The discussion centers on the evolution of our theological perspectives over the years, particularly the transformative insights we have garnered through our engagement with Dr. Thomas Jay Oord and others like him. We explore the shifts in our understanding of fundamental concepts such as the essence of God, humanity, and love, as well as the implications of these changes on our faith communities. Dr. Oord's contributions, particularly his work in Open and Relational Theology and insights from his forthcoming book, "A Systematic Theology of Love," serve as a backdrop for this enlightening dialogue.

Through a candid reflection on our past convictions and the evolving nature of our beliefs, we aspire to foster a deeper unity within the Church. This episode ultimately invites listeners to contemplate their own theological journeys and the power of love as central to our collective faith. The dialogue between Joshua Noel, TJ Blackwell, and Dr. Thomas Jay Oord delves into a reflective exploration of the transformative journey they have undertaken throughout their podcasting endeavors.

The discussion highlights pivotal shifts in their theological perspectives, notably touching upon the nature of God, the essence of love, and the intricacies of human relationships. Dr. Oord, drawing from his work in Open and Relational Theology, posits that the crux of Christian teaching rests on the principle of love, urging listeners to embrace this foundational tenet in their interactions with one another. This episode serves as a profound reminder of the importance of evolving one's beliefs and the necessity of fostering a compassionate community, where honesty, forgiveness, and kindness prevail. The conversation culminates in an invitation to reflect on personal growth, encouraging listeners to consider their own theological shifts and the implications of love in their lives. The dialogue unfolds with a reading from Ephesians, where the Apostle Paul emphasizes the significance of truthfulness and the management of anger within the Christian community. Dr. Oord responds with an insightful analysis of the scripture, elucidating that anger, when channeled appropriately, can be a catalyst for positive change. He reflects on the importance of community in this process, underscoring that while personal commitment to virtuous living is vital, collective support enhances one's ability to live out these principles.

The discussion also touches upon Dr. Oord's forthcoming work, 'A Systematic Theology of Love', where he seeks to articulate the centrality of love in theological discourse, a notion that has often been overlooked in traditional systematic theology. This episode thus not only encourages listeners to engage with their faith critically but also challenges them to embody love in tangible ways within their communities. In this episode, the hosts and Dr. Oord engage deeply with the theme of changing perspectives, reflecting on their personal journeys over the years of podcasting. They address several theological concepts, including the nature of sin, the essence of humanity, and the framework of salvation. Dr. Oord’s insights into Open and Relational Theology invite a re-examination of how love is understood and practiced within the Christian faith.

The conversation is marked by an earnest tone, as the speakers navigate through complex theological discussions with the intent of fostering unity and understanding within the church. The episode emphasizes the notion that genuine transformation occurs when individuals are willing to confront their beliefs and embrace a theology that prioritizes love over dogma. By sharing their own experiences and the resulting changes in their theological outlook, the hosts aim to inspire their audience to reflect on their own beliefs and the ways in which love can redefine their understanding of faith.

Takeaways:

1. This episode explores the significant shifts in theological perspectives over the years, highlighting the dynamic nature of faith and understanding.
2. Dr. Thomas Jay Oord discusses his innovative work with Open and Relational Theology, emphasizing love as a central theme in Christian theology.
3. The conversation reveals how personal experiences and community engagement can shape and clarify one's beliefs about God and morality.
4. The hosts reflect on the complexities of defining sin, suggesting that it is often a failure to love rather than merely a transgression of rules.
5. The podcast emphasizes the importance of humility in acknowledging past errors and the value of learning and evolving in one's faith journey.
6. There is a candid discussion about the impact of contemporary political events on the church and how they have influenced the participants' views on unity and community.

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Saint Paul writes in Ephesians 4, verses 25 through 26, and then 31, 32 in the New American Standard Bible.

Therefore, ridding yourselves of falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, because we are parts of one another, be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. All bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and slander must be removed from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. In this pericope of scripture, Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus about what it means to be the church.

Here.

He's telling the church how to behave towards one another. And after the section, he's going to go on to discuss, like, families, how husbands treat their wives, all those kind of things.

