Recovering Evangelicals

Are they just fun parlor tricks? Spiritual gifts and miracles like the ones we read in the Bible? Demonic manifestations? Or simply mind-over-matter? Dr. Alan Streett was on a career trajectory to be a professional baseball player when a major arm injury and a psychic healer diverted him into Seminary studies as a non-believing church pastor-in-training who got drunk on Saturday nights, preached Billy Graham sermons the next morning, and spent the rest of his time researching the paranormal!?  After finishing his PhD, he had a life-changing spiritual experience and became a sincere Christian and a professor at a Christian college … and continued his fifty year long research project trying to understand the paranormal and psychic phenomena. His interest in the paranormal was sparked by the psychic healer, who failed to restore his arm but told him many stories, recommended books to read, and got him connected to other people in that world.  He became fascinated, and dove head-first into this pursuit.  Over the course of 50 years, he went through four distinct stages in his understanding of that strange paranormal world. Stage 1: he enrolled at a Bible Seminary (even though he wasn’t a Christian) and tried to integrate what he was learning about the secular paranormal with examples of the supernatural in the Bible.  To him at that time, they were one and the same.  It was all just neat stuff: harmless and interesting. Stage 2: the cognitive dissonance of being a heavy-drinking non-Christian on the inside, but a Seminary student and pastor-in-training on the outside, finally triggered a mental crisis and then a profound and life-changing conversion experience.  He was born-again!  And on fire!  And while attending a charismatic church service, he learned that the paranormal/psychic phenomena were in fact demonic!  He immediately made a 180 degree turn away from that world, and completely rejected those phenomena. Stage 3: after finishing his Seminary training and becoming a professor of Evangelism and New Testament at a Christian College in Texas, he invited a guest lecturer to speak on “Magic: real and fake.”  That guest convinced Alan that, in fact, many of the paranormal and psychic things that had previously so fascinated him (Stage 1), and then terrified him (Stage 2), were actually just devious parlor tricks and fraudulent illusion.  His guest even showed him how to do some of the tricks used by mentalists (“the Amazing Kreskin”; David Copperfield; Darren Brown), palm-readers, Tarot card readers … and even poker players (who read their opponents’ “tells”).  And Alan started perfecting the art himself: he too was now entertaining the crowds while teaching students and church audiences that this was not scary supernatural stuff … just simple deception. Stage 4: with his interest in psychic phenomena renewed and re-directed, he studied it from a new, more analytical perspective.  He learned about brain states: the fast, excited brain waves of the beta state which provides focused concentration and the fight-or-flight response, versus the slower, relaxed brain waves of the alpha state, the relaxation response and day-dreaming.  He noticed the marked similarities — the slowed breathing and intense mental focus — between the meditation used in yoga, the centering prayer used to have a spiritual encounter with God, the hypnosis used to quit smoking or ignore bodily pain, and the Lamaze classes that are taught to cope with labor and delivery. In other words, the psychic phenomena are largely mind over matter. We then talked about how Alan’s Stage 4 understanding explains many of the things that we see happening in private spiritual practice (visions; prayer; a peaceful spiritual experience) as well as in very public healing meetings (which are predominantly geared toward dealing with a wide variety of pain and mental issues, and not so much restoring amputated limbs or correcting enzymatic deficiencies like diabetes). It also explains how athletes overcome what appear to be insurmountable barriers. For example, it was long thought to be “impossible” to run a 4-minute mile; until Roger Bannister did it in 1954, and now it’s commonplace.  Likewise in figure skating: for decades no one could do the triple axel, until Vern Taylor did it at the 1978 World Championships … and now nearly all competitive skaters can do it.  In the same way, this also explains how some people feel “the universe” co-operates with their wishes/needs (“the Law of Attraction”): their persistent determination has them repeatedly trying over and over until they finally breakthrough their perceived barrier and achieve their goal. I think there’s a lot of food for thought in what Alan had to tell us. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find out more about Alan at his faculty page, and his book at Eerdmans Publishing. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our collection of episodes dealing with the religious experiences and spiritual encounters. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

In this discussion, Dr. Christian Smith, a Harvard-trained sociologist and author, explores the concept of religious obsolescence. He argues that traditional faith has already become obsolete due to unplanned societal changes and key events like 9/11 and the rise of technology. Smith highlights trends among younger generations, including the shift towards 'spiritual but not religious' identities and the appeal of alternative spiritual practices like astrology. He also calls for a rethinking of traditional religious models to remain relevant in modern society.

