approach is that it creates space for honest questions and spiritual growth and radical hospitality, all without abandoning a call to transformation. Baker brings stories from his global ministry experience and his own background as an Anabaptist theologian to show how this plays out in real communities. And you'll notice that my story is included in the first chapter of this book, but I don't get any no credits come my way for this. It's all Mark's good work. So this, I think, is a must read. It speaks directly to what it means to rebuild not just our individual faith, but also the possibility for rebuilding entire Christian communities. If deconstruction has made you weary and wary of church, I think Centered Set church might help you reimagine what a graceful Jesus centered community could actually look like. Like so those are my two recommendations, and look forward to hearing your interactions with these great books.
