This chapter delves into the speaker's transition from being a pastor in Chicago to embracing a more open and supportive faith environment in Arizona. It reflects on the challenges of leading a traditional congregation while grappling with personal doubts and changes in belief, highlighting the importance of discourse around faith and questioning. The narrative underscores the frailties of evangelical faith, advocating for a broader understanding that accommodates diverse perspectives and interpretations.
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One of our listeners tells his story of chipping away at Christian ideas, only to find a faith that feels more Christian.
This week and next, we’re going to hear the life stories of two more people who grew up in a Fundamentalist / Evangelical world, but embarked on a journey with which our listeners are very familiar: one that is strewn with baggage, rejected ideas, and old theologies. Those who’ve walked this path will all say that when you reach the end, you feel like you’ve lost it all … only to find that you hold a faith that looks completely different from the one you started with … but which feels more Christian.
Today, our guest will be one of our listeners who walked that journey while being the pastor of a very Fundie/Evangelical church: John James Kirkwood.
We heard a bit about the kind of Evangelical faith that was handed to John in his childhood, and how he essentially ran away from that in his teen years. But the story really begins when this Prodigal Son returns home and begins pastoral work at his father’s church. For twenty years!
At first, he tried to build a persona that might be best described as a cross between Ravi Zacharias (before the scandal) and Rush Lumbaugh. He wrote a very conservative column, hosted a radio show and became very vocal about politics. His views morphed into Christian Nationalism: he was often reacting against perceived abominations (like boycotting Target because they don’t say Merry Christmas) … gun rights were sacred … the US was the new Israel.
That changed when Donald Trump first became President. The reception given by the Religious Right started some very unsettling questions for John. He started to read some books (the first tell-tale sign of that “slippery slope”) and listening to speakers on the forbidden list (like Bart Ehrmann), particularly in the areas of Creation/Evolution, and the origin of the Bible. One night, after slamming shut Francis Collins’ book the Language of God, he said to his wife “I can’t believe I’ve been wrong all this time.” And then he apologized to his two teenage sons for what he’d been teaching them.
As he continued to jettison one idea after another and replacing them with new ones, while still pastoring at the church and putting the spotlight on the ministry and teaching of Jesus, people began to complain. And then some started leaving.
Eventually it was time for John to leave too.
He now finds himself in Arizona, involving himself in a variety of ministries, targeting “the Nones and the Dones,” with a new Christian worldview that looks nothing like what he had thirty years ago.
And John couldn’t be happier.
As always, tell us your thoughts on this episode …
To find more about John, go to his podcast Sparrow’s Call.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also want to look at our collection of similar life stores of people leaving traditional Fundamentalism/Evangelicalism to find a Christianity that looks completely different.
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