Christian Hypocrisy with Dr. Shawn Beaty

[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. [00:00:14] Speaker A: We are not related. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Different spell. [00:00:29] Speaker A: So we have a special guest this week. Sean is the senior pastor at Clovis Hills. Can you talk a little bit about Clovis Hills, what it is and how long you've been involved? [00:00:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Clovis Hills is a. I guess we're a mega church. I don't know what the cutoff number is. We're. [00:00:45] Speaker A: What's the Urban Dictionary? [00:00:46] Speaker C: Someone told me 1500, and then someone else said 2500. Right. At 25. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:50] Speaker C: So we're a big church, I guess is the way you put it. [00:00:53] Speaker A: And at what point do you stop knowing everyone's name? What do you think that threshold is? Is it a thousand? [00:00:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it's probably somewhere 800 to a thousand. [00:01:02] Speaker B: I guess there's. I forget the guy's name, but a sociologist who says the number is 150. [00:01:07] Speaker C: Yeah. Tribes split at 150 almost always, but okay. [00:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah, you can have more people. [00:01:13] Speaker C: A lot of people are. Hey, dude. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah. How many campuses are there? [00:01:17] Speaker C: We have five. We're about to open our sixth in August. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Where's that one? [00:01:22] Speaker C: In Aubury, Aubrey? Yeah. [00:01:24] Speaker B: All right. [00:01:24] Speaker C: Yeah. Large church. It was started in 1991, funny enough. The two Southern Baptist churches tapped our founding pastor on the shoulder and said, we'd like for you to plant a church. And he was like, no. And he said no several times. And then he finally did get. And then the denomination came too and said, hey, we'll help fund it. And to get them off his case, he said, we have enough good churches in this town. I don't really want to plant a church, but if I was going to, it would be one that most Christians didn't go to, and especially Southern Baptists. And they were like, that sounds amazing. Do that. [00:02:03] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:02:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:04] Speaker C: They were fairly forward thinking, oddly enough. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:07] Speaker C: So, yeah, Clovis Hills was always the church for people that didn't like going to church. And then I took it over and I come from a punk rock background. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:16] Speaker C: So I have that kind of. It just fit. I got here and it fit like a glove. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. The values work for me. I don't. There's not a lot I have to redo here. It's, let's pour gas and go. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Wonderful. [00:02:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:30] Speaker B: Okay. This is an important theological question when you say you come from a punk rock background, like, how punk rock Are we talking. Oh, like, who are your bands specifically? [00:02:40] Speaker C: I used to love Bad Religion, Black Flag. [00:02:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:46] Speaker C: Minor Threat. [00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:48] Speaker C: I ended up starting a Christian punk band. And then I was in a couple others. One did well, signed a record deal and toured and did all that. That was. [00:02:57] Speaker B: What's your instrument? [00:02:58] Speaker C: I play guitar. I play a little bit everything, but guitar is my main instrument. I made a punk rock band now in town called Trash and Privilege with the former drummer of the Crucified, which was band that got me into Christian punk rock. [00:03:11] Speaker B: Really? [00:03:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah, that's one of the best. [00:03:14] Speaker A: Things about punk because you get to try and, you know, up the ante with the names and. [00:03:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:18] Speaker A: So how'd you come up with that name? [00:03:20] Speaker C: I didn't. I. They. I just joined the band recently. I think they. They were. Most of the guys in the band are very libertarian. And I think during COVID they were like, are we white trash or are we white privilege? We're both. I don't know. We yell a lot. It's. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. [00:03:34] Speaker A: I had a punk band in high school. We called ourselves the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. [00:03:39] Speaker B: So. [00:03:39] Speaker A: So we put those on band like the ORIG originally, the Little Yellow or Pink Sheep Flyers. We put it right at the top. Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And there no. No Mormon showed up. Except once. [00:03:50] Speaker C: Just imagine now, in the day of streaming music, you could. If you just spelled it wrong, like the Mammon. [00:03:59] Speaker A: What did you learn from punk rock about being a pastor? [00:04:02] Speaker C: You know, what I learned is I learned to love the Misfits, Not. Not the band, but, like, people. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Misfits are a little overrated. [00:04:11] Speaker C: I'm not into the misfits, but anyways, the people. And like, that whole scene is a lot of people that are misfits of society. [00:04:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:18] Speaker C: And I think what happened for me is as a pastor, like, somewhere along the way, I think I heard Eugene Peterson, or I read it, Eugene Peterson said, people aren't projects to be fixed, but mysteries to be wondered at. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:31] Speaker C: And it brought me back to my punk rock days. I was like. Yeah. Like, I never had to treat any of those people like, I've got to fix them. [00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:39] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [00:04:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:40] Speaker C: And so I've carried that into pastoring. I'm not here to fix people like I'm broken. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:45] Speaker A: So, yeah. [00:04:46] Speaker B: Wonderful. [00:04:47] Speaker A: That's a good transition. Cause we're talking about deconstruction. And I want to start with, like, a generic question for you. So let's imagine end of a Sunday service on your way out the door, a woman stops by. She says, my son went off to college. Now he lives in LA or whatever. And he's been saying a lot of things that are confusing me. And he's been describing that he's going through a deconstruction process. And I don't know what that is. What do I do? How would you explain what's going on to her? [00:05:15] Speaker C: I'd ask her what kind of sin she has in her life. I'm kidding. [00:05:19] Speaker A: Redirect it, that is. Yeah. Deflection is my tactic. [00:05:22] Speaker C: No, I'm kidding. I would say, okay, that is pretty typical of kids. Got, like, leaving home and going off to a new environment where they're learning new things. They're not surrounded by their old community. And some of this you're gonna have to pray through and love him through because you don't have the same control over his life that you had four months ago. I tend to not blame, like, you shouldn't have sent him to Berkeley or something like that. But it would be more like, here's how you're gonna cope with this. Because you can't. Like, sending him Prageru videos isn't gonna. [00:05:57] Speaker A: No. [00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:58] Speaker A: That does not tend to work. [00:05:59] Speaker C: You know what I mean? It's gonna make it worse, if that makes sense and you want to love him through this and think of who you were at that age and who you are today. And hopefully you've. We've planted the gospel in him. And if he has the Holy Spirit, like, God's gonna help him discern that over the period of his life of what's true and what's not. [00:06:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Dustin, I were talking about this recently on an episode where it's just reminding people of Providence, because if you do believe in that, you gotta let things go right a little bit. [00:06:27] Speaker C: I remember you guys talking about that. And I have so many friends that are like hardcore Calvinists, and they're so into control. [00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:36] Speaker C: And I'm like, I thought you believed in God's sovereignty. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:41] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:42] Speaker C: If that person really belongs to him, let's just trust God on this one. I do tell kids, though, all the time. I go, listen, here's what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna leave your mother and father's household, and you're gonna go to school, and you're gonna go to UC Santa Cruz, and you're gonna be on Isla Vista, and there's gonna be parties everywhere, and there's gonna be people telling you that your values that you that your Christian values that you have are antiquated. And it's okay, you can do this. And you're gonna experience all these different things. And typically what's gonna happen is because you're not in a Christian community anymore. Like if you hang around a barber shop, you'll get a haircut. You're bound to get a haircut. That' you'll begin to odds are you'll begin to struggle with worldly things. And then what will happen is you'll feel guilty about it and you'll come back at Thanksgiving and you'll rededicate your life to the Lord. But you're still not in Christian community. You're still just hanging out at Isla Vista. And what's going to happen is eventually you're going to take the least path of resistance. You're going to have professors telling you you can do whatever you want, that your morality is relative, that you can do those things and you're human. That's what's going to happen. You're going to take the least path of resistance and you'll end up looking like everyone else and acting like everyone else. I would do it too, probably, if I don't find a community to keep. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Me grounded by osmosis. [00:08:04] Speaker C: Just naturally what we do. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Let's give you another kind of scenario here. So slightly different. Let's say you were doing like a staff professional development around deconstruction and trying to get them to reformulate their understanding or enhance their understanding. How would that differ from the conversation that you had with the parent? [00:08:24] Speaker C: Okay, so that's a great question. 1 like your guys podcast has been really helpful to me. [00:08:30] Speaker B: Oh. [00:08:30] Speaker C: Because I think what we tend to do is we paint people in a two dimensional. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:36] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [00:08:37] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. [00:08:37] Speaker C: So. And I live in a conservative evangelical world. I'm part of the Southern Baptist Convention for now, so they kick me out. [00:08:44] Speaker B: But that's punk rock. [00:08:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Every year we're on the verge. But the whole point is I live in that world. So what can happen is I can begin to paint deconstruction just the way I've seen it. And a lot of times it's because it can be this way where you're. You're looking for a reason to smoke weed, you're looking for a reason you can live with your girlfriend. You're looking for a reason to live in a vice or live in sin. So what happens is it's cognitive bias and logical positivism at their worst. You start looking for things holes in your face so you don't have to believe it. [00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:18] Speaker C: And I watch people do that. [00:09:19] Speaker A: All motivated reasoning. [00:09:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I watch people in the church do it all the time. That doesn't mean everyone deconstructs like that, though. [00:09:26] Speaker B: No, not at all. Yeah. [00:09:27] Speaker C: So that's why I listen to this podcast. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is giving me a more 3D version of deconstruction, because I might have painted it that way before I started listening to you guys. And then I got that. Oh, yeah. No, there's intelligent, thoughtful people that really are just struggling with actual things. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:44] Speaker C: I deal with the masses. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:46] Speaker C: So there's a large group of people, though, that are just looking for a reason not to believe. So they'll go find some. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:09:51] Speaker C: And you could easily do that in any belief system whatsoever. Holes in it and watch it fall apart. So if I'm teaching staff. [00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:57] Speaker C: I want to probably share as best a 3D version of it. What I see a lot of. But then some of it is if sometimes when people are deconstructing you, trying to hold it together for them makes it worse. Sometimes you need to let them tear it apart. [00:10:16] Speaker B: That's good. [00:10:16] Speaker C: But then just ask them good questions. [00:10:19] Speaker A: And you only got so many fingers, so you can only plug so many holes in the ship. And then eventually you just have to say, this boat is unstable. We need to rebuild this boat. [00:10:27] Speaker C: Yes. And I went through some deconstruction in my life, and it ended up being great because I was. I built a stronger, more robust faith, I feel like. And it's not as rigid and legalistic and. But I feel pretty secure in it, though. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Do you feel like that process has allowed you to empathize with people who are going through a deconstruction phase or journey that you're like, oh, yeah, no, I know that question because I've asked it. Or I understand how you might want to ask a question like that because I've asked similar questions. [00:11:02] Speaker C: Yes. And then I. I've been through recovery. I've been through the 12 steps a couple times, and I tend to sniff through the bull crap. [00:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:09] Speaker C: So I'll get to the. Hey, are you just looking for reasons not to believe? Because I could show you 20 more. [00:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:15] Speaker C: Or is this a legit thing that's holding you back? That's a legit intellectual thing holding you back. [00:11:21] Speaker A: I had that exact. I was at a bar last night. I was talking to someone who happened to be listening to this podcast. A friend of mine had sent it to him and he was asking, like, why we're doing it. I said, because I think. And I said, I think there's a lot of legitimate reasons why people believe religion. [00:11:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:33] Speaker