The New Evangelicals | Tim Whitaker

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Pull up a chair across the counter.

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Your one-stop shop for a variety of perspectives around Jesus and Christianity.

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I'm Grant Lockridge and I'm here with Tim Whitaker.

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Tim is the host of the New Evangelicals podcast and, Tim, I've been looking at your Instagram and all the stuff and I'm just curious about where you've landed, specifically on the topic of hell.

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Wow, we're just hopping right into it.

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No, hello, no.

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How's your life, man?

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No, no, how's your life, man?

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Wow, we'll go with that.

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We'll go with that.

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I feel so attacked and then we'll hit hell later.

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Is this what persecution is like?

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Is persecution, just you know it?

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What persecution?

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is like Is persecution?

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Just, you know, it's not the old evangelicals, it's the new evangelicals right now, through that, I have no, yeah, I mean, we can start with hell for real, though.

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Should we just go for it?

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Well, you said you had a hard stop, so I figured let's get to the meat of it, because that's what I wanted to ask you.

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So what do you want to know, though?

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Like what is it about what I've been saying recently that has sparked your interest?

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I'm curious what has sparked my interest?

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Because I've been um as a christian.

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I've noticed that I haven't really looked in to that topic at all, which seems stupid.

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But like you know what I mean, like you, just you hear, you hear people talk about it and you're like there's heaven and there's hell, and hell for eternity.

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And you know it's eternity of suffering, it's the worst thing you could ever imagine, ever and forever.

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And that's that's hard stop.

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And if you're a Christian, that's what you believe.

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So yeah, yeah, that's what I've been taught.

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Well, I mean same.

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Yeah, that's what I've been taught.

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Well, I mean same same.

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I mean I prayed a prayer many a times because I did not want to be eternally and consciously tormented forever, and praying to Jesus was my way out of that.

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Well, yeah, it's interesting.

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Obviously I'm someone who would say I've quote, unquote, deconstructed, but my view of hell didn't.

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That wasn't like a recent thought, meaning like it wasn't like I started.

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Tne discovered deconstruction was like oh my gosh, I'm going to rethink hell.

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I've been learning different perspectives about hell from even evangelical people for years.

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Nt Wright, who's a pretty well-accepted scholar in the world of evangelicalism.

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His take on heaven and hell is phenomenal.

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He argues that it's not really about heaven when you die, it's about the new earth, it's about life after life, after death.

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That's what he says.

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So I think for a long time I've been rethinking this.

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Heaven is where the streets of gold are and where you have your mansion, and hell is where you're essentially on fire forever.

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So I think for a long time I thought, well, is that the narrative A of scripture and B?

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Are there other ways to think about these things?

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Right, et cetera.

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So anyway, yeah, so I have landed.

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Well, there's different ways to parse this.

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I believe that a more clear narrative, at least in the New Testament and Old Testament, is probably the perspective of what's known as annihilationism.

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However, even then we can say well, is that true Meaning when we die?

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Is that what happens to us Now?

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Obviously I hold the Bible in some way or shape or form as authoritative.

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I can't prove this is what's going to happen, but if I had to guess, if I had a belief in the afterlife, I would probably hold to a view of annihilationism which essentially argues that those outside of Christ just eventually cease to exist.

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They will just not be conscious, they just stop existing, and those inside of Christ will go on to live eternally in the new heaven and new earth, essentially when God's space overlaps with our space and is reconciled.

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That's what I would hold now, and then second I would hold, like my second level would be universal reconciliation, and then my third perspective would be ECT eternal conscious torment.

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At this point, there you go Just for our listeners.

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There you go, just for our listeners, because you say that you are a deconstructionist.

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But I think that that means a lot of things to a lot of different people.

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As far as you know, most the to me, when I hear deconstructionist, I think of someone who's left the faith, uh-huh, of someone who's left the faith, which is not, you know.

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I don't think that's the real definition of it.

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I've just been, you know, pretty much taught that like deconstruction means like hey, this Jesus thing's some nonsense.

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But I know that, you know, the deconstruction of ideas is basically, you know, bringing them down to the root of the idea and then hopefully, rebuilding off of that.

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So would you say, you're more into that camp.

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Yeah, this is a very important question because, depending on who you listen to, you're going to get different perspectives.

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Here's what I would tell people.

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I guess we all think this, but I'm going to argue that what I'm going to say best reflects the reality of what's happening.

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Deconstruction is an explosion.

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People are going in very different directions.

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It's not a movement.

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There's no official networking of leaders, there's no statements of faith, there's no grand plan to destroy the church.

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That's not what's happening here.

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It is an explosion in the sense of a lot of us have common pain points and then from there we go in different ways.

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Some people stay in the Christian tradition and explore beyond evangelical fundamentalism.

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Some people leave the house completely and say I want to deconvert, I want to either not believe anything religious or find a different religion entirely.

