Welcome to Living in the Matrix. I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right. But the bottom line is,
is together we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world.
All right, let's get started. Welcome to Living in the Matrix, everybody. I'm Jonathan. I'm here
with Rich. Say hi, Rich. Hey, everybody. Good to be back. Awesome. Today we have a fascinating
guest. His name is Jason Coker. Do I get that right? Is it Coker? Yeah. Good job. Cool. Jason
is the co-lead minister with his wife at Oceanside Sanctuary. He's formerly First Christian Church of
Oceanside. Jason earned his MA at Fuller and is currently a PhD student conducting research at
the intersection of intercultural theology, religious disaffiliation, and moral psychology.
I can't wait to unpack that with you. He's building community organizing efforts in San Diego
and coaches leadership and other pastors. Welcome, Jason. Glad to have you. That guy sounds awesome.
Who is that guy? That's why we invite you on. Is there anything more awkward in the world than
being asked to write a bio about yourself? It's from your... Well, you know, like, it's just like,
I don't know, half a dozen things that I have been involved in here or there. And there's always like
that dreaded, hey, can you send me a bio? And I'm always like, oh, seriously? Do I have to send a
bio? Anyway, so let's start with what really, I think, is your heart is you being a pastor.
That's kind of where you've centered on. It's your full-time job. Tell me about your church,
because we'll start there because I think that's you are an affirming church, which is
that's outside the status quo. And I think it's becoming status quo slowly.
Tell me about your church first, and then we'll dive a little bit into that. Okay. Sure. So I do
a pastor of church, actually the co-lead ministers, as you mentioned, my official title.
So my wife and I, Janelle and I, co-lead that church together. That's actually a relatively
new development. She came on as my co-lead minister almost a year and a half ago.
And that was a reflection of the church growing to the point where it could afford to bring
a co-lead minister on staff. And then I was entering into the PhD program at the time,
so I needed somebody to help shoulder that bandwidth. But then also the other reality was,
and so you guys know this, you've been around churches for a long time. Your history is
evangelical like mine, so I'm sure this will sound familiar. But we were just like,
working two full-time jobs and only getting paid for like one part-time job for many,
many years. And so by the time the church grew enough to sustain both of us, it was sort of a
recognition that she'd been an unpaid staff member for years at that point. And so it was sort of
partly about making it right. And then also a reflection of our value for more egalitarian
staff, which is why instead of her becoming like an associate pastor, we shared the job.
So that's relatively new to us. And we've been kind of working out the kinks of like leading
together as a married couple. There's some weirdness there. But we're good partners. We've
been married a long time, and so we have been figuring that out. The church itself is actually
part of the mainline denomination called the Disciples of Christ, which is one of the kind
of like seven main, quote unquote, liberal mainline denominations. So part of my story is
switching teams, so to speak, leaving evangelicalism in 2010. And then after a bit of a
journey, getting back into ministry and finding a denomination that I felt like I could fit in and
found the disciples. And it just so happened that there was a church in my hometown that was part
of the denomination, not my hometown, but the town I was living in at the time. That was part of my
denomination or that denomination, and they needed a pastor. So it's kind of a weird confluence of
things that all came together. And at that point, I was like, well, maybe there is a God, maybe this
is what I'm supposed to do. So I ended up there. That was eight years ago. And really that
doing a project. Sorry. What were you doing at that time? Before I became the pastor there?
I was teaching at the local university and also had been a fundraising executive for a semi-large
local nonprofit. So when I left the ministry and left evangelicalism in 2010, I went to work for
the nonprofit world. And we did that for about five years before getting back into ministry.
So that's a tough space. I worked in that. It is. I worked for a homeless agency that had five
locations in the United States. We were 10 million dollars. So my nut was 10 million every year.
I was the director of development. It's a tough space because it's the hard part about ministry
in general is that there needs to be funds. And you struggled with that entire question the entire
time, sounds like in your journey. What has that been like? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Just the funding
side of it in general. Yeah. So part of ministry is this idea, Jesus said, love your neighbor.
And so it's doing things out of love, but functionally, it's tough to create ministry
without money. And so how have you guys navigated that? Because I think as part of your bio,
your church imploded and then you rebuilt it and then got to the point where you and your wife
could be the pastors. What has that journey been like? Yeah. I mean, our church, when we first
started there was kind of a classic mainline congregational story. It had peaked in the 60s
and then went through a period of about 40 years of just very steady decline. By the time
when we got there in 2015, it was about 40 members, most of them over the age of 75.
They were out of money. The only reason they were still operating is because
a member had died and left them a chunk of money. It wasn't that much money. It was just
a chunk of money. It wasn't that much, but it was enough to keep the lights on.
And so that was kind of the state of things when I got there. How we handled that honestly is
because I'd spent five years working in the nonprofit world, four of that as a director
of development for an agency with about a $10 million budget, it's very similar to Jonathan.
I really in that four or five year period of time really learned a lot about having a different
kind of posture towards money in a nonprofit organization, became a lot less idealistic and
a lot more pragmatic. And also just really began to I think see, because I worked in a nonprofit,
as opposed to like a church, I really became aware of just sort of like what best practice
in a good nonprofit is and realized like, well, we didn't do any of this in the churches that I was
on staff with. We weren't transparent about our money. We acted like we were entitled to people's
money. We weren't asking questions like, what kind of impact are we having with the money that we
bring in? And then how are we demonstrating that impact, not just to our members, but to the
surrounding community? How are we showing that the money that you give to this organization
produces a good outcome? These are bread and butter questions for a nonprofit.
If you can't do all that, if you can't demonstrate that the money you're bringing in is making a
genuine positive impact on the most critical issues in your community and be transparent about
it at the same time, then you're not going to be able to compete in a charitable space.
Unless you're like one of those nonprofits that's just fleecing people. And there are lots of those
for sure, right? Unfortunately. Yeah, unfortunately. Exactly. So I think like by the time I got back
into ministry, I realized, well, if I'm ever a pastor again, if I'm ever doing that again,
I'm going to treat our church like it's a nonprofit. And that's what we've done. So we
really emphasize making a material impact on the community around us. We tell people,
you don't have to give us money. God doesn't require to you to give us money. God certainly
doesn't require to you to give 10% of your money. And so give us money if you believe in what we do,
if you trust us to spend it well, and if we have demonstrated that we are making good decisions.