Peter Enns, a theologian and professor at Eastern University, shares his transformative journey from a strict Evangelical upbringing to a more nuanced understanding of the Bible. He discusses the emotional turmoil and academic experiences that fueled his faith deconstruction, highlighting the human elements of Scripture and Christ. Enns emphasizes the importance of authenticity in academia and the challenges faced when challenging traditional doctrines. Ultimately, he advocates for a more complex understanding of orthodoxy, bridging personal belief with institutional definitions.

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. Episode images used by permission. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

An exploration of belief, unbelief, delusion, and critical thinking, and some (coping) strategies in dealing with this peculiarity of being human. Humans can believe some pretty crazy things. Pew Research has at times found that 1% of Americans believe the earth is flat. And that 6% aren’t quite sure whether it is or not! In 2017, Peter McIndoe started a movement that claims the federal government has exterminated all birds and replaced them with look-alike drones to spy on citizens … a movement that now has 100,000 followers. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed joint-suicide in order to board Comet Hale–Bopp, which they believed was a disguised alien space ship that would take them to a beautiful new world. As diverse as these movements are, they have a few features in common. The adherents collect their own data, make their own interpretations, and label any counter-evidence or counter-arguments as lies and conspiracies. Sound familiar? The Kennedy assassination? The 9/11 plane crashes? Anti-vaxers and COVID19/measles? Global warming? Gender issues? Republicans and Democrats? Fundamentalist Christians? Young Earth Creationists? This week, Scott and I discuss this quirky characteristic of humans. And we brought in a guest that we’ve had on more than once in the past — Doug Traversa — because he’s on “the other side” of Scott and me when it comes to the two most divisive of topics — religion and politics (he’s an American, and an atheist) — and yet he also has a long track record of modeling what Scott and I think is an excellent way to interact positively and respectfully with others who think very differently from him. First, we explored the diverse manifestations of this human characteristic of dismissing evidence and explanations from qualified experts and replacing them with their own. The list is too long — and too distressing — to repeat here. Then we identified a number of contributing factors, because you can’t fix a problem if you don’t fully understand it. Here are some of the ones we found: isolationism, social bubbles, echo-chambers and silos home-schooling pledges of allegiance, shibboleths, creedal statements control of books that can/cannot be read; people who can/cannot be listened to or associated with “the algorithms” of social media people intentionally or unconsciously creating their own algorithms (choosing the news media they listen to; the way they do Google searches) being selective in the attention we give to the reasons for/against something we’ve lost the ability to identify authoritative people, credentials lost the ability for critical thinking and reasoning Postmodernism: no absolute truth; people speak of “my truth” versus “your truth” self-fulfilling reasoning and confirmation bias peer pressure cognitive traits inherited through our long evolutionary journey herd mentality (which plays into our tribalism) primates need to be in-group, and fear social isolation (the rationale behind jails and prisons) need to be suspicious of outsiders (plays into our racism) software that tries to make sense of a limited data-set in order to create a simplified user-friendly version of reality (even if that only fits some of the data points, and forces us to reject the other data points) Finally we talked about our responses to this: don’t blame, mock or demonize them …. we’re ALL just running limited data sets through clunky software on patch-work hardware read more broadly; ask more questions; validate your assumptions and suspicions despair … if humans can believe such diverse and often mutually exclusive ideas — and be fully convinced that THEY have the real truth — then how can I be so confident that what I believe is true? become more comfortable with uncertainty As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … If you want to learn more about Doug, check out our episodes in which he tells his full life-story, or why he decided to give up his faith, or get his views on the Richard Dawkins / Ayaan Hirsi Ali interview. For episodes that are closely related to this topic, check out what we said about science denial, or a collection of episodes that focus on Evangelicals. Episode image is a modified still image from the 1999 block-buster film The Matrix. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Many people think that the church burned scientists and their books during the Dark Ages; they would be wrong …. and here’s why We’re still discussing the book Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and how the Conflict Thesis fooled the world.   Last week, we spoke to one of the authors of that book — an academic historian (James C. Ungureanu) — about what this Conflict Thesis is (“the church and science are inherently at war … always have been, always will be”) and who it was that originated the idea (two 19th century American scholars: John William Draper and Andrew Dixon White).  This week, we’re talking to his co-author (David Hutchings) about how and why the Conflict Thesis is so embedded in the 21st century Western zeitgeist.  As a testament to how embedded that is, Luke talked to a dozen non-experts (friends, family, neighbors) and asked them straightforward questions that give glimpses of this underlying Conflict Thesis thinking. In particular, we talked about Galileo’s story, Bruno’s story, stories of the Church burning science books and even whole libraries, and the period in human history commonly referred to as the Dark Ages when the church is said to have suppressed science forcefully and brutally.  