What's Next After Deconstruction?

[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. [00:00:28] Speaker A: So what are we doing here? Why are we doing this? There's a million of these kind of shows, and I'll be. This is something that Dustin and I aligned with almost. I don't want to say accidentally, but serendipitously, that we were both feeling like there was a need in the space. I have gone through my stages of deconstruction for a long time. It started 15 years ago, and it's been ongoing. And we both felt like in the space, there wasn't really something for someone who had gone through those stages of deconstruction, figured out what it was in religion that either didn't work for them or problems inherent to the structure of church or whatever it was, and went through these stages of trying to figure out, like, how to escape that mindset. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:20] Speaker A: And there are people that did all that, but who want to create something new. And so when I looked around the space, I didn't see much in. In terms of people having conversations about what would it look like to reconstruct a religious space or a spiritual space for oneself. Dustin, why do you feel like this is a necessary addition to the religious conversation space? [00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I would totally agree. And I. I see it as honestly a contribution because there's this, like you said, an abundance of proliferation of deconstruction podcasts. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And we're not trying to demean the space of deconstruction. It's more just feeling like there's just a lot of content about one stage of the religious process. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:02:10] Speaker A: And not a lot about the other. [00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's another step that we want to bring attention to and help people who might be looking to take that step figure out the different ways that they might be able to do that and what it. Whatever it looks like for them. But I think there's some pretty tried and true ways that people throughout history who've gone through different phases of deconstruction have found something to reconstruct on the other side. [00:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So we're going to start by telling our stories a little bit so you know where we're at. And Dustin's going to start just in. Just really talking through our particular journey and where we're at currently and just give people our background and baggage, if you will. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:59] Speaker A: So why don't you start? [00:03:01] Speaker B: So I didn't grow up in. But as I've Thought through things. Both of my parents did. My mom went to all girls Catholic school all the way through college. Then my dad grew up in a really small Baptist type or Baptist but some Baptist denomination, not Southern Baptist but a smaller older version. And. And both of my parents for different ways walked away from the version of Christianity that they'd grown up with. And as I was. Was There was really no interest or rhythm in attending church other than my dad's mom would occasionally take me to something going on at her church which I despised and would rather volunteer for oral surgery than go and do that VBS or Summer Sunday School AWANAs. I remember going to AANAs one time and being like this is the. Sorry for Awana's fans. But this. I was like, does it. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Is it still around? Is a one is a thing. [00:04:08] Speaker B: It is. [00:04:10] Speaker A: I went to competitions and I had to run around this weird track with beanbags. Yeah, it was a thing. [00:04:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:15] Speaker A: It. [00:04:17] Speaker B: So it's especially coming in from the outside with no frame of reference for what that was. I was like this is a strange thing. It's like PE but way less fun. [00:04:28] Speaker A: You have to memorize a couple sentences and repeat them to an adult. You don't know. [00:04:32] Speaker B: And then there's. There's like jewels and crowns and all that stuff. All sorts of. Yeah. Social pressure, test anxiety, all that stuff. But. So that wasn't really my thing. And then I would go. Once I got into junior high school, I would go to youth groups occasionally with and never really understood singing worship songs or doing any. Or prayer and how any of that stuff worked. Nobody really explained it. So I never really got into it until the very end of high school. Long story short, came to faith on a mission trip to Mexico. Amongst what I would later find out was a group of people who were actively deconstructing their faith. And I the. I realized I was coming into something that they were trying to piece together for themselves. And so I learned the version of Christianity that I learned would have been a. A more progressive evangelicalism. And that resonated with what I had grown up with and what I'd known just as a cultural value set type. [00:05:39] Speaker A: And that's interesting because I think some people. And I'll talk about my dad's story in a little bit but similar upbringing to you. And he latched on to a much more conservative version of religion. Like a. Not an antidote or reaching out and seeking out the opposite, but like that. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Totally. Yeah. And that's the case for a lot of people that I've I've met, they. They grew up on one end of the spectrum and then as they become adults, they find their way to the other side and it kind of compensates for the deficiencies of where they've come from. Yep. So that's where I. But I found myself not in that space and very similar dynamic to what I'd grown up with. And so I kind of just assumed and inherited a lot of the assumptions that were being made by this group of people at that time. And as I grew up, matured. I'm a pastor. I haven't mentioned that, but continued to work in ministry and went through seminary and all of those sorts of religious professional stuff. I found myself questioning the version of Christianity that I had inherited. And so oddly enough, my baggage is not the typical baggage that you assume when you hear a deconstruction type podcast, but because it comes from the opposite end of the spectrum. And I had to unlearn lots of different things. Like for example, the I was given a. What technically would be called a hermeneutic of suspicion about the Bible period from the jump. None of the like, none of this stuff is real. It's all just a jumbled contradiction. Anything that anybody has to say about divine inspiration or authority or any of that stuff, it's a joke. And so I'm like, but here's ways to make meaning out of it and what it means for living your life or ordering society or whatever. So that was something that I had to work through to come to something that I feel like is consistent with what I would say is was Jesus own view of Scripture, which would critique which wouldn't be in line with what a lot of more conservative folks would have to say about the Bible. Jesus had. [00:08:03] Speaker A: I would love to hear him talk about hermeneutics today. Members of the Christian would be interesting conversation. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. That would be good. Yeah. And maybe we'll do one on what I think Jesus hermeneutic is. But yeah, so that's a bit about me and the baggage that I have had to figure out how to make sense of in my own journey and vocation. And those two things are really bound up in itself. So that's an interesting dynamic too. [00:08:34] Speaker A: So there's this. [00:08:35] Speaker B: What about you? [00:08:35] Speaker A: There's a Shakespeare play. [00:08:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:37] Speaker A: Called Comedy of Errors. And there are two characters with the identical name that look alike but have opposite personalities. And so that's what's about to happen right now. So I grew up in what could be described as the almost complete opposite context. [00:08:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:52] Speaker A: So my Mother grew up religious. My dad did not. And my dad converted as an adult and then pursued ministry. He met my mom at Cal Baptist University and then went on to plant a church in Bakersfield, where I spent most of my childhood before, prior to that, popping around while he went to seminary. And so I grew up in the absolute most conservative kind of religious context. Southern Baptist churches are about as conservative as they come. I also went to. Not for all of my education, but for high school. I went to a Christian high school, private high school in Bakersfield that had people like Josh McDowell come in to speak. If you know who that is, you can get a sense and a vibe. I was on all the worship teams, the worship bands. I went to church camp, not the crazy ones like in the movie Jesus Camp, Cousins, if you will. There was always a night where everyone wept and everyone got saved and they even had. [00:09:53] Speaker B: Saved again. [00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah, saved again. Yeah. That was the thing. Thing I did. I peaked at deconstruction late in adolescence, where. Because I'd been going to the. As the pastor's kid, you go to the same camp every year, and the kids cycle through as their families come and go from the church. And. But there was a couple families that were persistent attendees. And so I would see them give their life to Jesus multiple times. And eventually I just got jaded. I was like, remember when you did that last summer? And so I had. That was like a little flash of deconstruction, flash in the pan, but not something in a concerted way. And then I went to college. I went to the opposite extreme. I went to San Francisco State, which I lovingly refer to as a boiling pot of liberal malcontent, which is. It just. I remember, I think my parents came to visit one time, and then there was like a. It was like Phallus Day on campus where people. The art department made genitals, artistic genitals that lined all the walkways so you'd walk past. [00:10:50] Speaker B: That's the most. [00:10:51] Speaker A: All these erect penises on your way to class. And so it was. But interestingly, and I don't know if this was. I can thank my parents parenting for this. I persisted and attended intervarsity. I was on the worst. I just did what I knew, if you will. And so I attended that. I went to this church, actually, interestingly, that Dustin's wife went to, but we didn't know each other, this wonderful Presbyterian church in San Francisco called. What was it called? [00:11:18] Speaker B: City Church. [00:11:18] Speaker A: City Church, that's right. And so I did that. And then I went to seminary. So I just was doing the full path. Went to seminary, was still a jaded cuss. Just because when you grow up as a pastor's kid, everything that's part of what comes with. [00:11:32] Speaker B: Well. And you're the oldest of the pastor's kids. [00:11:34] Speaker A: Oldest of the pastor's kids. So I know how the sausage is made, and so I could mock it. I've always been a person that's a court jester, and so I just mock things. And I. While I was very serious about my seminary pursuit, my classmates did not perceive me that way because I was always getting into arguments with people and making fun of things. And I think that was a way for me to. Not to psychoanalyze myself, but to deal with the discomfort of all of it. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:57] Speaker A: And I left seminary kind of uncertain of where I wanted to go. And then I had a brief stint at a Pentecostal church, which was not the right fit for me. I'll just say, at the start, I did learn all of the charismatic dance moves, which I think helped me in the club later in life. The Pistols was my favorite. Shooting pistols, the sky, if you understand that reference, it's probably best for you. [00:12:17] Speaker B: I can hear the keyboards clicking now. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, I think I grew up, and my baggage is I grew up in a place where there was no other perspective than the one perspective. And then I start to see the world and I start to go, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense. And, like, just the compounding of all of my issues, whether they're social, ethical, cultural, whatever, with religion, ultimately resulted in a place where I was uncertain where I belonged. I didn't feel like I fit in any kind of environment. It could be hard sometimes, when you're a person that's had my experience, to just sit in a pew and go through the motions. And so it felt very robotic. And then there was a certain point where I just said, I need a break. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:05] Speaker A: And so I've jumped from lily pad to lily pad for a while, trying a lot of different things, and nothing's really stuck for me, in part because it's just. And this is what we're going to get to in this whole podcast is just that it. You can feel like an orphan sometimes in this religious space because there is this just. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Am I the only one who's thinking this? [00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And I know that. And I know. And I know it's not true, but I. But it feels that way because everyone's too Afraid to say out loud. [00:13:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:32] Speaker A: Their doubts, their discomforts, their disbeliefs. [00:13:35] Speaker B: And it's like that moment in math class when the teacher's, okay, any questions? [00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And everyone sits silently. And I don't have any real deep animosity towards religion at the moment. I view it as like any other institution. It can be beneficial or harmful depending on who's in charge. [00:13:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:54] Speaker A: And how the community behaves. But I think for me, why I'm doing this is that I do want to work through it, and I think working through it in a public way could benefit others because you can see me struggle and maybe find your struggles in my struggles, and then maybe watch my process and think about your process. So let's talk about deconstruction. Let's start by talking about where it comes from. Yep. So like a lot of people that went through college and graduate school, you encounter things like critical theory and deconstruction throughout your education. Yep. Critical theory and deconstruction are actually two separate universes. Yeah. And I'll talk about them each, respectively, in a second. But essentially what deconstruction is, is it's the process of finding problems in language. [00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Finding contradictions might not be exactly the right word, but this idea that our language and what we say about the world is always contingent on some other meaning and it's too complex. And that the more you investigate ideas, terms, concepts, they start to break down. And you might take a word like saved, for example, and then you start to ask questions and you start to probe what's underneath that word, and then you start to see how contingent and fragile the concept is and how. But actually doesn't fit in the way we think it does. And so that's a lot of this comes from this famous French philosopher, fledg philosopher named Jacques Derrida, which I don't recommend trying to read him. I've tried a few times. It feels performative. And he's making the text confusing in a way that it kind of shows his meaning through his through by making it confusing. And now I'm sounding confusing as I'm trying to explain it, which is, I think, the whole point. So there's that on the one hand side, and then there's critical theory. And critical theory is related. It's more Marxist in its origins, but. [00:16:12] Speaker B: Essentially what it does is more social in its application. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So you have like gender theory, for example, that like, tries to break down the binary between male and female and show, you know, how artificial those binaries are. Or you have postcolonial theory that looks at the way we think about ethnicity, we think about racism the way. So it can be applied to really any social phenomena in a way to critique it and analyze it. [00:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:38] Speaker A: Now, Dustin, can you take us from that world of critical theory, deconstruction, to religious deconstruction? So what is that in your mind? [00:16:48] Speaker B: So in the context of religious deconstruction, it's the process of examining and taking apart the faith that you inherited. That's what I would distinguish it as. Just from my own personal experience and in conversation with people, it's connected to Christianity writ large. But really what people are doing, what we're all doing, is working through the faith that we inherited and taking it apart. And I. I think when I think of what deconstruction is, I think of the Princess Bride and the famous quote. And so you keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means. Yeah. And that's the. Okay. From words to ideas to concepts, to what is the scripture, to what is. What is salvation? Who is God? What is a person? All of these big, deep theological questions that you grow up hearing flannel graph stories of and just thinking, this is how the world works. And then you grow up and things get a little move from being black and white to all sorts of shades of gray and complications and complexities. And you're like, wait, what I. How