If you don't believe those things, you shouldn't be giving us anything. So we kind of flipped the
script on that. I mean, our budget has increased by nearly 50 to 80% every year in the past eight
years. So I'd say people have responded really well. You know, when I first got there in 2015,
our budget was $89,000. Our budget this year is $434,000. So I think that's a good thing.
$34,000. So I think it's worked quite well. Now it's worked partly because we're also the kind
of church that exhibits in very progressive spaces. And so those messages and those ethics
around money appeal to people who are in more sort of liberal or progressive head spaces and
in more liberal or progressive community spaces. If my church was full of like very traditional,
conventional, right leaning Christians, it wouldn't work at all. You know, I'd just tell them,
God wants you to give your 10%. And if you do, then you're going to get lots of money back.
And that's what would work. Right. So, you know, it fit with like that flipping the script,
fit with the overall posture and tenor of the kind of church that I wanted us to be anyway.
If that makes sense, you know, we're reaching people or we're trying to create a safe space,
I should say, for people who no longer trust religion and no longer trust church. So it was
important to reverse the way that we were talking about things like money. Money is not the only
issue, but money is one of those issues where churches have demonstrated that they can do a
lot of harm. And that's the reason why a lot of people have left. So we had to talk about money
very differently. Well, we don't even have to start talking about Adam or the LGBT side of things or
creation or like Young Earth to do that. But speaking of kind of potential reasons people
leave the church or kind of have their moment, go back to 2010. I'd love to hear a little bit
about your story. If you went through a cathartic moment or you had some kind of deconstruction,
tell me about what was going on in your headspace as you left that evangelical,
traditional evangelical community. Yeah, Janelle and I spent about 15 years in
like charismatic evangelicalism. My first ordination is in the vineyard community of
churches, if you're familiar with that. Oh, yeah. One of the vineyards that we are in for about 12
years leaned really heavily Pentecostal. So we were really steeped in a very Pentecostal environment
for a lot of years. And starting around the early 2000s, I just really began to grow disillusioned
with the things I was seeing in those spaces, things that look like abuse of power and
manipulation around all kinds of things, including money, but also just the way that people's lives
were, I think, really being controlled in ways that were harmful. And so I began to really sort of
take those things apart. And honestly, like, probably around that time was when, like late
90s, early 2000s, probably the thing that catalyzed like a long, slow deconstruction process for me,
because it started way before 2010, right? Sure. I was at a Promise Keepers event in like
the late 90s, right? You guys are old enough. You guys have probably been to Promise Keepers.
I never went to one. I couldn't stand it. Even being fully into the church four days a week,
I just never got involved. That was never my fancy. Yeah, sorry.
Oh, that's good. That's good. That's just one last wound that you have to manage. So
I went to a Promise Keepers event in Boulder, Colorado. And this is like, this is like,
this is like, is great. It's a great venue. This is a catalyzing moment, right? So we show up at the
Promise Keepers and in front of the Promise Keepers is a crowd of men dressed in like,
camouflage, like in military fatigues, right? And they're walking in a circle and they've got
signs, you know, they're protesting the Promise Keepers event. So me being who I am, like,
I'm like a beeline for those dudes, because I want to talk to them, right? Like, I want to find out
what they're about. I want to like, engage, right? Well, it turns out these guys are hardcore,
strict Calvinists rich. And they are really like, they're, they're livid about Promise Keepers,
because there are people of different races worshiping inside together. And among a variety
of like a litany of other, you know, problems that they had with Promise Keepers, that was one of the
big ones, right? Like whites and blacks worshiping together, you know, it's a sign of the apocalypse.
And so I just got into like a debate with these guys, you know, like the head guys swear, I kid
you not how to Hitler mustache, right? Like, you can't make this up. Like he and I were like in this
debate, he's quoting scripture to me, and I'm like, arguing back and like, I can be a really,
really annoying like debater. So I was just pushing his buttons, right? And at one point,
he got so angry with me, this guy's probably in his 40s, right? And I'm in my 20s, he got so angry
with me, he looked at me. And he said, I know what you want. What you want is for me to punch you
right in the face. I said, I swear, man, I do not want you to do this. I'm just trying to have a
conversation. But he was so angry, like, and to the point of being ready to do violence, right?
So anyway, I disengaged with him, I go inside, we go into the Promise Keepers event, we sing to Jesus,
you know, people come out and they give an altar call to, you know, 15,000 people who are already
Christians. I still don't know what that was about. But we went inside and then we, yeah,
then we had a lunch break. So check this out. On the lunch break, they sent us out to the practice
field where they had like, you know, mountains of like pre-boxed lunches. And you grab the lunch,
you sit on the grass, you eat your lunch. I'm sitting there, eating my lunch with like 15,000
other guys. And I look over to the right and there's a chain link fence. And on the other side of the
chain link fence is a public park. And there's a wedding going on in the public park. And there's
a bunch of people from the Promise Keepers at the fence talking to people on the other side of the
chain link fence. So of course, I'm like, I got to go find out what's going on over there. So I go
over there. Well, it turns out it's a gay wedding happening at the park next door to Promise Keepers.
Right. And so there's a bunch of guests from the gay wedding arguing with the Christian men on the
other side of the fence. Right. So I go up and I sort of insert myself into one of these debates.
And the guy who was arguing with the wedding guest on the other side of the gate, he gets tired,
frustrated, he leaves. Right. So I pick up the conversation with this woman named Max. And I
wouldn't have had language for this at the time, but I'd say Max was non-binary or perhaps lesbian.
And Max was a delightful human being. We had an amazing conversation. We talked about philosophy
and theology. We talked about sexuality. We talked about all kinds of amazing things. Right. And at
some point I said, well, listen, you know, what you really need for your life to be fulfilled is
Jesus. And she said, oh, I know Jesus. And I was like, what are you talking about? She said,
I'm a Christian. I love Jesus. And that like, I had no categories for that. Yeah. Right.