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They are both valid ways of quote unquote, deconstructing for how we think about it in our common cultural moment.

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I definitely, and the organization the New Evangelicals.

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We are firmly committed to the way of Jesus as best as we know how at any given time.

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So deconstruction simply means to be renegotiating or rethinking our faith in a way that, hopefully, is more congruent with the teachings of Jesus, that promotes the human flourishing of all of our neighbors.

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Maybe one way to think about it is people who work with us oftentimes did not have a crisis of faith.

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They had a crisis of theology.

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Massive difference.

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I had a crisis of theology.

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It wasn't.

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Does God exist or even is Jesus God?

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No, I never really doubted that.

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For me as a belief, it was well, what do I believe about this Jesus and this God, and how does this deity move through the world and what does this deity advocate for?

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It was more of that than it was if God exists or not.

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Yeah, well, there's the hell thing now.

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How are you doing what you've been up to recently?

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oh, as far as like me personally yeah oh you know, just bringing marxism to the world and destroying everything that's.

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That's religious dude karl marx is the best.

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No, I'm just kidding.

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Who's the best?

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I will tell you it's funny.

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I've been reading I'm reading a book right now by a conservative white evangelical guy.

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Uh, who, who, who studied critic who?

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Well, he studied critical theory and critical race theory, like professionally, and I'm I the book overall I've been really enjoying, and he concedes that, um, tools like critical theory and even marxism are really good at diagnosing a lot of the problems that we're seeing today.

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Now, their solutions might not be great, they might not have good answers, but they're really good tools to diagnose the problem.

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So I thought that was funny because I've been learning like, yeah, this actually is helping me see the world differently.

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What have I been up to?

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I mean, we're a nonprofit so I've been busy doing T&E stuff.

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There's a lot of stuff that we're working on trying to expand her content and trying to advocate for accountability in spaces and thinking about how do we do more content more consistently, how do we fundraise to pay for it.

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It's a pretty all-encompassing world.

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Man.

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A lot of my day is trying to wear several hats, from funding to board member, to content creator, to networker.

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We're writing a book, so there's just a lot going on.

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And then on the weekends I play music professionally, so I'm playing gigs usually Friday, saturday and sometimes even Sunday, so it's a pretty busy life, you're writing a book.

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That's cool.

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Yeah, yeah, it's coming out through Erdman's.

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It should be out sometime next year.

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But, yeah, we got contracted to do a book that hopefully tells a bit of my story but also the story of TNE and kind of what we're hoping for to happen as far as thinking about church and Christianity and hopefully some better ways than whatever we were given as evangelical fundamentalists.

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So I'm excited for it.

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Yeah, that's cool.

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Are you personally writing it or is it kind of a team percentage, so that way a lot of the bulk of it's going to fund the organization and not just like promoting me as an individual.

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Because I think sometimes in church culture we have like this mega church problem where someone gets really big, then they start writing their own books and they start kind of having their own brand separate from the church, and I didn't want to have that same kind of thing happen to me, where now I'm building the brand of Tim Whitaker and not TNE To me.

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I'm symbiotic, I'm totally intertwined with the organization.

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Yeah, Well, that's good One that you know that, Because me and my wife were talking about this yesterday.

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We were like, if you could be famous, would you want to be?

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And both of our answers were no.

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As far as far as like a household name like we were talking about Miley Cyrus, which is just you know whatever, but like just somebody that's a household name that you know.

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You go on the street and people recognize you all the time and all that stuff Would you want to be that, Right?

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And?

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And you thought about, we thought about it, and it was like you know the network aspect, like being able to talk to whoever, whoever you wanted to, basically would be cool, yeah, but all in all, like that doesn't sound that fun.

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Yeah, I mean, yeah, for sure.

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I have thought about.

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I mean, I'm no Miley Cyrus, nor will I ever be or want to be, but for people like that, whose face is so recognizable wherever they go, it's got to get exhausting just always being on, because people build up this certain perception of you and certain kind of grumpy that day which is a perfectly normal human emotion and paparazzi were in your face the whole way here, and then some fans like can you sign my shirt?

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And you're just.

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You're just like no, I can't do that.

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You walk away and that's recorded and goes viral.

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That one clip of you being grumpy for one second is the new.

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Oh, this person's a jerk.

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They don't appreciate their fans.

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It's like no, they just had a bad day, like.

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We all have bad days, right.

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So I'm with you.

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I don't think I would want to have that level of scrutiny, where everything I'm doing is being examined and posted online, judged by a billion people at any given time.

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That's why we're podcast house.

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That's why Because you can't see us very good.

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And that's why we talk about faith and theology, things that will never become incredibly mainstream.

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I'm trying to do a little unity action, which is just never going to be popular.

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Yeah, no, definitely not.

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Let's all come together and sing kumbaya.

