(un)Formed Episode 1

Welcome to (un)Formed, a podcast and YouTube series exploring what it means to live a life of faith after deconstruction. Scott Coulter and Harold Smith, a couple of Episcopal Church staffers, take you through the complex and sometimes dizzying process of understanding scripture, faith and life once you've left Biblical literalism behind. This is a series for those who have outgrown rigid faith, those who have been hurt by the exclusions of fundamentalism, those who are curious about Jesus but have lots of doubts about Christianity; really anyone who doesn't want to "leave their brain at the door".

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to Unformed, where we explore what it means to lead a life of faith after deconstruction. We are your hosts. I'm Scott Coulter. I'm Harold Smith. Let's begin. Alright, welcome to episode one of Unformed. Today we're just gonna introduce this series to y'all, share what it's about, share where it came from, and give a vision of where we want to go as we move forward. Before we do any of that, Hal, how are you doing this week?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

You know what? I'm alright. It's been kind of a weird week for me. It feels like it should be midway, but it's only Monday.

unknown 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah, it's a it's a long one. I'm actually doing um I'm doing a ballet. I'm I'm also a musician, that's the other thing I do. So we're doing the ballet this week, and that starts tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Sorry, you're playing for the ballet?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yeah. Yeah, like the band plays and the dancers dance on stage. It's really cool. I couldn't tell if you were going to a ballet if you were playing for a ballet. Yeah. Or if I were dancing in the ballet, which is really surprising. Theoretically possible. It's not even theoretically possible. I don't know. Oh, dude. These dancers, they're like just one large muscle. It's crazy. It is really nice, yeah. Anyway, but yeah, that's that's starting tomorrow. It's gonna be every night for the next two and a half weeks. Great. Yeah. Um so yeah, it's uh it's gonna be fun, but it's it's always a lot of work. Um so anyway, yeah, so this first series, this first episode is just introducing where we want to go. Um so the first thing I want to start with is just giving a um definition of what deconstructed even means, because that might be a new word for some folks. Um, Hal, do you want to give us a working definition of what it is we're talking about?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Sure. Uh most of the time when we say deconstruction, we're talking about somebody who was raised in a Christian environment. Um, a lot of people will identify as ex-vangelical. Um basically you grow up in a certain uh Christian environment, you become an adult, and start um looking at some of the teachings, practices, um, and think this doesn't really fit me, or I think that this is an actively harmful or untrue idea. It's a really jarring thing that can threaten not only your um like kind of religious and spiritual life, but also your identity in your social life, um, which means that it is a harrowing endeavor. Yeah. Um and part of the purpose of this podcast is going to be kind of a soft landing pad, so and a safe place for folks to explore that.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, amen to that soft landing pad idea. I've I've been talking to people about what it is we're doing, and that's the term I keep using.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Um soft landing. And uh so part of why I want to start this podcast, The Soft Landing is a good segue, is I I watch a lot of videos, uh, I listen to a lot of podcasts, read a lot of articles, a lot of material that talks about deconstruction, you know, that our biblical scholars um sort of pushing back against um the fundamentalist point of view of things, and giving the scholarly reason for why, well, that's not really true, and actually that's not what that really means, and actually the Hebrew means this. And um, it's really interesting content. I love to theologically nerd out, but most of that is written by folks who are kind of either they were religious and now they're not, and they're atheist, or maybe they were religious and now they're you know in into agnostic. Um and there are some, but there's not a lot, that are folks who are still like in the faith, still wanting to have a life of faith, um, but want to do it in this post-deconstruction way.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Um and like you were saying, I think a lot of the stuff that I love to watch is great, but it would be a hard landing if you just threw that at people. Um, and I kept imagining, like, man, if I were at the start of my deconstruction journey and I were watching some of the videos that I like to watch, I'd probably turn them off after five seconds because even if I agreed with him, it's just whoa, too scary. I can't go there yet. Right. Um and so that's when this kind of popped into my head is hey, why don't we offer something from a couple of Episcopals church staff members talking about how you stay in the faith, but do it in a kind of new way. Um so to start that off, uh, I want us to just each share our own journeys of deconstruction and how we understand our own faiths. Um, would you like to start us off on that?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, for sure. Um so something about me is that I'm trans. Um a lot of time when you're talking about trans people in the past, the default is you should talk about their current gender in the past as well, because that's how a lot of trans people view themselves. I'm pretty gender fluid, so that might not always happen. Um I just kind of want to give a little bit of context there so it doesn't get super confusing. Um but um basically I was raised as a little girl in um northern Oklahoma in like a conservative evangelical charismatic um church where my dad was and actually still is a pastor. Um so I was a pastor's kid. You're a PK. I'm a PK. Um and that comes with both a lot of support and uh structure and also some pretty rigid expectations, both along the lines of the type of person that I should be and the way I should act and appear. So um I actually in many ways thrived in that structure. Um and by the time that I went to college I left as kind of a golden child. Um, but unfortunately, once that structure stripped away, um my ADHD started to blossom. Um, all of a sudden I was realizing um that I thought I maybe I'm gay. Um I like started withholding things from my parents because I knew they wouldn't uh react well. Um I started failing classes because I wasn't going to them or forgetting homework or whatever. And so my life was sort of falling apart, my identity felt like it was falling apart as both a smart kid and like a good Christian kid. Um and I was raised in the prosperity gospel where when things start falling apart, it might be because you're doing something sinful. So um I kind of internalized those things in a really you know dangerous way, um, but found an episcopal uh college ministry called Canterbury. What was it called? Canterbury. Canterbury. Yeah. So the full name is like um St. Anselm of Canterbury College Episcopal Ministry or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Um It sounds like the name of an Episcopal committee would come up with for its ministry.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah. Uh but anyway, um, and it was a place where for the very first time I felt comfortable um asking difficult and challenging questions, but I also for the first time was told that you could be queer and also a Christian, um, which was a revelation for me. Um what year was that? It was 2014. Okay. Yeah. Um 2015, actually. And then I've been in the Episcopal Church ever since. Um I feel like um the college ministry completely changed my life. Um I feel like I either would be a deeply repressed and unhappy person, or I would have ended up a person outside of the faith. But because I found that famous middle way, um via media, baby, uh, I was able to deconstruct in a safe place, go through that difficult time, um, and come out the other side, um, still with my faith somewhat intact. Um and only now, probably 10 years later, I'm starting to re-enter um a more vulnerable side of uh of my faith journey. Um whereas I've the kind of metaphor I use is that I've walked parallel to my faith, like I've made friends with it a little bit, um, and now I feel like I can walk into my faith.