I was undone. I was blown away. And it occurred to me that the men outside of Promise Keepers who
were protesting a Christian event because it was interracial represented a particular kind of
Christianity. And that this woman, Max, in this event on the other side of this fence,
represented another kind of Christianity. And it just hit me like a ton of breaks. Like,
who would I rather be at a party with? Right. Like, Max really represented
who I thought Christ really was. And so I just couldn't argue with that. And I left. And from
that point on, my faith just began to unravel. And then the deconstruction, the classic deconstruction
event happened for me when a church plant that I was leading here in Oceanside from 2008 to 2010,
that was doing pretty well. We had like Little House Church, but it imploded because the Great
Recession hit. We lost 60% of our missionary funds. And we couldn't pay our rent. And I was
at the end of a long period of having leveraged everything in my life to plant a church for an
evangelical denomination that had a set of values and doctrinal beliefs, most of which I really
didn't agree with anymore. And who were just utilizing me to like expand their empire.
And were giving me no support, no assistance. And when we went bankrupt and lost everything,
they just dropped us. They weren't there for us. And so that was sort of like the catalyzing
moment for me to say, not only should I not be like leading a church right now, but I'm not sure
that I'm still a Christian. And so we just stepped away from the whole thing. And then stepping away
from Christianity and stepping away from pastoral ministry, having a regular job, non-profit job,
all of that just opened up the floodgates and gave us the freedom that I think we needed to
be intellectually honest with ourselves, to rethink things. When your livelihood is no longer
attached to the message, then you're free to question it. And so we went through a fairly long
five-year process of like rethinking all of our commitments to faith and to our vocation.
And at the end of that, this is not everybody's story. It shouldn't be everybody's story, but
at the end of that, really decided that I was still called the ministry, but I needed to find
a different context where I could be authentic and live out my moral convictions. For me, the question
was, can I still be Christian and be moral? And the answer was yes. I just needed to find a group
of people that would allow me to do that in my way. Jason, let me ask you a question because you
brought up a really interesting point from the perspective of someone who's inside. You called
it empire, specifically in context with sort of the Christian organization and almost like that
monolith that has this, because I remember that, it's this idea that your job is to get people into
heaven. The empire is about transition of people into heaven. And in spirit, it's a great idea,
but in practice, it becomes this, you don't really matter if the kingdom isn't using you kind of
thing. Did you feel that when you were working through that? That must've been pretty rough
for them to just say, sorry, good luck. How did that feel at the time?
Oh yeah, no, it was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking to come to terms with the
realization that people that I thought genuinely cared about me, about my wife and I, about our
family, really didn't. That we were only, their commitment to us ended with our utility to
the organization. And I can understand, people leave our church, they decide they were not
their cup of tea, even if they've been there for a few years, or they change their faith or their
beliefs or whatever, and they leave. And we're still connected, we're still friends, but we don't
spend a bunch of time together. So I understand just proximity, sort of ordering our relationships.
But I had a church planting coach and a church that was sending us, a sending church and a
regional overseer, people that I had contact with weekly, on a weekly basis that I spent time with.
And after we said, hey, we're going to shut this thing down because we're out of money.
Not because we're out of people, but because we're out of money. And I don't know if we're
going to be able to pay rent next month. One person returned my call and he was genuinely
sympathetic. But everybody else didn't even return my calls or my emails. As soon as they
were done with us, they were done with us. And that was really hard, along with losing my vocation,
my sense of calling, something I'd poured myself into for 15 years. I had just graduated with my
seminary degree. I was like, why did I do that? That was a terrible idea. And so yeah, it was tough.
Wow. You use the term overseer. It's like, oh my God, I'm going back to my theology,
episkopos, when we were talking about headship and like church quality and stuff. My God,
you just brought me back about like 15 years. But one of the things I wanted to go back to is,
the irony of those guys that were arguing out front, the promiscapers about interracial
faith is like, my God, if they didn't rely on Augustine of Hippo as one of their bedrocks who
by all definitions, if he wasn't black, he was pretty dark from Northern Africa. I think I've
even seen iconography of him looking pretty dark there. Do you think if they had realized that or
if Augustine had walked up to them, you saw Revelation when he chatted with Max, your eyes
were open. You said, oh my gosh, this is a lovely living representation of the body of Christ. And
totally blown away. What do you think is the biggest impediment for people reconciling and
coming to this idea that we're all in the image of God, that in the end, God wants us to be
with the fullness of him, right? He wants us to live in the fullness and richness of
his or her blessing, right? Obviously, you talked about the spirit hovering over a few
sermons ago. And of course, the word in Hebrew is a feminine word. I don't know if it's, I know that
the word is the Hebrew word for like spirit, but at least in the term of the hovering over the
waters, that's a feminine word and it's amazing, right? So we have to realize that. So what is
missing in terms of what people need to bring people together and to understand that we're all-
Yeah. You mean specifically over like bringing people together across differences or-
Yeah. Or like would those people have been so fired up and pissed off that had Gustin showed
up in their midst and he's black, they would have fallen down and go, oh my gosh, what an idiot I am.
Is it ignorance? Is it a spirit of something else? I mean, we've got a lot of problems right now,
right? With the Hamas and Israeli conflict, right? And we brought this up at our last
with our last podcast. I mean, what as a-
I mean, if you believe the social science, then what underlies authoritarianism, which is what
we're talking about, right? I think when we're talking about people who read and interpret
scripture in a rigid way and then want to apply different readings of scripture to other people's
lives in a rigid way, we're talking about authoritarianism. If you believe the social
science that underlies authoritarianism, then what drives that is fear. Authoritarians are deeply
fearful. Authoritarian followers are deeply fearful people and authoritarian leaders are deeply
fearful people. And the fears that drive the desire to be in control, to control others
and or to be controlled, like to have the sense of security and safety that comes from having
really clear boundaries, really rigid concepts that you can live within and the notion that
somebody else is like watching over all of that to make, keep you safe, that's the desire to be
controlled. So what underlies, the primary fear that underlies that is fear of people who are
different than you. It's xenophobia. Now that gets like fleshed out in a million different ways.