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Yeah, good luck.

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Good luck, bro, I'm out.

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Donald Trump is my savior.

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No, I'm just kidding.

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I knew that that would get you, because that's you got me you got that's your whole thing, uh not your whole.

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Thing but that's, you know, one of the reasons.

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It's a fashion point.

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It's a fashion point there's no doubt.

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I mean and that's valid on both sides a lot of people you know left their current faith traditions based off of that.

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Oh yeah, the whole donald trump white evangelical situation.

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So a hundred percent.

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Yeah, I mean, I'm trump, just on.

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On, he unveiled some deeper things that I don't think a lot of us saw and then when he unveiled it, it was like oh no, I'm out, like no, thank you, I, I this is not what I signed up for, you know.

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So definitely a polarizing figure, to put it as politely as I possibly can think of so you're not gonna buy the trump bible I debated it.

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You know I actually I used tne money so I bought three of them.

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I figure it's not my money, you know yeah, you're just a part of it, you're not.

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You're not the main guy, it's fine exactly so you can spend it on whatever I have no accountability, I just swipe, swipe, swipe, you know yeah no, that's, that's.

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That's something, man, just the whole, and I do get that of leaving.

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I don't even know so when you say white evangelical christianity yeah what specifically are you referring to?

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oh boy.

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Well, I mean this is.

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I mean you could do a three-hour podcast on this.

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The term evangelical is incredibly slippery.

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You can ask any scholar who studies this stuff.

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You can ask is Isaac Sharp, you can ask Christian Dumais.

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It's hard to define because you can define it sociologically, theologically, culturally, historically.

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It's a very influx term.

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There are things like the Bebbington quadrilateral that will kind of give some theological core values to what makes an evangelical an evangelical.

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Wait, what the heck is that?

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oh, the bebington quadrilateral, yeah, um essentially the word that is bebington, it's named after a man.

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I'm gonna just make sure I'm not, um, not making sense, but yeah, the bebington quadrilateral, it's essentially four points of evangelicalism.

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So it says that, okay, these are the four things that make up an evangelical theologically, but biblicism, emphasis on the authority of scripture, crucicentrism, centrality of the atonement, conversionism and activism in evangelicalism on issues of social justice.

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So they kind of merge those two together.

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Um, so essentially it's those.

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Yeah, it's a lot of isms and they're very broad, right, because I would probably agree with a lot of these, but me and I don't know Elisa Childers would have very, very different outworkings of the same four statements, right.

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So you could think about it like that.

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So when I, when we're talking about white evangelicals, it's literally a voting demographic as well.

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I mean, we measure religious groups all the time.

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Pew Research has black evangelicals, black Protestants, white evangelicals, white Protestants, catholics, white Catholics.

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So what has happened is, with the rise of the moral majority in the 70s and 80s this is Jerry Falwell kind of inventing this new category where he took evangelicals that were not really super into politics.

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They weren't really a big, I mean, they voted, but they voted usually Democrat or Democratic, not for Republicans, and they weren't like organized around central issues.

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So Jimmy Carter was an evangelical who got elected by evangelicals.

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Jerry Falla flips that and really gets white evangelicals to become this massive voting block that, ever since the election of Reagan, have completely switched.

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Gets white evangelicals to become this massive voting block that, ever since the election of Reagan, have completely switched how most evangelicals vote today who are white, which is they usually go conservative or for the Republican.

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So I mean the data behind this would be in 2016, I think it was 70% of white evangelicals voted for Trump and in 2020, it was like 80%.

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It actually rose.

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So white evangelicals historically have always and in 2020, it was like 80 it actually rose.

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So white evangelicals historically have always been in the mode of if it's a republican, you vote for him it's uh.

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It went from 70 in 2016 to 80 in 2020 yeah, it jumped.

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It jumped definitely between five and ten percentage points.

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Yeah okay, yeah, which was more discouraging to me.

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Yeah, you guys had four years of this man dehumanizing and lying about everything and you went up in support.

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Yikes, you know.

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So that's just me, all right.

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Well, feel free to not answer this question and we can cut this, but I got to know who you're voting for then.

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I'm definitely not voting for.

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Well, hold on, let me back up, I'm speaking.

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Are you voting for Trump?

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It feels like no, no, no.

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I just want to be clear, because we're a nonprofit, this is not an endorsement, regarding the organization of TNE, of who you should or should not vote for.

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This is Tim Whitaker, speaking personally for my own thoughts that are not related to TNE.

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At this moment, I want to save democracy, so Biden becomes a very potential choice.

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However, I've been very disappointed in how he's still funding the nation state of Israel with billions of dollars of weapons that are killing tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, so I have a lot of hangups with how he's handling that situation.

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The other side of it, I think well, trump and Biden would both be terrible on Gaza, and I think one wants to light our democracy on fire, and one we can at least survive the next four years as a democracy and hopefully get an actual presidential figure in the White House.