does this make any sense at all? And then you just look flat out at the text itself and people point out to you, like, okay, in Genesis 1, like, we don't even make it off of page one of the Bible before God creates light, but the sun's not created until the fourth day. [00:18:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:26] Speaker B: And that's. That can't be right. [00:18:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And let me jump in. This is actually a tradition within Christianity. It's called apophatic theology or negative theology, which is that it's better to say what God is not rather than to say what God is. Because as soon as you say what God is, you reduce God to a concept or an idol. So actually, deconstruction, I mean, is as old as the Eastern Orthodox Church, if you will. [00:18:50] Speaker B: A.B. absolutely. Absolutely. I. I would say it's as old as the first followers of Jesus. [00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:58] Speaker B: The story that I think of when I think of deconstruction biblically is the story of the walk to Emmaus. So it's right after Jesus crucifixion, and the reader knows that it's after his resurrection. But these two disciples, who we don't know totally who their identity is, except that they're followers of Jesus. They're walking away from Jerusalem towards a city seven miles away called Emmaus. And what's interesting about that is Emmaus is the location of the last successful military rebellion against Rome. It was launched out of Emmaus. And so it's like they're returning to what they know worked because this, this Messiah who they thought was going to overthrow the Romans didn't do it. So now they're going back to all right, let's bring out the big guns and. But then Jesus meets them on this road, the resurrected Jesus meets them and they don't recognize that it's him. And they, they Jesus, he's what's up. And they explain their doubt and deconstruction. And even in that conversation Jesus begins to reorient their faith, their expectations of who Jesus was, what the Bible is, what the story of redemption and salvation etc looks. And so that's I think the narrative arc that I think of when it comes to the or the philosopher Paul Ricoeur talks about first naivete, disillusionment and then second naivete. [00:20:37] Speaker A: So well that's, that's a good segue. So because I wrestle with this and we'll talk about the landscape of deconstruction in a second. But do you perceive it to be a necessary process for faith? Because some people just go through their whole lives and just enter with an idea and exit with almost the same idea. And it could be that just that there's other priorities. They don't think about those kinds of things. It could be there's certain neurotic type people that this fits. Do you think it's a necessary process for your faith journey to deconstruct? [00:21:07] Speaker B: I don't think it's universally necessary. Like you have to go through it. [00:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:12] Speaker B: Or somehow you're lesser than. I know plenty of people who have maintained the faith that they inherited as children. It's maybe aged in the sense of wine, it's aged with them, but the essence is still is the same. But they haven't at the same time I would say this is just anecdotal, but most of them that I know that I'm thinking of didn't inherit anything unhealthy or dysfunctional or toxic. They inherited the essence of the thing and or inherited a value that kind of maintained through complexity. However, I will say it is necessary if you find your spit self in a space of cognitive dissonance of like those. The increasing pressure that you described as I Don't know if I can make sense of this in ways that I've been told to. At that point, it's necessary. Like, you can't. That becomes like the beach ball that you try and hold under the pool water. [00:22:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I think discomfort or abuse or all sorts of things can lead someone to deconstruct. I think it's not necessary, but I think it is helpful to ask questions. Right. I think that's what deconstruction starts as, is asking questions. And I think if you never ask questions of what you're given, A, that means you're satisfied with it. [00:22:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Or B, that means you're naive to the other options that are available to you, or C, you're just trying to conform, which I think each of those is completely understandable paths. I think I perceive people that asking questions are going to have a richer, more complex religious experience. And not everyone needs that or feels like they want that. But that is. I think there is. I perceive there to be a value difference between those types of faiths. [00:23:10] Speaker B: And I would be curious how you would feel about this. But in your own experience, because of the environment that you grew up in, like, to question was, like, dangerous in. In a sense, because you're undermining the. You're sawing off the branch that you're sitting on. Like, you're questioning ultimate reality. You're questioning God. [00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And I always kept my questions and doubts. You know, I remember I had this, you know, very dogmatic Bible teacher at my private Christian school, and that was my opportunity to have it out because I could talk with my parents about certain things, but I think for them, things are so emotionally charged that it was scary to talk about certain things with them. But with the Bible teacher, it was wwe. We could go at it and performatively. And yeah, it felt good, but I always stayed within a zone. I didn't question, like, the big questions. It was always the side issues. There's this concept in theology of primary and secondary issues. Primary being the ones, like, are necessary for your inclusion in the faith community. And then