It's fear of people who are different color than you or different culture than you or who have
different sexual orientation than you or different gender than you, different religion than you. But
ultimately it's just fear of difference. And the main researcher that I've read, he's done work in,
this is Robert Altemeier, he's a Canadian researcher, he's retired now. He's sort of
literally written a book on authoritarianism. And his point is that the Venn diagram of
authoritarianism and religion, excuse me, right leaning religion, the right leaning religion,
the Venn diagram of those two things is like practically a circle. So much so that social
scientists don't know if xenophobia causes religion or if religion causes xenophobia, right? Like
they're too tightly connected to like figure out where the causation lies. Now that's not to say
that- It's like the same. It's like one circle, they're the same, right?
Yeah. Now that's not to say that left leaning expressions of religion don't have fear or
xenophobia or racism or homophobia or any of those things they do. Like oftentimes I say,
now that I've been like in both worlds, what most people don't understand about the liberal
mainline is that most liberal mainliners are right of center. The liberal mainline church
is largely conservative. So the clergy aren't, clergy are usually like a raging leftists,
but the congregants themselves are typically like right of center. Even if they're Democrats,
they're still like relatively conservative Democrats. And so sometimes I tell people,
the reason that mainline churches are failing is not because they're liberal, that's the evangelical
party line, right? The reason mainline churches are failing is because they're twice as conservative
as evangelical churches are. They are theologically and culturally conservative,
just like evangelical churches, but they're also like archaic in their style, right? Like
their worship style makes no sense to anybody who was born after 1970. So they're like twice
as conservative. You have a double barrier to be engaged in those churches. So those churches also
have those problems and what drives that is fear, right? Religion is an essentially conservative
phenomenon in history. People turn to it in order to protect themselves from change, not in order to
embrace and stimulate and bring change. Now there are exceptions to that, of course, like fantastic
exceptions, like the black civil rights tradition in black Protestant churches in the United States.
But by and large, they're full of people who are fearful of change.
Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit because this leads into what we're talking to about.
You made a conscious choice as part of your church to be both inclusive and affirming.
What was the journey to that? Because part of it is you started with being in the promise keepers
group, but you've been drawn towards that community to bring them to the larger, because it's not like,
hey, let's create a gay community. Let's create an all-inclusive community. What has that journey
been like? Yeah. Well, I mean, that journey began with that encounter with Max in the late
90s, I think it was 1999 or something, 1998 or 1999. And then by the time I was leaving
evangelicalism and leaving ministry, I had decided that I thought that gay sex is not immoral,
right? It's like the starkest way that I can put it. It is not inherently sinful to have gay sex,
it is not inherently sinful to have gay sex, at least not more inherently sinful than straight
sex. You can do it in a way that's harmful, but all other things being equal, it's just sex, right?
So I'd come to that conviction before I left ministry and I decided that maybe my denomination
would move in that direction because it had moved in a more liberal direction around women's
leadership. But by the time I quit, it was clear to me that they were sort of doubling down on
their homophobia. And that was one of the reasons why I walked away, because I thought, oh, well,
this isn't going in the direction I hoped it would. And I can't in good conscience be a part of a
denomination anymore that is homophobic. That just became a very strong conviction of mine.
And so when I went back to ministry and went looking for a new denomination to be a part of,
that was one of the criteria. I needed to be a part of a denomination that was
gay affirming or queer affirming. And so I found that in the disciples of Christ.
And then what that allowed me to do when I found a church and the disciples that I
was called to be the pastor of, it gave me a context in which I could do that. And
the short answer is it's my very strong moral conviction. And so there's no way that I was
ever going to lead a church again that didn't share that conviction. Now, the church that I
became the pastor of, as I've already mentioned, was like at death's door. And so there was a long
process of transformation engaged there. And so we went from being like sort of affirming,
because we're a part of an affirming denomination, but being quiet about it,
because that's what it was like when I got there. We went from that to being like, you know, very
open and loud and celebratory of the gay community. And that process took about
four years before we got to the place where the church was.
Four years before we got to the place where the church had changed enough.
What was the dialogue internally between not just you and the staff, but with the community,
were they receptive to the idea and like what kind of led that charge?
Yeah. I mean, there's a whole nother podcast episode potentially, but that church went through,
like you guys probably have experienced this in other settings.
Yeah, right. So that church went through a really significant
shift in culture and change. And that was a contentious shift. And so the last thing
we were talking about was gay people. They wanted to fight about a bunch of other things.
And by the time we got through those contentions that are really like, it's a cliche that
organizations experiencing change go through these like seismic battles. By the time we got
to the other side of those battles, the congregation was totally different and the culture was totally
different. And so, you know, one day it was just like, well, we're queer affirming, right?
And I was like, yep. And everybody was like, great, let's hang a rainbow flag. Like we should be
doing more. So we really didn't change around that issue. We changed around other issues.
And by the time those issues got resolved, like we just had a totally different church.
That's awesome. Where was your wife in all of this? Was she on board fully?
She was not excited about me going back into ministry at first.
You know, we'd spent a few years like carving out a different path.
And at some point I went back to her and said, hey, I feel like it's time for me to go back.
I miss it. And she was like, I don't know. And I said, listen, I understand. Yeah. She's like,
yeah, I don't know. So she was much more cautious about it than I was. And she definitely
followed me into that space. And then of course, when we showed up at that church, she could see
the dysfunction, like the power dynamics there. I mean, we both could see it. But I had grace for
it and felt like I had a sense of like, I can see how this could change and I can see what needs to
be done. And she was like, I don't want to have anything to do with that mess. So she came and
showed up and volunteered and was a part of it for the first two years. But it wasn't until after
the lion's share of the conflict had been resolved and ironed out. And frankly, you know,
a core group of people who were just extraordinarily dysfunctional left. And after they left,
she was like, okay, I could get involved here. And then she could see that it was going to be
okay. And then at that point, she really started to jump in, in terms of ministry and was, you know,
neck deep in it, you know, not long after that. So.
That's awesome. I want to go back to something you said earlier of coming from a Pentecostal
background. When you kind of stepped out of the vineyard, did you sort of leave the vineyard
spirit element behind? What happened to that part? Cause that's sort of the, one of the defining
qualities of vineyard is being Pentecostal. Did you leave that behind?
Uh huh. Yeah, I did. Was that tough? It's, it's, and it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's still attention.