Dr. Thomas J. Ord, how can we better and practically learn to speak truth, have a healthy relationship with anger, and forgive one another? The stuff that Paul is talking about here, how do we actually learn to do that?

Well, you picked one of my favorite passages of scripture this time. That passage ends up so rare. Yeah, that section ends up, or transitions into chapter five with these remarkable words.

Imitate God as dearly beloved children and live a life of love like Jesus loved us.

I think at the core of trying to make sense of all the advice that you just read from the Apostle Paul of things you should not do and things that you should do, I think ultimately those come down to love.

I'm always struck by the fact that in that list he says it's okay to be angry, which I think is important since I think we need to be angry at ourselves and others when we hurt one another. But I found in my own life that putting on those practices that you read and putting off the practices that are harmful, it's an ongoing thing.

It's a thing that I have to make decisions about for myself. But also, being a part of a community actually helps me or can help me, doesn't always help me. Can help me in that practice.

And one of the reasons why I regularly attend a church.

Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Whole Church podcast, possibly your favorite church Unity podcast. It's okay if it's not.

We understand we have unity with all those other church unity podcasts too. Probably, you know, assuming that the other Unity podcasts are actually about unity.

Yeah, as long as they agree with us, we're unified with them.

Yeah, That's why we have the podcast. It's a unity is a complicated subject, but we are here to talk with the one and only Dr. Thomas J. Ord. TJ Tapier is on Blackwell.

My co host, is allegedly going to be here soon, so you guys will get to hear from him. This is the first recording we've done this year. Not the first episode out, the first time we've recorded this year.

And we just kind of wanted to talk about stuff that me and TJ and maybe Dr. Ord has changed our mind on over the last for us last seven years.

Dr. Ord's allowed to go back as far as he wants if he's like, you know, one time I changed my mind about whatever, you know, we're just gonna talk because this has been quite a journey for TJ, myself and where we've come on things and Dr. Ord's been in a large part of some of the topics we have changed our mind on.

So it's not gonna be as strict format as you guys might be used to listening to this show, but we got a few different categories, like what we've changed our mind on about the essence of God, humanity, sin, time, just stuff, you know, we're gonna go there. Before we do, I have to attempt to do TJ's parts that I'm bad at. So try to go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts to promote our show.

That's gonna help raise money for all the podcasting needs. You know, we gotta go theology beer camp. At some point. We gotta keep paying people to post this on the Spotify and Apple podcast. Equipment.

I need new equipment. There's lots of needs for podcasts. Buying a T shirt helps us fund those needs and it helps get the word out about the fact that our show exists.

So it's a twofer.

It's huge.

It's really helpful. I'm wearing one right now that's got the whole church podcast in four different languages. It's, you know, think I'm trying to remember all I know.

Hebrew, Japanese, Aramaic. Not sure what the other one is. I'm forgetting right now, I think it's Ethiopian, but I think it's not called that. Anyway, lots of cool shirts.

Check them out. Alum. They have in the description what they are. So if I can't remember, you guys can read.

Ethiopian is probably Alhambra.

Ah, yeah, that sounds right. That sounds right. This is why we. We have to have people with doctors. Remind me what I'm trying to talk about.

With that, though, we do have a favorite form of unity, or I do, because you can't be in disarray when you're being as silly as I like to be. So starting off with a silly question, I'll go first, give you time to think about it.

Hopefully, TJ shows up during this part, and I can make him answer too. If you had to choose any one cartoon character as a teacher, who would you choose? See, it's been a minute since I wrote this question.

I'm trying to see if I meant, like, I guess it's an open question.

I don't know if I'm looking for a cartoon character I think will actually educate me and make me better or one that I just think would be entertaining if I had to be in a class, you know, could go either way. I'm gonna cheat and talk about something from my other podcast. Yeah, Uncle Iroh from Avatar the Last Airbender.

We're doing an episode about him on systematic ecology soon, so he's on my mind. He's got a little bit of that humor. You know, he says you're not supposed to cry about spilt tea, but it's just so sad.