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah, I love that metaphor. Love that metaphor. Awesome. Well, so my own faith journey, um, like I said in the opening, it uh it it's almost on the other end of the spectrum from where you came from, at least. Yeah. So I grew up in Boulder. Uh anyone in Colorado knows that Boulder is an extremely liberal place. Probably people outside of Colorado know that Boulder is a very liberal place. And I was in a very liberal family and very agnostic family. So I grew up kind of Buddhist. Um, and I grew up really loving Buddhism. I still love Buddhism a lot. Um, and that was kind of the air I breathed, but we weren't a Buddhist family either. My mom, um I've told this joke so many times, but uh it is true. She called herself, she calls herself a not not Buddhist. So just deeply unaffiliated. Um and that's what I grew up with, and I didn't know much about Christianity, but what I did hear of it was usually of the very um fundamentalist right-wing kind. And Colorado Springs, which is also in Colorado, just about you know 80 miles south of Boulder, is where focus on the family is headquartered and uh you know a whole bunch of others, just a real kind of hotbed of conservative Christianity came out of there. And so I had no interest whatsoever in going near Christianity until I was in uh college. I was in my last year of college, and I was living in a Quaker house in Beacon Hill in Boston. Uh I wasn't Quaker, you know, but you didn't have to be Quaker to live there because the Quakers are very open people, you know. Um, and so I started to meet some folks who were there, and some of them were Quaker, and some of them identified as you know, very Christian, Quaker. And I started to hear them talk, and I was like, oh man, this they're they're talking about this in a really different way, but uh, okay. I I still didn't want to open a Bible, but it started to open my eyes a little bit. And then um the first bill in the country to um for same-sex marriage um was brought to debate in Massachusetts, and we lived right down the street from the statehouse, so like people were coming and like just busloads were coming in to protest for and against and on the on the lawn outside of Boston. And so our little group um went over there to protest. And at this point, I wasn't surprised at this. We were going over there to protest for passage of the bill, right? Um but I thought, okay, we're Quakers, we're a little bit odd. But we got there and I saw like other other denominations of you know, people with collars and rainbow stoles, and oh my god, so it just started to expand. And then um the the house asked me to write a letter, write a statement of support that we were gonna put in the newsletter and send out. And that was what finally forced me to crack open a Bible because I knew they were a Christian, and I was like, I can't just fill it with all Buddhist quotes. I gotta say something about Jesus. So I opened up the book and I included Luke. I always forget the passage, the chapter, and verse, but the quote out of Luke, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And I included it because when I was on the hill there, I saw so many people in, you know, with us who were protesting for, and it was just love. Right. It was just, hey, we are children of God, this is a vote for love. Love. That was it. It was a really simple stance and it made perfect sense. And then on the other side, there was a bunch of people protesting, I don't know, holding up scripture numbers and whatever, and some really hateful signs, and just I no. Um so anyway, I wrote my statement and I still remained outside of the faith for a very long time. And then it was like 15 years later, I had my road to Damascus moment, and I won't go into that, but I uh I converted to the faith. Um and I started looking for his church, and I first went to a UCC church, and I love the UCC folks, uh, but I wanted a little more liturgy, and so I walked down the street through the doors of the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, and I have been in it ever since. Um and what I've loved about it is I can remain um a big fan of Buddhist ideas and thought and practices, and I have never felt like I have to abandon all of it or go tell my mom that she's going to hell now. Um so that was that was my journey to this point. Um all right. So what we're gonna do each week is we're gonna have a chapter and verse. So let's go ahead and cut to that graphic right now. Boom. So since today's theme is introducing unformed and introducing deconstruction, uh, we are gonna go with John 2024, which is the story of doubting Thomas, our kind of original deconstructionist. So here we go, chapter and verse.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Nice. Um I'll go ahead and take the first paragraph. So Thomas, who was called the twin, uh, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. How I'm gonna I'm gonna have you start again on this one. What what do you think of when you hear the story of doubting Thomas? What what what does this story evoke for you?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Yeah, I've always loved Doubting Thomas. Um, like that's my guy. Uh uh, my thing is that Thomas was told something entirely improbable. Um and he was like, Y'all are pranking me. This isn't real. Um, either you're lying or delusional. Um and he was just like open and honest and admittedly a little sarcastic about what he needed to believe. Um and I've always uh identified with that. Um even when I was like younger, there would be times where I vividly remember like walking um around during the altar call, like praying for God to like take my critical thinking away because it was such a barrier in my mind, like that I thought it was so such a problem. Yeah. Um that I was doubtful. And so uh, much to my surprise, um upon finding the Episcopal Church and a new way of thinking about things, doubt became um a sign that you were critically engaged with your faith. It became um something to embrace. Um it became uh something that is a natural part of um the gifts that God gave us. Um so me and Daddy Thomas are like connected, we're boys.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah. The the three-legged stool of Anglicanism is uh scripture, reason, and tradition. So reason, that that God-given ability to think critically, that is part of that is part of part of the part of the three, part of the what supports the faith.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah. Um yeah, I I had a real similar reaction to doubting Thomas. I I kind of wanted you to kick it off because you know, in my case, I grew up, like I'm the son of doubting Thomas. Like my mom is doubting Thomas. Right. Um, so you know, for me, I I always joke that for me, uh, if I came home one day, or when I came home and told my mom I've converted to Christianity, yeah, that was like my coming out moment. I was like terrified. Like, are you gonna disown me now? Yeah. So I've always been, you know, I was came from just that like very alternative household. So um, yeah, I was never discouraged from being doubting Thomas, but um, but I always assumed that there was no room for that in this tradition. Right. I always assumed that okay, as if you're a Christian, you don't get to doubt anymore. You just have to wholesale believe everything and turn off the brain. Um, and so I had like, again, like similar to you when I came into the Episcopal Church, I was slow to believe it. It took me like six months of just slowly dipping my toe, but yeah, little by little I saw that, oh no, this there's room for my brain here, like there's room for my doubt. Yeah, this is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah, and I it's worth saying that um the point of doubting and like the embracing of doubting is not just, oh well, well, you doubt until eventually you realize that we were right all along. Um the the idea of doubting is that sometimes you go through the discernment journey, sometimes you go through the doubt, and then you come out with a different understanding or a challenge to the status quo. And that is also good.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah. Yeah, I love that idea of doubt as doubt as part of the faith, not doubt as an impediment to or like a temporary detour or a temporary blockage before you get through doubt and then you're in faith.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Um and I think that's true. Like that's certainly my experience over and over in the spiritual life is deconstruct, reconstruct, deconstruct, reconstruct, deconstruct, reconstruct. Um doubt, form something new. Yeah. Run into something, wrestle with my doubt. Um, and if you're not willing, like you said, if you're not willing to wrestle with the doubt, if you're not willing to name it and honor it and speak to it, then um you're not gonna get to what's what wonderful insight or new way of being and thinking. It might be on the other side of that doubt. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