Do you use to give that? Gifts of the tongues?
I don't, I don't. I can, I can do that. Sometimes, sometimes.
That's what I'm listening, learning or asking is, did you sort of leave that spirit filled part
that's actively practiced as part of your own faith? Cause I think it's one of the, it's one
of the more beautiful parts when it's done right. In a community.
Yeah, yeah. I'll be the first to admit that I have not figured out how to do that right. So,
I think that I, I, two things maybe happened with me. One is,
one is I felt, and to a certain extent still do feel complicit in things that I think were
harmful to people in the ways that we prayed for people and the ways that we sort of led people
along and manipulated them emotionally. And I think that's one of the things that I
felt was that I manipulated them emotionally. And I found that I'm really good at that.
Like I'm really, really good at reading people's mail and intuitively picking up on what's going
on in their lives and speaking into that in a way that moves them in a certain direction.
I can still do it. It is not a hard thing to do. And that really, I think scares me because, like
I said, I feel complicit in what I think were probably harmful practices for a lot of people.
Now for lots of people, it wasn't harmful. And this is what makes it complicated is looking back
on those times. Yeah. Yeah. In my experience, some of that was very good for people. They
experienced things that were, they experienced good outcomes. But that is one complication is
I feel complicit in some practices that I think were not healthy. So I don't pick it back up again.
Even though I could. There's a whole funny story about that related to being back at Fuller,
because there are people at Fuller who do that. And they want to do it every time we have any kind
of a meeting. And it makes me crazy. And part of the reason it makes me crazy is because I can just
jump right back in and do it. It's not hard. It's called cold reading. Right? Yeah. Is that a
minute? I mean, because one of the things about being a Calvinist, of course, is that I looked at
this. I mean, I was never a cessationist. And that's probably a good thing. And I certainly
believe one of the ways you can get more involved in this stuff is to have that heart centeredness,
is to lead with your heart. Right? And we had prayer sessions at my church up in Rockland,
where we're going for like 24 hours. Right. And there's people that needed that. And you get caught
up and you're praying and it feels really good. Right. And this kind of like this affirmation and
you're going through the motion. But I always looked at the idea of people going, la, la, la,
la. Right. And I go to Glossier. Right. And I go, you know, Pentecost, guess what, boys and girls,
they were all understanding each other's languages. They were actually from different countries and
they were actually speaking real languages, but they understood it. And it's called Glossier. And
I always that's the that's the that's the hill I would die on. Right. And not like this lurching
in the church floor and the Bethel kind of movement. But that being said, you know, now that I'm here
and I'm open to so much new stuff, I guess I really want to understand is where does it so,
where is it so unity and real strength and kind and the power moving forward versus where does it
so discord and like the haves and the have nots. Like I've read this book by Frank Peretti a long
time ago. Right. This present darkness and the protagonist's wife was always so sad because she
couldn't speak in tongues and she was just cast aside. You know, you suck. Right. And that's just
a terrible thing, too. Right. So help me understand that kind of dynamic and where it might you think
have some value still today and in the circles that we interact with, you know.
Yeah, so absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And Pentecostal. Yeah. In Pentecostal settings,
those those external phenomena are used to create a class structure and power structure that is
extraordinarily harmful. So for that reason, oh, I didn't like this is a phenomenon. Oh,
it's a huge problem. This is a huge problem, especially in the global south, because
global Pentecostalism is the at this point, close to the largest expression of Christianity on the
planet. Now, global south Christianity is by far the largest expression of Christianity on the
planet, but a healthy dose of that is Catholic. And of course, there are Catholic there are plenty
of Catholic or even liturgical like Anglican churches, you know, and the Catholic Church
or like Anglican churches in the global south that are Pentecostal. But the real phenomenon,
like the amazing phenomenon is independent Pentecostalism. And in South America and
Africa, this is not this is less of an issue in Asia than South America and Africa. They just
really wrestle with these issues of unequal or asymmetrical power dynamics that are created by
these external phenomena. Right. So if you can do that, if you can if you can speak in tongues,
or you can give somebody a word of knowledge, or you can demonstrate the physical accepted
physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit, then you are instantly your status is instantly elevated.
You gain real power in the community. And then that power is, in my experience, abused all the time.
And, you know, and so this is this is known to be an issue. And so that's the complicity I'm referring
to. Now, is there space for that in the future? Well, so I'll answer that question by saying this,
right, like as an analytically oriented, white, straight, cisgendered American man, I will say
that, you know, one of the obvious problems with Western civilization in general and Western
religion in particular, is that it is too dualistic, that it has sacrificed embodiment
at the altar of like cognition. And so, and so there's a reason global Pentecostalism is a
phenomenon. It's because it satisfies this human need for somatic embodied experience. And, and so,
you know, it's the old joke that like, this is the other reason liberal mainline churches are failing
is because, you know, they're the frozen chosen, right, like they're, they're intellect on, they're
intellect on ice, rather than, you know, passion on fire. And in globally speaking, most people
will choose passion on fire any day over intellect on ice. Now that's, that comes with its major
pitfalls, to your point, Rich. But it is also a feature of Western colonialism that we have used
dualistic disembodiment as a tool of power and oppression. And so, and so there is a need to
re-embrace that. Now, how do I do that in a church like mine that is, you know, white, liberal,
mainline Protestant, and, and for all those reasons, very disembodied? I don't really know.
I think at this point, this exact issue is why Richard Rohr is so incredibly popular among white
progressives, because Richard Rohr has opened the door for a lot of post evangelicals to a somatic
embodied expression of spirituality in the contemplative tradition. And so,
and so I think that that contemplative tradition scratches that itch for a lot of folks who may not,
they may not be comfortable for cultural reasons showing up at a Pentecostal service,
where people are jumping up and down, you know, or they're, they're acting in ways that are not
acceptable in white culture, right? And so, and so I think like, in our case, like we, we do
practice sort of contemplative, you know, exercises, because that's our way of trying to
embody a kind of somatic spirituality and affective spirituality without succumbing to
the, the potential power abuses of being more charismatic. That's how we've done it. I have
no idea where we're going with that. I think this is just one of the great like unresolved issues
in my ministry is dealing with kind of the baggage of that part of my past. So that's,
no, that's-
Full disclosure.
Amazing stuff, Jason. I'm glad you brought up contemplative because
because Jonathan and I have been exploring quantum entanglement and quantum physics and
the unified field now for some time. And in terms of tapping into that, and it's my belief that when
you hit that level, you know, with, you know, that war talks about that Merton was able to espouse
that Finney, you know, that those contemplative places where you're in pure stillness, that we
believe is pure consciousness, right? That's where you get to a place of peace, of relaxation.
When I do TM, Transcendental Meditation, that's where I actually find that place. And of course,
Jonathan and I both believe that when you're on psychedelics, you know, you can, through the help
of plant medicine, can get, can get there. So tell me a little bit about that contemplative
journey that you're on with your, with your congregants and what your, some of the, some of
the, you know, the findings you've got. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say that it's something that
still represents a real minority of what we do. You know, we're trying to balance, I think a lot of,
a lot of, we're trying to spin a lot of plates from the perspective of like, okay,
well, how do we, how do we create a context that's meaningful for people who have been away from
church for years, they disaffiliated, and they're, they're trying to decide if like, they should
give Christianity like one more chance, right? Or they left a church very recently, because they've
started to like deconstruct for lack of a better word. And they did get like somebody loaned them
a Richard Rohr book or, you know, they're, they're starting to, they have a gay cousin or sibling,
and you know, they are now wrestling with the implications of that. In those cases, like we
don't try to immerse people like in a highly spiritual experience, because they're really just
evaluating whether or not Christianity has any legitimacy, whether or not, you know, whether or
not they can be Christian and be moral. And so I think, you know, for us, our space, like the
particular niche that we have tapped into for now, not that this is what it will always be, but
for now, we are leaning much more heavily into like being a space of processing,
like where people's journeys are and where they maybe are hoping to go.
And, and then we do a few other things that reassure them, right? Like one is, you know,
we try to really center and make very visible members of the queer community, both in and
outside of our congregation, because that just tells people right away that we're going to be a
safe space for them to, to have a different kind of Christianity.
And then I, you know, I try to, or I try to exemplify like a reading of scripture that is very
different than the sort of closed minded, like exegetical approach that they are accustomed to.
And so those are like, so in some ways, I think we're more of a palate cleanser for people who
have disaffiliated. And so we try not to like immerse them in like these, you know, contemplative
experiences. Now, having said that, yeah, it's definitely not for the, for the new initiate,
right? I mean, it's, it's, it's challenging. It's just too soon. Yeah, it's too soon for a lot of
them, right? Now, having said that, like, we've been doing this for, I don't know, like we sort
of turned the corner as a church from the old culture to what, like I said earlier, was kind
of a new culture, like right before the pandemic. So, so now at this point, I would say this is one
of the things Janelle and I talk about a lot is it feels like we do now increasingly have a
congregation of people who are able to go deeper in terms of spiritual practices. So it's why we've
started to experiment with that a little bit more. And, you know, the interesting phenomenon that I've
noticed is we have, we still have a healthy dose of people who have a bunch of wounds and baggage
from the past, but I'm seeing less of them show up. And I'm seeing more people who have a
progressive posture towards their faith and no baggage from their past. And so, so for them,
they're just like looking for a place to immerse themselves. And so that to me feels like a little
bit of a shift. Like we went from being a largely Gen X church, like right before the pandemic,
to now being a largely young millennial or older Gen Z church. And so I think that generational
shift is what we're experiencing. Like, oh, these guys like, they're not going to be able to
get a lot of the wounds. They're not going to be able to get a lot of the wounds. And so,
I think that's the biggest thing. And I think that's the biggest thing is like, they just don't have
the wounds in the baggage that Gen Xers had, right? Like, so it's a very different thing.
They're much more open-minded, even if they came from a conservative church, right? Like, and a lot
of them did. They came from a conservative church, but all of that stuff just kind of bounced off of
it. It's interesting you mentioned that question again in two years. It might be different.
No, but that's interesting that generation you have, it does appear. And Jonathan, we've talked
about this, especially when we talked about having some universalist friends on about the Gen X and
all of the parts of that massive seeker sensitive movement. You think about the
Willow Creeks and the Saddlebacks and the structural things of like hell and all these things that came
with it. And the newer folks actually are embracing a more open dynamic, especially with the internet,
especially with things on TikTok and a variety of things. And in fact, our atheist friend,
Jonathan talked about kids going to the cult, they're going to these movements, or they're going
negative introspection or nihilism, right? There's a bunch of different things, right?
But it's encouraging to hear that you're seeing this younger group who are definitely going to be
more affirming. They've seen everything, right? They've born with electronic devices in their
hands. They know more about technology than we all do, and they don't have the baggage. That's
kind of an exciting thing. I want to interject here and ask Jason you a question that dovetails on
that. What do you think is strictly from your perspective, having seen this gamut of Gen X to
Gen Z, how has Christianity changed over the last, specifically the pandemic, but even longer before
that because you've seen a lot, how do you think it's changed? Which Christianity? I mean, I think
like this is the one in the media. This is one of the issues. The one in the media. Okay. So
the popular evangelicalism? Probably more in the south. SBC. Are you talking about the SBC? Are
you talking about mainline denominations? I think that's what Gen Z is. Like you said,
they don't have the baggage. They don't have that. I'm 56. How old are you, Jason?
52. Yeah. So we all come from the same generation, but it's like we do carry baggage for that whole
arc that happened. The younger generation, you don't see that.
Well, I mean, I think I can answer this question pretty easily. I think the way that the church,
the dominant expression of Christianity in the United States has changed is that it has
tripled down on all of the beliefs and boundaries and harmful language and rhetoric that has driven
people away in droves in the mid-90s. And the evidence of that tripling down is that the vast
majority of those folks voted for Donald Trump twice. And so this is a phenomenon that decolonial
thinkers call re-Westernization, where the West went through a period of post-colonialism,
a kind of decolonizing critique after the colonial era starting in the early 1960s up through 9-11.
And that 9-11 triggered a kind of re-Westernization, especially in the United States
and the presidencies of George Bush during his tenure when 9-11 happened, but also during the
Obama years. Obama was an unapologetic liberal humanist who believed in the expansion of
democracy around the globe. And so there is this reactionary re-Westernizing movement
that's emanating largely from the United States. And I think Christianity reflects that same
reactionary doubling down on right-wing traditional conservatism. And so you see this, I think,
include... Sorry?
That's its roots.
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that'd be an interesting conversation too, right? Because
in a lot of ways, right-wing evangelicalism was a relatively young movement in Christianity.
But still there is this reactionary movement, right? And this is why most people are leaving
Christianity. They're leaving Christianity in the United States and prior to that in Europe,
because it embodies cultural values and beliefs that just make no sense to them. And I think the
church has largely responded by doubling and tripling down on those same things.
Yeah, that's fair.
Sorry, my dog is barking, so I'm on mute. Hold on a second.
No worries.
By the way, I was looking at your website. If somebody needs to borrow Immortal Beloved
or The Untethered Soul, or they need to borrow Sex God for the upcoming book clubs, I'm all
available. They're almost unopened because I'm an Enneagram 7, so I'm a chain reader. So they're
perfect in condition. Let me know. Be happy to drive down a couple hours to Oceanside and drop
them off.
That's good to know. I have nothing whatsoever to do with picking books for the book club, but
they decide to read those books all that you know.
Those are good books. Jason, what's your hope for your community? I want to go back to the
all-inclusive part. To create my impression, so this is just my impression, is that you almost
are trying to create a community that would look like heaven. Is that fair? Do you agree with that?
Yeah, I think I would agree. I think you wouldn't catch me using that language, but I think I agree
with what you're saying. I think we are trying to create a community that reflects the
world, the kingdom of heaven.
The ethical teachings of Jesus. And I think on top of that, I might be able to create a community
that reflects the world. My conviction is that the teachings of Jesus find a cultural home in
every time and place by being translated or interpreted into the cultural language and values
of the place. Which means that every prior expression of Christianity won't work for the
present moment. And so we're trying to be a faithful interpretation of the teachings of Jesus
and the community that should result from that for our current time and place. And so sometimes
I tell my Episcopalian friends that the 16th century is a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't
want to live there. It's the perfect embodiment of colonial era American religion. But it means
nothing whatsoever to somebody who's born in the 21st century, unless they find a particular nerdy
pleasure from learning the language and customs and cultural symbols of a prior time. And lots
of people do. And that's great. I have no problem with that. If you enjoy that sort of thing,
wonderful. As long as you're not hurting people, I'm fine with that. But in our case,
I'm not trying to go back to some pristine past that frankly never existed. I'm trying to embody
a community in the 21st century that interprets those teachings through symbols and language and
cultural practices and cultural morals and ethics that translate in our current time and place.
And that means, of course, that we have no choice but to bless and celebrate queer people.
Because it's abundantly clear from our cultural standpoint in the United States that queer sex
is good, or at least it can be just as good as straight sex. So we have no moral choice
other than to bless it and affirm it and celebrate it. So that's what I mean by that.
We're trying to be a kind of future oriented community of faith that is contextually
relevant and contextually applies the teachings of Jesus. So we happen to be in a 100 year old
building, which is kind of cool, but in some ways sort of inhibits that. So it's an interesting
thing to try to do for sure. Well, I think that the reason why Rob Bell's church is called Mars
Hill and why if you go to the Aeropagus and you go to Corinthians and Paul, I mean, I think you
can insert that in any century over the last 2000 years. That's the beauty of it. He wasn't being
synchronistic or synchristic. He was using relevant poets and people and he knew what was on their
minds. And it was that idea of trying to find truth, right? Like to an unknown God. And he was
speaking to them in their own language. And my God, if Corinth wasn't, I mean, it was a verb,
right? To Corinthianize, right? So he was in the heart of the kind of stuff that was going on. So
that's why I think it's a great expression. And you're going back to, not going back to 16th
century, all these structures and buildings and hierarchies, those need to go away, but that
spirit of message is still there. Even the idea of a Peter who puts foot in mouth, right? Because
of that passion he has for Jesus, whether building tabernacles for Moses and Elijah and Jesus or
like, you know, what he did. We love to have Peter because we fuck up all the time too. And God knows
he was the man who was the rock and he fucked up. Even saying after the, you know, on the Mount of
Transfiguration, he had a vision of the living God and he still does that. It's such a refreshing
thing. I mean, this is what's so beautiful about the word, right? So. Yeah, I agree.
I agree. Jonathan, you're on mute. I am on mute. I think that's why we come back to Jesus because
Jesus always brings us back to love. Every human being discovers in their entire life that they
have suck moments. And that's why grace to me has always been so profound is it says, okay,
you're a human being. Let's deal with it. Let's find a way to deal with it. And that's what I
mean by the kingdom is you're not trying to create an evangelical version of a long far away
heaven. That's probably not good language, but a image and space of love here that's present
because we live in the present and it includes people who are queer. It includes people who
are trans. It includes people who don't look like us. I think that's really what attracted me,
Jason, is that you, from me to you and why I invited you is because I think your community
is trying to create something very not. It's not maybe directive, but it's like this beautiful
inclusion that's bigger than because evangelical Christianity, which is my tribe growing up,
we liked to circle the wagons and that barrier was friendly. It was protective. It was safe.
And what we realized is that when we would leave on Sunday and Monday go to work, it was
that's not the world we live in. So how do we prepare to live in the world? You know,
you had to cross over. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think your point is well
taken that that's not the world we live in. Right. So the reality is that we live in an
extraordinarily pluralistic world, right? You guys are a little farther north than I am. Yeah. But,
you know, you guys are so, you know, Rich is in Los Angeles, Jonathan's in, you said Silicon Valley.
I'm in San Diego at the busiest international border crossing in North America. So we live in
these incredible, you know, contexts of hybridity. And if we can't love and respect and cooperate
and cooperate with people who are different than us, then then we're going to tear each other apart,
which you could argue that is exactly what's happening. And I think you could argue that
the tearing apart that we see happening in American culture is a consequence of how American
religion has tended to, you know, colonize as a kind of hegemonic expression of white supremacy.