In each case, we explored: what my polling group have heard and seem to remember about those stories how they’ve received those versions of the stories through science textbooks (high school, college, university), documentaries, TV shows (Family Guy), popular books and movies (Dan Brown’s series of books — Da Vinci Code; Angels & Demons; Origin; Inferno — have sold over 250 million copies worldwide and are published in 56 languages), and popular influencers (Carl Sagan; Neil DeGrasse Tyson; Richard Dawkins; the late Christopher Hitchens; Sam Harris; Joe Rogan; and others) and how the version of those stories held by academic historians does not at all involve martyrdom, book burning, or suppression of science for theological reasons, and that the period of time which non-experts label “the Dark Ages” were actually a period of prolific scientific discovery, development of technology, and the active pursuit of such knowledge through logic, reason and wide-spread publication …. all largely at the hands of monks, priests, Christian thinkers, and the Church! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Click here for more information about David Hutchings’ books, including the one we discussed today: Of Popes and Unicorns. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our mini-series of episodes on: a Christian response to Evolution (11 episodes) Young Earth Creationism (9 episodes) Intelligent Design (8 episodes) To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Almost everyone in the 21st century Western world have bought into this unfounded myth (very possibly YOU too!?) A few days ago, it was the 1st of April …. April Fool’s Day!  Instead of playing some kind of prank on our listeners, we thought we’d look at a great book about a hoax — on the level of a conspiracy theory — that has hoodwinked the world for almost two centuries!  This con-job has most people today believing in “the Dark Ages,” and that the church in the past often tortured and even killed scientists, and burned down the ancient library of Alexandria (containing thousands of books, the collective knowledge of the world at that time). When you, the listener, hear about the whole “Galileo Affair,” does your mind immediately jump to religion vs science, or do you imagine two different groups of philosophers/scholars disputing cosmology using Greek philosophical arguments? The book we’ll be bringing to our listeners this week is Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and how the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World, by David Hutchings and James C. Ungureanu.  This week we’ll hear from James (a PhD historian), and next week from David (degree in physics; popular speaker and apologist). James did his entire PhD thesis on the Conflict Thesis and who first proposed the idea.  He and David dug through historical archives, chasing down footnotes in textbooks, newspaper clippings, and letters between scholars, and the trail converged on two 19th century American scholars: John William Draper and Andrew Dixon White.  And their idea — the Conflict Thesis — claims that “the church and science are at war … fundamentally at odds … always have been, always will be.” Draper and White were both brilliant polymaths, energetic intellectuals, and recognized scholars in a scholar’s world.  Draper was a scientist, White a literary scholar who had been on a path toward preaching, but was enticed away by intellectual influences into more secular pursuits.  Both wrote books which became the foundation for the Conflict Thesis.  Draper’s (History of the Conflict between Religion and Science) was dense and only readable to professional egg-heads, while White’s (A history of the warfare of science with theology in Christendom) was aimed at a more popular level.  And both were Christians!  In fact, Draper was not attacking religion itself, but advocating for a return to a pure, rational form of Christianity; he saw the Protestant Reformation as a turning point not just for religion but for science as well.  Nonetheless, both held, developed and passed on a distorted view of history of the relationship between church and science, which was then picked up and promoted by later scholars over the ensuing decades, and then more recently popularized by influencers like Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Joe Rogan, to name just a few.  The Conflict thesis can be found in textbooks used in high schools, colleges, and universities … in the introductions to scholarly papers published in scientific and medical journals … in magazine articles and documentaries … popular TV shows (Family Guy) and movies like Dan Brown’s blockbuster the Da Vinci Code.  It’s no wonder that anyone growing up in 21st century Western society just absorbs this idea (the Conflict Thesis) by osmosis, takes it as a historical fact, and makes it a part of their worldview.  Luke was curious about how Draper and White got their grossly distorted understanding of history: “Were they just honestly stupid, or deceitfully biased, or perhaps misinformed?”  We also talked about members of a mysterious “X Club” who met in lounges over cigars and drinks and discussed big ideas.  About the Free Religious Association: radical Unitarians, Universalists, spiritualists, transcendentalists, and other religious minorities who promoted free thought and more philosophy without the constraints of institutional Christianity, and promoting a new religion of Humanity.  About Stephen Jay Gould and “non-overlapping magisteria.”  And about why this Conflict Thesis just doesn’t want to go away.  Luke asked if historians have given up debunking the distorted history. James replied historians are growing tired of trying; that the public just prefer to have a simple good guy / bad guy story, rather than the highly nuanced but much more accurate understanding. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Click here for more information about Dr. James Ungureanu and the book we discussed. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our mini-series of episodes on: a Christian response to Evolution (11 episodes) Young Earth Creationism (9 episodes) Intelligent Design (8 episodes) To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Scott shares his transformative faith journey from rigid evangelical beliefs to a more open-minded perspective. He discusses the struggle between foundational teachings and personal convictions, emphasizing the need for critical thinking. The conversation delves into the complexities of Jesus' identity and the implications of his teachings while exploring themes of love and forgiveness. They also challenge traditional views on heaven and hell, advocating for creating a 'heaven on earth' through our actions. Embracing doubt and flexibility in beliefs is highlighted as key to spiritual growth.