And it your faith won't be your own. Yeah. It'll be uh, you know, something that you carry around from somebody else. Um you're gonna be wearing an ill-fitting suit.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah. Yeah. So um in this passage, um John is kind of trying to make Thomas look bad. Yeah. Um although I also think it's worth pointing out that even John, who's trying to make Thomas look bad, yeah, still lets Thomas like in the door. It's not, it this is it, it doesn't end with, and Thomas was no longer one of the twelve. Right. It ends with Thomas got there through his own way. John is kind of saying, eh, my way's better, but he still lets Thomas in the door. So I think that's an important thing to remember, even if you're gonna, even if you're gonna say, no, John is my guy in this, right? Thomas is not my way. Well, even John is telling us that it's still a way in. Yeah. He's I think he's just saying, well, you could have taken the express lane. Um and you didn't. Yeah. You know, and and for me, I like the scenic route. So, you know, there you go. Um, but this leads us into our next segment that we're also gonna have every week, um, called pulling the string. And here's why I came up with this title. Yeah, pulling the string um comes from a line that I've heard a lot from folks who are sort of defending a rigid dogmatic faith that if you start to pull on the string, if you start to question any piece of the Bible, any piece of scripture, any piece of what you've been told, if you just pull on that little string, the whole thing is gonna unravel. Yeah. And so therefore, don't pull the string. Well, we're here to pull the string. That's kind of the whole point of this podcast, but we're doing it in a kind loving way. We're not gonna leave you hanging. Yeah. We're not gonna leave you high and dry, but we are here to kind of pull the string and to and to show that actually that's okay. Um, yeah, so that's that's where the title came from for pulling the strings. So, uh, with that long intro, let's pull the string.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Title card.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Alright, so um there's a lot of strings we could pull. And when I came in here, Harold can can vouch for this, I had a list of like three or four things.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