the secondary stuff is, like, what we argue about what to wear to church. Like, you know, are certain hymns appropriate and others are not. You know, stuff like that. Do you sprinkle water? Do you put someone underwater? That's maybe not. It's primary to some people. [00:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:31] Speaker A: But it's neither here nor there. So I. Yeah, I. It was tough to ask questions. [00:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:36] Speaker A: So, yeah, let's talk about the religious land, the religious deconstruction landscape. Now it feels like it is a really developed universe. There's all kinds of people attacking. You have podcasts, like the liturgists. When I was in seminary, you had this thing called the Emergent Church. You've people like Brian McLaren. You've got people like Marcus Borg. You've got this whole landscape, this universe. And then you have more mundane deconstruction, just people having their own personal journeys of, you know, they are. They have beliefs that don't align with their church, and then they start to ask questions. So what's your perception of the. The deconstruction landscape? Like, where are we at, you think? [00:25:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there. There's this. It's everywhere. It's evolved. There's different stories, but there's lots of. Of deconversion stories of. Here's what I grew up with. I had X experience or Y intellectual crisis, or most often in. In the cases that I'm familiar with, is I experienced something. I suffered deeply in a way that broke something in me about how I could possibly trust God or a world that God created. Something like that. That launches you into a more reasoned sort of rationale for why you experience what you experience. And so there's a flavor of that type of. There's so many different flavors of that type. [00:26:17] Speaker A: The most common ones are, like, the treatment of sexual minorities and religious communities, the association of politics and religion, hidden abuse scandals. You think of the Catholic Church, you think of a lot of denominations that have been working through those things. So there's all this kind of bad behavior, but then there's also the world of unpacking the Bible. And, like, does the Bible make sense as a text? And. Yeah, I mean, it just goes on and on. And so I think there's a lot of different ways that people are approaching it, but I think the truth is that there's a lot of people that just don't feel like they fit in. [00:26:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Anymore. And they don't fit in for a variety of reasons, but the bottom line is that they don't feel like they fit in. So. Yeah. And I think that's my analysis of the landscape. And I want to say, before we talk about plans for the podcast, where we're going to go from here, I want to say this as a start. I. This is a reconstruction podcast, but I think everyone's on their own journey, and I think that rushing people through or encouraging them to reconstruct when they're in the middle of a process is not only unhealthy, it's counterproductive. And could hurt them further. Because what that comes across as is, I'm uncomfortable with your discomfort. So to make me comfortable, you should stop that. That's it. And I don't think that's healthy in therapy. I don't think that's healthy in any space. I was a teacher for a long time, and I don't think you're a very good teacher if you get impatient as your students are working through their times tables, they got to work through it at their own space and their own speed. And rushing them through not going to get them to learn. Just like rushing someone through deconstruction, it's not going to help them in their. [00:27:57] Speaker B: Process, going to hurt them, or through phases of grief. Right. There's no. [00:28:01] Speaker A: Do you see people trying to, like, deconstruction makes them uncomfortable, so they're like, what are you going to do? Like, where do you belong? What do you. Who are you? What's your status? [00:28:10] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, if I'm totally honest, there's been moments in my life where I've felt that on, you know, in conversation with friends. And why did you feel that? I think it's a good question. I think there's. There's something in me that if unchecked and unhealthy, is, I'm not okay if you're not okay. And I have to. So I think that's like the it in a nutshell. I was like, whoa, if you're not okay, then how can I be okay? But it's really, you're on your own. You're on a journey. I'm on a journey, and I can walk along. So we can be friends and be looking at the same thing from a different vantage point. And there's something that I can learn from you. They're like, have you seen this? I'm like, I've never seen that or thought about that. And that's actually really helpful. So, yeah. My point being, like, I understand the sort of anxiety that emerges in people or parents or grandparents when this type of conversation comes up. And at the same time, I would gently say, just, Joel Embiid, trust the process. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's normal to feel that way because especially, you know, some people spend a long time in this space. And so, you know, it could feel like hearing the same story for a long time. And you're just like, all right, what's the next chapter? Yeah, it's just a natural kind of human thing to feel like, all right, what? You broke this down. This thing that was weighing on you. You broke it down. What are you going to do now? There's that kind of. It just bubbles up in you, I think, and someone that's been in a deconstruction space for a long time, like, I think why we're doing this is that it's hard to know what to do. And so that's the whole point right now. I think why we're doing this is that it's hard to see a next step. When you went to the buffet, you got food poisoning. You left and you're like, yeah, I'm ready to go back to the buffet now. And it's the same food. And you're like, what? Yeah, like, I. I thought they were gonna have salads now. And it's still those meatballs. So for people that are stuck in deconstruction can feel like there's. I left because the options. And now the options are still there. What am I supposed to do? The whole point is that you make. You. You cook the dinner, you cook. You don't go back to the buffet. You cook. And that means maybe you have to go to the store, maybe you got to work with other people, but you cook, right? [00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:54] Speaker A: I think empowerment is what we're trying to do here, encouraging people to make imperfect decisions. And I think there is a element to. And this is the part that bothers me as someone that is deeply in deconstruction. This is the part that bothers me. A place of moral superiority and waiting for the perfect thing to arrive will trap you in a state of perpetual paralysis, because it will never come. It will never come. And so I think at a certain point, you have to ask yourself. [00:31:28] Speaker B: What. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Am I going to do? And I think that's what we're trying to ask. Yeah, what are we going to do? [00:31:47] Speaker B: Foreign. [00:31:54] Speaker A: So what are we going to do with the show? We're going to have a number of kind of thematic episodes. We're going to go through a lot of the kind of issues that people going through deconstruction have with religion. We're going to talk about them. We're going to unpack them. We're going to ask questions. Is this inherent to religion or is this a problem with social organization? Are there already solutions out there that you're just not aware of or, you know, are, you know, for example, if inclusion is part of the reason you deconstructed, I'm just going to break the news to you that there's a whole universe of progressive religion that offers that as a benefit to participating in their communities. That's definitely a part. But then we'll get into sticky stuff like church authority and ethical mores and the Bible and how to. How it works, because it's complicated. And I think we're going to try to unpack those programmatically an episode at a time. Sometimes I think. I don't know if you agree with this, but I think the Bible deserves maybe an episode or a few episodes. And then, Dustin, we'll have it solved in two. At least Dustin will read the entire Bible out loud to you and then explain it as we go. That will be the next five years of content. And then after that we'll go back to our regular programming. No, the goal is here just to work through the problems that people have. We also want to bring on guests, people that have gone through deconstruction and reconstruction, people that are. I hate to use the word stuck, but people that are stuck and they don't know what to do next. Thinking, talking with them about where they are, and then experts as well, people that are thinking about this in the space. Writers, thinkers, theologians, those types. [00:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:34] Speaker A: And really, in an effort to try to flesh out what is the problem and what are the available solutions and what are there areas where we need to create something new for ourselves and for our communities or relate to things in a different way with a different frame. So that's what we're going to do. And then, Dustin, what do you hope people get out of this? [00:33:59] Speaker B: So what I hope people get out of this is something like what happens when you're working on a house project and you get stuck and maybe you call a friend, maybe you look back through, you trace your steps to see, okay, did I miss something along the way? But then maybe you pull up a YouTube video. [00:34:23] Speaker A: Yep, that's me. And I hurt myself first, but then I pull up. [00:34:26] Speaker B: Oh, totally. Yeah, I. Yeah. And then you see somebody working through it in real time and you say, oh, okay, okay, I see that. Or now you have more options. A an expanded range of motion or something like that is helpful to let you keep on moving. Or if you find yourself in a different place where you have deconstructed and you feel like that's just the end of the line and now I'm figuring out something else that we would just engage in conversation with you too, and one, learn from you and feel. Understand why you're thinking, feeling that way, but also contribute something to the conversation to maybe say that there's. There are options out there beyond just taking it all apart and letting it sit there or be thrown out or whatever. Because they're our different options. [00:35:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think for me, Dustin and I are different places in this. I have a personal interest in this. This is not merely created for other people. It's created for myself. And I honestly think those are the best things, the things where you're doing something because you need it. But I also. We also want to hear from you. We have a gmail account called thereturn reconstruction podcastmail.com and you can just send us questions, like something or your story or your narrative that you're working through, and then we'll talk about it anonymously if you'd like, and just share where we're at and where you're at and your feedback on what we're saying, but also your personal process. Because I think the goal of this is really just to help people. Help people figure out their stuff and figure out where they want to go next. And figure out, of course, where the best children's program is at any church. Because that's the whole reason we go to church, right? [00:36:16] Speaker B: That's right. So it would be at North Fresno Church, of course. Pastor Jennifer. She's crushing it. [00:36:22] Speaker A: This has been the Return podcast.