A: I'm one of those examples. [00:11:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:35] Speaker A: And there's a lot of bad reasons. [00:11:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:11:37] Speaker A: That just don't make a lot of sense. [00:11:39] Speaker C: Like, it's always very thoughtful. And like, you went to seminary. Like, you just. You've learned a lot about Christian history and the different streams of Christianity that kind of feed that river and the interactions you've had with people of other faiths. Living in San Francisco and living in a cosmopolitan kind of setting, like living in Ephesus. [00:11:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:59] Speaker C: You know, I mean, so like, when you live in settings like that, you read Ephesians a little differently. [00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:06] Speaker C: You know what I mean? Ephesians is a letter, not a treatise that. Do this or else you won't be saved. [00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You have. Go ahead. [00:12:14] Speaker B: No, I like. And just want to walk out a little bit more this idea of seeing deconstruction in three dimensional terms because I think there's a. I think it's easy to paint the picture of. Okay, you're going to a. You're coming from a more stereotypical conservative space to a more stereotypically liberal space. [00:12:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:40] Speaker B: And that's going to create this cognitive dissonance in which this confirmation bias and all of that is going. [00:12:45] Speaker C: This podcast will be fuel for my haters. Sure. [00:12:49] Speaker B: But to the amount of people that I know, Jordan being one of them, who and others from a different but similar space where they've walked like they've gone to Christian colleges and. And have gone to seminary or have worked in ministry and have seen how the sausage gets made. This is where we're going to go in terms of hypocrisy, to see how people who have experienced the fullness of what a church is and yet they come up. I think a lot of times in my experience, I'm talking with people who first and foremost are presenting with an intellectual disagreement or disengagement Christianity. But if we stick with it long enough, you're realizing that it's really an emotional. [00:13:43] Speaker C: And the intellectual is the. [00:13:44] Speaker B: Is the. Yeah. [00:13:47] Speaker C: Or it's the tool they're using to do it. [00:13:49] Speaker B: Right. It's a justification or it's some. Yeah. Some excuse. Oh, this makes sense that I heard someone say whatever. [00:13:56] Speaker C: They usually grab the problem of evil first. [00:13:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:13:59] Speaker C: Easiest one. [00:14:00] Speaker B: Yep, yep, yep. [00:14:02] Speaker C: I. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:14:02] Speaker C: Yeah. We have one friend that deconstructed and right away I was getting emails about horrible crimes that were happening. And I knew. I'm like, oh, he's deconstructing crap. I just knew, oh, he's looking for a reason not to believe in God. I was just kept getting them and like, they were real cryptic and I was like. But I sniffed it out right away. And he did. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So of the first couple thematic episodes, is there. Is there one of them that stuck out to you is the most interesting to consider given your role and how we were thinking through things. I'm curious if there's one in particular that stuck out or are there certain themes that stuck out to you? [00:14:36] Speaker C: I think the theme of hell, you. [00:14:39] Speaker A: Guys, David's sitting in the room. [00:14:42] Speaker C: He's friend of all of us. [00:14:43] Speaker A: He's leering at us from the corner. [00:14:45] Speaker C: Dr. Tatum is sitting next to me right now. But I thought that one actually, because it is such a nuanced topic and the Bible is so vague on what hell is and even heaven. Do you know what I mean? [00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:15:00] Speaker C: The Jewish understanding of it and the traditional Christian understanding of it is completely different than a 20th or 21st century understanding of it. [00:15:08] Speaker B: Yep. [00:15:09] Speaker C: And it's hard to teach it in a 30 minute sermon. [00:15:12] Speaker B: Totally. [00:15:12] Speaker C: You confuse everyone. [00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:14] Speaker A: What's it like in Southern Baptist circles right now? Because I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. Hell was a prominent feature of rhetoric and theology and a lot of things. How are they talking about it today? [00:15:26] Speaker C: You know what's funny is they'll say they believe in it, but they don't talk a lot about it. It's avoided because it's just taboo in culture. Even. Even the SPC. I'm sure there's some. It's 47, 000 churches. So it's like a big family. Right. So you have crazy uncles and aunts. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:41] Speaker A: If you drive out to the Mojave Desert, you'll find one. [00:15:43] Speaker C: Yeah, you can. Yeah, exactly. If you're in the deep recesses of Louisiana, you're gonna find that fire and brimstone. But, like, when I show up at the convention every now and then, they'll use that as a motivation for evangelism. And really there's all kinds of motives behind evangelism too. There's a financial motivation, there's a, we got to get to the nation. There's a whole bunch of theological motivations. There's a lot going on there, but it's not like a prominent. We got people going to hell. And you might be going too. Like, you don't hear a lot of that. Anymore. But if you pin down your average SBC pastor, they're going to believe in a literal hell. But I think that's a tough one for people as they deconstruct that. And the problem of evil are probably. But that's the one you guys have really tackled, I think is hell. And I think guys did a good job like showing the nuances of it and how complex it is. I tend to, because it's vague in scripture, I feel like I can take liberty with it because I don't know. But I tend to lean toward like Lewis, C.S. lewis version of it, like the Great Divorce. That makes the most sense to me. [00:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. [00:16:55] Speaker C: And that eventually, eventually you disappear. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:59] Speaker C: That's a form of annihilationism. It's not weeping and gnashing of teeth for eternity. All people, especially Gandhi. You know what I mean? [00:17:08] Speaker B: So you, a larger church like yours, a lot of that growth is, I'm assuming coming from people making first time decisions to join the community or how much of it is transfer growth or. [00:17:21] Speaker C: No, ours is going to be primarily I. My primary gifting is not shepherding. [00:17:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:17:26] Speaker C: I'm an evangelist. [00:17:27] Speaker B: Okay. So how does that play out? Like how does hell play out in your evangelism and a Sunday morning? One of the things you guys are well known for is the light bulb. [00:17:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:17:38] Speaker B: Moment. [00:17:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:38] Speaker B: How does, where does hell play into that or into your evangelism or gospel? [00:17:43] Speaker C: The wages of sin is death. Right. It says in Romans. And I don't think that's just referring to a physical death. It's a, ultimately a separation from your creator. But the gift of God is eternal life for