That I listed off like, oh, we could, you know, we could tear it down this way, we could tear it down that way, we could point out this thing, we can point out that thing. Harold rightly pointed out that, you know, maybe But we could do one at a time. Yeah. We like, you know, balance it a bit. Yeah, maybe maybe ease up there, Skull Train. Let's ease into this, right? I mean, you're I we are trying to give a soft landing. Yeah. Yeah. Um here is the string we're gonna pull. I'm gonna give a little um biblical historical background here. And then we'll dive into it. So this story in the Gospel of John is most likely not historically true in the way that we think of historically true in a modern sense. This is not a bio, this wasn't written as like an AP news.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah, this is not journalism.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Right thing. This is this is theological writing. So this story in particular is almost certainly one of those stories that is is not a historical event. And what it probably is, not not guaranteed, but what it probably is, is a polemic, so a debate against the Thomasine school by the Johannin school. So in the early days of Christianity, there were different schools of Christians because it wasn't a unified thing yet, it was pretty scattered. And so there was the Johannin school, and they were sort of built around the tradition of John and the Gospel of John. Um, there was a Thomasine school, and their gospel was the Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical book, uh deemed heretical by some. I really like it, and we can get into a whole other podcast about the Gospel of Thomas. But the Thomasine school was really contemplative. They were, they regarded Jesus almost the way Buddhists regard Buddha as a wisdom teacher, and so much in the Thomasine school is about um finding God and full divine union within yourself. Um kind of the Christian version of enlightenment is what they're aiming at. And so they don't talk a whole lot about Jesus being divine or a messiah or any of that.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