And he also has those words of wisdom throughout the show that I think even if he's not maybe the most head knowledgeable person, he's definitely got a lot of wisdom, and I think that's something I probably need the most help. So I'm gonna go with Uncle Iroh. Dr. Ord, if you had to have a cartoon character as a teacher, who would you go with?

Man, I don't know. I'm gonna go with Olive Oil as a. Oh, throwback.

Yeah. Olive oil is Popeye's girlfriend. Yeah.

Yeah. She always seems to know how to handle Popeye with his wild, wild things. He does. So she seems pretty wise to me. I'll be her student.

Like it? I like it. TJ's not here yet, so I get to answer for him. He can't dispute. TJ's answer is gonna be Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time.

She's a scientist who somehow knows how to create candy people out of nothing. Creation X Nilo.

Almost.

Almost. Almost. She has a little bit of candy, can make zombies, can cure zombies. She's, like, the ultimate scientist and gets, like, no credit for it.

So that's. That's what TJ's going with. He's gonna learn science with Princess Bubblegum? Yeah, he doesn't have a say, so I don't.

I don't think he'd hate that answer, though. He is a fan of the show, so. All right with that silliness over. We'll start with you, Dr. Ordinary. You don't mind if I just say Tom, right?

Tom is. I prefer Tom.

Yeah, that's what I thought. It feels weird saying Dr. Ord, but on the podcast I feel like I have to at least introduce you. All right, so, Tom, let's start with yourself.

What are some stuff that you've learned in the last seven or more years that you think you have grown in yourself?

Yeah, I know these have to be theologically oriented. Or is that what you prefer at.

Least, you know, just in general, like, if you have any. Like, what are the big things that you think you've really changed your mind on in life?

Yeah, if there are any, you could.

Have been born correct about everything.

As far as I know, that's definitely not the case. Yeah, well, you know, I've been, the last year we were talking before show started, been writing A Systematic Theology of Love.

The kind of things I've learned, I wouldn't say they've changed my life radically or changed my theology radically, but there have been some surprises that maybe I'll share with you. Here's one of them. For the first chapter of this book, I'm making an argument. Well, I start off with this provocative sentence.

This is the first book ever written called A Systematic Theology of Love. And then I say, that seems like really strange because at least in the Christian tradition, many of us have said that love should be central.

And yet no one's called a book A Systematic Theology of Love. And so that then prompted me to kind of explore reasons why love has been sidelined, forgotten, neglected.

And a lot of that has to do with other themes that theologians have thought more important. But one of the things I did is I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of the 40 best selling systematic theologies.

Right now, I assume they drew mostly from Amazon, but, you know, probably other sources. And I was not surprised to find out that Wayne Grudem is number one and has been for decades.

But when I looked at the other 40 systematic theologies up there, all 40 of them were written by men. I think all white men, and all of them written from a reformed evangelical perspective.

And I thought to myself, well, no wonder so many people who are moderate, progressive, not white, not male, think that writing systematic theologies is something just white guys do if they're evangelicals. And So I didn't realize.

One of the things I've learned then in the last year is that the enterprise that I'm doing, even though I am a white guy, I'm not a reformed evangelical person. It's pretty unusual amongst theologians.

Yeah, yeah. Do you think part of that is just because evangelical Reformed people are better marketers?

It could be. I think also the Evangelical Reformed tradition has prized a particular kind of rationality that's very deductive.

Often analytic and systematic theologies tend to privilege that. I'm like a rare guy who's not an evangelical Reformed evangelical person who also cares about rational consistency and coherency, etc.

But I think part of it has to do with that emphasis.

Now, what's strange is that even though the Evangelical Reformed tradition emphasizes rationality, they also are quite honest about embracing outright contradictions, like the idea that God controls everything, yet we also have free will. There's a bunch of evangelicals who say that. I think it's absolute nonsense, it's contradictions on steroids, but they still embrace that view.

So there's a strange thing going on there.

They affirm an appeal to reason, but they're okay with setting reason aside if it contradicts a certain view of divine sovereignty that they think is super important and if it contradicts a particular reading of the Bible they think is important.

