Fr. Shannon has a new book coming out soon, “Come and See: An Invitation to a Radical Encounter with Jesus,” which is a devotional aimed at youth and young adults. We talk about the role of traditional devotionals in shaping young people’s faith, especially how our experiences with devotionals have impacted us. We get into the limitations of these devotionals and their practices, and the importance of understanding how limiting they can be- especially since they often leave out the Bible’s context. Shannon shares his motivations for writing the book, emphasizing accessibility, justice, and the need for young people to engage with scripture meaningfully. This book is aimed for a younger audience, but anyone can engage with this as a means for deepening a personal understanding of scripture and faith.

Takeaways

Devotionals are often seen as a proxy for faith.
Many youth devotionals lack depth and context.
Understanding the Bible requires recognizing its complexity.
Devotionals can reinforce harmful theology if not critically engaged.
There are various ways to engage with spirituality beyond devotionals.
Shannon’s book aims to provide tools for understanding scripture.
The book encourages readers to ask questions and wrestle with faith.
‘Come and See’ is designed to be accessible for young people.
The book includes journaling prompts for reflection and discussion.
Engaging with the Bible can be a communal experience.

Chapters

(00:53) Devotionals: A Personal Journey

(10:36) Alternatives to Traditional Devotionals

(14:05) Introducing ‘Come and See’ Devotional

(17:41) Understanding the Bible: Context Matters

(21:09) Target Audience for ‘Come and See’

Resources:

Pre-order “Come And See: An Invitation to a Radical Encounter With Jesus” by Fr. Shannon TL Kearns
Check out books about faith and the Bible that we recommend
Rituals for Resistance and Resilience
Join our online community at Sanctuary Collective Community

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions.

(9s):
Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome back today. I’m so excited because we are talking about Shannon’s new book and See An Invitation to a Radical Encounter With Jesus. This is a Devotional, specifically intended for youth and young adults. And along the way, I think we’re gonna talk about some of our own experiences with Devotionals, maybe some of the highlights and some of the horror stories in our growing up era and how we approach Devotional and other sort of contemplative practices around scripture and faith.

(1m 4s):
So that’s, that’s where we are today. Shannon, like Devotionals, gimme your sort of history with Devotionals and, and youth, youth Devotionals in particular, I suppose. Oh man. I feel like Devotionals were such a popular thing when I was in elementary and high school. Yeah. And I feel like, especially in high school, right? I feel like we came of age, and I’m a little bit older than you, but I, so I really came of age in the moment when contemporary Christian pop culture was really, really, really hitting its sth, right? Like yeah, there were, you know, the stadium tours and the merch and the branded everythings, and, and, and like, there were huge Christian bookstores like all around, even in the kind of small town that I grew up in.

(1m 57s):
Like we had this giant Christian bookstore. And so I spent a lot of time kinda in those spaces and, and there was also a real heavy emphasis on your daily quiet time, right? Preferably first thing in the morning, whether or not you were a morning person, right? You’re supposed to get into the word and pray and et cetera. And so like Devotionals kind of became an easy way to, to do those quiet times, right? Because you didn’t have to think, you just like did the thing. And I remember in particular, I wish I had it with me, but like Rebecca St.

(2m 37s):
James had her own Devotional And I like still have my copy. And I remember going through that And I, you know, she was really focused on purity. And, and, And I, I mean, I appreciated the way that sometimes these Devotionals helped me to like ask questions or to think about my faith, but I also really had this sense of like, you were diving into scripture in just really small out of context snippets. You’re sometimes only reading a Bible verse or two.

(3m 20s):
There was never any like, here’s what was happening in this story or here’s what was happening in history. It was just like this out of context versus that then applied to, I don’t know, American culture today. And yeah, like that was supposed to be how you were supposed to engage. And so like, it didn’t actually teach me how to read the Bible, it didn’t teach me how to understand these texts. It was just like, I don’t know, Christian pop culture written over the Bible is, is kind of how I remember experiencing it. Yeah, I mean that it’s, it’s funny because the purpose of it is the stated purpose is to like spend time in God’s word and to really put the focus on the word and you know, this same focus, I think that we’re promoting these Devotional, but what also say things like the whole bible, the bible, the whole bible, nothing but the Bible, right?

(4m 17s):
Right. And, and Sola script Torah and, and all of those buzzwords. But to your point, it was like one, maybe four sentences of the Bible and then like a page or two of some random person’s thoughts on the Bible. And so you’re really, it’s all being like run through this rubric and then presented as well, this is just like what it plainly says, but when you’re only looking at for one to four verses, like you can make that say whatever you want. Yeah, yeah. And, and they sure do, right? I mean that’s kind of the, the problem. Yeah. I, I had a similar experience as you with Devotionals.

(4m 58s):
I remember my junior high, my junior high leader gave at some point gave me probably a men’s Devotional, like a young man’s Devotional. And later on po I think a young life leader probably gave me one. And, and my, my fifth grade Sunday school teacher, my sixth grade Sunday school teacher, I think it was like he, we didn’t go through a specific Devotional book together, but he kind of did like a DIY Devotional where each week we would have like a class memory verse and he would teach us just around these, like, it was, it was always like, like you were saying, snippet based. It was like a few passage us here, a few passage us I mean a few sentences here, a few sentences, a few sentences, a few sentences there, which doesn’t really give you, certainly doesn’t give you any context about like what was going on at that moment in scripture, but it doesn’t even really give you any context around what was going on before, after it in, in the chapter.

(5m 49s):
And when you’re talking about quiet times earlier, that also really stuck out to me because I remember feeling like quiet times became this sort of like proxy for how devout you were, especially like for young people, right? It was like, well, are you doing your quiet times? And they would never say, right, well, if you don’t read your Bible, God doesn’t love you, your salvation doesn’t count, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Because it’s all predicated on, all you have to do is say this prayer. And also there was sort of like a, well, if you were a real believer, like real for real believers, this is really important. And so then, then Devotionals became, like you were saying sort of an a to help you do that easier.

(6m 35s):
And so it was very much sort of like wrapped up in this sort of like, it’s ostensibly about connecting the, with the divine yourself, but it was also sort of one of the like rubber stamped, community approved ways of like showing that your, like a real Christian have a true faith. And so I, I wonder like how, when, like, ’cause I know we get a lot of requests for Devotionals. I wonder like how much of the emphasis when, when people want a Devotional, how much of it is like, what are you looking for outta that? I always ask folks, are you wanting to learn about the Bible?

(7m 15s):
Are you wanting to read more of the Bible, have an easy way into the Bible? Or like, I think for some people it is sort of like, I want to feel connected to God generally. And this is sort of like the way that I’ve been told one does that, Yeah. And it also me that like almost all of the Devotionals, especially the ones that I was reading growing up, but I think even quite a few of them now all have this kind of underlying, i, I wanna say assumption, but I, I, I don’t think, I think it’s an assumption on the audience, right? That it’s like they’re all just teaching the Bible, right?

(7m 55s):
They’re, there’s, there’s never any clarity about what, where does this come from? Because that’s the thing with like popular evangelical culture is that, well, it’s just Christian, and it’s like, no, actually you’re interpreting scripture through a very, very specific lens, except that like, nowhere are you saying what that lens is or how you’re, how you’re interpreting. And so I think it’s can be really harmful, especially for young people who don’t, who maybe don’t have the, the savvy to be able to know, oh, I can’t just like go into Barnes and Noble and pick up any Devotional.

(8m 39s):
And I think that a lot of people are getting some really harmful theology Yeah. Under the guise of, well, it’s just a Devotional, right? It’s just about the Bible. It can’t be, there’s no agenda here, but like as we know that there is definitely agenda, There’s always an agenda. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I’m also struck, I was, I was doing some research, like I was trying to see like what else was out there. I’m also really, really struck by how many Devotionals a are like super gendered, like you were mentioning earlier that that you’re youth leader probably gave you a men’s Devotional. And there, especially in the young, the young people Devotionals, it’s, they’re still very heavily like every young man’s battle and every young woman’s battle, right?

(9m 24s):
The those that brand of Devotionals are really popular. So like super gender and also a lot about like, purity, especially for high school students. And it just becomes this, I, for me, it’s like yet another tool of, of shame and control on young people to like make sure that they’re fitting into these really narrow little boxes, which is again, I not not healthy. Yeah. When you were talking about, you know, every Devotional has a context which you know, is in the same vein of all theology has a context. It’s like setting aside like progressive versus conservative LGBT affirming versus anti LGBT, even if you only looked at conservative aff affirming Devotionals of sort of like really super strict Lutheran perspective is going to be like wildly different than a Baptist perspective is going to be different than a Roman Catholic perspective, like in general on the same passage us on what passage us get selected.

(10m 30s):
And so yeah, like there’s, everyone is always like running it through a lens. And so to your point, I think paying attention to that lens is so important. So obviously, like we’re a big fans of Devotionals, we wrote one together, queer’s the Word, you have this new one coming out. Well, And I wanna get to your Devotional in, in a moment, but for folks that are maybe listening and are sort of like Devotional skeptic, I think we can get to maybe like the, the prose of a Devotional leader, but like, what are some alternatives to Devotionals? Like how might you engage with the Bible and or with Faith if you’re like, a Devotional is like too triggering for me because while we think I, well, I think your Devotional is really great, you know, I know that’s just that the, the, the, the genre in general is not gonna be for everyone.

(11m 13s):
And so what are some other ways that people who aren’t interested at all or used to be interested about Ben Burn can sort of still engage with their spirituality? Yeah, I mean, I think that your question earlier is really helpful is like, what are you hoping to, to get out of whatever practice it is that you’re interested in engaging in? And I think that like for a lot of folks, the, the reason that they might pick up a Devotional is because it, it’s an easy access point, right? Like it’s, it’s all packaged for you and you don’t have to like weighed in on your own, like without floaties. It, it gives you some floaties, right? For, for whatever your spiritual practice is. But I do think that like if you, and that’s, That’s not inherently a bad thing, right? Right. Correct. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(11m 55s):
But I think that like, and ’cause I think that, you know, for some folks, especially if you either have a negative relationship with scripture or you’ve never engaged with scripture at all, like figuring out where to start if engaging with scripture is part of what you are feeling like you want your practice to be like, that can be really overwhelming. And so I think, you know, one of the things that we talk a lot about is like, you don’t have to just dive into the Bible. It can often be helpful to read a book about the Bible. You know, we, I always recommend Rob Bells, what is the Bible? If you wanna like, dive deeper into, for instance, something like the Christmas stories, John, Dominic Hassan and Marcus Borgs, the first Christmas is really great, right?

(12m 40s):
Like these books dive into scripture while also providing context for how to read and understand it. And I think that that can be really helpful Really quickly, we have a bunch of book suggestions over at Queer Theology dot com slash book. So if you wanna grab either of those that Shay just mentioned, or find some other ones, that’s a great place to go check out. Yeah. And then I think, you know, if you’re looking for something else, like something that’s not just scripture or study-based, right? Like really experimenting with what are, where are the places that you feel connected to the divine? For some people that might be getting out in nature and, and doing a, a prayer walk outside. For me, I usually feel crabby in nature.

(13m 23s):
So, you know, for me it’s like, I would like to find a, a really pretty and quiet church to, to spend time in or to walk a labyrinth, right? To just try out some different practices and find out what works and, and give it a chance to work on you and in you. And it doesn’t have to look like a quiet time in the morning, right? It could look like reading a book. It could look like really in depth study. It could look like a meditation walk or going to a meditation class or sitting in silence in a Quaker meeting, right? There are lots of different ways that practices can look, and it’s about kind of finding what feeds your spirit and, and then also being open to trying new things and to, to going maybe out of your comfort zone to experience something different.

(14m 14s):
We have some resources for putting together spiritual practices and rituals that fit for you. Inside of our spiritual study hall, it’s called Rituals for Resistance and Resilience, as well as a place to sort of talk with other people about what’s working for them, discuss these books that we’re reading, discuss the Bible in the Sanctuary Collective Community. You can learn more about both of those and get access at Queer Theology dot com slash community. And so now let’s turn our attention to you’re this Devotional. Like why did you write, Come and See? Yeah, I mean, part of it is because we’ve gotten so many requests over the Years For Devotionals that we could recommend for young people. And honestly, I couldn’t in good conscience recommend any of them.

(14m 57s):
And you know, I also, I, you know, I did youth work for Man like 20 years and found often that even the most progressive, most progressive kind of resources either were written a little bit too young for their intended audience. Like even the things that were aimed at, like high schoolers was like, this is really for a, a middle schooler, or it didn’t really take justice seriously. And again, I, like I mentioned earlier, it did, it also didn’t really give folks tools to understand these texts, right?

(15m 38s):
We’re still, it’s like taking things out of context. And so I wanted to create a Devotional that was accessible, that was aimed for young people, but that was also smart and grounded in like the best of scholarship. And that gave young folks some tools to understand like, this is how the Bible is put together, this is how we can understand it, to give them permission to grapple and wrestle with texts, to ask questions. And then I also wanted to, to, like we did with the queers, the word Devotional, to both give places for people to reflect, reflect back their own experiences of reading these texts, but then also to put their faith into practice.

(16m 25s):
Because I think that, you know, for, for all of us, I, I think we need that cycle of we learn about something, we reflect on it, and we reflect it as how it interrupts and interacts with our own lives. And then we also have to like, go and practice something and like put what we’re learning actually into action out in the world. And so, as I said in the, in the beginning of the journal, like, or the Devotional, I really think of this as like an iterative process and an iterative journal, like it’s 40 days, but there’s also so much to come back to as you’ve tried an experiment and then you come back and you’re like, oh, that actually makes me see this passage in a whole different way.

(17m 8s):
And now I understand it in new ways because like, I’ve done this thing and now I’m gonna reflect and, and journal in different ways. And so wanted again to just be something that was really accessible, but also really focused on justice and inclusion and, and grounded in, in the best scholarship that, that I’ve encountered. All right, thanks for that. And I, it’s my understanding that you’re gonna share this little sneak peek from the Devotional. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So Before we get into that, just a reminder to everyone listening, you can get to Come and See an invitational to radical encounter with Jesus everywhere books are sold, it’s available for pre-order right now, it comes out in just a few weeks on September 2nd.

(17m 49s):
Pre-orders are super important, especially for small queer trans authors like us. They help let the publishers and the bookstores know that this is a book worth buying and selling and stocking on their shelves and for people to talk about. So we really encourage you if you are planning on buying it, to go ahead and do that. Now. You can again get it, any books are sold. If you go to Queer Theology dot com slash books, you can find links to all of the big places that you might wanna get it from. And so, Shannon, what now let’s, let’s dive into your Devotional. So I’m actually gonna read a little piece from the very beginning, which is it’s about helping readers to understand the Bible. So before we’re even diving into the Devotional and providing some context for how to understand the Bible.

(18m 30s):
And so this is from that section before we jump into our Devotional. It’s helpful if we have a working understanding of the Bible. It’s easy to think of the Bible as a book after all. We call it a book. It’s bound like a book. We can buy it in stores as a single volume. It’s better, however, to understand the Bible as a library of books. It’s a collection of a variety of different types of texts, histories, stories, letters, poetry, the list goes on. We can think of the Bible as a record of people who are trying to make sense of some really big questions. Who are we? Why are we here? What are we here to do? How did things get the way they are? Why do bad things happen? What is our relationship supposed to be with ourselves, with other people, and with God slash the divine?

(19m 14s):
Each one of these books is written by a particular person or sometimes groups of people in a particular time in a particular place. These particularities impact the way they tell the stories, as do the outside forces like politics, other religious practices from people around them and historical events they’re responding to. All of that together shapes the point they’re trying to make. And often how the original receivers would’ve understood it. Many of the books of the Bible started as an oral tradition, spoken stories and histories that were passed down through generations before finally being written down. And when they were originally written down, there were no Chapters and verse numbers. Those were added later to make it easier to read. But that’s why it’s so important that we don’t just memorize verses or read things outside of their whole context because these stories weren’t meant to be read that way.

(20m 0s):
They were meant to tell a whole story. While some verses might be comforting, taking them out of their surroundings might make it mean something. It wasn’t meant to. Why does all of this matter? Because this complicated library of books has been used for both really amazing things and really damaging things. It’s been misunderstood and misused. It’s been used as a weapon, but also as a comfort. It’s been called Holy and Profane. It’s been said to be both the most important book of all and completely outdated. So as we enter into this Devotional, we want to read the Bible as it is in all its complexity. We want to understand what type of book we’re reading, and a bit about why it was written and who it was written to, and how they would’ve understood it.

(20m 40s):
We want to bring all of our intelligence with us as we engage with stories that can encourage, challenge and deepen our faith. We don’t have to be afraid to ask questions, to wrestle, to use all of our wisdom in trying to understand this library. In fact, grappling with the Bible is one of the most faithful things we can do. Hmm. Amen. And amen. I love that. So earlier on in this episode, we mentioned that this is a Devotional intended for youth and young adults. And so can you share a little bit about like, who the intended audience is? And I imagine that most of the listeners of our podcast are going to be on the older side of that range. And so like, is this a good fit for them anyways, or should they think about getting it as a gift for someone and who, like who in their lives might they be a good fit for?