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In the fall.

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I mean I miss Mitt Romney, bro.

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I'm like can we, can we get Mitt Romney back?

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Like I would be in here, man, yeah, I'm just saying like you think about who it was before Trump, mccain, romney, even Bush.

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I mean you know you can critique him for being a warmonger, and there's plenty of critique there, but like I dare I say I almost miss those guys.

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I miss Mitt Romney for sure.

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Mitt Romney saw that the election was installed.

00:17:51.505 --> 00:17:52.365
He couldn't certify.

00:17:52.365 --> 00:17:55.169
He certified it right and now he's seen as like a pariah.

00:17:55.169 --> 00:17:57.771
He's seen as a rhino Republican in name only.

00:17:57.771 --> 00:18:17.678
So it's just so sad to see how far things have drifted, where some people really think that Joe Biden, who is still funding the mass slaughter of Palestinians with billions of of dollars of aid, is somehow a far left like radical.

00:18:17.678 --> 00:18:18.398
That's not far left radical, I promise, like.

00:18:18.398 --> 00:18:20.450
I promise you, that is not a far left radical position at all.

00:18:20.450 --> 00:18:21.131
Uh.

00:18:21.131 --> 00:18:22.973
So it's just very interesting to to see that.

00:18:22.973 --> 00:18:26.220
But yeah, I'll probably vote for either biden or a third party.

00:18:26.220 --> 00:18:31.309
I'm just undecided based on on on what's happening overseas right now rfk?

00:18:31.349 --> 00:18:35.340
baby, no, I'm just kidding.

00:18:35.340 --> 00:18:36.042
He's got a brand.

00:18:36.063 --> 00:18:40.497
You can, oh boy it's just, it's shocking to see, like, what our options are.

00:18:40.497 --> 00:18:44.426
I mean, and they're like okay, think about it like this right, I watched all the.

00:18:44.426 --> 00:18:45.836
I watched the gop primaries.

00:18:45.836 --> 00:18:53.362
Chris christie, I he's, that's my former governor he left in disgrace for some Nonsense scandals.

00:18:53.362 --> 00:18:57.623
Nothing that was like sexual, it was just like it was politics stuff.

00:18:57.976 --> 00:19:06.478
But that man is on the GOP Presidential debate you know Conversation saying, hey, I think that parents should be able to manage their trans Kids health care.

00:19:06.478 --> 00:19:13.624
I think that the government should stay out of how they manage their health care with their primary doctor I'm you, chris Christie.

00:19:13.624 --> 00:19:16.278
This is a perfectly reasonable, insane position.

00:19:16.278 --> 00:19:17.944
And he was one of the first people to go.

00:19:17.944 --> 00:19:21.759
And he also said that the election was not stolen and that Trump's a liar.

00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:37.461
So there were some GOP people who I was like man, I would actually really want to take some of their stuff seriously, but they were some of the first to go and instead it came down to, I think, what DeSantis, ramaswamy at one point, and Nikki Haley and Trump, and we all knew Trump was going to win.

00:19:37.595 --> 00:19:52.698
So it's just frustrating because I don't want to sound hyper-partisan, but what do you guys give me to work with here the guy's on trial.

00:19:52.698 --> 00:19:55.555
Criminal trial for potentially paying out-of funds, hush money to silence a porn star that he slept with while he was married.

00:19:55.555 --> 00:19:58.837
You want me to be like as a Christian.

00:19:58.837 --> 00:19:59.821
That's my dude.

00:19:59.821 --> 00:20:01.200
Are you serious?

00:20:01.200 --> 00:20:03.326
Are you serious right now?

00:20:03.326 --> 00:20:04.635
What is wrong with you?

00:20:04.635 --> 00:20:05.397
Of course not.

00:20:07.303 --> 00:20:07.564
Yeah.

00:20:07.845 --> 00:20:08.646
Anyway, end of rant.

00:20:10.634 --> 00:20:22.153
Well, to me it's just so interesting that it's clear, because I'm kind of more or less on a unity situation, right.

00:20:22.153 --> 00:20:29.048
Yeah, I'm just like trying to bring people together, hear ideas, not, you know, really argue with people.

00:20:29.048 --> 00:20:35.903
I'm just kind of trying to, you know, talk to different people, get different, different perspectives, so that we can all grow together.

00:20:35.903 --> 00:21:00.057
And I'll tell you what people just apparently are not interested in unity, which kind of blew my mind a little bit, not like necessarily for the podcast, because it's you, you know, going okay, but just like, as far as like actually getting people together, loving your neighbor, that sort of thing.

00:21:01.161 --> 00:21:13.213
I'm just confused how people of at least the Christian faith and beyond aren't necessarily incredibly interested in that, like that not, at least, you know.