Douglas F. Ottati, a leading liberal Christian theologian, dives deep into the essence of liberal theology and its historical roots, emphasizing the interplay between modernity and religious thought. He challenges the rigid definitions of ‘orthodoxy,’ advocating for a more fluid understanding shaped by time and context. The conversation spans biblical interpretation, the evolving nature of Christian beliefs, and diverse perspectives on God’s nature, fostering a rich dialogue that bridges traditional and progressive theological views.

This is the conversation that motivated me to start Season Six: the book that got me questioning whether “my [liberal] faith was in vain” Folks, this interview is the one that rebooted the podcast!  The previous three episodes that started Season Six were all a lead-up to this conversation.  It was an article written by our guest today — Dr. Roger Olson, Professor Emeritus of Theology at Baylor University, one of the biggest religious universities in the United States, and the biggest Baptist University in the world — that got me seriously questioning whether I was allowed to still call myself a Christian. That article  — Why I wrote Against Liberal Theology — caught me at a time when I was getting very comfortable in my liberal/Progressive Christian skin, and very disillusioned with the Christianity of my Fundamentalist Evangelical past.  It prompted a deep introspective dive into what DO I really believe (or not believe) … and why? In this conversation — a very calm, collegial, and respectful one by the way! — we asked Dr. Olson to define liberal Christian theology and explain why he sees it as “heresy.” We also asked him to define orthodox Christian theology (essentially, the Nicene Creed), the gospel message, and the label “Christian.”  We talked about whether Christianity truly has an unchanging core tradition set over a millennium ago by the church fathers, or whether it has always been evolving.  Other stopping points in our conversation included: miracles, the resurrection of Jesus, the Wesleyan quadrilateral, naturalism, and Carl Sagan.  And in the last part of our conversation, I asked for his comments about my very liberal Christian view on the human condition and our need for salvation — a view that, I’ll admit, looks very different from the traditional, “orthodox” view — and about my insistence on using the label “Christian.”  Truth be told, it was a great conversation, and I highly recommend Dr. Olson’s book — Against Liberal Theology: putting the brakes on Progressive Christianity — to any listeners who “want to hear both sides of the story” on the conservative/liberal Christian spectrum. Next week, we’ll talk to an equally prominent theologian from the liberal end of the theological spectrum. In fact, one whom Dr. Olson frequently mentions in his book and in our conversation as perhaps the absolute best representative since Friedrich Schleiermacher of the Liberal Christian Theological movement that he was targeting in his book!  As always, tell us your thoughts … Find more information about Dr. Roger Olson at the Patheos web-site that now hosts his blog posts, and find his many books at Amazon, including the one we discuss in this episode: Against Liberal Theology: putting the brakes on Progressive Christianity. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive