Brian Recker is a former Marine Officer, the son of a Baptist preacher, and an alum of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University. Brian spent eight years as an evangelical pastor before deconstructing his faith to find a more inclusive spirituality. He now speaks about following Jesus without the fear of hell, and has written about this in his new book, HellBent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love.

We talk about why he deconstructed his faith and what spirituality looks like to him now. He shares why he believes that hell isn’t real and that love should be radically inclusive, as demonstrated through the life and teachings of Jesus. The conversation also covers why men need an authentic spirituality, why the Western world has “an empathy problem”, why a spirituality of hell creates a divided self, and why the Sears catalogue made him question his faith as a teenager.

As someone who also grew up in an evangelical church and used to be a pastor, I found this conversation–and Brian’s book, HellBent–to be a very refreshing and liberating take on what true spirituality is and what’s really important in this life, not just as a man, but as a society.

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Website: https://www.brianrecker.com/

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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;19

Brian Recker

If you grew up in evangelicalism, you were told the consequences of not being a Christian were hell and punishment in the afterlife. There's no way to enter into that kind of relationship without coercion. Every sexual impulse was a threat to my salvation, the threat of hell. It was like, okay, this might be proof that I might not really be in and I can't afford to not be in.

00;00;20;20 - 00;00;33;21

Brian Recker

The stakes are just way too high for that. The spirituality I inherited was kind of like, hey, this world is going to burn. It's really about the next world. I want a spirituality that makes my life better, that makes the world better, that helps people in the here and now.

00;00;33;24 - 00;00;52;28

Matt Howlett

You were listening to The Akkeri podcast, a show about men and masculinities, the challenges that modern men face and how to chart a better way forward. I'm your host, Matt Howlett, mental health coach and founder of The Akkeri. Brian Recker, is a former marine officer, the son of a Baptist preacher and an alum of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University.

00;00;53;00 - 00;01;14;12

Matt Howlett

Brian spent eight years as an evangelical pastor before deconstructing his faith to find a more inclusive spirituality. He now speaks about following Jesus without the fear of hell, and has written about this in his new book, Hell Bent How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from the Spirituality of Love. We talk about why he deconstructed his faith and what spirituality looks like to him.

00;01;14;12 - 00;01;37;26

Matt Howlett

Now. He shares why he believes that hell isn't real and that love should be radically inclusive, as demonstrated through the life and teachings of Jesus. The conversation also covers why men need an authentic spirituality, why the Western world has an empathy problem, why a spirituality of hell creates a divided self, and why the Sears catalog made him question his faith as a teenager.

00;01;37;29 - 00;02;02;14

Matt Howlett

As someone who also grew up in an evangelical church and used to be a pastor, I found this conversation in Brian's book, Hell Bent, to be a very refreshing and liberating take on what true spirituality is and what's really important in this life, not just as a man, but as a society. Here's the conversation with Brian Record. I'd love to just read a clip from your book that's coming out and it's, September 30th, right?

00;02;02;16 - 00;02;28;04

Matt Howlett

00;02;28;04 - 00;02;38;03

Matt Howlett

And if someone's name wasn't in it, God would say, depart from me, I never knew you and send that sorry son of a bitch to hell.

00;02;38;05 - 00;02;39;18

Brian Recker

So, Yeah.

00;02;39;18 - 00;02;57;25

Matt Howlett

Poor fella. I have a vivid memory. Maybe I have a story I can tell you later or later when my idea of hell came from. But your idea of all this changed. What? Can you just give us some context for that? Like what? What exactly happened? You're an evangelical pastor. You grew up Fundamental Baptist.

00;02;57;27 - 00;03;21;00

Brian Recker

Yeah. So like the what I described there was from my fundamental Baptist upbringing where hell was really front and center and most of, you know, the sermons of what you call fire and brimstone. Well, kind of a classic, thing which, you know, evangelicals believe very similar things to fundamentalist, but they approach it in quite different ways. The difference is more in vibes than anything.

00;03;21;05 - 00;03;42;21

Brian Recker

Okay. And so evangelicals are typically trying to be seeker sensitive. And so they don't talk about hell every week because they don't want to be weird or scare people away, but they really still believe that the same long list of people are going there as fundamentalists. They just don't talk about it as often. And what always just seemed obvious to me was that if you believe this to be true, then it's a bad thing, not a good thing.

00;03;42;21 - 00;04;10;10

Brian Recker

If you're not talking about it. Because you should really be warning people if you actually believe that this is sort of their horrific fate. And that was what we we taught in fundamentalism. And so while I don't appreciate their fear mongering spirituality, I do have to at least acknowledge their integrity that if they really believe that most of the people who are currently alive are going to go to hell, because really, anybody is not a Christian according to their specifications.

00;04;10;12 - 00;04;47;26

Brian Recker

And by best estimates, a third of humanity would consider themselves Christian recording mentalist. Not even all of those would necessarily qualify because some of them would be nominal Christians, Catholics which maybe wouldn't quite qualify. So they really believe that the vast majority of people are going to hell. And so when they are constantly going around and, you know, maybe think of a street preacher on a corner who's aggressive and annoying, and yet he would say that he's doing the most loving thing possible, because if you, you know, were watching somebody was about to be struck by a truck in the street and you weren't calling out, get out of the way.

00;04;47;26 - 00;04;57;02

Brian Recker

Get out of the way. You know, you just let them hit by that truck. Hell is like the big truck that's going to hit everybody. And so if they really believe that, they they should be screaming about it.

00;04;57;04 - 00;04;57;26

Matt Howlett

Yeah, that makes sense.

00;04;58;00 - 00;05;01;15

Brian Recker

That that it it creates just a very toxic spirituality.

00;05;01;17 - 00;05;20;27

Matt Howlett

Yeah. Yeah, I feel that I don't know if I mentioned to you, in our chats prior to the call, but I was a pastor as well for just about a decade. Yeah. Went to Bible college, studied theology, music. I was more interested in the music side, but I started working with students. My first position, first couple positions.

00;05;21;06 - 00;05;35;26

Matt Howlett

But, yeah, this, this book and what I've read so far, and especially what you just said resonated, very deeply with me. And I think it's going to resonate with a lot of people. So what exactly do you believe now when it comes to spirituality?

00;05;35;29 - 00;05;37;20

Brian Recker

Well, it's a very broad.

00;05;38;01 - 00;05;38;26

Matt Howlett

Yeah, I.

00;05;38;28 - 00;05;40;16

Brian Recker

Know, I can tell you that. Yeah. So we'll.

00;05;40;16 - 00;05;41;05

Matt Howlett

Get into a bit.

00;05;41;05 - 00;06;02;07

Brian Recker

Deeper. It did make it simple, actually. In some ways I don't have it. For me, when hell was a part of my spirituality, certainty was really important. You know, if, if you have to make sure that you believe the right things and if you believe the wrong things, you might be punished in eternity, then it's very important to to be sure that that's not going to happen to you.

00;06;02;09 - 00;06;24;26

Brian Recker

Like I, I was always struggling with what I called assurance of my salvation in my early years in fundamentalism. And, you know, I prayed that sinner's prayer many times over to sort of have that sense of of surety. And the reality is, though, when fear is the foundation of your spirituality, it's really impossible to be sure, because the reality is this is not the kind of thing anyone can know for sure.

00;06;24;26 - 00;06;43;14

Brian Recker

What happens when you die is not the kind of thing that you can be certain about. Yeah. And so when when hell is a part of that scenario, you kind of have to manufacture certainty because you really want to feel sure that that's not going to happen to you or your loved ones. And so I would say, certainty is no longer a part of my spirituality.

00;06;43;16 - 00;07;01;26

Brian Recker

Instead, the center of my spirituality is love. And Jesus actually, you know, makes this quite simple because every time somebody asks Jesus, like, what's this whole thing about? What's the big idea? How do you kind of whittle this down into like the core principle? Like what? What's the whole law and the prophets about? What's the whole Bible about?

00;07;02;00 - 00;07;25;21

Brian Recker

Jesus said multiple times that the whole law in the prophets can really be summed up with those commands to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. And this was kind of Jesus's repeated refrain was bringing it all back to the love command. And so for me, I am less concerned with what's the right answer, you know, what's what, what can I absolutely know for sure?