00:21:13.213 --> 00:21:23.505
And the reason I brought that up is just because democrats and republicans or whatever, two sides of anything wouldn't you think that there'd be like a ton of christians on both sides?

00:21:23.505 --> 00:21:34.359
If there are christians on both sides which there are but wouldn't you think, like most christians on both sides, which there are, but wouldn't you think most Christians on both sides would be like, hey, loving each other?

00:21:34.359 --> 00:21:40.769
Because I thought that, but maybe I'm just naive man.

00:21:41.634 --> 00:21:42.999
Maybe I'm biased here.

00:21:42.999 --> 00:21:45.003
Let me just preface with what I'm going to say.

00:21:45.003 --> 00:21:46.195
It could be very much biased.

00:21:46.195 --> 00:21:46.917
I don't think it is.

00:21:46.917 --> 00:21:48.823
I think that I have data to back this up.

00:21:48.823 --> 00:21:59.082
You're definitely going to find Christians who are more progressive, who are going to be pretty hardline and like no, we can't even shake hands with people who would vote Republican.

00:21:59.082 --> 00:22:01.106
That definitely exists.

00:22:02.154 --> 00:22:13.542
But, man, it just seems like the right flank of evangelicalism by and large is the one that is just so hardline, and not just even hardline, they're just brutally dehumanizing.

00:22:13.542 --> 00:22:18.645
I mean, are you following this whole Preston Sprinkle controversy happening right now between him and Elisa Childers?

00:22:18.645 --> 00:22:19.508
No, no.

00:22:19.508 --> 00:22:27.160
So I don't know how much your audience knows these names, but Elisa Childers is a fundamentalist Christian who has a pretty big podcast platform.

00:22:27.160 --> 00:22:38.352
She's totally went down the rabbit hole of like if you're gay and a Christian, you have to not say you're gay and essentially pray it away and like even the thought about you being attracted to someone of the same sex is inherently sinful.

00:22:38.352 --> 00:22:41.439
So she's taking like a very hard line position on this.

00:22:41.940 --> 00:22:47.397
Preston Sprinkle is someone who has said I would take a bullet for historic marriage.

00:22:47.397 --> 00:23:01.018
He's not affirming, but his approach is much more like hey, I accept that there are side B Christians which are people who are gay, who are celibate, but they would still say, hey, I'm a gay Christian, I just choose to be celibate.

00:23:01.018 --> 00:23:09.423
So Preston would be like hey, I believe that that could be a thing and we should show hospitality I affirm using someone's pronouns just to be kind to them, et cetera.

00:23:09.423 --> 00:23:19.807
And people like Elisa are like I'm not kidding you, they're like Preston Sprinkles a heretic, he's preaching a false gospel just because he's too kind to them, because he's too hospitable to them.

00:23:20.316 --> 00:23:27.676
And so it's like I just see these moves in these spaces of people drifting to this right where, like, it's not even about hey, we hold a difference here.

00:23:27.676 --> 00:23:38.726
It's about no, if you're even kind to these people, if you even think about, if I smell one whiff of you being potentially liberal, meaning hey, god says to welcome the immigrant, oh my God, you want open borders.

00:23:38.726 --> 00:23:41.548
That's what I see, that all day in these spaces.

00:23:41.548 --> 00:23:51.919
So I think, like I mean, I go to these events, I shake hands with these people, I'm going to talk to them and try and reason.

00:23:51.919 --> 00:23:56.755
In my experience, a lot of them don't feel like I don't feel like it's reciprocated nearly as much personally yeah, that's just my take.

00:23:56.775 --> 00:24:09.420
I could be biased here well, I mean, that's also your personal experience, so you're not saying everyone everywhere, you're just saying in my personal experience, which is totally, yeah, that's valid every time.

00:24:09.420 --> 00:24:17.635
I mean, if you're like hey, my personal experience is this, then right, yeah, absolutely I just don't know how we overcome some of these massive differences.

00:24:17.977 --> 00:24:30.240
Right, if I'm saying queer people have a right to exist in the country and are loved by god and it's not inherently sinful for them to be queer, and someone's like, no, sorry, um, I don't think that we should affirm a marriage.

00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:35.606
You know gay marriage in America and I don't think I think that if you hold this view, you're not a true Christian.

00:24:35.606 --> 00:24:43.720
It's like well, well, I think that you're a Christian, even though we disagree, and they're like no, but you're not a real Christian.

00:24:43.720 --> 00:25:03.568
It's like well, how can I move forward with you If you think I'm a heretic over this issue, if you think that you can't break bread with me because I'm affirming the dignity and humanity of queer people and saying they have a right to exist and to love who they want to love, and you're like, sorry, bridge, too far, heretic, all right, like, what do I do with that?

00:25:03.568 --> 00:25:04.029
Besides say okay, okay.

