Chapel Probation s4- Blake Chastain: Author of ExVangelical and Beyond

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a Dauntless Media Collective podcast. Visit Dauntless.etham for more content.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I hate black people.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Things are going to get worse before they get better.

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_04]: What is presented to me as an American does not look like me?

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_07]: Because you're not allowed to be a black man in corporate America.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_04]: You give us a hard time for being white, being American and being controlled.

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And when you live under a situation like that constantly, and then you ask me, you know, whether I approve of violence.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And that just doesn't make any sense at all.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's a lot of crazy stuff happening right now.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And you know what?

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_03]: We need a space where we can debrief some of it and deconstruct.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_03]: If you've been looking for a POC centered podcast that engages with intersectionality, religion, critical race theory,

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_03]: and some hip hop culture, then you need to check out Profane Faith.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I'll be your host, Daniel Whitehodge, and we go in every other week.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_03]: So check us out wherever you find your podcasts.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Or check us out at Whitehodgepodcast.com to see what other platforms we're on.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Cool?

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I, peace!

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Now, settle down kids. It's time for school.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_06]: So before the new event jellicles before, insert white former pastor, before even chapel probation,

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_06]: there was the ex van jellicle podcast and Facebook group, started by the creator of the ex van jellicle hashtag on Twitter.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Today's guest Blake Chastine.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Now, this was a long, long time ago like nine years, which is like a hundred years in deconstruction.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_06]: That's kind of deconstruction math, but it's important for you all to understand just how significant Blake's book is,

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_06]: because he's Blake Chastine, you maggots?

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, sorry, he's black, Blake Chastine, kids.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I get a little worked up these days, seeing other white men bouncing to the deconstruction landscape who haven't fully decolonized their racism in patriarchy,

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_06]: or analyzed their homophobia or transphobia, or their complicity in all of the above and just pretend like nothing's wrong.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Now, hey, I deconstructed and I got shit to say, well, Blake has, Blake has done this far longer than they have.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And by the way, Blake's views and amazingly patient and gracious personality are in no way reflected in this pathetic bit I'm doing.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm just being Blake's anger translator.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Can you feel anyone?

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_06]: But here's the good news, kids.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Blake is here to talk to us about his book, calmly, rationally, patiently, graciously.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_06]: He's talking about his book and his point of view, which I think you all need to know.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_06]: You need to know Blake Chastine if you don't already.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_06]: So listen carefully, there's going to be a test at the end, boys and girls.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_07]: Hi, my name is Blake Chastine.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_07]: I use hehem pronouns, and I'm the author of the new book, Expand Jolkong Beyond,

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_07]: and I'm an American Christianity, went radical and the movement that's hiding back.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, you are.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_06]: We've been waiting, we've been waiting like a year and a half for this, because the hedge on this time, and you're writing, and then things changed, and change things up, and here it is.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_07]: Here it is, yes.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_06]: The weight is over.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_07]: That's right, that's right.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, congrats, man.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_06]: This is, you see, you holding the book there.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And crazy.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_06]: It's surreal.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_06]: It's so cool, man.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm so happy for you and proud of you, I guess, just like, yeah, so good job.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_06]: And I got to read a advanced copy.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Like when you got the box of books, like for me, I almost didn't want to open it.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_06]: It was almost like, is this really happening?

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_06]: I just stared at the box for a little while, and then finally my kids made me open.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean, like, I sort of knew like the vague window delivery window.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_07]: They didn't give me like tracking information at all.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_07]: So I couldn't like obsess over it, but it was one of that thing where I was like nagging in the back of my mind.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_07]: Like, oh, one day these are going to be here and it's going to be soon.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_07]: And then I opened the door.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_07]: Like, now when we're talking, it was like last Thursday.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_07]: And then all of a sudden, there's just a handful of boxes on my front step.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_07]: And it was definitely surreal.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_07]: And I mean, the funny thing is that my, my hometown actually was where they were printed and shipped from.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_07]: So like the town that grew up in Indiana was the same was the place where,

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_07]: and I had family members that worked at that place.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_07]: So like, so it was definitely very surreal.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_07]: And I felt like I had sort of full circle moment for sure.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_06]: Hell yeah.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_06]: And you know, I always speak of you as, you know,

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_06]: not a forefather, it's not the right way.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, kind of of the movement.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, and so I just got to say every time I talk to you, I tell you this,

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_06]: but like every time this new handful of like deconstruction,

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_06]: influencers pop up and start popping off, you know, I'm like, hey,

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_06]: show some respect that you came before you.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, don't you forget?

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_06]: You need to know, if you don't know Blake to sustain, you need to know who he is.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_07]: We wouldn't be here.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_07]: I appreciate that.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_07]: And to that, to that same effect, like even the work that,

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_07]: that you and I and all these other people are doing, like it's,

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_07]: it's due to people who came before us.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_07]: And like the thing is that we don't often think about.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's true.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_07]: We, you know, within faith communities, you,

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_07]: you are often told that, you know, you are, you,

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_07]: this let there circle be on broken type thing, you know?

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_07]: And but there's actually predecessors of people who have left,

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_07]: which is yeah, it's harder to unearth them because a lot of times,

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_07]: their stories are harder to find.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but now like I mean, the,

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_07]: the wave that sort of came before me and you and anybody else,

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_07]: since like 2014, were people that were like bloggers.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_07]: And you know, they might have been denigrated as like,

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_07]: mommy bloggers.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_07]: And some of them have like moved on to very successful things

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_07]: and other realms like Glenn and Doyle had a, like started with a blog called

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_07]: as, as her own life changed.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_07]: She moved into other areas, right?

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_07]: But yeah, I mean, like I, I appreciate the,

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_07]: I appreciate the, the, the to nasty with what she, you,

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_07]: yeah, yeah, man Blake, I mean,

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_06]: and me and Brad got you covered.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_06]: We're always, we're always pushing, like don't forget Blake.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but you, you were instrumental in creating platforms that people

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_06]: could gather and in a hashtag that people could gather around.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And so yeah, I'm going to give you that.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm going to, and I will accept that compliment.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_06]: I remember we joke, I thought I invented the term,

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_06]: uh, X van Jellicle when I was writing my book.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_06]: And I looked it up in there.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_06]: There you were.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_06]: God damn, who the hell's this Blake chest team?

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Sorry.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Sorry, man.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm over.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm over.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_06]: I've moved on.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, good.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_07]: Good.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_07]: You've got your own thing.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_07]: You stand on your own.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_07]: It's got.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, yeah, on the shoulders of you.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And I always, I also like to joke that you started the irreverent media group.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm part of the don'tless group.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_06]: We're like the rival deconstruction podcast games.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I think it's, it's a friendly rivalry event.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_06]: We got to work on our trash talking.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Okay.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_07]: All right, sure we start a beef.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_07]: Should we start like a, yeah, we should.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_06]: I was going to say a rap battle.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know that I can drop tracks like a, like, like, Kendrick.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I'll send you some maybe we could work together.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_07]: So it's sounds good.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, let's give everyone.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_06]: So if you didn't hear, if you haven't heard Blake's,

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_06]: it first episode on Chapel Probation, you went to Indiana Wesley and told some funny stories.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_06]: It was during that time, you kind of deconstructed.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_06]: You started deconstructing.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_06]: We were pushing back against the, and you write about this in your book a little bit too.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_06]: One of the chapters, pushing back against the, the racism of after 911.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_06]: The rise of the party and Fox News and all that stuff.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_06]: You were not having anything to do with that.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I respect you.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's that.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_06]: We, you people can go back and hear that or in read.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's like chapter 9 or 10 in your book where you go over all that.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_06]: But really, what fascinated me was your, the first part of your book is trying to define

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_06]: evangelical, the term evangelical.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_06]: It's so ubiquitous.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_06]: It's everyone knows this word.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_06]: And I would say like eight people in America can actually define it.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_07]: And then you'll probably get nine definitions from.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_07]: Exactly.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_06]: So, can you talk about sort of why this is so tough to pin down what, what this word means?

