Recovering Evangelicals

A committed secular humanist, two Christians (and a Jewish rabbi) compare perspectives on their agreed claim that human morality has been on the upswing. A year ago, we did an episode with a Jewish rabbi and scholar — Dr. and Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson — exploring the claim that human morality has been trending upwards, in large part due to a Judeo-Christian influence on modern Western society: that we’ve been climbing the evolutionary ladder, not just in a biological and cognitive sense, but also in a moral and ethical sense.  A lot of people really struggle with that claim, largely because they look at headlines in the newspapers and say: “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Another leading scholar who’s very skeptical and resistant to religion — Dr. Michael Shermer — made the same claim about human morality, although he believes science and reason are the driving force behind the increase (and very much plays down any positive contributions from religion).  We thought it would be fun, and enlightening, to compare notes with Dr. Shermer. One of the points that we agreed on is that news headlines can be very misleading if you’re trying to find a trend: those are snapshots in a very dynamic situation, very much like the daily status of the stock market. In Michael’s words: “three steps forward but two steps back.”  You need to look at the overall trend.  It’s like compound interest.  Even historical retrospectives looking back over a few centuries are too myopic. We discussed a variety of scientific and political developments and societal factors which are contributing to this trend and the volatility masking it: polarization of society around the world increased attention to human rights over the past 1000 years liberalization and the recent introduction of democracy (up until 2 or 3 centuries ago, countries have always been run by emperors, autocrats, theocracies, dictators, etc.), but a democracy also comes with more intervention by radicalized individuals the bipolar potential of the internet, AI, genetics and nuclear technology (to name just a few) the business model driving social media and our news sources, both based on outrage and the number of clicks/eyeballs In the end, we also seemed to agree that both science and religion can create problems, and solve problems.  Getting past our turbulent status quo will require cooperation between religion and science … Christians and secular humanists … humans of all stripes.  It’s a choice that we have to make: a determined decision backed by resolve.  And so, on that note, we also talked about hard determinism versus free will (or free won’t!?). As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Michael Shermer at michaelshermer.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, you really should check out our previous episode on the same question: “#162: “Bending the arc of the moral universe.” “Bending the moral arc of justice” image by Andrew, and modified. Thanks Andrew! 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 and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

The questions “who was the first person to speak English?” and “who was the first human?” are equally ridiculous and unanswerable, and for the same reasons. For many Christians, the many recent discoveries of our ancient hominid ancestors have raised uncomfortable questions.  Some of them will cope with this by just trying to avoid any reports/discussions of these discoveries, or simply denying the data (“they’re all hoaxes”), or deciding to re-interpret or re-define the data (Answers-in-Genesis, for example, will simply re-define a new discovery as either human or ape … no intermediates are allowed).  We’ve addressed these coping strategies in previous episodes. Some other Christians will accept that humans and hominids have been evolving, but will still find it necessary to draw an arbitrary line in the sand, declaring humans on “this” side of the line as completely separate from any ancestral humans and hominids on “that” side of the line.  For example, they might claim that, at some discrete point in time, God picked up a couple of those ancestral humans and gave them a massive upgrade, with new hardware and software (advanced cognitive abilities; a “soul”; the “image of God”), and then started a unique relationship with those newly created beings.  But the scientific data that we have on hand — including genetics, bones, tools and art work — just do not reflect a sudden and dramatic change in the human line.  It simply is not possible to claim that there was a “first human” or a first primal pair. But many people find that hard to understand.  They might insist that “there just had to have been a first human!?” In this episode, we want to directly confront this claim using an excellent metaphor that everyone should find easy to understand: the evolution of language.  More specifically, the evolution of English.  We talked to an academic linguist — Dr. Gareth Roberts, at the University of Pennsylvania — about the history of the English language and the forces that drove changes in that language.  The Old English that was spoken by King Alfred, the Venerable Bede, or Aethelstan [the 1st king of England]) gradually morphed into the Middle English used by Chaucer and Henry the 4th, which eventually became the “modern” English used by Shakespeare, Ben Franklin, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth.  Dr. Roberts gave us a great example of that evolution: the skeptical listener should listen to the Lord’s Prayer spoken in the English of the 15th century, and then the 13th century, and then the 10th century! Throughout this discussion, we tried to point out the similarities between the evolution of language and the evolution of biological life forms.  New languages or new dialects are the linguistic equivalent of new biological species.  The new languages spoken by enslaved people combining parts of their home language with the language of their owners is equivalent to biological speciation through hybridization.  Societal pressures on “proper” language are equivalent to sexual selection of genetic traits.  Even complicated biological phenomena such as “ring species” and “founder effect” have their correlate in the evolution of languages. But the most important point that we wanted to leave with the audience is this: the question “who was the first person to speak English” is just as ridiculous or impossible to answer as the question “who was the first human” ….. and for all the exact same reasons. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Gareth Roberts at his university faculty page and his research lab’s homepage. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our collection of episodes on human evolution, or Luke’s book Standing On The Shoulders of Giants: Genesis and Human Origins. 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 and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Christianity’s response to discoveries of ancient hominids today is exactly the same as their response to previous discoveries of “non-Adamic” people in the Americas … “they’re not human!” Christianity today is not handling well the recent discoveries of ancient hominids.  A lot of denial and dismissal; very little excitement or enthusiasm. One shouldn’t be surprised by this, nor wonder about how they might try to cope with this new knowledge, because we’ve already seen the playbook before: when the Church in the 17th century had to wrestle with the discoveries of indigenous peoples in far-off continents that were only accessible by the best technology of their era: ocean-going sailing ships.  This discovery raised HUGE theological questions, as well as political ones.  To call it paradigm changing would be an understatement.  “How could there be people in the Americas or in the far polar regions if they can barely make canoes?  They couldn’t possibly be descendants of Adam.  And if not, are they even human?  Do they have souls?  If they’re not human, can we capture them and sell them as slaves?” In this episode, we talk to Dr. David N. Livingstone, author of Adam’s Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins, which explores that part of Church history in great detail. We first looked at how the Church and Christianity understood anthropology and human origins over the course of three thousand years.  Back when the Babylonians and Egyptians were in charge, the ancient Jews were fully committed to a worldview that all humans descended from a primal couple that were created by YHWH.  Then the Greeks and Romans took over and introduced a new idea: the possibility that there were “monstrous races” that looked very non-human, living at the furthest reaches of the maps that they generated in their explorations.  In fact, Pliny the Elder in the 1st century created a whole taxonomy of those creatures: in addition to the one-eyed cyclops that you may have seen in B-movies, there were people with dog-heads, and others with gigantic feet that were used to shield their heads from the sun; and many others.  When the Roman Catholic Church took over, they debated a little bit about those “Plinians”: Augustine, in the 5th century, wrote a whole treatise on whether they were human or not, let alone “of Adam” and therefore possessing a soul.  By the time of the Renaissance, though, the Church (and the world that it ruled) were fully committed to the idea that all people on Earth descended from Adam and Eve.  And that Adam and Eve were Caucasian! (just look at any paintings from that period of history.)  But then explorers set out across the oceans, “discovering” new continents and dutifully reporting that they never saw any “Plinians” … but there were other humans!  Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Greenland. And that’s when those uncomfortable theological questions sprang up, and thinking Christians had to start re-writing their theology. We then talked with David about the amazingly close and provocative parallels between that period in Church history and the present one four centuries later, when we started discovering ancient hominids.  And learning that some of the latter had the potential to be as intelligent and religiously-minded as Homo sapiens are.  There’s a lot of food for thought here, as we continue through this mini-series of episodes looking at the impact of recent scientific discoveries of ancient hominids on Christian theology. As always, tell us your thoughts on this … Find more information about Dr. David Livingstone at his faculty page. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our collection of episodes on human evolution, or Luke’s book Standing On The Shoulders of Giants: Genesis and Human Origins. 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 and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Do we need to update our theology in light of Christian-bigotry toward our genetic cousins? During the millennia that Biblical characters were living out their lives, Biblical authors were writing their texts, the early Christian church was forming, and the medieval Church fathers were constructing a Christian theology, nobody had any idea that humans had genetic cousins: Australopithecus (“Lucy”), Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo floresiensis, Homo juluensis, and so many more.  But we today DO know about those hominid cousins, and that knowledge raises many, many, huge questions for the Christian theology that emerged during those 4,000 years of JudeoChristian history.  Much of modern Christianity has been in denial of the existence or relevance of those “cousins”: Anwers-in-Genesis re-label any new hominid discovery as either human or ape, nothing in between (if the “human” doesn’t quite look human enough, they’ll invoke some kind of musculo-skeletal disease, inbreeding, or a reference to “the Nephilim”); Pew Research have for decades been tracking public perception of various things, including human origins: even today, a significant fraction of Christianity insist that we humans have always existed in our present form (rather than evolving over time); a new biology textbook written for Fundamentalist high-schools declared the following in its opening pages: “If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.” Luke described a strategy that Christians typically employ when trying to cope with the new scientific evidence: first try to just extend the timeline (from 6,000 years to a couple hundred thousand years, but otherwise keep all other parts of the Adam&Eve story intact), then start admitting that “God used biological evolution” instead of a potter’s wheel and Adam’s rib to create the first humans, and then finally accepting that the origin of humans was very much a random, unguided thing. We discussed a wide range of [theological] questions that are raised by these scientific discoveries of our hominid ancestors.  