00:25:04.790 --> 00:25:19.901
Yeah, I mean, I guess the question there would be how much do you have to believe like a person to be in the same community as them, right, like, does it have to be infant baptism?

00:25:19.901 --> 00:25:24.381
Like, if we're all on infant baptism, we can make a little community over here.

00:25:24.381 --> 00:25:27.579
And then anybody that's like, hey, I'd like a believer's baptism.

00:25:27.579 --> 00:25:29.135
It's like, hey, go to the Baptist thing.

00:25:29.135 --> 00:25:30.773
Or is it just?

00:25:30.773 --> 00:25:36.417
You know, we all are trying our best to follow Jesus and we all believe differently and that's kind of okay.

00:25:36.417 --> 00:25:39.157
Like, what do you think about that?

00:25:39.809 --> 00:25:47.401
Well, I think for fundamentalism like it's an impossible thing to do, because fundamentalism of any kind insists that they have the boundaries on what's acceptable.

00:25:47.401 --> 00:25:50.042
So the second you're one degree away from the fundamentalist.

00:25:50.042 --> 00:25:51.663
You're just no longer in the true faith.

00:25:51.663 --> 00:25:55.086
This can happen in Catholic spaces, this can happen in Protestant spaces.

00:25:55.126 --> 00:26:08.175
It's not just an evangelical problem, but I think that a lot of us are coming out of what really is a fundamentalist evangelical view where if you think that the Bible is not inerrant in the modernist sense, you're not a true Christian.

00:26:08.175 --> 00:26:17.624
I mean, ken Ham, who runs a Young Earth Creations quote unquote science center, has said if you don't hold to Young Earth Creationism, you don't really believe the true gospel.

00:26:17.624 --> 00:26:32.198
So a lot of these folks just draw these boundaries where you're like again, I don't think that you're not a true Christian, ken Ham, for having this view, but you think I'm not a true Christian, so I'm willing to work and reason with you, but it seems like you're not willing to work and reason with me.

00:26:32.198 --> 00:26:35.720
So it is what it is.

00:26:35.720 --> 00:26:37.355
It's out of my control ultimately.

00:26:38.398 --> 00:26:40.951
Yeah, I guess.

00:26:40.951 --> 00:26:53.557
So what's the best way to you to love people that are way different than you in the, in the Christian tradition, but also, you know, just really anybody like?

00:26:53.557 --> 00:26:57.560
How do you, how do you love these people if they're just like absolutely toasting you all the time?

00:26:58.183 --> 00:27:04.791
Yeah Well, I mean this is, you know, people always ask, especially folks who, um, um, who, who think I'm not a true Christian, they go.

00:27:04.791 --> 00:27:09.538
You're just, you just want to go along with your feelings, you just want to do whatever feels good.

00:27:09.538 --> 00:27:17.097
And so one time someone asked me so, tim, what Christian belief do you hold, or what biblical belief do you hold that you're uncomfortable holding?

00:27:17.097 --> 00:27:20.153
Trying to challenge me, I said easy enemy love.

00:27:20.153 --> 00:27:24.381
I don't want to love my enemies, Do you?

00:27:24.381 --> 00:27:27.173
I don't, I don't want to treat you like an equal.

00:27:27.575 --> 00:27:29.059
Sometimes, sometimes I don't like Trump.

00:27:29.059 --> 00:27:35.711
I wanted to humanize him.

00:27:35.711 --> 00:27:44.396
So I think that for me, it comes down to having this posture of a posture of openness, like, hey, I'm willing to talk to you, I want to talk, and hoping that through that posture we can have a conversation.

00:27:44.396 --> 00:27:46.481
If they keep roasting me, it just is what it is.

00:27:46.481 --> 00:27:47.603
You know, like I mean, I can't control.

00:27:47.603 --> 00:27:52.346
Control that it doesn't bother me, but I I do my best not to repay evil for evil, meaning it's one thing.

00:27:52.385 --> 00:27:53.826
To critique ideas, I get it.

00:27:53.826 --> 00:27:54.946
We all have different theologies.

00:27:54.946 --> 00:27:57.172
The bible is complicated, the christian tradition is massive.

00:27:57.172 --> 00:28:00.741
We're gonna have views that were like no, I don't like this view that you have.

00:28:00.741 --> 00:28:02.333
That's legit and valid.

00:28:02.333 --> 00:28:13.280
But once you start calling people, you know piles of garbage and that they're just terrible and they're evil and they're whatever, it is For me that, or we start making fun of what they look like To me.

00:28:13.280 --> 00:28:14.551
That's where I always draw the line.

00:28:14.551 --> 00:28:21.637
So I've had people make characters of me and post them online, trying to mock what I look like or my eyebrows or something, and it doesn't bother me at all.

00:28:21.637 --> 00:28:29.597
But I just have a policy of not doing that to them Because I think once you do that, it continues the cycle of chaos that we're trying so desperately to stop.

00:28:30.858 --> 00:28:33.303
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely fair.

00:28:33.303 --> 00:28:46.196
So you obviously I knew this from the last interview, but you would say that you are a Christian, which is yes, and so who would you say, or who do you say Jesus is?

00:28:47.839 --> 00:28:50.202
Jesus is God incarnate.

00:28:51.365 --> 00:28:55.237
Okay, so you're God incarnate son of God.

00:28:55.897 --> 00:29:04.541
Yeah, in that situation, oh yeah, I have no problem telling people bluntly I affirm Orthodox Christian beliefs the Trinity, the virgin birth, the Apostles' Creed Absolutely.

00:29:04.541 --> 00:29:20.599
But I also and I think this is the difference and this is why people get worried, especially ones who are more conservative I'm also willing to acknowledge that those beliefs came from somewhere and that they might not actually be historically true, meaning I can't prove to you that Jesus was born of a virgin.

00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:23.054
I can't prove that I hold it as a belief.

00:29:23.054 --> 00:29:28.034
But I also understand that it's a pretty tall order to claim it's a miraculous thing, right?

00:29:28.034 --> 00:29:31.200
So I have no problem when someone says hey, tim, I'm a Christian.

00:29:31.641 --> 00:29:37.672
I did a lot of research on this word virgin, like the gospels and also Mark who wrote the earliest gospel, never mentions the virgin birth.

00:29:37.672 --> 00:29:39.174
I'm not so convinced this happened.

00:29:39.174 --> 00:29:43.111
What I don't do is go oh, how could you be a Christian?

00:29:43.111 --> 00:29:45.114
It's like well, no, I understand how you can get there.

00:29:45.114 --> 00:29:46.875
I would affirm it differently.

00:29:46.875 --> 00:29:57.824
But I also understand what you're saying, because if we use logical faculties and reason and we do study some of these words, we start seeing how you know Matthew and Luke.

00:29:57.824 --> 00:30:00.012
They're kind of like riffing off of other things happening.

00:30:00.012 --> 00:30:02.223
And it could have been could be more metaphor, that's all.

00:30:02.223 --> 00:30:07.256
It's a plausible scenario, even though I would still affirm that Jesus was Jesus was born of a virgin right.

00:30:07.256 --> 00:30:12.125
So I give more leeway to other folks who would see it differently, and for some people that's just a bridge too far.

00:30:13.549 --> 00:30:15.353
Yeah.

00:30:15.353 --> 00:30:21.852
So people have told you like, hey, you're not a Christian because you're willing to think about those things.

00:30:22.554 --> 00:30:33.243
Yeah, I mean totally, I've been called not a Christian, over my belief, of course, over queer inclusion, because I don't think that the Bible is inerrant, or because I've said that I've had friends who would say things like that.

00:30:33.243 --> 00:30:38.001
And I'm like, yeah, I get it, you know, and I would not not call them a Christian because of that.

00:30:38.001 --> 00:30:41.472
And then we go, we'll see, that's what I'm talking about, that's not orthodox, okay, like I'm.

00:30:41.472 --> 00:30:45.375
You know, you're always someone's heretic, right, everyone is someone's heretic.

00:30:45.375 --> 00:30:48.417
So what are you going to do, like the Christian?

00:30:48.417 --> 00:30:55.403
Well, humankind, but Christianity has been fighting over who's a heretic, who's in, who's out, since the beginning.

00:30:55.403 --> 00:30:57.105
You know, we used to burn people at the stake.

00:30:57.105 --> 00:30:58.806
Now we just rage tweet them.

00:30:58.806 --> 00:31:00.067
That's an upgrade to me.

00:31:04.030 --> 00:31:05.996
I'd rather be rage tweeted at than be burned at the stake.

00:31:05.996 --> 00:31:08.000
So you don't believe the Bible is inerrant?

00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:10.877
Yeah, what does that mean?

00:31:11.730 --> 00:31:22.621
Well, I'm thinking about the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, where, essentially, they affirm that the Bible makes accurate scientific, historical and moral truth claims in all the stories it tells.

00:31:22.621 --> 00:31:29.673
So essentially, it's like a literal way of reading Genesis 1 and 2, things like that, and I just disagree.

00:31:29.673 --> 00:31:32.373
I don't think that's what's happening at all.

00:31:32.373 --> 00:31:40.239
When Jesus says, even to the ends of the earth, I think he really believes that the earth is flat, which would make sense, because how would he know?

00:31:40.239 --> 00:31:40.721
It's not.

00:31:40.721 --> 00:31:43.253
We just discovered that.

00:31:43.253 --> 00:31:46.727
That's a new discovery in the terms of human history, right?

00:31:46.727 --> 00:31:49.314
So I don't think that the Bible is a science book.

00:31:49.314 --> 00:31:51.459
I don't think that it's always telling, accurate.

00:31:51.459 --> 00:32:01.520
What Tim Mackey might call is like camcorder footage of history, and I think that archaeological data shows that, like the story of Jericho, the Battle of Jericho probably didn't happen the way it was described.

00:32:01.520 --> 00:32:04.494
The Exodus story probably didn't happen the way it was described.

00:32:04.494 --> 00:32:12.500
That doesn't negate the truth of those stories, though, and one of my examples is you know, think about Lord of the Rings, the movies or the books, whatever one you want to read.

00:32:12.500 --> 00:32:19.931
They're not factual accounts of history, but they are true in the story that they tell about the human condition.

00:32:19.931 --> 00:32:28.596
So the problem for the fundamentalists is that they have mapped on truth and fact in the Bible and merged it.

00:32:28.596 --> 00:32:31.343
So if it's not factual, it's therefore not truthful.

00:32:31.343 --> 00:32:32.575
Therefore, you can't trust it.

00:32:32.575 --> 00:32:33.996
Therefore it's not really God's word.

00:32:34.410 --> 00:32:40.698
I think that factual piece is a very modern understanding of what we think about when we talk about history and biography.

00:32:40.698 --> 00:32:44.420
Biographers in the ancient world don't write biographies like how we do today.

00:32:44.420 --> 00:32:46.217
They don't tell history like how we do today.

00:32:46.217 --> 00:32:52.583
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have four very different agendas when it comes to how they tell the story of Jesus.

00:32:52.583 --> 00:32:55.486
That's why they don't always line up and sometimes there's contradiction.

00:32:55.846 --> 00:32:57.346
It doesn't mean that they're not true.

00:32:57.346 --> 00:33:04.093
It just means that they had different motives than trying to record all the exact wording or exact stories, the exact way that they happen.

00:33:04.093 --> 00:33:20.702
But for people like me, maybe for you or for folks listening, that can come across so unsettling because for so long we were told, if this didn't really happen, there's nothing to pin our faith to, and I just think that is too binary and it's not nuanced enough.

00:33:20.702 --> 00:33:31.904
If we're reading Genesis 1 or Exodus or Leviticus with the same voice that we're reading Matthew, Mark or John or Romans, we're missing it because they're not written by the same people.

00:33:31.904 --> 00:33:40.159
They have different agendas, different purposes, different times in history, different cultural contexts that shaped why those people wrote what they wrote.

00:33:40.159 --> 00:33:43.971
So it's just not fair to apply the same monolithic voice over all the texts.

00:33:45.352 --> 00:33:55.998
Yeah, I mean, I would definitely agree with you on that, just as far as some books are written as poetry, some are written historically.

00:33:55.998 --> 00:33:58.059
So I do believe you know some things.

00:33:58.059 --> 00:34:15.139
You know completely accurate to me as far as the numbers they use and stuff like that.

00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:25.523
Like, I would totally agree with that because, yeah, well, what I would say is I don't think that those inaccuracies are are are unintentional meaning.

00:34:25.523 --> 00:34:35.360
I don't think that like that, that, that, that, that, that I don't think that the author of Exodus counted and was like, okay, I got a million, and then it was like, whoops, actually it was 60,000.

00:34:35.740 --> 00:34:42.614
I just think that way that numbers are used in the Hebrew language, the way that it's just a very different way of thinking about the world.

00:34:42.614 --> 00:34:44.217
It's just a very different understanding.

00:34:44.217 --> 00:34:46.693
So I think that's the problem.

00:34:46.693 --> 00:34:54.059
Sometimes, I see, between this ultra-progressive or ultra-right wing where it's like sometimes they both denigrate the text.

00:34:54.059 --> 00:34:57.235
One's like, oh, they're a bunch of made-up fables that mean nothing.

00:34:57.235 --> 00:35:05.072
And others are like no, this is the inerrant, imperfect and infallible word of God and we have to accept everything it says at face value and as literal as possible.

00:35:05.072 --> 00:35:20.181
And it's like well, maybe there's more going on here besides either of these paradigms, and maybe both of these are mapping on modernist understandings of a collection of texts whose authors had no such notions of a modernist worldview, right?

00:35:20.181 --> 00:35:30.277
So maybe if we think about, or maybe if we use the data that we have to understand the Bible on its own terms, maybe then we'll get some of the deeper truths that are hidden in the text.

00:35:31.239 --> 00:35:39.735
Yeah, and I I think you're on this team too, but I am on very much the team that everything in it is true, if that makes sense.

00:35:39.735 --> 00:35:45.018
True in the sense of you know, leads to truth, kind of like.

00:35:45.018 --> 00:36:04.121

The New Evangelicals | Tim Whitaker | Episode 57