At least partially because they were in actual conversation with Buddhists.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yes, yeah, right, because Thomas was was purported to have gone to India. Yeah. Um in the in the kind of legends of what happened to the uh disciples, Thomas was said to have been executed in India. And so whether that's true or not, we don't know, but he clearly went east and he had right, he had those conversations with Eastern thinkers. Um so John has a very different view. John has a high Christology, is what we call it. John is very much, he's the one who most emphatically says, Jesus was the Son of God, Jesus is one with God, Jesus is God. That all of that's in John.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

And so they have these really differing views. So the string is that we're pulling is the fact that this story wasn't historical. This story is one school of thought arguing against another school of thought and using the characters of the Bible to sort of play out this play that makes their point for them. Um so the question then is okay, what do we do with that? Right. Where do we go when we've pulled that string? What might that further suggest? Yeah. And how do we sit with it? Um, I've been doing this all night, so why stop now? How? Yeah, take it over. Absolutely. Tell me, tell me what you do with this when when you pulled this string, um, and you might have had the experience of actually pulling the string. What for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, what do you do with it? Weirdly enough, I never pulled this particular string. There are plenty of strings to pull, don't worry. Um, but I have had the experience of something that always felt really solid. Um, somebody pulls the string, and now it's like the ground comes out from under your feet. So the first thing to do, don't panic. It's fine. It's really okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Um my nephew, uh, he's so cute, he's five years old now. He got my wife and I these coffee cups with this like frenetic looking cat um that's had too much caffeine. It's fine, it's fine, everything's fine, I'm fine. Anyway, when you say that's perfect, yeah, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Um but you're gonna be all right. Um you're in uh really good hands. Um what I have uh come to kind of get comfortable with is that um I uh can see these different writings that make up the anthology that is the Bible as um works that exist for a purpose in a context, in different genres. Um and there can be truth there without it needing to be 100% um fact-checkable. Um and I believe in the overarching story of the book. Um and so any particular detail being a little bit off or um maybe having a motivation behind it like this one, it's alright. Um it doesn't really change the overarching story that I believe in. Um so that's my approach. Um and then the other piece of advice I have for people is um that they should go to their nerdy buddy um or yeah, um, or a priest that that's gonna be cool um and just ask your question. Like um, you're gonna feel better after you talk about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah. I I it's probably been said before, but I like that that term the Bible as an anthology.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Um that's a really good word for it because one of the things that pulling on that string does, um, I'll throw in another nerdy theological term. Um, a lot of folks insist on the univocality of the Bible. Oh, sure. Um, this idea that the the Bible beginning to end is one continuous, absolutely um inerrant book that never contradicts itself and has one single unified voice.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Um and that's one of those things that, you know, you it's hard to carry that contradiction very far. Um because the Bible pushes back on itself a lot. Um, you know, you read through the prophets, most of the prophets are like pushing back on previous parts of the Bible, or at least pushing back against the nation of Israel and saying, oh, y'all aren't doing it right. And but but you know, there's passages in the prophets like Amos where he's where he's writing about how God hates all your rituals and all your incense and all your like so you know, and Jesus pushes back. So yeah, the the the idea of univocality in this book is you gotta let go of that pretty quickly if you really start to deconstruct. Sure. Um so yeah, I I like that that that view of the Bible as an um as an anthology.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Um because I and I think that's a good way to phrase it, because an anthology is connected books, they're all on a theme, they speak to each other, they fit with one another. Definitely. But that doesn't mean they can't also argue with each other and present different points of view and evolve over time. Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Um and another thing that I like to think about is that um to me, and this is just a personal thing, I think about God as like um the embodiment of yes, love, but also relationship. Um, and God is is relationship so much that if it was one singular point of view throughout that never um contradicts or is in conversation with one another, then it wouldn't be as God to me.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah, someone was saying uh the other day, I think at coffee hour here at St. Andrews, um, I can't remember who was saying it, uh, but I remember someone saying, like, we were talking about some passage in the Old Testament. It was one of those passages that you know are pretty pretty blood curdling. Sure. Which one? But um, and someone's making a comment that, yeah, I I you know, if you treat that as like moral instruction, I I'm not a fan, but but as a as a an Episcopalian, as someone who views this, like you're saying, more as an anthology, I'm really glad that that stuff is still in there. I'm glad this stuff is in there that's that's kind of awful because it shows that this is an unfolding journey, and this is all kinds of different people's attempt to understand and be in relation to God, and it's not edited out. Right. It's it's it's not whitewashed, like the ugly stuff is included in there too. Yeah. And when you try to stop making it all be okay, then it actually opens the door to let it back in in a way. Because now it's like, all right, yeah, I can include the stuff that actually that sounds awful. We don't want to do that anymore. Right. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Like, you know, you you you like the other view, uh, or maybe not the other view, but a complementary view, um, is that everything that has made it into the Bible um is there uh sort of with the uh imbued with the Holy Spirit. So um in this case, um they might have created the character of Thomas doing this in order to make that school of thought look bad. Um but it allows for people like you and me um to find ourselves a little bit. Um you know, some of the more blood-curdling or scary parts of the Bible may not necessarily be moral direction, but they do give us insight into ourselves um and into the overarching journey um into history. So you can uh say that everything that's in there um is there for some sort of divine reason. Yeah. And I think that that's a good way to look at it as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Yeah. Um yeah, I like that I I'll just uh cap this off with I I I like um I like what you're saying there too, with this story that the author, probably unbeknownst to the author. Like you said, the author is trying to make Thomas look bad.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