Right. And so and so now we find ourselves in increasingly like ethnically and culturally diverse
country. And we don't know how to we don't know how to feel safe and secure around people who
are different than us. And so we are tearing each other apart. So our church, 100%, we want to be
the kind of church and to a small extent are the kind of congregation that can respect and tolerate
across those differences. Here's the problem. The problem is everybody has this impulse,
this like tribal impulse to be with people who are the same as them, including like left wing
progressives, right? Like, you know, the very best way to make sure that you are kind of homogenous
community is to define yourself as conservative or progressive or whatever it might be, because
eventually you're going to like gather those people. And so one of the problems with being an
inclusive church, we talk about that obviously a lot, and it's like plastered all over our
communication materials, is that that act of being inclusive, that posture of inclusivity,
excludes people who can't tolerate very inclusive environments, right. And so there's a real
tension there. Like, I hate, on the one hand, I hate that we don't have very many fairly conservative
people in our congregation anymore. On the other hand, I'm not conservative. So it's nice that I
don't have to deal with conservative people in my congregation who are upset because of the way that
I spoke about God or whatever. And so that tension is real, and it's difficult to like break that up.
And, you know, it's an impossible project, right? I mean, Christianity is an impossible project,
but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying.
Well, what's the good part of it? You've obviously started it and continued it and gotten to a point
where you can financially handle it. What's the best part of it?
That's the best part of our congregation?
That inclusive approach. Yeah. I mean, the best part of it is that for the people who believe in that and have invested in it, it is a genuinely, like kind of crazily authentic space.
There you go.
And this is not just true for my church. I mean, I have other colleagues who have congregations or
other kinds of organizations that are like this where it's like AA, right? Like anybody can show up at an AA meeting.
And you can say whatever you have to say at an AA meeting. And that's always sort of been my ideal for a congregation is that people would be able to show up and say,
man, my life is really fucked up this week. Like, hey, how are you? Not good. I am not good. Like, I'm not sure if I believe in this anymore. I'm not even sure why I'm here.
And here's so here's how I know that we're moving in the right direction is every Sunday we take communion. It's one of our core values. We just always practice communion
because of just what it means symbolically for us as a place of inclusion at the table. And we practice open communion.
You allow everyone to take communion. Of course. That's important.
Yeah, we practice an open communion. And I think actually, not to get into this, but I think there is a good argument for having a closed communion. It's just not my conviction, right? So anyway, we practice open communion.
And that's our traditions, our denominations practice as well. It's one of the reasons why I felt drawn to the denominations. It's not like this is my idea. But anyway, we do that.
And every Sunday communion, unless somebody calls in sick, communion is led by a congregant, not a minister. And that is a little bit more unusual in my denomination.
And it's really common for the congregants who lead communion on a Sunday in our Sunday gatherings to say, you know, I'm not even sure what I believe about Jesus right now at this moment in my life, but I'm really grateful for this practice.
And that kind of those moments are when I'm like, Oh, I think this is working. Like, I think this is, you know, maybe something worth being a part of. Because the fact that nobody feels like they have to get up there and toe the party doctrinal line is just, it's beautiful to me, that our congregation will just love the fact that we're in this together.
And we'll just love people all the more because they're so like, just transparent and authentic up there. So I really love that.
That's a hell of a lot more awesome and open than R.C. Sproul not being able to eat the Lord's Supper at Bethlehem Baptist with John Piper, you know, infant baptism.
He was not able to have communion at Bethlehem Baptist. How pathetic is that in contrast, right? And so I went to it's ridiculous.
I went to Richard Roar's conference probably about 14 years ago. One of the most profound experiences I've ever had was at that conference where we all went to lunch together. There was about 20 of us and of congregants who were left over.
The conference was over and we all ate at the restaurant there. And then at the end, we had a bunch of leftover bread that was almost like naan. And someone said, who would like to enjoy communion with me?
And all of a sudden, because the whole point of the conference was to bring the four quadrants of Christianity together. So everybody was there was learned, here's my pocket.
Don't cross over. And all of a sudden, it was very silent. We were kind of just making it happen. I'm like, I'm in. And all of a sudden, it got to this one person and she started crying.
And I said, and we didn't really call it out until after, but she was basically saying, I've never had this permission before.
Wow.
And there were, I mean, we all were weeping because it was the recognition of God. That's what the kingdom of God really looks like.
Is it when we are recognizing each other's humanity and frailty, but also dignity.
I mean, it was, it was one of the most dignified moments I've ever had in my life because, and everybody was like, we feel like we're on solid ground here because this is what we wanted to really ultimately look like.
Was that like the wild ghost thing and the big 10 Christianity?
About two or three years later. This, it was the, it was the, his emerging church conference. It was in 2010, I believe.
Got it.
It was a fabulous conference. It was wonderful.
Was it Philistichles?
Yeah, that was Philistichles. He and Philistichles did a conference together.
Yeah. Amazing, man. What a great, what a great experience that one must have been.
Yeah. So Jason, this has been absolutely a fantastic interview. Rich, any final questions?
No, I mean, I just thrilled. It's been really eye-opening and encouraging and awesome. And I'm looking forward to maybe heading down there before too long to say hi.
Of course it would be welcome anytime. We, even though you guys are hosts of the Dodgers, we do sometimes allow folks from LA to come visit.
I'm not a Dodgers fan. I'm a Steelers fan. Pittsburgh Steelers is my only, is the only team I care about. God knows they're on a little one right now. So yeah, that's it for me, Jonathan.
This has been super fun. I appreciate you guys having me.
Jason, thank you. It's been absolutely fantastic having you on. And I really, I think one of the things, just in kind of hindsight, the thing that I've enjoyed about this conversation is I think your heart,
you're not like, you're really genuine. Like you are authentic. And I know that your congregation is going to benefit from that because I think that's what everybody is really looking for is that sense of authenticity.
You don't have it all figured out, but you're willing to look, you know, and that's very true.
That can be a very safe space for people. So I bless you for doing that because you can create that more for people. I think more people are going to benefit immensely from that. So thank you for doing that.
I hope so. I appreciate that.
Any final words for you, Jason, before we head into the weekend?
No, no, I just appreciate the opportunity to chat about some things that I don't always get to talk about. So thanks for the invitation.
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