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I think, I mean the funny thing is that

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_07]: Expangélical will always sort of be in conversation with evangelical even though even if the

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_07]: Evangelicals won't talk back like, but nonetheless like the people who may use the term

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_07]: evangelical to describe part of their life, whether to whatever degree and for however long.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_07]: They lived and had a formative experience in evangelicalism.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_07]: But the funny thing is is that what we mean when we say that can be very different from person to person.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_07]: And for a long time, especially I would say for people in like my age cohort as like elder

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_07]: or maybe five or ten years apart in age.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_07]: Like even even gen X's and other things like they probably think oftentimes of evangelical being like a theological sort of thing.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_07]: And a being in scholarly or academic circles people will mention the Bebdington quadrilateral, which are just these

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_07]: North theological markers that this one British historian David Bebdington put forth in the 80s,

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_07]: that basically evangelicals are determined by these four tenants which are Biblisism just a high

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_07]: opinion of the Bible to the degree that it might be in parents.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_07]: Conversionism that you have a born again experience, cruciacentrism, which means that the the

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_07]: meaning that you are evangelical and more the more literals into the word that you tell people.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_06]: A lot of quadrilateral in theology, huh?

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes. There's also the Westland Quadrilateral.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_06]: There's no pentagones or triangle.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_07]: No, they lead those to the salinas, I guess.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_06]: So four is not really a Biblical number.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_07]: No, no. But I think especially like with the interact with the popularity of

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_07]: Jesus and John Wayne by Christian Kovies do may, it has become more common to look at the cultural

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_07]: markers of evangelicalism and that the things that can often define what is evangelical is

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_07]: and she thinks like whether you're listening to contemporary Christian music or go to a

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_07]: Christian school or use homeschool Christian curriculum or go to an evangelical church,

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_07]: a mega church, a mega church. And even the ones that may be non-denomational, they generally

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_07]: bad just generally defaults to an evangelical sort of framework.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating that it encompasses things like the SPC and even some

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_06]: conservative Catholics. And these are groups of people that don't agree about very many things

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_06]: theologically but they still align themselves with this term, this umbrella term.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Right. Yeah. And I mean like even the funny thing is that if you even go back to some

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_07]: of the people that were writing about earlier forms of evangelicalism in the 19th century,

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_07]: they would call it like an orientation. And back in the 19th century there was this

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_07]: churchly orientation just which really just meant like high church, liturgical sort of

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_07]: cerebral and reserved type of worship and relationship to Christianity.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_07]: And then evangelicalism sort of entered the fray in the 19th century and it was called an

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_07]: orientation which I think now we would just call a vibe. You know, it's like a particular type

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_07]: of particular type of posture and in like relationship.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Good job relating to the jins. Yeah. It's Riz.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_07]: All right. Skipty, skipty Ohio Riz or something. I'm not using that right.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_06]: No, we should just stop.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_07]: I have the middle school. I hear some of these things. Even if I don't know what they mean.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_06]: I was 17 year old. So when I was at APU that the administration came to the English

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_06]: department and I think I told you this story before and said, you know, we're in a evangelical school

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_06]: but we need to establish our, you know, academic evangelical credentials. So your job is to like

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_06]: make a list of like evangelical scholars and thinkers of the last, you know, two centuries.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_06]: And we were really, we couldn't come up with more than like two names that we could, you could actually

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_06]: pin to something intellectual and academic that was what we thought was evangelical. I wish we had your book.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_06]: This would have been like 15, you know, 20 years ago. But yeah. So you know, you list people like

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_06]: a child's family, Jonathan Blanchard, Moot, Dale Moody. Yeah. As sort of like

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_06]: I guess if someone would care to look it up would look to these guys as sort of the foundation

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_06]: and early foundations of what we see now as the evangelical movement.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of what they, and I'm sure that like an American religious story

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_07]: would, someone that does this for their job could, could speak with even more specificity around

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_07]: those things because it would be boring. Each of those, each of those people were involved in different

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_07]: streams of, yeah, was you right about your book? Yeah. People can look and look and look at them. The other

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_07]: thing that I think is interesting is that even back then there was this like sort of ecumenical

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_07]: inner interdenomational sort of overlap. And I think we still exist within that today, but

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_07]: but Benny was an abolitionist even though he did have some limits to his abolition and didn't necessarily

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_07]: take that all the way to the degree of like full social equity or integration.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_07]: Right. And just slavery bad and slavery, then everything will be fine. Yeah.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_07]: But and then moody is this other more interesting character that that really began to align with

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_07]: what would become the sort of fundamentalist movements and where we really get that term is from a

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_07]: project that spun out out of moody Bible Institute that has, it's his name, sake, as well as

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_07]: Biola, which is in your neck of the woods and Mike, then fortunately. And they, and they

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_07]: created this publication called The Fundamentals that really was trying to push back against

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_07]: the rise of modern biblical criticism because it questioned the an currency of the Bible.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_07]: And, and that's where like in a lot of ways we are still very much within the context of

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_07]: that divide. Like the sort of things that we saw that you can see in the history of the 1920s

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_07]: of like the Presbyterian Church splitting between fundamentalist and more progressive groups.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_07]: And then a handful of others, like this thing called The Fundamentals Modernist debate,

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_07]: we still live in the aftermath of it. And in some ways, I see as holding us back from being able to have

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_07]: more meaningful conversations that speak to the present moment. Yeah, because you talked about the early 1900s

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_06]: and schools like Biola, in BJA, you factoring obviously Billy Graham, the evangelists.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_06]: There's the everything that those schools stand for and everything Billy Graham taught is still

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_06]: completely relevant to today's Evangelical. And seen as kind of sacred. So yeah, you're right,

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_06]: they haven't progressed much other than the fact that a lot of, and I want to clarify

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_06]: almost no Evangelical. Like the Church I grew up at is just down the street, just like 8,000 people there.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_06]: There's probably, you know, 8 people that know any of this. But they're all Evangelicals.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but I mean, but I think that's the interesting thing is it's only by a lot of reading and studying

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_07]: that you can start to uncover this because it's not, it's either not emphasized or it's

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_07]: and or if you want to credit more in a various things, it's intentionally obfuscated or obscured.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. And like, and I mean one example that I do bring up in the book is, you know, some,

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_07]: some very selective sort of memory that that someone like Tim Keller would used within the pages of the New Yorker

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_07]: in 2017 and sort of the height of the Trump administration and trying to distance itself,

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_07]: trying to distance itself from the negative opinions that were being to be formed of

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_07]: Evangelicalism in general at a broader social level.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. And the funny thing is, I think most Evangelicals assume that they are the one true version of Christianity

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_06]: that you can trace straight back to Jesus coming out of the tomb.

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_06]: There's this vibe which used that word again. I remember having when I was a kid that,

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_06]: well we are the ones that got it right. You know, the Catholics don't ever write or the Methodists

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_06]: or who you know all of the Unitarians. They're cool. They're probably going to have maybe,

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_06]: but we Evangelicals, you know, we just go on Jesus and you know what the Bible says.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_06]: So there's this like, this assumption of absolute truth that they have.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Do you know, can you talk to maybe why there's so much of this sort of like narcissism with Evangelicals?

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I think it's a combination of a lot of things.