(21m 27s):
Yeah, I mean, I specifically wrote it for, for younger folks, and so you’ll see, you know, the language is geared towards young people as it goes on. There are definitely references to things like school and some of the, the adventures are, you know, you have to take a parent or a trusted adult along. And so obviously, you know, if you are an older person reading it, you do not have to take your parent along. You can, you can do these adventures just on your own. And so I, I was really thinking about like youth groups and confirmation students and, you know, young people who are interested in the Bible and faith and who also care about justice, but who and who maybe don’t have access to an affirming community or, or maybe this is a book that they can read in community.

(22m 15s):
I also intended it the tool for parents to be able to give to the young people in their lives. And so there are, there are journaling prompts, but those journaling prompts could also be family discussion questions or something that is discussed around the dinner table or in the car on the way to and from something. And so I, I want it to be something that young folks could engage with on their own, and also a tool that people could engage with in groups if, if they had access to that. I do think that for some not young folks, that this actually could be really useful as long as you can kind of do that translating work on your own and are not put off by, you know, references to school or asking you to take in a tru trusted adult.

(23m 9s):
But again, like I’ve, I’ve tried to bring the best of what I have learned about how to read the Bible to this text. And, and so like, I just think about, it was pretty late into my Christian journey that I understood that the Bible was a library, right? Like yeah, network was telling me that I was allowed to argue with the text when I was a young person. And so, like, if you were also someone who maybe has grown up in a tradition that was more conservative and, and kind of antidote to might accessible first step, as long as you understand that it was, that it might be a little young, that some of the language might be a little young.

(23m 54s):
Yeah. I’m also thinking that if you haven’t read the Bible in a really long time or you’re not certain, if you want to, if you care about the Bible or want to care about the Bible, like this might be sort of like a low stakes, low lift sort of way to ease back into it before jumping into like a super studious like rigorous, dense read about the Bible or even devotion about the Bible. And Yeah. And so there’s, So just as a bit of, there’s 40, 40 entries. They’re, they go in kind of chronological order as to how the Bible is published and put together. We could, we could argue about whether that is actual chronological, chronological order.

(24m 37s):
It’s not, but it’s based on how the Bible’s put together. And then before, like each type new type of literature, there is a, a bit of a, a section of like how to understand that type of literature. And can you give us sort of like, what are those sections and a, a brief, obviously like read the book, but like a brief sort of like what are the different types of literature? Yeah, so like understanding, there’s like a quick start guide to like the Hebrew scriptures, one to the Christian scriptures. There’s some, some context around prophets, around poetry, around what the gospels are around the letters.

(25m 18s):
Some of that got compiled in because my editor thought that maybe not everyone was as much of a nerd as I was and would be willing to wade through all of those things. And so some of that is like folded into different sections. But I wanted to again, provide some tools for folks to, to help understand like how these different types of literature play out in, in the larger context of, of scripture. Very cool. And obviously like every person is different, every kid is different, every family is different, but like what is sort of like the low end of the range for who you think this might be appropriate for? I’m gonna guess probably like 11 or 12 again, depending on reading level.

(26m 0s):
And it, and it might be something that you could read with a younger kid. Awesome. Fantastic. Really more than anything though, you know, I really want this, this Devotional to be a gift to the church, to young people, to folks who are interested in grappling seriously with scripture, maybe don’t know how to get started. And but also folks who are really wanting to put their faith into practice in new ways and to try some different experiences, both of like justice work, but also new contemplative practices and new spiritual practices. And so I’m really excited for this book to get into the hands of people. I’m hoping that lots and lots of churches will buy it in bulk and give it out to their young people as gifts, but also that families will engage with it as well.

(26m 45s):
And so Come And See An Invitation to a Radical Encounter with Jesus comes out on September 2nd. There will be both a hardcover version and an ebook version and would love to, to get this out to as many people as possible. I Pre-ordered mine a few weeks ago And I’m so excited to get it And I hope that y’all listening will pre-order it, if not for yourself, for someone in your life, or just to donate to your church library or something like that. So Come and See and we’ll talk to you next week. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at Queer Theology dot com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for L-G-B-T-Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters. To dive into more of the action, visit us at Queer Theology dot com.

(27m 26s):
You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

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