And so they put in this story, or the, you know, this group of authors, so they put in this story, doing their best from their human point of view, to make Thomas look bad. And yet, 2,000 years later, doubting Thomas is one of the key reasons that I have been able to become a Christian.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Because of this thing that they put in there to make him look bad. And so, yeah, from the human level, what they were trying to do failed, but from God's point of view, there was some definite logic and some definite oversight there, and uh and a and a hand of the spirit in there that that might have prompted that person to include this text through their own faulty human lens. Um, but like I said, 2,000 years later, I'm awfully glad it made it in there.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Right? Because Thomas doesn't show up in any of the other gospels. And if I had never known about the gospel of Thomas, which a lot of people don't. I didn't know about the Gospel of Thomas, honestly, until today. Yeah. So, yeah, and like the reason I was so curious about about the Gospel of Thomas when I when I heard that it existed, was like, oh man, no, I remember Thomas. Yeah. Like you said, he's my guy. I love Thomas. That's my favorite part of John. All right, let me go read his book. Yeah, yeah. I'm all about it.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Yeah, I also I uh I feel like implicit in the story is um it's not like he meets up with Jesus and like, you know, touches the holes and whatever, and then he's like, okay, still don't believe. Because he like wants to believe.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Uh there's like there's a desire, um, and there's also a need for like real phenomenon to match up with the story. Um so if you are deconstructing, you've probably experienced some version of that. Like maybe you got told a story about evolution, um, and you got told a story about creation, and those things didn't match up very logically. Um, and again, it's a string that you pulled, but it's all right for those things to be in contradiction with one another. Um it's okay to uh kind of take what you take the story of uh of creation and look at it from several angles uh until you find one that that fits with the reflection of reality that we have. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Well said. All right. Well that brings us to our final segment. Um and that is uh mana for the journey. Uh so uh what I want to do with this one.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

I call it car snacks.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Car snacks? Oh, good. That might change. Some of these titles are are uh are are maybe temporary for now. They they may change over the city. I was I was mostly riffing, but yeah. Mana for the journey is cute. I don't know, car snacks is great. Yeah. Uh like if we could draw a picture of like draw a picture of Moses driving the car with like a little bit of a little oh that you can you draw this?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

I can try.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Give it a shot. A picture of Moses driving his car, maybe like a VW bus. I don't know. Yeah. He's got some folks in there with him, and they've got a little bag of mana chips. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah all right. Um, so car snacks. I think that I think that's gonna be the title. Okay, great. Yeah. Um, so car snacks is gonna be. Let's pause for a minute. We'll we'll put up our graphic right now. So here's the graphic that we have at this moment. Car snacks. Um, so car snacks is gonna be just a little ending thing that we put on this uh that I want to do each week, where we just offer a couple of resources for what it is we just talked about for y'all to go about um your week with as you consider these questions. Um I'll kick it off with my two that I thought of for this. One of them is by the time this gets out there, this will be active. We have a Facebook group, and this Facebook group is a closed group, it's invite only, so it's we're gonna make it a safe space. Yeah, we're using the word. We're gonna make it a safe space. Um, where if if you like what you heard, if you're in the deconstruction journey, if you're a listener to this YouTube series and podcast, you can be in there and have conversations with other people going through the journey. Because I think that's one of the most important things is be in conversation, be in conversation with other folks. Um, because as Hal said in the beginning, one of the really terrifying things about deconstructing is it's not just a matter of changing your opinion about some scripture, it could mean losing your community, losing support systems, losing relationships, and that's a hard thing. Um and so finding community, finding a chance to talk about it with others is one. Um, and my other little tidbit that I want to leave you with is um a very simple version of Lectio Divina, and I'm not gonna get into Lectio Divina, but monastic reading of scripture says that you read the text, you quiet your mind, and you have dialogue with what you're reading.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

So I would just give it to anyone watching this: take this story, take the story of Doubting Thomas, and try your own version of this. And it's real simple. Read the text, sit quietly for about a minute, read the text again, but then just open up the dialogue, invite God into this, invite the spirit into this, and ask yourself, what is this text saying to me today?

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

And then let the conversation unfold and let it go past the words on the page. See where your imagination takes you with that.

unknown 38:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Um so those are my two.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Hal, what do you got? Okay. Um Scott is more comfortable being quiet than me. So yes, I am. So feel free to do uh your version of this. Because for me, um my version of this would be to read the story um and then to maybe pace around, maybe call your friend, um, maybe like um do some journaling or some art or something. Um just spend some time and reflection. Um that really is uh a good portion of it.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Um another thing that I'm I'm just gonna throw in here that all of that is wrong.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Yes, that very good suggestion.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Um because listen, being quiet is awesome, but if it like makes you queasy, you can do other things. Um so and then another suggestion for me there are forums on um, for example, Reddit, um, places like r slash open Christian. Um if you are of the Episcopalian persuasion, you can go to R slash Episcopalian, and then you'll find others from there. Um if you have a specific question, there are all kinds of nerds that are excited to answer it. Um that's another place where you can find community. So I encourage you to check those types of things out. Um and finally, um go outside. Um, hang out in places that you know are for queer people, hang out in places that you know are for um people doing good works, whether that be mutual aid, whether that be um advocacy, because you're going to find people who are on the same journey as you because they also are honing their moral compass and moving towards a better world. And ultimately, that's also what we are doing.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah. I what when you were just talking, um, I had one other thought, and that is uh lately we've seen, and I think I was reading something, I think nationally, there's been a little bit of a shift of folks, more folks kind of wanting to return to church. Yeah, you know, it's on that massive downside for a very long time, and it's yeah, it's turning a little bit, and we've seen it turning towards like the mega churches and the fundamentalist versions, but we're starting to see it turn towards the progressive churches as well. Like more folks are kind of coming through the doors, and we've we've seen that um at our church lately, not like a huge inner, but but a noticeable uptick. Um and so don't be afraid to A find a church and go through the doors and and check it out for yourself. And B, if you do, don't be afraid, like Hal was saying earlier in this podcast, don't be afraid to ask your questions. Yep. Don't be afraid to ask the hard questions on your first visit. Um I feel like I feel like we can say pretty confidently at this point, both working for Episcopal churches and knowing a lot of like ELCA churches and a lot of Methodist churches, a lot of like the similarly positioned churches out there, the progressive mainline churches, um we're really happy to hear your questions and to answer your questions and to engage with you. Yep. Um don't feel like you're gonna scare us off or ask the forbidden question.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

There are genuinely no forbidden questions. If you walk into uh a church and you do get met with a cold reception, that's not a place you want to be.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a great thing. There's your answer. All right, next one on my list.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Um but I have to say, it's I think a lot rarer than you're gonna expect it to be. Yeah, and the qu like ask a question that you think is maybe rude. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

That is a great way to end it because what did doubting Thomas do? He asked a good question that the rest of the group thought was rude. Amen on that. Amen. All right.