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_07]: It is even if it's not intentional or conscious.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_07]: Like the fact that the fact that there has been such an emphasis on within Evangelical circles on an currency

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_07]: or something very close to it that means that you supposedly have a very plain reading of the Bible

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_07]: and that this is something that has been handed down from time immemorial or from the time,

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_07]: like essentially from Jesus' ascension to today. Like this is how humans have lived,

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_07]: how Christians have practiced their faith. And really a lot of the things that a number of Evangelicals consider

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_07]: sacrosanct like the teaching of the rapture is that's, that is a new teaching.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_07]: That's from the 1800s. That's not, that doesn't go badly in the Bible.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_07]: Like yes, there's some, there's some verses that could allude to meeting Jesus in the clouds and things like that.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_07]: But that teaching has historical roots in the 19th century.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_07]: It's not, it's very, very young compared to a lot of universalism beats it by 1600 years.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, like, by that.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_07]: And it's time to God.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_07]: But then some of the other elements of either distinctly American culture or more modern inventions of the way we think about

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_07]: gender roles and that sort of thing. And how that relates, like it's the assumption that everyone has always applied these things.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_07]: And like, but you don't necessarily learn a term, even maybe a term like hermeneutics or ex-chises or anything like that.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_07]: Unless you go to school for it. And it does, or you're just a very invested, you know,

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_07]: that's a nerd type person. Right, exactly. And but sometimes when you, when you begin that study and you were like, oh, this was, this was not what I was taught.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_07]: This is actually opposite of what was taught.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_07]: What the hell does that mean? That can actually be a significant catalyst for what we now call a deconstruction.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_06]: And you know, and I'm still a story in your book like taking the class, the Bible classes at Indiana Wesley and kind of in your mind.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean they definitely blew my mind. And like I, I am very grateful and a number of ways, not only because I'm at my spouse at Indiana Wesley and met some lifelong friends there.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_07]: But even for parts of my education, don't even like even the ones that I disagreed with. They taught me how to think critically and all of that.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_07]: But it was that cognitive, cognitive disnence, especially within the historical moment.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_07]: I went to undergrad in the shadow of 911 lead up to the war in Iraq.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_07]: And I had a very very conservative hawkish history professor who was very,

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_07]: was very adamant about his worldview and, and then comparing and contrasting that to what I was learning about the character of,

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_07]: of God as it was as it was taught to me by my religion professors. That just led to a lot of unpleasant and unclear thoughts for like a, you know, a young adult just trying to sort it all out in their head.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah. And that's like common experience. I feel like even at an evangelical school or Christian school.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_06]: It's it's kind of falls apart the more you study it and the more you're exposed to different kinds of thinking.

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_06]: So that sense. Yeah, I salute Indiana Wesley and because maybe they don't want this.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Acclaimed that we bestow still upon them, but no, I don't know that I'm going to be inducted into the society of world changers.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, well, awesome. You're named.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay. Thank you.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Also, I'm going to give back your your chapel probation award because I'm sick as brewery. They don't they don't deserve that.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_07]: So oh, no, it didn't so you were voting for the champion. Yeah.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, no, you're the champion.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_06]: That's that's my.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_06]: You're getting to you. Awesome. Thank you for your share publishing a great book.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_06]: It's very, very prestigious. So yeah.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_06]: So here's this, here's this transition.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_06]: A little serious now. So there's a quote in the chapter two.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Racism is the soil in which the nation was cultivated.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_06]: I feel like that you could say that about evangelicalism too.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean, I think you could probably say it about American Christian, the general.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. I think like I was definitely learned a lot from books like.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_07]: Anthia Butler's White of Evangelical racism.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_07]: Candies stamp from the beginning.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_07]: And and Robert Jones is white too long. Like those those three books over the last few years have really

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_07]: taught me a lot of history. I wasn't aware of.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_07]: And to the degree at which like multiple permutations of American Christianity, not nobody's nobody's pure in that regard, like everybody's complicit.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_07]: But evangelicalism, I think one of the other things that that is upsetting about learning some of this history that is not as loudly pronounced as say Jonathan Blanchard or

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_07]: Fanny is learning a delimits of their of their anti racism and also learning of many other people like learning the degree to which they were the minority.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_07]: And and also the degree to which we different different groups of white evangelicals in particular sought to resist things like the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s as well as, you know, as well as a number of people who are present day witnesses to to being discriminated in those spaces.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_07]: And I know that's part of your story as well, so that's not a surprise to you by any means. But but but that again is as just to get back to that that theme of well this this can be upsetting to learn.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_06]: But it's part of the emotional work of learning history. Suppose. Yeah, like when I was growing up, I remember being very proud to be part of this evangelical world because we were the ones that fought slavery and we were the abolitionists.

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And they can pat themselves on the back for that. But yeah, and I think when you really dig into it, we'll give them that.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, same people turned around were like not for civil rights. You know, like slavery bad, but hey, hey, you're not equal.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, and I mean, no group is a monolith. All of those all of those astros and any exceptions. But when you do look comprehensively, there's a lot a lot of groups who are very resistant and and fought hard against things like integration.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_07]: And there are, you know, scholarly works that that have looked directly at that. Like talk about others aforementioned book and others like the myth of color blind Christians is another one from recent times over last few years and I mean, I and I do think that like every every book is sort of of its time.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_07]: And part of that is that I think when I was and when I think millennials and gen Xers or sort of raised with this color blind relationship to, maybe this is just Midwestern white white.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_06]: No, I think it was it. Because I mentioned like even in the 70s like it was Billy Graham talking about being color blind right towards the 60s even, but just you know that's just we're all relishing sisters and Christ and that's all the matters kind of right.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and that that obviously is not very satisfactory to a lot of people color when it comes down. Nice. Yeah, yeah, in a perfect world that might be feasible right, but right mean, wow there's all kinds of inequities and depression and marginalization.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. So do we know what evangelicalism is now boys and girls? Well, you're better or at least pretend to because we're moving on because screw that I mean there are more important things to talk about.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_06]: As you'll hear Blake left evangelicalism, whatever that is and started reaching out to people he created one of the first spaces ever for people who were also going through this fun little hell.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_06]: We call deconstruction to share stories and find healing. Oh, but go ahead. Follow insert white former pastor.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Who the fuck is unnamed white influencer he's just saying the same shit Blake's been saying for like 10 years and what the fuck is a new evangelical do we even need new evangelicals because I say no no more than we need a new KKK or a new SBC or a new KFC screw that. Sorry.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I get a little work done and Blake has no problems with anyone doing the work in deconstruction.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's mostly me. Sorry.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd also like to invite you even further into the conversation. Right now there are some great discussions happening over in the doneness media collective discord server.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're interested in chatting with other folks who are deconstructing and decolonizing the oppressive traditions they came from, please feel free to stop by the server.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know what discord is, it's a place where communities can gather online for chatting on a wide variety of topics.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_00]: In our discord server we have channels devoted to general deconstruction conversations some meme sharing therapeutic venting about whatever religious bullshit you're currently dealing with.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And even a specific channel devoted to talking about the latest episodes of the podcast you're listening to right now.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you'll join us. You can log in directly to the doneness server by clicking the link in the show notes for heading to dotless dot FM and clicking the link in the top banner.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_00]: See you there.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so this second half of the, or maybe the last last third of the book.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Well first of all, everything was brilliant the way you did this the way, so you set up the first part where you're defining and showing basically how confusing this is to define.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And then you're going to look at the, you know, you're going to see what you're doing in the term because if we're, if we're x van geólocal and we're x something. What do we x of probably don't even know it's just like you know it when you see it.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know what it is, but I know when I see it.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_06]: If we just accept this fact that it's tough to define and people are going to agree.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_06]: We can, we can then move on into like what is this movement? And so you have been in this deconstruction x van geólocal movement for as long as is anyone on the internet.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_06]: What are your thoughts on what you've seen develop maybe start talking about how you started the Facebook group that went from like a few dozen people to several thousand in a pretty short time.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes. So I think what differentiates the last few years from the areas that came before it are that well people have been leaving evangelicals for various reasons for decades and one of the parts of the book that I do spend time on is looking at prior attempted reform movements.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_07]: Because I think that a lot of present day x even geólocals, x van geólocals have tried to reform things to improve things from within these various denominations or systems whatever their local church may have been.

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_07]: So there were prior racial reform, racial reconciliation groups, prior people that tried to move things forward with respect to gender equity.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_07]: Queer rights all sorts of all sorts of different things and yes and race.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_06]: I went to Urbana with inner varsity in the 90s and it was all about race and social justice.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_06]: So in the 90s, inner varsity was kind of woke in their own sort of limited way but they were really trying.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah. As you mentioned the book that didn't last they went hard the other way.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, or recently but yeah, yeah and so they.

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_07]: So I bring all that up because because the thing that really has changed recent and the last 10 to 20 years is the advent of new media.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_07]: In particular things like social media and the ease with which you and I can spin out podcasts and things like that.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_07]: Like, you know, you can get get a zoom account and Mike and start start recording or you can go on Twitter.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, you and I did. Yep. Me people on Twitter, me people on Instagram, TikTok and that is really what has has changed over the last few years is that.

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_07]: And instead of even jellicles just having the complete dominant perspective with with regard to religion and public life.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_07]: Religion and politics, there are now people who can speak back to that from a place of personal experience and authority.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_07]: And that is the primary thing that I think is very different about this, about this moment.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_07]: And what I the best way I think to sort of encapsulate that is with with a term that I take from media studies called a counter public.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_07]: And what that just means is that there's a dominant public and that in this instance is why even jellicles and like if you look at the religion and spirituality top 100 even today.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_07]: It's dominated by even jellicles of various stripes.

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_07]: There's just so many of them present there.

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_07]: There are some other phase that are represented in the top 100, but like, Mark Driscoll who's been canceled multiple times is still in the top 100.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Can't fully never read the book.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, he's I mean, he he lost his church went dark for a year to and then pop back up in Arizona.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_07]: I always come back.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_07]: And so and even even some evangelicals who are literally passed on, they have top podcasts.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_07]: Wow, from beyond the graves like they are.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, because you mentioned Driscoll and then you compare him to Bell Rob Bell.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's chapter eight or nine and the two Mars Hills that always was very confusing to me.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, that was definitely.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I was trying to track that at the time I had a lot of students kept telling me about Mars Hills and I kept looking it up and finding very different things.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Electrobe Bell.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, can you talk about like, because I see him kind of as a is probably a really important part of people's deconstruction like a like a before Rachel held Evans.

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, like I mean velvet Elvis and sex god and a member of his other books.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_07]: We're very popular with people that skewed a little more on the liberal side if we were talking in like binaries.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_07]: People that skewed a little more liberal like really did like him and then he published a book about Christian universalism and there's a famously within some sort of

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_07]: articles of the within our circles of the internet famous tweet from John Piper.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_07]: It's like a farewell robot, Rob Bell and that's always said to to effectively cancel.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, and and like life way pulled out of this books after that.

[00:39:18] [SPEAKER_07]: And he was persona nine grata and a lot of the more conservative parts of evangelicalism despite his popularity.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, a lot of even moderate Christians were kind of like, oh hey you know that's too far there has to be hell.

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, because if there's no hell then why would be a good person.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and also why am I going to church every Sunday.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, I'm sorry.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I'm sorry, but you know, I'm afraid of hell, so I'm going to keep going and yeah.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Don't tell me I've wasted the last 20 years of my life.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had to do all this.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but I mean those those two were interesting interesting to compare because of what happened to them with respect to evangelicalism like Rob Bell continues to be a successful author and has established a different type of career for himself.

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_07]: But you know,

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_07]: Mark Triskell is still acting foolish.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Still the same thing.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, still still doing the same stuff and like she made he made you know the rounds the news earlier this year for all the wrong reasons for acting foolish at some men's conference.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't even hear about that.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, yeah, I mean like, you're a little like patriarical.

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_06]: No, I'm sorry.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, they had essentially they had like a circus performer.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, I do you remember this and then like he was like,

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know.

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_07]: And then he was like that guy has a Jezebel spirit or something.

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and we walked off the stage.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, there's something.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, it was absurd.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_07]: Just making it all about him.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_06]: But that whole story was just I think that's where evangelicalism is at.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_06]: It's just bizarre.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't make sense.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Like I couldn't make heads or tails of what to come away with with that whole story.

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I like I think there's.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_07]: There's so many there are interesting things happening within within evangelicalism that like there are some people that are trying to moderate it that are trying to you know.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm just like, I don't know if I'm going to speak out and and reject things like Christian nationalism and and outright Trumpism that they are.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_07]: They are swimming against the tide right now.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, they're not.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah it's like someone, you know, people who know me will send me an article.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, look, there's these, this is group of Christians doing this and like, you know there's like eight of them and there's like.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_06]: 80 million of the other sides.

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_06]: That's not like equivalents.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I've got bless them and I'll support them but like I don't know if that you can say the tide is turning you know I think everyone's looking for that angle right like oh something's going to come and redeem even

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_06]: in the politicalism.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I remember oh what was it?

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_07]: Frank Frank Galley who was who was I think in charge of the other editor and chief or some other high position at Christianity today published a thing about essentially how you like don't need to.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_07]: Vote for Trump and you can still be a Christian like that was the bar in 2020 this was 2020 I believe not 20.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think they're going out and limb there and actually he is.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, and I mean he he resigned after the like shortly after and then also converted to Catholicism and then also I think there had been and I can't remember where there was him or not so I all refrain from that final piece.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_07]: Because I don't remember.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_06]: The point is because you talk about Christianity today in a few places in your book that's trying to find that middle ground of fundamentalism and you know intellectualism and being up on social issues and trying to farm out that space sometimes not so successfully.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah and I mean they are want to like they're like the premier periodical.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Publication that that historically has has represented that that segment and like after after that op-ed.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_07]: Trump was like the far left Christian these today.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_07]: I can't remember if you'd already been kicked off Twitter or not, but you.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't think that rings true.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_06]: No, I mean compared compared to some other segments of the far right it's to the left of that maybe yes on the grand spectrum.

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_06]: No, no.

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, here's here's how bad it is like at APU we had an argument in a faculty meeting I can't remember if it was just English or the full faculty of.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Whether we could count Christianity today as a peer reviewed as part of our like as an academic source.

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_06]: And most of us were like no.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a magazine like that is not a primary source any more than like people is or even the Atlantic these are not academic sources, but it was all they had you know and so there were there were people with PhDs arguing tooth and nail that it had to be.

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's a great thing that we have to be accepted as an academic source and like and instead of like a journal or instead of a peer reviewed journal but putting it up right next to peer reviewed journals.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, okay, yeah, that's that's the level of discourse at a lot of evangelical schools.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, yeah, so.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Not good.

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, but anyway as we head into the home stretch here.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_06]: So okay, I'm going to bounce something off of you.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, our friend, our mutual friend Janice Lagada got into a beef with a relatively new social media influencer in the deconstruction world.

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_06]: And basically called out saying that he was bringing with him the same the same shit he was peddling as a mega church pastor, but now he's just this deconstruction guy and he's he's like profiting off of it and he's got you know hundreds of thousands of followers.

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so when you see like all of the the beefs and and some of the problems of deconstruction.

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, what are your thoughts have you ever been following any of these things?

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_07]: I sort of discovered the one you're looting to like after the fact and that's that's one of the things that can be hard to.

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Hard to track is like as like whenever you have to become a forensic scientist to like piece together what may have happened like if you're not directly involved.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, and that's where.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Like my own sort of my own sort of posture towards things like social media have changed over the years is that like I typically do not.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_07]: Make public comment not primarily just if I if I don't have any place in it, you know that like it I would just muddled something and you know just as an oftentimes entering something is like a.

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_07]: This is why I it's like do you really need my opinion on something that doesn't directly involve me.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I don't think you do like if you want to ask my opinion you you can but I don't know that's relevant.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but like in particular I do think.

[00:47:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Those those things sort of touch on a lot of the the things that are.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_07]: That are difficult about.

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_07]: This movement or cohorts of people that are talking about things it really hits on a lot of.

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_07]: And they're weak spots and one of them is that a lot of it is digitally mediated.

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER_07]: And like and I think that digital tools digital like social networks and things like that are really really excel in our very good at.

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_07]: At awareness building awareness building making people aware of things and and spreading something.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_07]: When it comes to things like disagreements or beefs or like or like conflicts it gets so messy because because people don't always.

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Use these tools in the same way, you know someone whether it's because they're in the world first or or it's like they're just not online for a few days and then some shit blows up and then they then they discover something later.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, you know like that those are the things that that.

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_07]: I think illustrate the the state of the state of these things as digital digital first sort of movements and communities and I say communities plural because I think.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_07]: Because I think that different communities have have a risen meet different needs and like yeah I definitely see I definitely see and observe.

[00:49:02] [SPEAKER_07]: People of color, you know saying that they have different needs and I think that's absolutely valid and like I'm and if they.

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_07]: They're not comfortable or if they need to have a particular need met even online in some other way then like absolutely go for it I don't.

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_07]: It does it does like it doesn't make me I don't know.

[00:49:29] [SPEAKER_07]: I can at times feel discouraging you to see those things come up.

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_06]: And part of the problem I think is I look at you and you are.

[00:49:44] [SPEAKER_06]: You you've joked that you're you're white like I but like you're a like I would trust you I say I look at you and you I see you've you've put in the work you you understand that deconstructing also means decolonizing.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And finding you know equal footing with everyone.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I guess I brought up the Janice thing is because like I feel like there's a lot of these people coming out now.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_06]: And they they become like really big but a lot of them haven't done the work and and they haven't and there aren't you know.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_06]: They aren't elevating the voices like the way you and like Chrissy and all the people from our old Twitter thread.

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_06]: When I came in I felt seen and I felt like you all were we're elevating all of our voices men women people of color queer voices equally.

[00:50:38] [SPEAKER_06]: And and that was was so beautiful about those early days was we are all trying you know we didn't always agree on everything necessarily but we were all trying to elevate each other.

[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_06]: It feels and I'm going to sound like an old person even those is only like a four or five year old conversation.

[00:50:55] [SPEAKER_06]: It feels like the these kids these days they're they're just elevating themselves and they're sort of cold of personality and and you know if they have a podcast it's like all white guys on on on and their guest lists or in and.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so that's I was just trying to relate to you as I can old.

[00:51:11] [SPEAKER_07]: No no I totally get that and like I do think that that's also.

[00:51:17] [SPEAKER_07]: That's also sort of the nature of like anything that you might call like a scene right you know like is it is this a scene sometimes I think of.

[00:51:28] [SPEAKER_07]: Of comedy people because a lot of times when when you hear comedian stock to another they talk about coming up with other people meaning that you know they put in time to do.

[00:51:39] [SPEAKER_07]: You know they they move to Chicago they move to New York they open mics together.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, and that a lot of times they do move like in lockstep with one another or they like have they establish whether or not they call it a community or whatever they just they have people that they they work with.

[00:51:57] [SPEAKER_07]: And I think like there were people that that I established a working relationship with when I first started.

[00:52:06] [SPEAKER_07]: And then that I've continued to work with in different ways or you know to whatever degree that is and then I think we've sort of seen that happen you know in 2019 2020 2021 new a new.

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_07]: And then I think that that is an element of something like this and also maybe illustrative of the fact that.

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_07]: And then I think that that people are deconstructing all the time and like and I think the one thing the another thing about like using something like Instagram or Twitter for 10 15 years.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_07]: Is that like you've done that stuff like you use Scott have like gone through it you've you've been part of this scene.

[00:52:56] [SPEAKER_07]: And you may actually even be a little tired or like you know or like or say or even if you're not a creator in the space.

[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_07]: If you're just someone who followed a lot of these people and then you know like okay I'm sort of done with us.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_07]: Other people are discovering it for the very first time you know and like for whatever reason for some people Trump wasn't the catalyst but 2020 was and like and so.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_07]: So like new people enter and like that's that that that crop like I do see some of these people that that appear in and stuff and I I do see that but I don't necessarily.

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_07]: I think if I if I felt.

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_07]: If I felt possessive of things then it would just develop this sort of bitterness and like that doesn't that only the only person that hurts is me.

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean yeah if that was just if I just felt resentful that that someone else is succeeding by some metric that I wish I was or whatever else.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, then yeah that would that would be kind of shitty.

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_07]: But for sure.

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Does that make sense?

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a totally answered your question.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah and I wasn't like fishing for you to say anything controversial anything.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_06]: No no no no no no no.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_06]: It's like the things things change things grow things develop and if you've been here for a while like you have you know it's.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_06]: It can be hard to see the direction that the things are changing in and.

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and as it gets more popular and people get more platforms you know I think it's I think it's I feel I respond to ability as to do few of us.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_06]: So push back and call people in to say you know I think we need to do some work here.

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and to establish that we come out of these church and faith traditions with a lot of baggage with a lot of patterns that we need to figure out how to you know extracator cells from.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so I guess the question is I guess I'm digging for is like man what are you going to do?

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_06]: How do we do like how do we help people who have stories to tell and things to say and perspectives to share all for that.

[00:55:27] [SPEAKER_06]: But how do we also help people you know read an anti a butler or read your book or read black read Brad's book or yeah look at the work of your word.

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, if you want to laugh you can read my book absolutely.

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's part of all this.

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, because I guess I also wondered did you feel any responsibility as the person who is kind of like at at the forefront of the movement.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_06]: To help people sort of you know get it together.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I would do what is in my capacity to do like be true to what I think is.

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_07]: When when I think is a proper way to go about things.

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_07]: The other the flip side of that is like you you can't dictate someone else's growth or lack there of you know but you can you can do.

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_07]: Do what is what is valuable for.

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_07]: I feel like I'm saying that wrong.

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_07]: I do feel good.

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm tracking.

[00:56:42] [SPEAKER_07]: As far as like I do want to as far as the things I say like I.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_07]: I have learned from other people in this.

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_07]: In this space and I do think that there's a lot of work that can be done across so many different perspectives.

[00:57:00] [SPEAKER_07]: And I think.

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_07]: That's to and I this is going to sound like business speak but like as scarcity mindset versus like oh, that there is room for other people to succeed.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_07]: And I don't know like a lot of the the markers of success whether it's follower counts or a book deal or some other deal.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_07]: A lot of that is capricious and when the devil.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, like a lot of that is is sort of just.

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_07]: The luck of the draw or like who I.

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_07]: I feel like I understand how these systems are supposed to work.

[00:57:43] [SPEAKER_07]: But I've never been able to like then them to my will like I feel like I can demonstrate that I understand how social media's systems work at a particular high level but like my follower counts are nothing impressive, you know they're not like mega numbers they're not.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_07]: And you know there's not viability behind those things.

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I always thought that was wrong.

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_06]: That's done.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I mean, I'm I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to write this book and that you know if I if I was saving up all that karma to take this one shot.

[00:58:20] [SPEAKER_07]: Then then I will be grateful and I do not take it for granted, you know and that.

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_07]: And like that is you know the fact that I got to write a book about this.

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_07]: You know that that's like a lifelong dream to to do this.

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, to to say you're an author and to talk to folks like you about about this and I'm humbled that people want to read what I wrote.

[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so no story time boys and girls remember that as very as Barry revival if so you might remember the chapel probation episode with Tim Mathis.

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And as Barry alum in which we determined that that even jolicle revivals are largely the result of masturbation.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_06]: You can go ahead and look that one up here, not on the don't go to the internet anyway during that time full mutuality the podcasts they can get there thereafter court linimagan straight wide American Jesus with Brad and several other podcasts all did episodes that

[00:59:32] [SPEAKER_06]: broke the thing down in a much more sophisticated way than than I did.

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_06]: And so it wasn't just chapel probation easily six or seven that I heard and probably more.

[00:59:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And on my Instagram feed a couple weeks later, I see two white women with a relatively new podcast with a clip from their podcast in which they state that they are the only deconstruction podcast.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Brave enough to talk about the as Barry revival.

[01:00:05] [SPEAKER_06]: It one of the co-hosts even says she searched but couldn't find another podcast that was willing to tackle the story because they were all probably too afraid.

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_06]: And because I'm not as mature as Blake, I was living.

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And it just so happens that the guests, guests of this podcast that I'm talking about which I won't name are a white except for like two or three out of their 50 plus episodes.

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_06]: I sent them a polite message thanking them for talking about this critically about about as Barry and I mentioned the six or seven other podcasts that had covered the topic thoroughly including the dates of the episodes with links to them.

[01:00:47] [SPEAKER_06]: They did not write back.

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_06]: They don't follow me so who knows if they've got the message to point I think is that people need to know what the context of in which they operate and people need to know Blake Chastain.

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Because he's a great human much better human than I am.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_06]: He was he was suffering the slings and arrows about rages even jellicle anger long before most of us.

[01:01:17] [SPEAKER_06]: People like he and Chrissy Strup were interviewed by Big Time TV and magazines before we all came onto the scene.

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_06]: And the ex-fange local Facebook group is a lifeline for thousands of people.

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Do some of these new people do important work?

[01:01:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Sure.

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_06]: But our most deconstruction podcasts white centered if not white male centered talking mostly about just personal grievances they have with their former churches.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_06]: There might be some mention of racism or homophobia, but they don't really go into those topics because why would they?

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not their experience but help brag about my white guests because I make sure that whoever comes on this podcast is able to speak in depth about what you're talking about.

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_06]: The race, patriarchy, social justice, homophobia, transphobia, the whole thing.

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_06]: So come back to the boys and girls they okay boys and girls let's finish this lesson with our guest Blake Chastain.

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_07]: I feel like I've gotten a field for me a question but no no I'm just yeah we're just talking y'all.

[01:02:31] [SPEAKER_06]: I really appreciate you digging into this because going back to where we started it's tough to define evangelicalism.

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_06]: It's probably harder to define deconstruction in the same for the same reasons.

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_06]: But you said something earlier that you know the deconstruction movement or the ex-vengealkals are as much a part of the evangelical story in America as the evangelicals themselves.

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_06]: It's it seems a natural extension.

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah yeah and I think I mean the reason why stories like ours exist is because we reached a point where we for our own individual reasons couldn't no longer abide staying within those staying within those institutions churches and living by those beliefs.

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_07]: And like and that's where.

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_07]: That's where I think it's continues to be a point of growth for us is that within evangelical spaces.

[01:03:38] [SPEAKER_07]: There's only certain types of growth are really encouraged and when you deviate from it then you you run the risk of finding yourself outside the fold.

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_07]: And there can be a lot of freedom there but I'll you know there's it was your first community and the fact that you lost it is significant.

[01:03:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Your family might still be in it.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah and then you've got this sort of division between them whether it's spoken or unspoken.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_07]: And then beyond that like.

[01:04:08] [SPEAKER_07]: I think we also struggle with knowing how to connect to community again because like we we I think that's something we you see.

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_07]: Within online places is like they don't want necessarily want to be joiners again, you know they're like having having a bit.

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_07]: Like making individual connections can be meaningful but but there is a hesitance to to join again and for.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_07]: For pretty valid reasons because you got to work through that sort of trauma first, but I but that is the sort of where I where I round out the book is looking at.

[01:04:52] [SPEAKER_07]: Possibilities for new community for like spiritual practices if you desire them and just in general, like a type of need for new types of metaphors because clearly the ones that.

[01:05:07] [SPEAKER_07]: And then the people who left and they also just aren't serving the people.

[01:05:16] [SPEAKER_07]: In the in the views today I do use I do try to extend the metaphor of deconstruction to thinking about like.

[01:05:24] [SPEAKER_07]: Learning that your house has like severe black mold or as best as and you have to get it.

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_07]: And that and it's like the house that's been in your family for decades and you learned that it's been actively hurting your family that's going to be an emotional long difficult process but that doesn't.

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_07]: And that means you're going to feel really conflicted about it, but it's still the right thing to do.

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so you can answer this however you want or you can choose not to but.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_06]: Is this house if this house is if it's like if we're saying it's evangelical.

[01:06:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, or it could just be your life to but like I'm asking.

[01:06:11] [SPEAKER_06]: I think I know the answer is evangelicalism salvageable.

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_07]: It's not my problem anymore, like and I don't I and also I.

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_07]: If they if they choose to to keep the things that they've kept for so long as their non negotiables.

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_07]: Then they'll continue to see people.

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_07]: And then they'll be like, you know, if you're not conforming in some way.

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_07]: If you're a woman who wants to be a pastor and a lot of churches, you know, like.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_07]: If you have experienced racism.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_07]: All of these things can make staying in evangelicals on much harder and like if I will say I went in 2022.

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_07]: There was a.

[01:07:20] [SPEAKER_07]: A.

[01:07:20] [SPEAKER_07]: A conference in Oak Park, which is near me and the Chicago suburbs and.

[01:07:26] [SPEAKER_07]: I it was called reconstructing evangelicals and I attended to just to listen it.

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_07]: I didn't you know, I didn't it wasn't to you to storm.

[01:07:37] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, to storm anything or whatever, but just to sort of listen in.

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_07]: And one of the.

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_07]: One of the comments that stuck with me the most is that there was someone who I think is that bailer.

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_07]: Now Dr Malcolm Foley is an African American.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_07]: I believe maybe in the Presbyterian, one of the Presbyterian traditions.

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_07]: And he said from the stage that evangelicalism in so much as it is white is anti-Christ, which I thought was a very good.

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_07]: It was a very very declarative and accurate statement and that was from someone who has their own tradition and desire to claim that title.

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_06]: But was that received the people like clap or do people just grumble.

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, it was within the context of a panel discussion and no one.

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_07]: It came in and went like a no one no one had really had a chance to read about it.

[01:08:37] [SPEAKER_07]: It was within it was one of the like plenary session.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, things.

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_07]: But it was and I mean there were representatives for their representatives from South America.

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_07]: It wasn't all just white evangelicals that were that were in on this conversation.

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_07]: But that one sticks out to me and like and those those conversations still are so emotionally charged.

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_07]: And for some people are just non-starters that that doesn't change amongst all the other things that they refused to budget,

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_07]: whether it's really a de gender or sexuality in particular.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, like if they keep the culture warring up then the only remnant they're going to have is their most conservative.

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_07]: Faction.

[01:09:26] Yeah.

[01:09:27] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's not our problem anymore.

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_06]: No, I exactly.

[01:09:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank God.

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_06]: I want to put you down as no for the answer.

[01:09:36] [SPEAKER_07]: You let me you were gracious and let me rambal for five.

[01:09:40] [SPEAKER_06]: No, that's not my one key rambal but I'm just joking.

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_06]: I know with the asterisk.

[01:09:47] [SPEAKER_06]: With certain parameters.

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah because when I see like progressive Christians today I want to support them so bad you know I want and I do like a lot of friends and people have been on both of our podcasts who are still Christian identified and fighting the good fight you know that's got to be.

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_06]: It makes to your point it makes me so glad I'm not in it.

[01:10:09] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm so tired of that fire.

[01:10:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, right it's easier just to be outside and we can be critical but it's no skin off our teeth if you know if it's a pointless fight or it's it's a fruitless endeavor.

[01:10:26] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah that said.

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Is there a CCM or worship song that still gets stuck in your head today?

[01:10:35] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh yeah, I'm probably trading my sorrows because one of my friends and so I'm trading my sorrows.

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm trading my shame.

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm laying them down.

[01:10:52] [SPEAKER_07]: It's not the worship of the Lord.

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah that one is that.

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So that you'll just be like you know doing the dishes and just find yourself humming that song like it's something.

[01:11:05] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah and and you have some bases in the background here and I have a base for two laden around and one of my one of my friends that I went to youth group with.

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_07]: My name is Mandy and she was a we were the base players on the team and she was way better and she taught me a really cool riff to that song.

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_07]: And so yeah, that's that's what sometimes I pick it up and play it just because it stayed at me all these years.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, yeah that's a lot of we dumped the qualities.

[01:11:41] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, so anyway is that that's one that the pops of my head a lot and some of the see no I do have CCM songs that pop in my head everyone's now.

[01:11:54] [SPEAKER_07]: But I'm blanking on them.

[01:11:56] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't want to make retraumatize.

[01:12:00] [SPEAKER_07]: No, no, it's not those those types of things they just feel like a intrusive or impulsive thoughts you know they just happen.

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah cause toward the end of your book you listed you know David Beson and was the news boys or.

[01:12:17] [SPEAKER_06]: These are the normals I think there's a lot of interest in smart and heard of because I was kind of out of it.

[01:12:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, I I this a bad Christian music early on even while I was still a Christian because I was a snob.

[01:12:30] [SPEAKER_07]: You just about it. Oh you you had a you had a hard line you're like I'm not listening to this.

[01:12:34] [SPEAKER_06]: But the sad thing was I missed the 90s which was kind of like the heyday of CCM right it actually got good you know a here stuff now.

[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, oh shit that's Christian music and yeah I mean some of the like some of the bands that I didn't get in like some people really got into tooth and nail records.

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_07]: Which had a lot of like punk and and that's like a right company.

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah tooth and nail was the name of the was the name of the label sounds so hard core to like yeah and then like like they still have hardcore fans now like and it's.

[01:13:05] [SPEAKER_07]: I I wasn't necessarily into that space but I you know in friends that did a whole podcast about the band Mxpx.

[01:13:14] [SPEAKER_07]: I do them they played them on regular radio. Yeah and then five iron friends either and I just learned about the yes like they are the 90s and 2000s were a very strong period for a lot of Christian music but now it's you know I'm old and so it's nostalgia like yeah.

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_06]: And I guess CCM kind of died in the early 2000s when worship became like what people wanted to buy CDs.

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah and just by another thing of like historical happenstance like I was working at a Christian bookstore during that sort of transition and like third day went from this being this band.

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_07]: And that like recorded some pretty pretty strong like rock albums to just being just being a worship band and then kept putting out worship albums because they just and they still wrote in the cast yeah yeah yeah yeah.

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, they just raked it in.

[01:14:12] [SPEAKER_06]: I think this all connected to me like this.

[01:14:16] [SPEAKER_06]: History of evangelical culture to sort of us being sort of on the other side of it as we look back and yeah because you talk about in your book about the consumerism of you know Christian culture and okay so I'm going to do a Blake a favor here and try and replace the worship song that get stuck in his head with

[01:14:41] [SPEAKER_06]: a different version that more fits well fits me I don't know if it fits him.

[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_06]: I hope it does.

[01:14:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, here is the chapel probation version of this song.

[01:15:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah I'm treating myself.

[01:15:21] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm treating all my big tree.

[01:15:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Let's stay home Sunday for the good of the world.

[01:15:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no more hell no fake no more.

[01:15:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes life best life got me no more.

[01:15:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes life best life got me so.

[01:15:57] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm treating my shit for the good of the world.

[01:16:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no more hell no fake.

[01:17:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh yeah one take for each track mistakes and all just a little palette cleanser for you who might be still sort of trapped by the memories of Hillsong songs I think that's a Hillsong song.

[01:17:23] [SPEAKER_06]: It's my second Hillsong song that I have disagreed so.

[01:17:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Really making a lot of friends today sorry insert white former pastor or sorry to the new heavy and jellicles and I'm not sorry Hillsong fuck Hillsong.

[01:17:37] [SPEAKER_06]: All right, let's finish this up boys and girls yeah so can I do one final thing here.

[01:17:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Absolutely.

[01:17:46] [SPEAKER_07]: So when I was first starting to work on the book I kept trying to be like.

[01:17:51] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh man, I this it's really hard to to express especially to someone who may not have the experience of what it's like within you know within even jellicles and how it touches so many parts of your life.

[01:18:05] [SPEAKER_07]: And then I I went through an origami phase and I made this little I made a little cube nice and I and I see the box the the box the tough this is one of this is a.

[01:18:21] [SPEAKER_06]: A proud accomplishment of mine that I was able to do this I couldn't do that kid had a book and I got in I did the cream and I did the turtle yeah.

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean YouTube is is revel revelatory because I could learn like this from a book for whatever reason.

[01:18:41] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but if you can stop and pause and watch some of the old because like I had I had actually had a Sunday school teacher where origami was a craft a lot of the time.

[01:18:50] [SPEAKER_07]: And I sucked at it and I I always felt so embarrassed that I couldn't do it in Sunday school class so that a bepping to in cube.

[01:18:59] [SPEAKER_07]: Now, but I but I did write on the sides like on each side I put like once is ecclesiol one says political and others is relational and others is familial.

[01:19:10] [SPEAKER_07]: Another says educational and others as personal and so like all of these sides like that's what that's what evangelicals and it's like it's all connected.

[01:19:22] [SPEAKER_07]: And it's all like within something like this yeah, but but it's hard to tease it out without like really getting very pedantic about it.

[01:19:32] [SPEAKER_07]: But then like now we sort of had this a lot of cultural or shore hands like mentioning DC talk or or the newsboys or whoever you know.

[01:19:46] [SPEAKER_07]: But that's that is part of it is that I agree completely it's all connected and it can be hard to to discuss but it's worth trying to.

[01:19:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and I'm glad I'm friends with you to discuss it with.

[01:20:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And about because same same I appreciate knowing you man and and just so honored to talk to you and talk about your book.

[01:20:14] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that cube that you just made that you just showed.

[01:20:19] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, hear me out if if you started a cult.

[01:20:23] [SPEAKER_06]: That would be like the first artifact you know long after your dead on the followers will have like that cube has there you go please don't start a cult in my memory.

[01:20:36] [SPEAKER_06]: It's good money.

[01:20:38] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean if I'm dead then it's no good.

[01:20:41] [SPEAKER_06]: No, no, but like you you will get rich.

[01:20:43] [SPEAKER_06]: No, you know and now I'm just so okay.

[01:20:46] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm just so envisioning the future.

[01:20:48] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm looking ahead.

[01:20:49] [SPEAKER_07]: You know so my next my next step is is cold.

[01:20:52] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that's my guess to start.

[01:20:56] [SPEAKER_07]: You think I've got the you think I've got the charisma you've not me in person now Scott.

[01:21:01] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, you think I've got the charisma.

[01:21:03] [SPEAKER_07]: But let's see.

[01:21:04] [SPEAKER_07]: Okay, to make the term people on the joiners.

[01:21:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, people are probably tuning out now but like my thought is that people who start the religions aren't necessarily the charismatic types.

[01:21:14] [SPEAKER_06]: You know in some cases they are but you know Mary Baker Eddie was seen as kind of a cook when she was alive and then it was after and I'm not saying you're a cook but I'm just saying.

[01:21:24] [SPEAKER_06]: It takes all types to start cults.

[01:21:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Form or basically are the worship team creator of an X van Jelkel hashtag to me that's enough.

[01:21:36] [SPEAKER_06]: You've got and you've got enough pedigree to start.

[01:21:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, that's all I'm saying.

[01:21:41] [SPEAKER_07]: Those are my bonus.

[01:21:42] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm on the other. Yeah, but you know we could make a list and I think you would go far so just really funny.

[01:21:52] [SPEAKER_06]: And if and when just keep me in mind as being one of your 10 it's so yes absolutely.

[01:21:58] [SPEAKER_06]: I'll be the keeper of the cube.

[01:22:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I like how we go.

[01:22:05] [SPEAKER_06]: They went, so this is what happens when you leave Christianity. You do you do you do questionable things like start and you explored the explore the option of starting a cult.

[01:22:14] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a natural part of the deconstructing process.

[01:22:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and we don't sell people like they always say you're going to leave and you're not going to have a morality and you're rape and pillage and kill and burn and steal but no.

[01:22:29] [SPEAKER_06]: But maybe cults.

[01:22:30] [SPEAKER_07]: Maybe.

[01:22:31] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, we're just just a we would just become the new competition.

[01:22:37] [SPEAKER_06]: We heard it here so the book is the first step and we're going to make it third step anyway.

[01:22:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Let's strike that now.

[01:22:46] [SPEAKER_06]: But definitely everyone get get Blake's book because it's a it was just a joy to read it was so informative and so nicely written and thank you very much.

[01:22:58] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm honored.

[01:23:00] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a beautiful thing.

[01:23:02] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, if you if you weren't you I'd say you should go on the Xman Jolkopodcast to talk about your book because

[01:23:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Blake does a good job interviewing authors and yeah that's my I love interviewing out there.

[01:23:15] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it's great.

[01:23:16] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, no, you're you're forced to go on shitty podcasts like Chapel probation to talk about your books.

[01:23:22] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm absolutely honored and I always love talking to you Scott.

[01:23:26] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, like ways one of my favorite memories is during the pandemic you just called me up and said you want to just come on and talk at the end of the year and we just chat it for like an hour and a half.

[01:23:35] [SPEAKER_07]: And yeah, yeah, I'm glad we should.

[01:23:38] [SPEAKER_07]: We I need to get back into the more casual podcasting again because that's the way that's what's the fun stuff that's can be I mean, yeah if you want to share it will welcome up with a topic like music again or something.

[01:23:50] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's that I mean you you are a podcast.

[01:23:55] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I'm a podcast producer.

[01:23:56] [SPEAKER_07]: And so like you know what can go into it and how much time you can spend on things.

[01:24:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm going to get in.

[01:24:02] [SPEAKER_05]: I look at it.

[01:24:03] [SPEAKER_07]: Look at that.

[01:24:05] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:24:07] [SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely.

[01:24:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, I really appreciate you coming on.

[01:24:10] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm and I can grab again on the book and thank you.

[01:24:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you for all the things you're going to do in the coming months.

[01:24:16] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, when's it going?

[01:24:17] [SPEAKER_06]: When's the date?

[01:24:19] [SPEAKER_07]: September 24th.

[01:24:20] [SPEAKER_07]: So coming up soon.

[01:24:21] [SPEAKER_07]: We're talking.

[01:24:23] [SPEAKER_06]: So this will come up right before that.

[01:24:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Awesome.

[01:24:27] [SPEAKER_06]: So everyone, go get the book.

[01:24:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you Blake.

[01:24:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Will be in touch.

[01:24:31] [SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for having me.

[01:24:38] [SPEAKER_06]: And that book is out right now, boys and girls.

[01:24:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, let's drop the bit.

[01:24:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And I should clarify that I don't hate people that insert white former pastor or the group the new event jellicles.

[01:24:51] [SPEAKER_06]: They're cool.

[01:24:52] [SPEAKER_06]: They're they are.

[01:24:53] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm sure.

[01:24:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I just hate that people.

[01:24:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Mostly white people.

[01:24:59] [SPEAKER_06]: Grab a date to them as the new shiny white guys even though they're saying the same exact things

[01:25:07] [SPEAKER_06]: that a lot of us, including Blake especially Blake who was first have been saying for many many years.

[01:25:14] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, food a bless unnamed white influencer the new event jellicles.

[01:25:19] [SPEAKER_06]: All those podcasts that are just coming out or coming out in the last few years.

[01:25:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Cool. They say some good things and they do help people.

[01:25:29] [SPEAKER_06]: But again, the reality is that white ex event jellicles coming out now naturally gravitate to these guys and these women because

[01:25:37] [SPEAKER_06]: they're the white alphas and they have tattoos and and facial hair.

[01:25:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Cool sneakers, I'm sure.

[01:25:48] [SPEAKER_06]: It sounds like a pastor anyway.

[01:25:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Why don't they get the same perspective of the people?

[01:25:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Why don't people get the same perspective?

[01:25:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, they can get the same perspective from people like Janice Lagada, Tory Williams Douglas, Daniel Whitehodge, Blake Chastine.

[01:26:06] [SPEAKER_06]: But it's not too late.

[01:26:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, maybe it is.

[01:26:09] [SPEAKER_06]: If you're listening to me which which you are, I'm a Japanese American asshole with a somewhat cynical view of things.

[01:26:18] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, the whole message of this episode is not for you and congratulations.

[01:26:23] [SPEAKER_06]: You have passed the test.

[01:26:27] [SPEAKER_06]: If you listen to chapel probation, you can disregard everything I've said.

[01:26:31] [SPEAKER_06]: So sorry, and the anger translators hit the calling out calling out people just follow Blake and get his book.

[01:26:42] [SPEAKER_06]: It's really good.

[01:26:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And forget everything I've said today.

[01:26:48] [SPEAKER_06]: We shunt speak of this again.

[01:26:51] [SPEAKER_06]: But thank you to Blake Chastine.

[01:26:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I've said this before, I said it in his episode before, but I'm sometimes just in awe of the fact that I can call him a friend.

[01:27:03] [SPEAKER_06]: We talked a lot online.

[01:27:04] [SPEAKER_06]: We've done a couple episodes.

[01:27:05] [SPEAKER_06]: He's been on here a couple times.

[01:27:07] [SPEAKER_06]: I've been on X-Men Jellicle a couple times.

[01:27:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Three times?

[01:27:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And I just love talking to Blake.

[01:27:15] [SPEAKER_06]: He's an amazing human being.

[01:27:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm in spite of all the shit that I dished out today.

[01:27:21] [SPEAKER_06]: I hope that doesn't overshadow the fat that I want you to know how great a person Blake Chastine is.

[01:27:29] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I get a little overprotective when I see other people getting credit for creating things that Blake has already created.

[01:27:40] [SPEAKER_06]: So we'll be back next week with another episode of Chapel Provation.

[01:27:44] [SPEAKER_06]: I hope you all have a great week.