00;07;25;21 - 00;07;39;05

Brian Recker

And and for me instead, a better question is what is helping me grow in love. And so anything that leads me deeper into love, anything that helps me feel more connected to myself, to God and to other people. I would say is spiritual for me.

00;07;39;07 - 00;08;05;21

Matt Howlett

Yeah. I'm imagining that you would get a lot of pushback from evangelical Christians about like, what is God? You know, who is God? What does that even look like? And that is a pretty fundamental concept. And in Christianity is the concept of hell not necessarily just punishment, but this idea that there is a heaven and hell, that there is this, that dichotomy, and that if you don't have Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

00;08;05;22 - 00;08;21;06

Matt Howlett

So language we all was used right? Then you're going to go to one place or the other, right, based off of that fact. Right? So what what do you say to that? Has it been an easy conversation? Have people kind of understood this like process of deconstruction that you've been through?

00;08;21;09 - 00;08;46;21

Brian Recker

I definitely think that for many evangelicals, those assumptions are so core and fundamental that it is tough to really challenge them until you're ready to question the whole system, because that is really what I discovered was it's not as easy, when I first started to do deep dive on on what the Bible says about how I was an evangelical pastor still.

00;08;46;24 - 00;09;07;08

Brian Recker

And one of the problems that you run into is that if you start to look at the Bible and you start to recognize that it's not actually that clear on a literal place called hell, that in many places it actually seems like man, actually this is maybe more of a metaphor. Maybe this is more about our behavior in this life and not punishment in the afterlife and that sort of thing.

00;09;07;08 - 00;09;26;13

Brian Recker

But the problem with that, if you start to say, hey, maybe, maybe this isn't all about the afterlife, maybe this isn't all about hell. The problem with that is it's like pulling on a thread and recognizing that it starts to kind of unravel the whole sweater of Christianity, because many of us inherited a Christianity that that binary that you described was really the whole ballgame.

00;09;26;15 - 00;09;45;21

Brian Recker

That was the whole, if there is no hell to be saved from, then what's the point of Christianity? What's the point of having a Savior? And so what's the point of one of the most common questions I get when I talk about the fact that I don't believe the Bible teaches in a literal hell is, well, if there's no help and why, what's the point of Jesus at all?

00;09;45;21 - 00;10;05;11

Brian Recker

Like why believe in any of it? Which to me is actually quite revealing, because it actually is revealing that avoiding punishment is foundational in in that spiritual framework. And I don't want to spirituality that's primarily about avoiding punishment in the afterlife. I want to spirituality that helps me live into love in this life for the sake of the world.

00;10;05;17 - 00;10;21;24

Brian Recker

Yeah. And so when that's not the main idea and that can't be the main if there's anything as, as, you know, looming in front of us, as horrific as eternal as and ongoing, I mean, it's the it's the worst possible punishment for the longest possible amount of time. It's the worst thing that could possibly happen.

00;10;21;27 - 00;10;23;06

Matt Howlett

It sounds like, yeah.

00;10;23;08 - 00;10;51;20

Brian Recker

It can't possibly be a secondary issue. If that is a real thing, it's going to crowd out every other spiritual priority. And so it's kind of odd that when you realize, like Paul, who wrote half over half the New Testament, didn't even mention hell, and that I don't believe that you can have a healthy spirituality if fear is the main driving motivation, and if hell is real, then fear must be the main driving motivation for our very relationship with God.

00;10;51;26 - 00;11;02;16

Brian Recker

Yeah. You know, I point out sometimes that evangelicals love to talk about like a relationship with God. You know, like that's the whole thing that they'll say is this isn't a religion, it's a relationship.

00;11;02;19 - 00;11;05;19

Matt Howlett

I said that many times here. Have you said that one? Of course.

00;11;05;21 - 00;11;25;23

Brian Recker

But what kind of dawned on me was that for the vast majority of us, that very relationship began with hell for for the most, you know, and I yeah, I'll talk to people when I, when I talk about my book. Just this last weekend, I did kind of, I was at a festival and did a little talk on my book, and I had a group of people there, and I had them all stand up.

00;11;25;24 - 00;11;54;02

Brian Recker

I was like, well, I said, this is what I said. If you, if you've been saved at some point in your life, you were converted or born again or accepted Jesus into your heart like one of those things happened to you, stand up. And I think pretty much everybody there stood up because it was kind of a Christian sort of event, although it's like a progressive Christian event, but it's everybody stood up and I said, okay, if when you made that decision to be converted or born to be born again or to accept Jesus into your heart, if when you made that decision, l was in your awareness as a part of that story,

00;11;54;05 - 00;12;14;03

Brian Recker

that was a part of your reason for making that decision. Like you understood that the consequences for not being born again, for not being saved, was that you would go to hell if that was a part of your understanding when you were converted. Stay standing and like one person sat down. I think everybody else stayed standing. So that was a part of that mental model for making that decision.

00;12;14;05 - 00;12;46;04

Brian Recker

And then I said this. I said, okay, if that decision conversion, accepting Jesus into your heart, being born again, if that happened before you were ten years old, stay standing and like two people sat down. So like 80%, 90% of the people were still standing up. And and that was my story as well. And that was, I think, a very, a pretty good majority of people that if you grew up in evangelicalism, you probably had a conversion experience as a child where you were told the consequences of not being a Christian were hell and punishment in the afterlife.

00;12;46;06 - 00;13;02;12

Brian Recker

And so this choice, which is being presented to you as a child is really no choice at all. And that is the relationship with God. But any other relationship in your life, if you're told, hey, this is a beautiful, life giving relationship, in fact, is the most loving relationship you can possibly have. It's going to change your life.

00;13;02;12 - 00;13;16;19

Brian Recker

It's the best relationship. It's beautiful. It's pure love itself. But also, if you're not in that relationship, you're going to be eternally tortured. That is really a it's a toxic relationship. There's no way to enter into that kind of relationship without coercion.

00;13;16;22 - 00;13;32;17

Matt Howlett

Yeah. And that's not the way that you want to go into anything like that. Like if when you were talking there, it was making me think of all the times when, like, you give like a child gift, you're at like a birthday party or whatever, and the parent reminds the child to say thank you or reminds the child to say whatever.

00;13;32;17 - 00;13;52;00

Matt Howlett

Go over and give your uncle a hug and say thank you. Right? It's like, I appreciate that I'm an uncle. I've given children gifts. You know, I've had that experience myself. You always appreciate that. It's cute. And I recognize that. That's part of, you know, just teaching a child manners and stuff like that. But you also recognize as an adult that they don't get it quite yet.

00;13;52;03 - 00;14;11;06

Matt Howlett

Right? They're doing it because they're told to do they're not doing it because they, you know, in that moment, love the gift or want to say thank you to you. They're they're learning something. Right. And my experience and I'm pretty sure it sounds like at least it's very similar to yours, I had that conversion experience. And I'll tell you what I've mentioned earlier.

00;14;11;08 - 00;14;13;16

Matt Howlett

It was called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames.

00;14;13;17 - 00;14;14;09

Brian Recker

Oh, no.

00;14;14;13 - 00;14;16;03

Matt Howlett

Oh, you've seen that? Okay.

00;14;16;05 - 00;14;22;15

Brian Recker

I haven't actually seen it myself, but I've heard all about it. Yeah. And that's that's exactly what. Yeah, dude. Well, it's.

00;14;22;22 - 00;14;46;10

Matt Howlett

I wrote my critique basically. Yeah. It's just basically an, an experience of pure terror. Because if you're, well, if you're young enough, obviously, if you're a little older, I think you can perceive it and, you know, process it a little bit differently, but still that the whole purpose of that play, this was like early 90s, if I remember correctly, I think I was like 11 when I, when I saw this.

00;14;46;10 - 00;15;06;10

Matt Howlett

But the whole purpose is to show that dichotomy, to show that, you know, heaven's beautiful, heaven's awesome, like your loved ones are there. And it's like all lights and golds and piano. It's just a beautiful, beautiful spot. No pain, no crying, no nothing. Right? And then hell, lights go out, you hear the demonic screams being played through, like, you know, the ghetto blaster or whatever.

00;15;06;10 - 00;15;23;21

Matt Howlett

They have their back in the school gymnasium. I was terrified. I remember that moment. I remember where I sat. There was a bunch of round tables. I remember who I talk to and you know about my faith in that decision. But I had grown up in the church. It was all I ever knew.

00;15;23;24 - 00;15;46;02

Brian Recker

And how can we not think that that that really I think one of the, one of the points in my book is to say that that introduction to the faith, when that's the foundation, I don't think you can just go on and say, oh, but this is actually all about love. That's kind of a kind of gaslighting, is what I point out in the book, to say, like, you have to agree with this, or else you're going to be eternally tortured and that's like the baseline for entrance.

00;15;46;07 - 00;16;13;05

Brian Recker

And then on the other side of that to say, hey, this is just a regular loving relationship. You know, this is actually the most loving relationship. If in the back of your mind, you know, that you can't leave it, it can't be freely chosen. And so I just think we need to be honest about that, that we're shaping a spirituality and we're also, you know, I still, I still do think it matters what you believe about God, but not because I think God's going to punish you if you're wrong.

00;16;13;07 - 00;16;35;24

Brian Recker

I think it matters because what you believe about God is what you believe about reality. And it really shapes the kind of person you become. And so if God is a punisher and God sits on a throne saying you're and you're out, he's the ultimate excluder, essentially, creating a binary universe, then you and then then it really gives you permission to be a punisher and to be an excluder.

00;16;35;24 - 00;16;56;16

Brian Recker

And so I do. I think we can draw a pretty direct line between, you know, having this God, God who, you know, casts people out. And then, you know, we have things like alligator Alcatraz now where, you know, the Christians in America are perfectly content to gather up immigrants and put them in these concentration camps. And, yeah, I mean, what is hell?

00;16;56;16 - 00;17;25;20

Brian Recker

It's not the ultimate concentration camp. In fact, one time I created a video where I talked about the inclusivity, of of of, God. And I ultimately said something about universalism, which I would be a universalist, and they they were basically like, or when I was talking about the welcoming the Outsiders and they said, you know, you think countries shouldn't have, walls, but God has walls around heaven, like, not a single unbeliever is going to get into there.

00;17;25;20 - 00;17;47;19

Brian Recker

Like God is the ultimate, in a sense, gatekeeper. And and there's no illegal immigration. That's what they said. There's no illegal immigration from hell to heaven. Right. And so that was giving them justification, spiritual justification to take that punitive mindset. You have this punitive God, and you're now working that out into the way that you view other people, and view the world.

00;17;47;21 - 00;17;57;10

Brian Recker

And so it does create, I think a spirituality. And so that's what I'm hoping to help people deconstruct, is we need better foundations for our spirituality.

00;17;57;13 - 00;18;17;29

Matt Howlett

So I would assume one of your foundations is still God. What is that for you? I noticed in the book What's God? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's obviously a big topic and we could go down several different rabbit holes, but I'm just looking for some, you know, small encapsulation because like, if, if you're breaking down Christianity and you're removing the concept of hell, there's some aspects of that.

00;18;18;05 - 00;18;22;23

Matt Howlett

There's some holes that kind of feel like they need to be filled in. You know, pulling that out creates some gaps.

00;18;22;25 - 00;18;32;03

Brian Recker

Yeah. So my first image of God, you know, you mentioned the thousand foot glowing guy in a chair that came from, the tech track, gospel tracks. Have you seen those?

00;18;32;03 - 00;18;34;00

Matt Howlett

Never I have, yeah.

00;18;34;03 - 00;18;54;04

Brian Recker

And, you know, that's a there's like a classic image, which really was my mental model for God. And it was a big guy in On a Throne, you know, and really a big punishing guy. He was the guy you were going to stand before, and he's going to tell you if you were in or out. And I think for many Christians, they they kind of do think about God as a big guy, a big punishing guy.

00;18;54;26 - 00;19;05;28

Brian Recker

And I that makes sense because, well, that's a god that we, you know, it's easy to conceptualize something. And there are images in the Bible that do lead to that. The Old.

00;19;05;28 - 00;19;07;01

Matt Howlett

Testament is filled with that.

00;19;07;01 - 00;19;08;05

Brian Recker

You say that.

00;19;08;12 - 00;19;09;27

Matt Howlett

The sorry, the Old Testament is filled with that.

00;19;09;28 - 00;19;43;10

Brian Recker

Yeah. I do think we see evolution. And in the conceptualization of God, and we're meant to as Christians, we're meant to take our ultimate picture of what God is like and who God is from Jesus. And I think that one of the problems, with, inerrancy and really, believing that every single thing in the Bible is equally authoritative, is that what you'll end up doing is you kind of have to fit all of those pictures together, and the bad ones kind of tend to win out, as opposed to seeing that there are actually contradictions.

00;19;43;10 - 00;20;02;08

Brian Recker

And actually there is a movement within Scripture and an evolution of even how we're meant to perceive God. And so there are pictures towards the beginning of the Bible where God is very much a tribal god is, the Yahweh is portrayed as sort of the God of one nation as opposed to and, and in sort of combat with the gods of other nations.

00;20;02;09 - 00;20;02;15

Matt Howlett

Right?

00;20;02;15 - 00;20;27;01

Brian Recker

Right, right. This is our God versus their God and that sort of thing. But ultimately, even within the Hebrew prophets, prophets like Isaiah, they talk more about a universal God who really is the God of all people, and that the trajectory is always towards a more universal picture to really the ultimate sort of defining moment really comes at the very end of the Bible, where we hear that God is love, which is the most universal thing of all.

00;20;27;10 - 00;20;55;25

Brian Recker

Love is for everyone, and it's the inheritance of all people. And I do think Jesus came to reveal a God of love. And so I learn what God is like by what Jesus is like. And Jesus reveals a God of compassion and mercy, and ultimately God. Although Jesus uses language like father to describe God, when Jesus describes what that father is like, he's often actually, turning even patriarchal norms upside down.

00;20;55;25 - 00;21;23;22

Brian Recker

He reveals like a different kind of father, a father, like in the parable of the prodigal son who runs out to meet his wayward son and shows immediate compassion and mercy. Even not so not this authoritative sort of judge or punisher, but actually a God of compassion. In fact, there's, several moments in the gospels as well where Jesus even takes an Old Testament sort of syllogism, where, you know, in the Old Testament it talks about, the holy, for I am holy, right.

00;21;23;23 - 00;21;44;19

Brian Recker

And and Jesus says, be merciful, for for God is merciful. And so actually even replaces holiness with mercy as the primary characteristic of God. And so I do ultimately believe in a God who's who's purely love. And, what, what some I think people would have to do if hell is in your world, you, then your definition of love has to include hell.

00;21;44;21 - 00;22;06;03

Brian Recker

In other words, well, God is love, but God does send some people to hell, which means that it can actually be loving to send people to hell. So with that, ends up doing is actually mutates the very definition of love into something that is very unlike love, as opposed to having our conception of God being hinging on the idea of what we know love to be, we end up mutating love and making love into something punishing.

00;22;06;10 - 00;22;25;20

Brian Recker

So that means an abusive parent while I'm being loving, even in my abuse. So I love can now include punishment. It's the God of love can include punishment. Yeah, but I don't think we're supposed to do that. Because Jesus never punished anyone. Jesus. Whenever Jesus uses God's power, it's only ever to heal. It only ever works in that one direction.

00;22;25;20 - 00;22;40;24

Brian Recker

It never is to hurt. It's never to harm. It's never to punish. Yeah. So I don't believe that that's who God is or what is in the character of God. So I do I have I have kind of thrown out that big punishing guy view of God. I don't think God is a guy. I don't think that God is like a sky daddy.

00;22;41;10 - 00;22;59;20

Brian Recker

I think of God as a universal spirit of love. I love Richard War's definition. Richard Moore says God is reality itself, reality with a personality. And so it matters what you believe about God. Because if God is love, then reality is fundamentally loving as opposed to fundamentally punishing. And so it does shape how you even view the world, how you interact with the world.

00;22;59;27 - 00;23;04;17

Brian Recker

I think the world would be a better place if you believe the best about one another and about reality.

00;23;04;18 - 00;23;22;14

Matt Howlett

Yeah, that's one of the things that I loved about reading your book. Well, first of all, it was the whole thing was very refreshing. And I just and really enjoyed hearing your take on several different things, because I haven't read anything really like that. That resonated so much since I've been through that process. Yeah, man, I really appreciate it.

00;23;22;14 - 00;23;41;24

Matt Howlett

I was so glad to hear that you were, free and and interested to jump on with this today. But one of the things that I, I really think about this whole process of deconstruction, this conversation that you're having with so many different people, is when you when you break it down, like you can have all these theological conversations, you can talk about the Old Testament and the New Testament and whatever you want to do.

00;23;41;26 - 00;23;56;02

Matt Howlett

But when you break it down, what is it that makes life better right now for not just for yourself, but for everybody else around you and for the world on the whole, you know what I mean? And when we're focused about heaven and hell, we're focused about the future. And we don't even know if that's actually going to happen.

00;23;56;10 - 00;24;16;14

Matt Howlett

Yeah, right. Like, I want to get to know Brian Ricker, right? I want to read his book, and figure out whether or not I believe in what he believes in and whether or not I can share that and what that does for me. You know, how that, gives what understanding to the experience that I've had? You know what I mean?

00;24;16;14 - 00;24;32;22

Matt Howlett

Learn from you and you can learn from me that type of thing is what fills me up. That's where I find satisfaction in. And I just, there's so much division in the world right now, especially around religion. But we're focused on the things that I don't think matter all that much.

00;24;32;22 - 00;24;36;07

Brian Recker

That will connect us, like what you just described. What was connection.

00;24;36;13 - 00;24;37;21

Matt Howlett

Exactly?

00;24;37;23 - 00;24;55;14

Brian Recker

Really? Yeah. Thomas Merton has this beautiful quote. He says, personal relationships is what will save us. And I do think that it is all about relationships. That's another definition for God. Like when you say God is love, God is, you might even say relationship itself. That spirit of love and connection that does, I think, bind us all together.

00;24;55;16 - 00;25;17;09

Brian Recker

I want a spirituality that is that makes my life better, that makes the world better, that that that helps people in the here and now. And even when I think of, also just like the planet and the future of the planet and the people on it and the flourishing of this world and the people on it, we didn't really inherit a spirituality that was invested in that.

00;25;17;09 - 00;25;37;03

Brian Recker

It wasn't about making the world a better place, which seems crazy, but because that seems like the most obvious sort of low hanging fruit, like your spirituality should make the world a better place. No, actually, the spirituality I inherited was kind of like, hey, this world is going to burn. It's really about the next world. It wasn't about the flourishing of the people on the planet.

00;25;37;05 - 00;25;49;02

Brian Recker

And so to me, it's like, if your religion doesn't touch that doesn't touch the what is that makes a more peaceful, just flourishing humanity? Yeah. You've got to start from scratch.

00;25;49;04 - 00;26;26;04

Matt Howlett

That's absolutely. And I think people could throw out a lot of this and say, it's just woowoo it's just feelings based, like, you know, it's not you're throwing away your faith. But like the science actually backs this up. I was actually listening to a podcast just the other day. It might have been Psychology Today. I can't remember exactly which one it was, but, there's a PhD, I believe, her specialty or her focus was in neuroscience, and she was talking about the mental health, well-being benefits and like, the trackable, you know, hard data that they have from, people with religious, commitments.

00;26;26;07 - 00;26;48;14

Matt Howlett

And why, like, they were having these, you know, different factors change. So whether it was like, reduced blood pressure or reduced perceived stress levels, just overall well-being. I should have taken notes on the specifics of it, but she basically said it wasn't just religion. The people that were religious were identified as having, you know, better health outcomes.

00;26;48;16 - 00;27;15;27

Matt Howlett

But it wasn't just religion, it was the connection. And the community and the purpose that that gave them. So, you know, I mean, like, is is religion the only way to that it can be helpful. I'm not ever like a proponent of throwing religion out the window. But I think the main thing that we need to be focused on is what you just said is, is connection with ourselves, with each other, and with whatever it is that we believe God to be or the reality of the universe.

00;27;15;27 - 00;27;19;13

Matt Howlett

And ultimately, I think that's what you're saying. It's love, it's connection.

00;27;19;15 - 00;27;40;00

Brian Recker

And I don't think you have to stray, outside of Jesus to to even find that. I think this was very core to to how Jesus approach things. Jesus put people first, not just rules, very religious dogmas first. In fact, Jesus never teaches any dogmas ever. He never has his disciples sign up to any kind of statement of faith.

00;27;40;02 - 00;28;01;09

Brian Recker

He doesn't. He doesn't like. Here's the like, things that you really have to believe about God and wanting to be. And it's it's never about that. It's always about the flourishing of people. And it's always the religious leaders coming at Jesus saying, hey, like, you broke this religious rule. Yeah. You're not following this. Our dogmas and our laws and our rules, you're broke the Sabbath, for instance, because he was lying on the Sabbath.

00;28;01;16 - 00;28;18;14

Brian Recker

And it's like, yeah, I'm going to heal on the Sabbath because that's what the whole thing is about. The whole thing is about healing. It's about flourishing. It says, is man made for the Sabbath, or was the Sabbath made for man? In other words, this principle of rest, of course, is important because it leads to the flourishing of humankind.

00;28;18;19 - 00;28;39;28

Brian Recker

And but when it's not, when it's getting in the way of flourishing, it's like, oh, for the sake of the rule, we're not going to heal like, no. Now this is actually standing in the way of the flourishing. And so he always was like, yeah, you can throw that away because the point was always people. Yeah. And rather than learn that lesson we have brought in and yeah, maybe most Christians don't follow Sabbath because they're like, oh, Jesus broke the Sabbath.

00;28;39;28 - 00;28;58;00

Brian Recker

So we don't have to worry about the Sabbath. So they throw that one away, but they have other religious rules that they'll hold on to, because those ones are the ones that really don't know. The whole point was that it was always meant to be people first. Which is why even when it comes to conversations like queer inclusion, you know, we can argue about Bible verses all day long about what this verse means, what that verse means.

00;28;58;00 - 00;29;23;18

Brian Recker

Oh, maybe this is actually about pederasty, not homosexuality, etc., etc. but actually what I care about most is like what leads to wholeness, health, flourishing, or people. And the data tells us that actually, when queer people are in affirming, accepting environments, they flourish. And when they're in non affirming environments, they commit suicide. They're depressed at higher rates, like they have bad outcomes.

00;29;23;18 - 00;29;45;11

Brian Recker

It's not good for people. And so that to me, Bible verses aside, I think we can see just from the trajectory of what Jesus was teaching us of what really matters. The point isn't we have to make them all obey some arbitrary religious standard that's disconnected from human flourishing. Now, if the data is telling us that this way is leading to death and this way is leading to life, yeah, that's all I care about.

00;29;45;11 - 00;29;46;23

Brian Recker

I want a religion of life.

00;29;46;25 - 00;30;09;24

Matt Howlett

Yeah, yeah, I feel like it goes against even just common sense to be digging into specific scriptures and worried about the interpretation of this or of that. When you realize that you've got a human here that we're called to love. I would say, above all else, we're not called to just follow rules and religious rights and whatever it's going to be to, to figure out, like, what's us in them, you know what I mean?

00;30;09;26 - 00;30;12;06

Matt Howlett

So it's like when there has to be.

00;30;12;08 - 00;30;39;15

Brian Recker

Spirituality is to create in us and them. And so to me, I think what I realized was that's what hell does it kind of solidifies that us and them with the most brutal, stark clarity, like there can't be a firmer dividing line, then I'm going to go to heaven and you're going to go to hell. And so it creates that that binary and that dichotomy, which I think ultimately robs us of the truth, which is that we are all God's beloved creatures.

00;30;39;22 - 00;31;01;21

Brian Recker

And it really causes it gives us sort of a spiritual sanction to look down on people. And really, it leads to people living into their worst impulses to separate and feel superiority over others, for being different or being outsiders. And so to me, it's not even just that hell misses it a little bit. It actually creates a spirituality that is the opposite of what I think true spirituality is.

00;31;02;00 - 00;31;15;11

Brian Recker

I want to feel more connected to my brothers and sisters in this world. Not not more superior and distant from. And then my goal is to change them and convert them and make them more like me, rather than understand them and connect to them for who they are.

00;31;15;14 - 00;31;32;22

Matt Howlett

Yeah, just there was one thing that stood out to me that I'd love to get a few more of your thoughts on. It was about the divide itself, like the cognitive dissonance that can happen when we feel like there is a part of us that's bad because our religion, you know, Christianity, the Bible tells us that it's bad.

00;31;32;22 - 00;31;55;18

Matt Howlett

And this was specifically in your book. It was a section when you started talking about sexuality. And, and dude, I, I have to tell you, I died laughing at that section because there was a reference in there to the Sears catalog. Yeah. Oh, man. And any teenage boy, if you read the book, if you even hear us on the podcast right now, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

00;31;55;18 - 00;32;09;11

Matt Howlett

I had this conversation with my wife just last week when I read it, because I was we were lying in bed, she was reading, I was reading, and I cracked up laughing, and I had to go in and tell her all that was about. But anyways, we're going to leave that for everybody else. You can go read the book and figure out what is that referencing.

00;32;09;13 - 00;32;34;18

Matt Howlett

But in that section that stood out to me, just so clearly that resonated with me so deeply that the Christianity often, has, you know, has a tendency, I suppose, to pick out the parts to highlight things about us that we get the sense that are wrong. And you were specifically talking about sexuality because, it is one thing that in my experience, the church doesn't talk a whole lot about.

00;32;34;20 - 00;33;02;08

Matt Howlett

It's kind of like, you know, shooed to the side. It's never really, you know, you don't hear it in a sermon. I don't hear it from the pulpit. I don't know if I really ever did. All I did hear was what you're not supposed to do when it comes to sexuality, right? So the the idea that I caught from your book, was, you know, that if there's so much of that going on and there's not this openness and conversation around it, then we it's it's teaching us that there are parts of us that are wrong.

00;33;02;10 - 00;33;21;04

Matt Howlett

So then what happens is we don't know what to do with that because you're it's natural to have a sex drive. It's natural to have thoughts, especially as like a teenage boy going through puberty and whatever, and then you feel like that part of you is wrong. So you have to push that down, set that aside. But then you're like splitting yourself up.

00;33;21;07 - 00;33;33;17

Matt Howlett

Basically, you create this cognitive dissonance where it's like, part of me seems natural, but I'm learning on the other end that it's wrong, that it's dirty, that, you know, I'm supposed to be different than that. Can you say more to that?

00;33;33;19 - 00;33;52;22

Brian Recker

Yeah. So I, you know, got saved. I became a Christian when I was like 5 or 6 years old. So the by the time I'm going through puberty, I had already been a Christian for 5 or 6 years. And I was taught that sanctification, you're supposed to be growing more and more like Jesus, right? And that. Yes.

00;33;52;22 - 00;34;10;12

Brian Recker

Okay. Christians will sin, sure, but they won't continue in sin. Right. And so I had this sense that, oh, no, all of a sudden I had proof positive that I could not possibly be a Christian because I was content. It was getting worse, not better. And by worse, I mean I was now experiencing loss for the first time.

00;34;10;13 - 00;34;32;23

Brian Recker

Or, you know, my sexuality. It was everything that I was worried that, you know, I it was true about me that I was actually this bad. Gross. You know, wicked sinner. And and I was like, this, this can't possibly be me and my journey of sanctification. So I must not really be a Christian. And so every sexual impulse was a threat to my spirituality, was a threat to my salvation.

00;34;32;23 - 00;34;49;04

Brian Recker

Right. And that threat like it was the threat of hell. It was like, okay, this might be proof that I might not really be in. And I can't afford to not be in because the stakes are just way too high for that. Yeah. And so that that sexuality was a threat. I could not see that as a good thing.

00;34;49;04 - 00;35;13;24

Brian Recker

It was definitely a bad thing. And so when I would indulge in that, you know, I would, I would then feel guilty and I would feel like I had to pray another salvation prayer because it's like, man, that's not the kind of thing a Christian would do. Certainly not the kind of thing Jesus would do. And and so eventually, though, you begin to get numb and that dissonance that you mentioned, you you can't live in that constant state of fear.

00;35;13;24 - 00;35;37;09

Brian Recker

And like, loathing. So I ultimately kind of bubbled up where I would, you know, I would have like some sort of a sexual experience, really, just with myself. I wasn't sexually active, but, you know, I would masturbate or whatever or, you know, look at a Sears catalog lingerie section and, and then I would just have to sort of pretend that that didn't happen because I couldn't emotionally engage with that, because it was such a threat to my eternal soul, really.

00;35;37;15 - 00;35;58;02

Brian Recker

And so then it was like, okay, it was Sunday morning, Brian. And, you know, Saturday night, Brian. And there's like two different. And I just had to pretend that that other guy, he's not in charge here like Sunday morning. Brian. He's he's he's he's he's he's that's the real me. And it what it didn't help me do was be integrated or learn how sexuality is actually a very important part of what it is to be human.

00;35;58;02 - 00;36;16;13

Brian Recker

It's certainly not a threat to my spirituality. It's actually one of the beautiful ways that we can connect with one another. Which I think is the essence of spirituality is connection. And so I do think we often rob people of experiencing healthy sexuality. I don't think purity culture is the only thing that, fucks up people's, sexuality.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;42;02

Brian Recker

I think there's all kinds of ways that sex gets messed up for people, but I do think it's one of the particularly insidious ones, because when you couple, you know, budding sexuality with the threat of punishment and being told that God hates what you're doing, and this could cause you to be cast into hell, that really, I think is is a crazy thing to throw at a boy who's just sort of going through puberty and forming those sexual desires for the first time.

00;36;42;15 - 00;37;11;08

Brian Recker

And I that was me as a straight person. I make the point in the book as well. Like if I experience that cognitive dissonance and that fear and that really, that shame over my sexuality as a straight person, I know that the queer kids in the church going through puberty had it much worse, because at least even though my sexuality was seen as a sin when I would indulge in it, at least it was like the normal sin, right where they were made to feel broken just for really existing and experiencing any level of desire.

00;37;11;22 - 00;37;31;21

Brian Recker

And so that's where things like conversion therapy come in. And what I've often seen in my conversations with many gay kids who are raised in the church is they often go deeper in their spirituality than their straight counterparts because fear drives them to feel like there's even something more deeply wrong with them, and so they end up doubling down on this sort of solution.

00;37;31;24 - 00;37;51;22

Brian Recker

It's right because they're told that they're so deeply disease, so deeply broken, and so they end up drinking double doses of that supposed cure, which is really no cure at all. It's just the same sort of conversion therapy mindset that something is wrong with you. And so you need to get saved. You need to be born again. You need to have the Holy Spirit, whatever the case, you need to be prayed over, etc., etc. to be fixed.

00;37;51;25 - 00;38;10;13

Brian Recker

But what if nothing was wrong with you? Yeah. And so that's no cure at all. It actually really just causes them to enter into a posture of self-loathing. And the worst part is that when you have that mindset, when you're hating yourself like that, you actually think you're doing a spiritual thing because that's how God feels about you.

00;38;10;14 - 00;38;20;15

Brian Recker

You think. And so that posture of self-loathing can become associated with what it means to be spiritual, as opposed to learning how to love and accept the holy parts of yourself. Yeah.

00;38;20;15 - 00;38;46;23

Matt Howlett

And that's so clearly, points out the difference that we're talking about here. The difference between like a religiosity and a spirituality where like, you're striving to be holy or like whatever it is you think that God is calling you to. So you're trying to cut out this part of yourself when really what you want is to understand that part of yourself, to maybe better regulate that part of yourself, not to cut it out, not to consider, to be wrong.

00;38;46;26 - 00;39;07;27

Matt Howlett

You were talking about like disintegration versus integration, like you just said, right? That's when we get healthy. That's when we understand ourselves and that's when we feel whole. And we're not like like you said, we're not doing that. This is Sunday, Brian, and this is the rest of the week. Brian. Right. Yeah. That's a that's a wild way to live, man.

00;39;08;00 - 00;39;26;06

Brian Recker

It is. And I think it's very normal when you have a fear based spirituality to the point where that fear is kind of the essence of, of your spirituality, which is why so many people, when they begin to deconstruct something like how they often do throw away Christianity altogether because they are quite synonymous. Yeah. For many people.

00;39;26;06 - 00;39;44;05

Brian Recker

And so that was one of the reasons I wanted to write this book, not because I think everybody should stay Christian. I actually don't care how people identify some of my best friends, including my girlfriend, not a Christian. And that's totally fine. But I think for many of us, we we would love to hold on to some of the beautiful aspects of of Christian spirituality.

00;39;44;05 - 00;40;11;04

Brian Recker

And it's particularly the person of Jesus. So I know very few people that deconstruct because of Jesus what he said or did. Jesus himself is quite unproblematic for the most part. And yet people then when they're deconstructing, they think that they have to throw the whole thing out, when in reality I don't believe that, most of what we've inherited, especially in evangelical Christian spirituality, accurately reflects the spirituality of Jesus.

00;40;11;04 - 00;40;19;04

Brian Recker

So I did want to sort of help people tear hell out of their spirituality without having to throw away Jesus if they don't want to. Yeah.

00;40;19;07 - 00;40;33;10

Matt Howlett

I've got, a couple statements I wrote down I wanted to get your thoughts on. That's cool. Let's go throw it out and see what you think. So a spirituality based on avoiding punishment makes a man religious but not spiritual.

00;40;33;12 - 00;40;51;12

Brian Recker

Yeah, I think so. And, you know, I don't like to be totally negative on the concept of religion because I think, people use that we're in different ways. But I think the way that you're using it there, it is about dogma and control and, you know, making sure you believe the right things, quote unquote, right things. Yeah.

00;40;51;12 - 00;41;09;08

Brian Recker

Right. As opposed to what I think of spirituality is what connects you to God, others and yourself. And the reality is that I mean, and the Pharisees sort of exemplify this in the, in the Jesus story, that you can be the most religious person and be really the least spiritual.

00;41;09;10 - 00;41;37;22

Matt Howlett

Yeah. What what do you say to well, maybe is a better question is have you had questions from men, maybe even push back when you talk about spirituality and what that means? Because when I least I found in my experience when I talked to some guys, not all about the aspects of spirituality, you know, love, connection, empathy, understanding, you know, self-knowledge and self-discovery.

00;41;37;24 - 00;41;41;19

Matt Howlett

It sounds woowoo to, for lack of a better term.

00;41;41;19 - 00;42;11;28

Brian Recker

Yeah. And or even maybe feminine. You might be exhort. Yeah, yeah. I do think that religion, the way you're talking about it, sort of based on dogma, logic, systems, you know, like reinforcing systems, hierarchy, that I think those often do appeal to men who are often socialized to not value relationships the same as women. And so even just the idea of relationships itself is often seem to be feminine.

00;42;12;09 - 00;42;36;25

Brian Recker

But I personally believe that relationships are human. Yeah. And what we're all made for and that we've really cut off an important part of ourselves when we say that that's not that's more of a feminine thing, because then to have a religion that's not relational means that what is your relation? What does your religion become for? Well, it becomes for enforcing power structures, for enforcing hierarchies, for enforcing control.

00;42;36;25 - 00;43;01;12

Brian Recker

If it's not promoting connection and relationship and love, then really it's there to create exclusion and, this is why most, one of the hallmarks of fundamentalist religion is they're, they're always deeply patriarchal. You know, the most extreme forms of this, we see and sort of like the Taliban, right? Where women are so controlled, they're having to wear a head to foot, sort of, you know, complete coverage.

00;43;01;15 - 00;43;28;22

Brian Recker

You know, they don't even if they're not even allowed to let other men see a single body part or something like that. That's the Taliban. And Christians love to act like, oh, that they're so evil over there. And Islam, as is Christianity itself, doesn't have deeply patriarchal aspects as well. You know, recently in the news, Doug Wilson, his, movement, he's he's a pastor who, Pete Hegseth, our secretary of defense, is is a fan of Doug Wilson.

00;43;28;22 - 00;43;54;24

Brian Recker

So some very powerful people are looking to this guy, and he literally has his the husbands in his church. You know, he teaches the wives to submit to their husbands to the point where, when, if they're not, like, having sex, frequently and that sort of thing, the husbands are given spiritual permission to spank their wives. And like these kind of patriarchal systems, fundamentalist religion usually does get used to enforce patriarchy and control and hierarchy.

00;43;55;01 - 00;44;08;05

Brian Recker

And so that's where it goes when it goes really bad. And so I do think it's very important for a religion to be about relationships and connection and what increases love. Because if it's not for that, well, what's it for? It usually is for domination.

00;44;08;08 - 00;44;17;06

Matt Howlett

This must be, a big sticking point for you right now in just the political climate, because you've always lived in the States. Pretty much.

00;44;17;13 - 00;44;18;12

Brian Recker

Yeah. Yeah, always.

00;44;18;12 - 00;44;33;19

Matt Howlett

Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned before we, hit record there in the North Carolina, I mean, everything that I see, I mean, you know, up in can we obviously have a different political system, we've got problems of our own, but we're all very much, I think, wrapped up in what is going on in your country right now.

00;44;33;19 - 00;44;43;16

Matt Howlett

And I mean, even just the story that you just told me, I can't I shouldn't be shocked or surprised that a is this an evangelical Doug? Doug Wilson yeah, I.

00;44;43;17 - 00;45;17;00

Brian Recker

Think you would call himself evangelical. I don't think that that is a normative evangelical belief. Sure. But what is pretty normative is male pastor is not, you know, no female pastors. That's still, I would say, pretty common. I would say the majority of evangelical churches probably have a male only leadership team. Yeah, that would be pretty common. And the idea that their wives are meant to submit to the husband and sort of the classic, yeah, just a hierarchal picture or hierarchical sort of picture of like, have you seen the umbrella picture where you have like the God being over the husband who's over the wife was over the children, and you had these sort

00;45;17;00 - 00;45;19;03

Brian Recker

of like umbrellas of covering. Not that.

00;45;19;03 - 00;45;19;20

Matt Howlett

Specifically.

00;45;19;20 - 00;45;40;04

Brian Recker

No. Yeah. I think Bill Gothard came up with that one. But a lot of evangelicals like that because it is like, oh, we love this hierarchy, right? You have God, then the husband, then the wife and the kids in this sort of line. And so for some men, they are attracted to religion for exactly that reason, that it says that they're on the top of a system of hierarchy and control, right?

00;45;40;04 - 00;45;40;21

Matt Howlett

The head of the house.

00;45;40;21 - 00;46;05;23

Brian Recker

So that can be appealing. But that's not exclusively religion. I mean, the patriarchy exists in in the world, even apart from evangelicalism, right? I think that that's out there. But it's like the religion can often, sometimes sort of baptize those patriarchal norms and say, oh, that's not just the way society has evolved because men have abused power.

00;46;05;23 - 00;46;07;14

Brian Recker

No, no, no, that's God's way.

00;46;07;16 - 00;46;08;16

Matt Howlett

Right? That's the right way.

00;46;08;21 - 00;46;27;03

Brian Recker

Yeah, that's the right. That's the way that God wants it. And when you're when you bring God into it, I think he is even more dangerous because you're not able to say, hey, yeah, society has been male dominated for a long time, but actually that hasn't always led to flourishing. Actually, a lot of these countries, because of their sort of male aggression, are starting all these wars.

00;46;27;03 - 00;46;45;18

Brian Recker

And actually, the more women are empowered, the more peaceful a society becomes, the more flourishing we experience when we have mutuality and egalitarianism, but then say no, no, no, no, no. But that's not God's way, right? And so God is then used as this trump card to reinforce, hierarchy of male domination.

00;46;45;20 - 00;47;06;09

Matt Howlett

Yeah. And that I see that so clearly. I feel like I made the comment because you're obviously living there, but I see that so clearly in just the little bit of news that I allow myself to take in, because it feels overwhelming what I see coming, coming out of the Trump administration and just from the country, on the whole, like this pushed for Christian nationalism.

00;47;06;12 - 00;47;17;10

Matt Howlett

Yeah, it it feels wild. Like I keep thinking that ten, 20 years from now, this period of time is going to be something that teenagers are going to be reading about in their history books.

00;47;17;12 - 00;47;40;18

Brian Recker

Yeah. If we if we still have those, you know, then I think so, yeah. Assuming that that, yeah. No, I agree it does seem bizarre. And to me it's crazy that, you know, a lot of evangelicals would not be, would not feel comfortable calling themselves Christian nationalists. I don't. I would have to guess, I don't know what the exact numbers on this.

00;47;40;18 - 00;48;02;01

Brian Recker

My impression is that maybe 20, 25% of evangelicals would be more explicit, full throated Christian nationalist. I think a lot of them there's just a mushy middle. But to me, a lot of those pastors who are watching this happen and saying nothing there, I think we're at a silence is complicity moment where I don't know how you can watch the country going in this direction, and you're not raising that alarm.

00;48;02;01 - 00;48;21;28

Brian Recker

Instead, they'll they'll be just as likely to say, yeah, with those problems on both sides, you know, we got the LGBTQ agenda over here and the sort of Christian nationalists over here. And we're just going to be silent in the middle. And they see those things as as equally bad, as opposed to seeing the Christian nationalists threat for, for really what it is, you know.

00;48;22;00 - 00;48;40;04

Brian Recker

Yeah. And so I'm that's one reason I do I try to rock the boat and I'm trying to call pastors to take this very seriously, because I think the majority of pastors probably don't love what's happening with the Trump administration. But they don't want to upset their base. They don't want to upset the older conservatives that give towards their churches.

00;48;40;07 - 00;48;42;10

Brian Recker

And so they tend to be silent.

00;48;42;13 - 00;48;59;29

Matt Howlett

Yeah, that's a real challenge. Hey, I was just thinking, as you're speaking like, how are is it even possible? How do we do it? But is it even possible to to win those folks over like those on the maybe on the far right to a place where they can hear conversation like this and think, yeah, you know what?

00;49;00;04 - 00;49;18;03

Matt Howlett

Like maybe that is more helpful. Maybe that is better. You know, better, you know, if you're in government, maybe that is better for the people that I lead. Or if you're a pastor, you know, maybe that is better for my congregation to think along these lines of connection and of love and of equality and acceptance, rather than what I've been pushing like, is that.

00;49;18;05 - 00;49;19;09

Matt Howlett

Yeah. Is that a pipe dream.

00;49;19;10 - 00;49;37;26

Brian Recker

I tend to find is that people's eyes are usually opened only when it touches them personally in some way. And so, women obviously are they tend to be less conservative than men and less prone to this than men because, women's issues don't tend to be front and center in these, in these movements, and they tend to be quite patriarchal.

00;49;37;26 - 00;49;59;23

Brian Recker

So, yeah, the men voted for Trump more than the women, white men. Most of all, if you're of any kind of minority, you tend to see it because you experienced some level of oppression. I think the more that you experience those pain points in within yourself and within your community, the more likely you're able to see it. And so that's why empathy is so important, because if you can't feel it until it's happening to you, I think we have an empathy problem.

00;50;01;06 - 00;50;22;00

Brian Recker

For a lot of people, the moment that the light bulbs come on is like when their kids come out, right, their kids come out as queer in some way and they're able to finally see it for themselves in that way. And I hate that it has to happen like that for people to get there. But then the really dangerous thing is when your kid comes out and you still don't get there, it's like, well, then you're really far gone.

00;50;22;00 - 00;50;38;26

Brian Recker

Like when you double down and refuse to experience empathy, even when it comes really close to home. And so but yeah, unfortunately, and that's why I, I'm trying to always amplify voices on the margins. The people that are affected by this, the most. I think we have to listen to them. I think that's what Jesus did.

00;50;38;26 - 00;51;02;05

Brian Recker

I mean, Jesus, he didn't just talk about the least of these. He his whole ministry was about was about turning it upside down. You know, the last shall be first. Blessed are the poor in spirit. And and that idea, poor in spirit doesn't just mean, like some spiritual concept. It is talking about the people that are crushed by society in other words, not just financially poor, but beyond that, there's all kinds of ways that people are crushed by society.

00;51;02;10 - 00;51;22;01

Brian Recker

When then people of color, socially excluded sexual minorities and the I think the path of Jesus is actually putting those voices at the center and taking those that this society society's labeling is last and putting them first and centering their their voices, because that is, I think, the act of empathy that helps us build a society that works for everybody.

00;51;22;06 - 00;51;35;07

Matt Howlett

Yeah, I would totally agree with you that we do have an empathy problem. And that was one of the other things that, I thought it'd be interesting and maybe we could finish off on that. A good spiritual man is an empathetic man.

00;51;35;10 - 00;51;47;00

Brian Recker

Absolutely. It's, you know that that word is under attack. Did you know that there's some, like, some big Christian books right now that are, like, explicitly written against empathy? Have you heard about this?

00;51;47;01 - 00;51;55;18

Matt Howlett

Not books, but I've seen several pastors of bigger churches, like those who have a bigger following online. Speak out against it to on it.

00;51;55;21 - 00;52;32;02

Brian Recker

Stuck is a Christian influencer. She wrote a book that came out this last year called Toxic Empathy, and then another book, by a guy named Joe Rigney. He's not as big, but it was called The Sin of Empathy. And so both of those books were written in the last couple of years. And again, it is because they see the fact that compassion is kind of on the side of some of these more progressive ideas, like, like I was just talking about, when I was giving that, you know, that information about queer people doing worse and having worse mental health outcomes, worse ality and that sort of thing in non affirming environments.

00;52;32;02 - 00;52;51;24

Brian Recker

So what do you do with that if you believe that God says this, but empathy would lead you to say, hey, actually maybe we should do the thing that doesn't make gay people kill themselves. And maybe we should actually treat these people like human beings and not create environments that make them want to die. Yeah, that's what empathy would lead you to, to when you see the stories, when you're touched by them.

00;52;51;26 - 00;53;12;06

Brian Recker

And so that's why they have to kind of say, well, actually the empathy is bad. What's what's only matters is the truth. And so their their truth is not really about what's most loving. It is it is about dogma. It is about an unchanging, fixed dogma. And I mean, you can do that. Religion has always done that. But that's not what Jesus did.

00;53;12;08 - 00;53;23;22

Brian Recker

He's a very happy to deconstruct religious dogmas that were bad for people. And that was always on the basis of, I think, the best reason to change anything. Yeah. The well-being of the person in front of you.

00;53;23;29 - 00;53;45;22

Matt Howlett

Yeah. Well, exactly. And I want to be very clear on what we're talking about here, because it can be, misconstrued so easily. Empathy is the ability to understand and feel what another person feels. It does not mean getting into that feeling and accepting that feeling from, as that's going to be like that person's present and future, and that's all it's going to be.

00;53;45;22 - 00;54;08;28

Matt Howlett

And that's okay, because anybody could be in a situation that isn't good for them, and they're having feelings about that. It's one thing to understand what that person feels. It's completely another thing to enable that person to continue in that situation. You know, like just think of someone that's, you know, abusing drugs, right? They are feeling drawn back to the drug, right?

00;54;08;28 - 00;54;26;18

Matt Howlett

They want they have that feeling that drive right. And you can understand that. You can feel that with them. They can see it on their face. You can see it in their body language. Right? That that angst that I need this thing, we know it's not good for them. We're not going to enable that. We're not going to continue to push them down that path.

00;54;26;18 - 00;54;37;25

Matt Howlett

That's nobody would do that. That's that's a terrible idea. But I see so many actually was one of the videos that you shared, I believe, where it was a pastor that I forget his name. He was on a podcast and they were talking about.

00;54;37;29 - 00;54;39;18

Brian Recker

Hey, I'm always on those podcasts.

00;54;39;18 - 00;54;40;23

Matt Howlett

So.

00;54;40;25 - 00;54;41;12

Brian Recker

Yeah.

00;54;41;15 - 00;54;56;02

Matt Howlett

They were talking about that exact concept. They were saying that empathy is like, it's a sin because you're you're enabling the person to stay in sin. You're telling them that it's okay and you're showing the compassion, but it's not that at all. And Jesus did not do that.

00;54;56;04 - 00;55;16;29

Brian Recker

Yeah. And I mean, I think the obvious difference there is that, you know, those drug habits are they actually lead to death, you know, that they lead to bad outcomes. And so we do, yeah. I think hearing somebody's story and entering in and humanizing them is just always a good thing. And that always that's the beginning of I think connection is.

00;55;16;29 - 00;55;39;12

Brian Recker

Yeah, if you're not not even listening, if you're not able to actually receive somebody's story, then you can't empathize with them. Even with a drug addict. I think our baseline has to be that, okay. Like the first thing that we should know about them is that the beloved children of God and they deserve to live. And so, you know, I think of something like, you know, communities having safe, places to get clean needles.

00;55;39;15 - 00;56;00;03

Brian Recker

And I think the conservative impulse is to say, wait, why would you give needles to a drug addict? Like that's crazy. Well, if we know that dirty needles are killing them, then, yeah, actually creating that safety, that's one thing we could do. Because people, people do deserve to live. And so that that's not going to make them more likely to be addicts, it's going to make them less likely to die.

00;56;00;05 - 00;56;22;13

Brian Recker

And so having communities that even care about the, the, the life and the well-being of people like that, that's, that's showing empathy and not just the punitive ness that comes in, is, well, they're doing a bad thing and therefore they deserve to die. That that is, I think, a religious impulse that is kind of rooted in the idea that, yeah, God, obviously, like you all, God sees bad people and sends them to hell.

00;56;22;15 - 00;56;39;13

Brian Recker

So that kind of gives me to create this sort of punitive world where when people are doing the things that I don't think that they should be doing, I don't really care what happens to them. I'm going to write them off. Yeah, but seeing people in their humanity understands, like, yeah, everybody has struggles. And I think everybody like we deserve to live.

00;56;39;13 - 00;56;59;28

Brian Recker

And so even empathy for drug addicts, I think is really, really important. But especially with queer issues, I think that that's where they're really afraid of empathy, because the fear is like, this is what they'll say. You know, that the ongoing debate within evangelicalism is, can I go to my gay friends or family members wedding, their gay wedding?

00;57;00;03 - 00;57;04;28

Brian Recker

And the pastors don't want you to do that. They'll say no, because that's, you know, condoning their sin.

00;57;05;00 - 00;57;05;22

Matt Howlett

Affirming the.

00;57;05;22 - 00;57;29;02

Brian Recker

Real reason they don't want you to go is they don't want you to see their love that, that, that they love just like everybody else. That their love is just as normal and real and true as any other love. And because that's really what changes us when we realize, oh, this is just human. And so that's the last thing that they want you to do, because it's really hard not to experience empathy at that level, but that's what will save us.

00;57;29;04 - 00;57;48;23

Matt Howlett

Yeah, yeah. I don't see how that could possibly be wrong. Not being able to understand and feel what someone else's, someone else's, someone else feels so that you could build a connection with them, however deep that it can be, however deep that it even needs to be. You know what I mean?

00;57;48;23 - 00;58;00;26

Brian Recker

Yeah, I do agree. You know, I hurt I'm trying to remember where it was. I read recently about some country, you know, it's probably one of the Nordic countries because they're always doing really good, smart things that the rest of us should be doing. And they were like.

00;58;00;28 - 00;58;01;19

Matt Howlett

They've figure it.

00;58;01;20 - 00;58;18;29

Brian Recker

Out. In grade school, there was like a class on empathy. And like, literally they were teaching kids about empathy and talking about different scenarios and role playing and stuff like that. And I was just like, wow, that's something that is not ever going to happen in America, at least anytime in the near future, because we're almost doing the opposite of that.

00;58;19;04 - 00;58;39;29

Brian Recker

Yeah. And especially our boys desperately need to experience empathy. But if we're telling them and if what they're hearing is that's not masculine, you know, masculinity is this dominant, aggressive posture where you're not really listening to anybody. Then I think we're cutting them off from their humanity, and we're cutting ourselves off from a society where we can actually care about, especially the most vulnerable people.

00;58;39;29 - 00;59;06;13

Matt Howlett

Yeah, absolutely. And just go back to a point that you made earlier that this is humanity. This is not masculine or feminine. This is not us versus them. These are all things that we all have. Like, yes, I could be more masculine than some other men. I can lean, you know, lean to one side or another, but anybody can do that, you know, and whatever it is that they're, they're focused on their in their task, in their job, you could lean more into the masculine side.

00;59;06;13 - 00;59;22;21

Matt Howlett

You can lean more into the feminine side. But it is not feminine to be empathetic. It is not feminine to be in touch with how you feel and be able to understand what someone else might feel in a given situation is the ability to create connection. And that's a beautiful thing. Yeah, that's spirituality.

00;59;22;24 - 00;59;49;18

Brian Recker

I agree, and I think it it's the only pathway for, for healthy masculinity. I think it's what's missing. And, you know, when I think of figures in the sort of alpha manosphere like the Andrew Tate sort of figures they really are treating, they're teaching men how to dehumanize as opposed to, to show empathy. And as long as we have that mindset that that's not a masculine trait, I think we're we're in trouble.

00;59;49;18 - 00;59;50;28

Brian Recker

We're getting our boys a disservice.

00;59;51;03 - 01;00;04;24

Matt Howlett

Yeah. They're like preaching this harsh stoicism. Women is property. Success is external, right? It's just money. And power. And that that that's sad and sickening. And I hope we can turn people away from that.

01;00;05;00 - 01;00;10;25

Brian Recker

Making them happy to like, that's not one. Has that ever well made anybody happy?

01;00;10;28 - 01;00;33;02

Matt Howlett

I know that makes your ego feel good, right? That's really all that is, is stacking up reasons for you to to think that you are something and, you know, every day you go out and you make more money or you use your power in some way, you that's that's all ego. It's all thinking highly of yourself rather than being outward focused.

01;00;33;04 - 01;00;54;06

Matt Howlett

And honestly, man, one of the reasons why I loved having the ability to the opportunity to chat with you and what you're saying in your book and several others online too, because since I've come across, your Instagram specifically, you've introduced me to a couple of other, influencers and just online folks that have a platform. I'm so thankful for that.

01;00;54;13 - 01;01;14;17

Matt Howlett

So I we've hit well, we're past the hour, but, but your book is called let me read out the full title because I'm kind of one word hell bent how the fear of hell Holds Christian Back from a spirituality of love. A former evangelical pastor explains why we can stop worrying about hell and start focusing on love.

01;01;14;19 - 01;01;25;07

Brian Recker

I love your feedback, man. That was really encouraging. You know, not that many people have read it yet, and so that's always nice to hear how readers are experiencing the book. I'm excited for it to get in more people's hands here soon. Yeah.

01;01;25;07 - 01;01;38;27

Matt Howlett

It was it's personal. It's it's easy to read. You know, it's academic without being heady. You know, informative. I think it's, it's going to help a lot of people, man. I hope it gets into the hands of a lot of people.

01;01;39;00 - 01;01;40;26

Brian Recker

Yeah, I'm trying.

01;01;40;28 - 01;01;41;20

Matt Howlett

Yeah.

01;01;41;22 - 01;01;43;06

Brian Recker

That's what I'm working on right now.

01;01;43;12 - 01;01;48;05

Matt Howlett

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. It must be a busy man. Hey, you've been on several podcasts in the past. Oh, well.

01;01;48;07 - 01;01;57;12

Brian Recker

I'm. I'm trying, I'm trying. I'm on my podcast tour right now, which means I'm just, you know, saying yes to the people who invite me and trying to throw it out there to, you know, anybody. I'll have me on right now.

01;01;57;14 - 01;02;04;02

Matt Howlett

Right. If I think of anybody else I can pass along. Your name, I'm assuming you got some spots in your. In your case. Yeah.

01;02;04;02 - 01;02;05;16

Brian Recker

For sure. Absolutely.

01;02;05;18 - 01;02;30;11

Matt Howlett

Okay. Well, Brian, it was great to meet you. I thank you so much for just being so quick to respond and just being real in the DMs. Honestly, I said that to my wife. When the first time that we had schedule on the calendar didn't work out and you just simply apologized for like the calendar mishap, I said, like, that guy just like won so many points with me, just simply by responding and being human, like, you know, I screwed up calendar, you know, we had something else go on.

01;02;30;11 - 01;02;32;22

Matt Howlett

Would have been a bad day anyways. Just be real, right?

01;02;32;25 - 01;02;35;19

Brian Recker

Yeah, I was sorry about that, but I'm glad we worked it out. Oh.

01;02;35;19 - 01;02;38;17

Matt Howlett

Thank you. Great. Not a problem at all, man. I appreciate your time.

01;02;38;20 - 01;02;40;25

Brian Recker

Absolutely. Thanks for the conversation. All right.

01;02;40;25 - 01;03;01;08

Matt Howlett

Man, talk to you later. Bye bye. Thank you for listening. I hope you found some value in this episode. If you have, be sure to share the podcast with a friend and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find The Akkeri on socials @ TheAkkeri and on the web at TheAkkeri.com