the, for those in Christ Jesus. So I leave it at that. I just say you're being separated from your creator for eternity and there's a God that loves you and is drawing you to him and he's come for you. His name is Jesus. So I don't dwell on hell a lot. I don't use it as a scare tactic to go to heaven. I use Jesus. David worked here. He heard me do it every Sunday. I tend to lead more with honey than smoke or vinegar. [00:18:25] Speaker A: If not agnostic, but open minded and not wanting to make definitive statements. Does that make congregations nervous? Because people like certainty, people like, I know the layout of the cosmic universe. I know where I'm supposed to be. They like to know their parts. [00:18:41] Speaker C: Religious people do. [00:18:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:18:43] Speaker C: But people far from God are. Their life sucks and they're looking for something. They're in a trial, a trauma transition and that's why we've always been that church. Like religious people will go to the one of five other mega churches here in town. They do Christianity. Great. They'll give you a nice generic Caleb Christianity that will keep you going and they'll teach you the Bible. And there's nothing wrong with any of that in my eyes. [00:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:07] Speaker C: But like the general calling I believe our church has is that we're here to make disciples. New ones. Like the Great Commission, I feel like was implied. Go make new disciples. Not turn good Methodists into good Baptists. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:24] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [00:19:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:25] Speaker C: So we just have a different focus. So it doesn't really become. Hang up here. [00:19:49] Speaker A: So we're talking about hypocrisy today, and I think there's a couple different dimensions that we can look at it. I want to start by talking about our experiences. So maybe, Dustin, if you want to start how give us maybe like what you understand hypocrisy to be or what people perceive it to be. [00:20:09] Speaker B: I think the perception is that if you're Christian, then you're like a good, moral, upstanding person. And then when people tend to meet Christians, wait a second. You're a jerk. And I don't know if I want to be a part of that. So that. And that gets to the roots of it. Right. Is Jesus, who as far as we know, is the inventor of hypocrisy in terms of its application to religious folks. This idea from the theater of wearing a mask is the. You're play acting. You're pretending to be something that you're not. Yeah. And. And that. That is people's experience. I think the inverse of that is also as it applies to deconstruction is that is like the quote unquote problem of the good atheist. Right. In so much of Christian circles. The idea is that if you're. You want to come here to be good, if you're not here, then therefore you're bad. You're not a good person. And then you meet an atheist who is an incredibly generous, thoughtful, kind. Love is evidencing in some ways the fruit of the spirit. And you're like, what? How does that fit into this scheme that I have of things? And so I think moving in both of those directions creates a challenge for people. What would you say, Sean? [00:21:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that. That's a tip. I always see it as a. Just a general misunderstanding of the gospel. I think one, we're all inherently hypocrites and the gospel isn't here to make you a better person. It's here to save you and forgive you and draw you to God. And in that process of receiving grace, hopefully you're becoming a better person. You're exhibiting the fruits of the spirit. But everyone starts at a different place. [00:22:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:02] Speaker C: You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm prone to being ass. [00:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:06] Speaker C: So I started in a different place than, say, the good atheist who was already like a pretty, kind, like, good hearted person. [00:22:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:15] Speaker C: Do you know what I mean? I have farther to go than him. You know what I mean? And the gospel is not about like that. It's gonna make me instantly better. It's about this guy who's really broken, has been forgiven, and is now moving onward and upward toward Christ because of his blood and what he's done on the cross and the resurrection. And the typical understanding, though, is that Christianity is here to make you a better person. And these people aren't better people, so therefore must not be true. [00:22:47] Speaker A: I have such a weird experience with hypocrisy. Let me just do the download. So when you're a pastor's kid, you got a couple of those, Shawn. You see your dad go preach a sermon and then you come home and then you hear them vent about something that happened at church, someone that's stirring stuff up. And so you see the mask as a utility belt in some ways. Like, you can't always be quote on. [00:23:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:12] Speaker A: But then the other dimension as a pastor's kid is you get pulled into kind of, I don't know, like, working in leadership positions pretty quickly. And while you're still young, where you still perceive the world to be a Disney movie. Like, you start seeing people that are leaders doing weird stuff. Yeah. You're idealistic. You start seeing people do weird stuff and you're like, wait a second. Like, I was raised a certain way. And I'll say, that's not right. Yeah. Most of my experiences of hypocrisy that bothered me for a long time, for long periods of time were at the Christian school I went to and then church camp. I would say those are the highlights. I don't know if that's just because I attended the church of my family growing up, and so I could see things in a more complicated, nuanced lens. But I also noticed that when the person has an exorbitant amount of power and influence and then you see it, the hypocrisy almost matters more in some ways. [00:24:09] Speaker C: It is magnified for sure. [00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:11] Speaker C: And I think Christian school. I went to a Christian college, so I. Yeah, it was. Yeah. [00:24:16] Speaker A: It's hard. It's hard when you start. Money starts getting entangled with ethics, and then you see. Looking the other way when a donor does something, you start to see those things and you're like, wait a second. Like, yeah, integrity. I don't understand. And so for me, I saw it from a lot of different vantage points. I saw. And so would you say a pastor coming home and just releasing. Is that a form of, like, gentle, positive hypocrisy in the sense of you need to put on a mask during certain contexts and then you need. I'm asking two pastors now, how do you see that? [00:24:47] Speaker C: I think everyone behaves differently in different contexts. That's like, human. [00:24:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:52] Speaker C: Do you know what I mean? An elementary school teacher does not behave like an elementary school teacher when they're home. [00:24:57] Speaker A: Code switching. [00:24:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:58] Speaker C: Yeah. So there. There is that. And I think, at least for me, I just always tried to be aware and honest and repent to my kids. Hey, dad just did that. And that was not cool. That was sinful. I'm really sorry you saw that. Like, my kids see my hypocrisy. [00:25:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:17] Speaker C: And sometimes they point it out. Right. And then we laugh at it. Because I like to quote the late, great Tony Campolo that the church is full of hypocrites. That's why they welcome you. You know what I mean? That's kind of why we need Jesus, is because we are pretty hypocritical and pretty broken and in need of forgiveness. [00:25:36] Speaker A: There's also a lot of, like, mortar fire from the outside. I feel like hypocrisy is catnip for people outside of a community. [00:25:43] Speaker C: Oh, totally. [00:25:43] Speaker A: And so that. So there's. There's the internal perspective on it, and then there's the external perspective on it. [00:25:49] Speaker C: Yes. [00:25:49] Speaker A: And those are different. How do you view the external perspect? [00:25:52] Speaker C: You can find hypocrisy in any people group. It's really easy. Whatever your algorithm is on your social media, there's either a bunch of people pointing out the hypocrisy of the left or the right every day, all day. You could pick any people group and find hypocrisy, especially if you've set out to be against them. So mortar fire is a great word, because if you decide, I don't want to be a Christian, finding hypocrites is easy. You know what I mean? You just walk through the church, you'll find a load of them in the pastor as well. There's just gonna be moments where we're hypocrites. [00:26:26] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:26:27] Speaker C: Our character doesn't match what we want to be. [00:26:29] Speaker A: Yeah, let's steel, man, the counter argument here, though, because I prefer to do that. What's the strongest? So the strongest would be Christianity's supposed to create a change in people, and I'm not seeing that change. And so what's toxic here? Or saying everyone's a hypocrite, is that a pass for Christians to be just like anybody else? [00:26:49] Speaker C: Yeah, that can be an easy pass. But I wouldn't say that no one's changing because if you look hard enough, you'll find people changing too. Sometimes we want the six month. Like six months ago, I was this and now I'm this. Sometimes it takes decades to weed out. It's taken. To me, it's taken decades. God's still weeding out bad character and things in me that are not right. [00:27:14] Speaker A: People want Ozempic, not diet and exercise. [00:27:16] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go. You're a good teacher, man. You've got some good analogies here. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah, but I bring that up just to say that's what I hear from people that are secular, is it's a city on a hill, but it looks like a city in a dump. And so what is enticing me to join this community if everyone just seems the same, but appears, has this veneer on the outside? And that's what I hear from a lot of people. Obviously there's the people that we were just talking about a second ago. The people that were in leadership, saw the sausage was made, get freaked out, want to go to some community that's more authentic and integral, but then they realize that when they show up to the other place or they show up to the community center, someone's like stealing sandwiches. It's just. [00:27:59] Speaker B: It's every place. [00:28:00] Speaker C: It's a big problem. And I think the biggest problem is that in my world, people are afraid to. If something's wrong, then something's wrong with Jesus. So if there's something wrong with me, then I don't want to make Jesus look bad. So therefore, I've got to do as much depravity management as possible. And that appears like hypocrisy. Like people, like, from the outside, it's really easy to see you're just faking it rather than, yeah, I'm a troll on the Internet. I totally am. I can totally be a jerk and I can leave mean comments and I can do. That's a broken part of me that I have to repent for all the Time, you know? [00:28:41] Speaker B: Sure. [00:28:42] Speaker C: Rather than what wasn't me. It was a bot. Like, it's just. If you'll. If Christians will put their name on their sin and be like, hey, this is something I'm working on and I'm not good at it. [00:28:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:55] Speaker C: It doesn't. It does appear more authentic, but what happens is you get the. I don't want to make Jesus look bad, so I got to pretend to be better than I am. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:03] Speaker C: And I do it. It happens in the church. It's a group think kind of thing as well. But like you. You see it in very liberal. There's a liberal orthodoxy, and if you don't live by it, you're, oh, you must be maga. [00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:18] Speaker C: You know what I mean? So groups do that and they tend to pour gas on it. So I totally understand that. [00:29:23] Speaker A: But it is a deflection. You're right. You're deflecting from your own lack of integrity and identifying something that's just part of human nature. [00:29:30] Speaker C: Yeah. And if you'll just put your name on your brokenness and your sin. People are pretty forgiving because they know deep down inside they're broken, too. Most people are. Some people are. They're coming from a place where it's mortar fire. They're just trying to find a reason to destroy it and whatever. [00:29:46] Speaker A: There's a lot of. [00:29:47] Speaker C: I can't manage that. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:48] Speaker A: You know, I mean, there's a lot of televangelists that have that created kind of this notorious reputation. Airplanes and whatnot. [00:29:56] Speaker C: Sure. And now there's, like, Christian influencers. Same thing. So you can find it wherever you want if you want to use it as mortar. And I can't. I guess where I come from is, yeah, there's a lot of hypocrites, but I don't know if I needed to defend the body of Christ or defend Jesus, if he really is the son of God. [00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:13] Speaker C: Like, I just think that, like, in. In the end, as broken as the church is, there's so many things that, like, even in this city that it's doing that no one notices. You know what I mean? And they don't seek any publicity on it. They're just out doing it. [00:30:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:27] Speaker C: And you could find that, too if you looked. Now I'm a pastor, so I look for that stuff because I'm biased. [00:30:32] Speaker A: So it's more the problem how people talk about themselves rather than their behavior. Is it more about presenting yourselves as ethically congruent? Is the problem more than your actions? Because we're all gonna be followed, have foibles and be fallible. [00:30:48] Speaker C: It's a yes and right. Like, we should try not to be hypocritical. [00:30:52] Speaker B: Totally. [00:30:52] Speaker C: And when we are, we should put our name on it. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Right? [00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:54] Speaker C: You know, I mean, like, I always find like laughing at it and making fun of my hypocrisy is the best thing I can do because then it's okay. He realizes he's one. [00:31:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:06] Speaker C: Maybe I can put my defense down and we can work on this. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I think this is something that like the 12 steps reminds us of. Christian tradition is like baked in to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Is this practice of confession. [00:31:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:24] Speaker B: Which is to simply be like, yeah, no, me too. I am this. And that's how I identify. First and foremost is someone who is in a certain state of brokenness, who has to name that and regularly remind myself and others of it in order to move forward. [00:31:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker B: And we don't. We. We haven't done a great job of naming or owning. [00:31:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:47] Speaker B: That aspect of things. [00:31:48] Speaker C: I am freakishly averse to legalists, but I love a good legalist that knows they are that. Hey, I'm prone to legalism. [00:31:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:58] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:31:58] Speaker B: Right. At least I know you are self aware. [00:32:02] Speaker C: Helpful to know like, because then I can be like, hey, are you like leaning too hard on your legalism right now? And they can be like, if they're self aware, they go, how might be right. [00:32:10] Speaker B: For sure. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's jump to the Bible for a little bit. Jesus talks about hypocrisy a lot in different forms. Sean, how if you were to encapsulate his general thoughts about what's wrong with hypocrisy, how to think about it, what would. To put it in a Wikipedia summary, what would Jesus statements on hypocrisy, what do they say? [00:32:32] Speaker C: I think GK Chesterton, I think summed it up pretty well, is they like the Pharisees were using religious behavior for worldly gain. And that's hypocrisy. [00:32:45] Speaker B: Totally. [00:32:46] Speaker C: And that's what he was so mad at them about because he was like, you guys know better. Theologically, they were very similar. [00:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:53] Speaker C: You know what I mean? But they were using religious. Being religious for their worldly gain and they're being good at being religious for their stature and society finances all of that. And I think that breaks the heart of God and I've been guilty of that too. Like, that's. I have to repent of that. Yeah. I'm sure I've said things so that I could take a step further in my career, and that breaks the heart of God. That's not God's will for my life. It's not who he wants me to be. But thank God for Jesus because, like, his grace never ends. So that would be how, at least in scripture, I see hypocrisy kind of playing out in the New Testament. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:40] Speaker C: Paul, he's similar. He's a little harsher. I wish they just emasculate themselves. Right. In Galatians. [00:33:50] Speaker B: Go all the way. [00:33:50] Speaker C: Yeah. He sees a similar. Where they're using, like, piety and the law to gain followers and to control people and manipulate people. When really, like, you know, you have grace, you've been set free of that. And there's this beautiful balance of license and legalism called liberty that that would end. But he never defines exactly what it is. And that's the problem people have. If you just tell us what it is, we could live there and we could do it. And then you'd be legalistic about that. [00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:24] Speaker C: So. And then you'd be a big hypocrite because you do it to get gain, because you're. We're all evil humans. [00:34:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you see it the same way, Dustin? [00:34:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that it, like, sums up, I think the trajectory of hypocrisy throughout Christendom, which is as soon as the Church in the third century becomes officialized by the Roman Empire, it's like checkmate. [00:34:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:53] Speaker B: Like you cannot but operate with worldly power for the sake of. [00:34:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Worldly gain. [00:35:00] Speaker C: Tony Capola said it was mixing manure and ice cream. It only ruins one of the. [00:35:04] Speaker B: That's one of the things. [00:35:06] Speaker A: So would you guys bracket essentially? And I know Mennonites have strong feelings about Rome and the Church. Would you bracket medieval Christianity or 3rd century to medieval Christianity as a period of discordance between Christian values and worldly gain? And then in that period with the Reformation and challenging it, if we're looking historically at Christianity, would you see it that way? [00:35:32] Speaker C: No, I wouldn't break it that cleanly. [00:35:34] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:35] Speaker C: I think pre medieval Christianity is. There's a pure element there. But there was a pure element in medieval Christianity as well, too. And there was a very broken element in pre medieval Christianity. It's always been broken, if that makes sense. But what Rome did was they allowed for Christianity to have. Be a place of power, and then evil people gravitate toward it and it got more powerful and whatnot. But there was still this beautiful strain of True Christianity in the medieval church. And I'm not one that's. Yeah, they were called the Reformers and I'm pretty reformed. You're Anabaptist, I'm Baptist, we're kissing cousins. You know what I mean? But I think what happens is in that medieval period is you got people that weren't really Christians getting positions of power. They didn't understand the gospel, they didn't know anything about the gospel. They were doing their very best with the religion that they'd been handed. Maybe they weren't. Maybe they were doing awful things too. I'm sure history said there's a bunch. [00:36:42] Speaker B: Of those people too. [00:36:43] Speaker C: But they did not understand the gospel. And that when you don't understand the gospel one, it's a breeding ground for hypocrisy. But when you understand the gospel, you realize you are a hypocrite. And now you want to become one in recovery. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:02] Speaker C: And that. And it doesn't mean it's going to be fast or it's going to be great. Some people it's very quick. It's the one step process. And other others it's not. But hypocrisy tends to find its way throughout church history to the 21st century. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:16] Speaker A: So Luther and Calvin had a lot to say about hypocrisy. [00:37:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:21] Speaker A: Dustin, you want to give us the Cliff Notes on that? What did they have to say? [00:37:24] Speaker B: Luther would look at all of German Catholicism and say, you hypocrite. [00:37:32] Speaker C: Pretty much. [00:37:34] Speaker B: And Calvin's a little more nuanced because he never really stopped being Catholic. He just was Calvin and then continued on and just did his own thing. [00:37:44] Speaker C: But by the way, I loved your assessment of predestination in David's episode. [00:37:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:37:50] Speaker C: Because it's pastoral. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely. [00:37:52] Speaker C: I love that. I thought that was such a great way to explain it. [00:37:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:55] Speaker C: I was lengthening and those guys afterwards that turned it into doctrine. [00:37:59] Speaker B: I was raised by Presbyterian, so I got love for Calvin. [00:38:02] Speaker C: That's cool. [00:38:03] Speaker A: But just don't read them. Oh my God. [00:38:06] Speaker C: Tough read. [00:38:07] Speaker A: But I guess what I'm saying is the Reformation in large part about seeing that difference between actions and words. [00:38:14] Speaker C: Yeah. But they were hypocrites. [00:38:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, yeah. [00:38:17] Speaker C: They right away just boom. It was a new form of hypocrisy. Yeah. And that's where I just. [00:38:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:22] Speaker C: And that's where that just rampant in human beings. You could go outside of Christianity and you see it in politicians. Right. Like they're hard left. They're hard until election year. And then they become centrist because they're trying to gain power. [00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:34] Speaker C: And they're going against their very values that they supposedly have to gain power. And the minute they gain power, they move back to their hard left, hard right pace. [00:38:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I think what just keeps coming up in. In my mind is to be human is to be hypocritical. And the church at its worst tries to hide from that just as much as the culture does. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:01] Speaker B: The church at its best leads with saying, we're hypocrites in recovery. Like you just said, you never stop being a complex, messy form of humanity and be participation in the kingdom isn't like not being a hypocrite is not the prerequisite for being a part of this body. It's. [00:39:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:24] Speaker B: The opposite. [00:39:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:26] Speaker B: Being a human is the way you get in. [00:39:28] Speaker C: Yeah. Welcome. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And church history is a complex and hypocritical form of. [00:39:36] Speaker C: So was last week. Was Karen a couple weeks ago. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:40] Speaker C: Was Karen. Because I bet, like poor Luther, he could have used some time on her couch. He had some religious trouble from the Catholic Church, for sure. [00:39:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:39:49] Speaker C: Which led to his hypocrisy. [00:39:51] Speaker A: Yes. [00:39:51] Speaker C: And his reaction to Catholicism and whatnot. [00:39:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:55] Speaker A: Need to be more comfortable with his own humor. So let's jump to your domain, Sean. Let's jump to evangelicals. So do we. Do you look at the Great Awakenings as a version of this kind of move to, like, authentic emotional sincerity as a kind of response to hypocrisy? Do you see that as kind of part of your faith's tradition? [00:40:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, it is. I think emotions are one part of you. If you weed out emotions. And it's just an intellectual assent to your hypocrisy. I don't. I mean, that. That's good, but it's not. It like there has to be. There has to be both. But that emotional. That I was convicted by my sin and you put your name on your sin. That. That's a. A very evangelical vibe. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:40] Speaker C: Or it's supposed to be those great Awakenings, whether it was Wesley or Edwards. Like there was a strange warming. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Speaking of hell. Yeah. Do you see it the same way, Dustin? [00:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. I think there the. That impacted the Anabaptists as well. That was a big. You need to have a demonstrable kind of encounter with a living faith to be baptized as an adult. That became part of the movement that Mennonite brethren came out of. Was part of that. The tribe I'm a part of now. But yeah. The I think to Sean's point, to like name like sin gets like the only sin in the 21st century west is the concept that something called sin exists. [00:41:28] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good way of saying it. Yeah. How dare you believe that everything goes. It's relative. [00:41:34] Speaker B: So if. But I think one thing that exists within the universe of what the word sin means is hypocrisy would be a synonym. And so it's. I have not been who I intended to be, who I was created to be. I cannot. The things I want to do, I don't do the things I don't want to do. I'm a walking contradiction. I contain multitudes. And to raise my hand at that is something that I think the revivalists, American evangelicalism at its best is wanting to draw our attention to. [00:42:18] Speaker C: Yeah. To humble yourself. [00:42:19] Speaker B: And I think then of course, like anything that humans get our hands on that can be taken to an extreme and it becomes whipping up emotionalism to try and get people to feel bad over and over and over and over again and be born again and again and again type of thing. Because there, there can be so much of an over. Emphasis. Emphasis on that first moment of realization rather than saying, okay, that's an important first step. And now you're on this trajectory of a lifetime of moments along the way that's going to keep you pointed towards the center. [00:42:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:58] Speaker B: And. And that's where it can get funky, is when we don't walk with both legs. [00:43:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's a good transition point to conclude with. This is a reconstruction podcast. We've been unpacking this problem. So I'm going to throw some kind of insights that I'm having to you guys. And you guys respond, is hypocrisy. Is it just a misunderstanding of anthropology? Like humans could be perfect in the here and now? [00:43:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Personally, I think it is a one of several bad approaches at deconstruction. Like you're just not looking honestly at humanity or yourself and not understanding the gospel. [00:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's that. So it's a two part. So it's understanding what a human is and then understanding what Christianity is supposed to do with that human. [00:43:48] Speaker C: It's both those, how God receives that human. And you. [00:43:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:52] Speaker A: Do you think this is also an age thing? As you age, as you age, you start to see how flawed institutions are, how flawed people are, and then you're just like, ah, this is just more of the same shit. [00:44:04] Speaker C: I'm looking around, I see gray in all of our beards. [00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:07] Speaker C: Yeah, So I think there is some of that because I was very idealistic, younger and rigid, and then even in my own kind of deconstruction process, I became rigid in that. And as I got older and failed at things and saw other people fail, and it softens your edges and you realize, oh, okay, that's not this or that. There's a lot of things going on. [00:44:32] Speaker A: Yeah. It also probably depends on the environment you choose. There's certain churches that have a lot. Wear a lot of veneers and a lot of people will have bad experiences with a pastor or something or church leadership or a deacon that got a little handsy or whatever it might be, and then extrapolate that to a whole world and community. [00:44:50] Speaker C: Sure. And I've seen people, though, that have come out of incredibly veneered situations that were awful and unhealthy, but they didn't lose their faith. They drew closer to God. They got out of that. [00:45:04] Speaker A: What do you think the difference there? [00:45:05] Speaker C: I don't know. It's like that with people, though. You ever meet people that grew up in an awful family, but they're freakishly resilient and like doing great, and then their sibling is destroyed, Right? [00:45:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:16] Speaker C: And I can't explain that. No one can. [00:45:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:45:21] Speaker B: I have. No, it's genetics, it's nature, nurture. It's all the those different. [00:45:26] Speaker C: It's their destiny. [00:45:28] Speaker B: There we go. [00:45:29] Speaker C: You know? [00:45:30] Speaker B: I don't know. Yeah. I think when ever I hear from people like Christians are just hypocritical and that that is the point of push off for them against Christianity. I think my impulse is to say, what was their name? Who was hypocritical? How did you experience something that broke you, that made you mistrust that person, which often now leads to you mistrusting the whole thing. And so I think my first move is more pastoral in that regard to not. I don't know if it's necessarily an anthropological misstep as much as, yeah, somebody sucked to you and that. That really sucks. [00:46:21] Speaker A: How would you guys think about it as church leaders? If you have someone in a church that experienced some kind of blatant hypocrisy, they come bring it to you. They're like, this is so confusing and it's troubling for me. How would you talk with them? [00:46:35] Speaker C: And it's blatant and it's in the church here. [00:46:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:46:39] Speaker C: I would probably put a tag on it, be like, yeah, that totally is. Well, we're gonna have to like talk to some people about that, because I. [00:46:50] Speaker A: Think this could be a hinge point for some people where they have leaders that maybe didn't address the situation that they identified. But then you also don't want to create an environment where you have people reporting every misstep of you. [00:47:01] Speaker C: Start witch hunting. [00:47:02] Speaker B: Every. [00:47:02] Speaker C: Everyone. [00:47:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:03] Speaker C: But then probably the next step is to say, but are you going to be able to forgive them? [00:47:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Redirect a little bit in their direction. [00:47:11] Speaker C: Can you forgive them? Because I'm sure, like, in your worst moments, you haven't been consistent either. [00:47:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:47:18] Speaker C: But I'm. You just. You're throwing tough questions at me without much thought. [00:47:23] Speaker B: I think when people come forward with charges of hypocrisy, they're probably going to have a little more pointed edge to them. I think my default is to want to believe them. I want to believe their experience. Something happened. I want to. I want to understand you. [00:47:39] Speaker C: Yeah. It's how they saw it. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Or experienced it. [00:47:42] Speaker B: But from a differentiated standpoint. I think typically in churches, the move is towards denial and cut off. Right. Like any. Any accusation that comes forward is, nope, you're wrong. What did you do to deserve it? [00:47:59] Speaker C: Something's wrong. Or with Jesus, if something's wrong. [00:48:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Or to completely swing the opposite direction and be like, yes, we're gonna obliterate. Exactly. [00:48:09] Speaker C: And you're off the island. [00:48:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And then there's no way. And I think a calm, curious, courageous response is to step into that, to listen longer than you want, to try and put pieces together, have conversations as much as you can, and get to a place where I think humans can come together and be like, yeah, we hurt each other and we messed up, and we can be honest about it. [00:48:35] Speaker C: That's so healthy and Mennonite of you. [00:48:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's easier to do in a church of my size than of your size, I would imagine. [00:48:44] Speaker C: Yeah. But it's the same thing. You want to bring people together because there's all. There's multiple sides of every story. I think when he said it, it's blatant. It was right. Like, then. Yeah. I've got to deal with it. But I also. That person has to. They've got a side of their street. They've got to keep 100%, to use a recovery term. But that is. The healthy way is you want the two to come together and talk about it and let's get there. And maybe that person can admit that was incredibly hypocritical. I'm so sorry. Can you forgive me? That'd be beautiful. And then that person is left with, I do or I don't know. And if they don't, like, that's bad on them. [00:49:20] Speaker A: So is there a nice pastoral way to say, don't you have something better to do with your time? Like, how do you say that? Give me the church lingo for that. What does that. Dustin, what does that sound like? [00:49:30] Speaker B: Seems like this is an opportunity for you to serve. [00:49:35] Speaker C: What do you think about children's ministry? [00:49:39] Speaker A: Sean, this has been super helpful. Thank you for doing this. I think the goal for us, ultimately, is just to help people on their journey. And I think, for me, this is my own personal journey, but it's also a way for people that are on the same path as me to identify with me in the questions that I have. Maybe not as abstruse as I ask them, but identify the questions and start to think about things differently. Because like I said before we started recording, there's a lot of great reasons to leave religion, and then there's a lot of bad ones. And so if you're gonna leave religion, at least leave it for good reasons. And so that's what I want to give people. Because a lot of the things that I hear from friends who've left are reasons where I'm like, I think we need to unpack that a little bit more. [00:50:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I appreciate it. And I think my hope, because I see it happen, that it also opens. I feel like you guys are opening doors for people to come home, too, to faith, to come back to it, which I think is pretty important. [00:50:38] Speaker A: And it sucks that we don't have. You need those. You need the guy that's. You didn't really get crucified, went and touched the hands like you need those jerks in churches. And if they all leave, then, like, the church is boring. Like, stay. If you're gonna be, stay, stay. Because what you're saying is, I'm forfeiting my right, or I'm forfeiting my opportunity to help this very valuable institution carry on, and I'm ceding it to these other people, which is fine, but have a stake, have some skin in the game and be a part of, like, maybe modifying with your perspective, a very valuable institution that's just not going away. So that's the way I see it. I think more people need to stay and be irritating. I hope there's more irritating people in your congregations going forward in perpetuity. That's my dream. There you go. [00:51:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Sean, I'm grateful for you, man. And I think something that's come to mind is you offered from your perspective. And I want to. My perspective, too, I'd say, is I want to see people as as not as problems to be solved, but as mysteries to be encountered and to see people who are deconstructing in three dimensions. And I hope that people who are listening to this, who tend to associate churches like yours and roles like the one you're in. [00:52:00] Speaker C: Sure. [00:52:01] Speaker A: With. [00:52:01] Speaker B: Of course, people are walking away from that. [00:52:03] Speaker C: But look, they make TV shows about it. [00:52:05] Speaker B: Exactly. You're in. Right. In three dimensions. Who's pulling up to the table to have a conversation and is doing it in a hospitable and welcoming way. So I'm grateful for you and being a part of this, man. [00:52:18] Speaker C: Thanks, guys. It was honor.