Some of those questions are of the “low-hanging fruit” kind that always come up immediately in any conversation about this topic: what then does it mean that we’re created in God’s image? what does it mean to “be human”? what do we do with the fact that “Adam and Eve” are not literal? what about the sinful nature we inherited from Adam&Eve? But there are other questions that are hanging a bit higher up on the tree that are rarely, if ever addressed by other speakers/writers/podcasters: without an Adam&Eve to serve as our starting point, how far back in human history do we go to extend the full scope of the overall Divine plan, or the Human-Divine relationship …. ten thousand years? …. fifty thousand years? ….. 300,000 years (to the very beginning of the H sapiens line? if we do go back 300,000 years to include all Homo sapiens, do we also include our genetic cousins — Neanderthals, Denisovans, H Heidelbergensis, H floresiensis, H juluensis — with whom we interbred and interacted at that time? Neanderthals also built societies, showed compassion, believed in an afterlife, possibly worshipped deities; and H juluensis had a brain which dwarfed our modern brains and Neanderthal brains, so it likely was much more intelligent than we were at that time ….. perhaps they too worshipped the Deity that we H sapiens later called YHWH? could H sapiens end up going extinct (suicide by nuclear and biological weapons) and the world go on for another billion years while other species evolve and far surpass our peak state …. Would they also be included in the overall Divine plan, or the Creature-Creator relationship? Much of Christianity holds a worldview which has no place whatsoever for these genetic cousins.  We act like God has only ever been concerned about the last 0.02% of the entirety of history when H sapiens existed. John 3:16 is not only about humanity! Maybe it’s time that we come up with an updated, more inclusive Christian theology. We’re going to unpack many of these questions/ideas in the next handful of episodes: Gareth Roberts: evolution of the English language David Livingstone: Pre-Adamites invade the 17th century Doug Ottati: theological changes raised by these discoveries Michael Shermer: the Moral Arc of humanity mailbag: listener’s comments and questions As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … If you enjoyed this episode, check out our mini-series of episodes on evolution, or Luke’s book Standing On The Shoulders of Giants: Genesis and Human Origins Episode image by Andrew K. Thanks Andrew! 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 and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

The anniversaries of two pivotal legal cases brought by evolution deniers got us talking to the National Center for Science Education about their work 2025 is the 100th anniversary of the infamous Scopes Trial (aka, the “Monkey Trial”), in which a high school teacher in Tennessee was convicted of violating a law that banned teaching human evolution.  2025 is also the 20th anniversary of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Trial which ruled that a school board in Pennsylvania had violated the Establishment Clause by requiring teachers to present Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolutionary theory.  To commemorate these pivotal events, we reached out to the National Center for Science Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to pushing back on the efforts of Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents in promoting science denial.  Deputy Director Glenn Branch and science education specialist Wendy Johnson gave us a quick overview of the history of anti-evolutionism and the mission, scope, and activities of the NCSE: although science deniers come in all shapes and forms — anti-vaxers, Flat Earthers, conspiracy theorists, the Apollo moon landings ….. even the “Birds aren’t real” movement — the NCSE focuses its resources on the two primary forms of science denial in elementary and high schools: Creationism and climate change denial; most of their efforts pertain to development of school curricula, although they also collaborate in important ways with legal teams litigating lawsuits in the courts and debating bills submitted to federal and state governments; anti-evolutionist strategies tend to fall into three main categories: ban the teaching of evolution altogether (as was the case in the 1925 Scopes trial); balance the teaching of evolution with an equal admixture of Creationist teaching (as was the case in Kitzmiller v Dover); blunt the teaching of evolution with “free speech” aimed at undermining confidence in the theory and its underlying data and sowing suspicion against evolution proponents (as is the case of many more recent cases). we looked at the American education system (a complex choreography between federal, state, and district bodies, although ultimately the actual teaching is done by individual teachers who comply to varying extents), and made comparisons with education in other countries (Canada; the United Kingdom; Australia); we also compared science denial in Christians with that in Muslims …. in the US versus Britain; finally, we talked about high profile Creationist organizations like Answers-in-Genesis and the Discovery Institute, and what motivates them: is it ignorance (of science), religious zeal, or fear? As always, tell us what YOU think … Find more information about our guests and the National Center for Science Education at their homepage. And if you like what they’re doing, you can make a donation there! If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our interview with Dr. Janet Ray Kellogg (#138) who’s actively pushing back on science denial, or our two mini-series on Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design. 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 and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Brian McLaren, an influential author and former pastor, shares his poignant journey of moving away from traditional Evangelicalism. He dives into the complexities of faith transitions and the emotional challenges faced by those leaving established beliefs. The conversation touches on the evolving landscape of spirituality, particularly among younger generations, and the conflicts between science and faith. McLaren also reflects on the struggle for authenticity within spiritual communities, emphasizing the importance of personal narratives in navigating such transformations.

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