Yeah, yeah. That's what some. It's interesting because I think a lot of that is because they start with everything in the Bible has to be completely true.

Right.

So then they end up having to accept contradictions even when they're trying to be analytical.

Exactly.

Right. I do want to say. So this is a Church Unity podcast. I do believe there are some people in Reformed circles that I would still, you know, be okay with.

I'm trying to think of the right way to say it. Then I'm like, yeah, they're good question people, even if I think they're wrong. Yeah.

This is not a matter of. We're not talking about people's character here. I know some very loving folks who are Evangelical Reformed.

I know some very unloving people who aren't. So this is not a question of character. This is a question of rational consistency and theological coherence.

And much of the Evangelical Reformed traditions, theologies, I think, are inconsistent and incoherent.

Yeah, I just want to throw that out before I said I do think a large part of it, too. Of. Yeah.

I don't know if it's marketing, but more of a. I think that sometimes some of those evangelical reform people have an easier time pushing stuff because they have the mind frame of if people don't believe the right, you know, presuppositions or whatever, they're going to burn in hell for eternity.

Right.

Which is quite a motivation compared to right. When you lose some of that and you're like, I don't think that that's all true. I'm like, you know, actually, I'm not even sure if I believe in hell.

The motivate, like, you know, like, I believe God is all loving. And my motivation now is I want everyone to be loved, which is a big motivation.

I just, I think sometimes fear drives people a little bit more than hope. Maybe.

I agree with you 100%. Yeah, 100%.

Not only does it motivate systematic theologians to want to get their books out to, you know, market and promote, but if you're told your eternal destiny hinges upon having the right sets of beliefs, you're going to be motivated to read a systematic theology that purports to have the right sets of beliefs. So it also helps gain readership.

Well, it's interesting. My wife didn't grow up in the same kind of Christian circle that I did. She wasn't as in that world as I was.

We actually had a similar conversation recently because of me and my, one of my family members. I'm trying to be really careful. A pretty strong disagreement about some stuff. She was a lot less understanding than I was about how they spoke to me.

And I was kind of a. No, it wasn't actually out of anger. It's a. They are afraid I'm believing the wrong things and will go to hell forever.

Right.

I don't like what they said or where they're coming from, but I actually still think that that's love. Just maybe misplaced ideas and stuff behind it. Yeah, I think the concern is, you know, you don't want your family member burning forever.

Just kind of reasonable.

And it's, it's a lot more understandable when your family is, you know, old school Southern Pentecostal. When they say you're gonna go to hell, they, you know, they're not saying they hope you go to hell. They're.

They're trying to stop you from going to hell.

In their mind, they legitimately think that that's what's happening. Happening. Yeah. This is T.J. yeah.

They'll tell you that you're going to hell because you don't believe the right things or whatever, and then also say, and God loves you perfectly. God is Perfect love, which I think is again, incoherent, inconsistent, and we ought to just be bold and just put it right out there.

None of this wishy washy. Well, maybe a loving God can send people to hell forever because God's justice is a part of God's love.

And God gets pissed and whatever, all that kind of hem and hawing. I'm just done with that. I just think we ought to just be blunt now. It gets me in trouble with my family members too.

So I try to say it in a way that's diplomatic, but I don't pussyfoot around like I used to.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you actually are part of what changed my mind on some of this.

Oh, good.

Yeah. So that's.

Tell me what changed.

I don't know exactly where I was when you and I first started talking because I've been struggling with a lot of thoughts for a long time. Still am. But a lot of the mindset around some of this stuff is, well, we just got is love.

And we don't think it's loving because we don't understand love. It's not because that's not love to send someone to hell or whatever. It's because we don't get what love is. It's kind of the thing.

At some point you had said to me that if you can imagine a God that's more loving than God, then you don't really see a reason to worship God. And that clicked to me where I was like, yeah, that actually makes sense. If I could think of something more loving and God is supposed to be love.

Something's not adding up here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's good to hear. Yeah, I think you're right that.

Well, what happens often in conversations I'm in when I'll bring up, let's say the love and hell thing, people will say, well, in some mysterious way, it is loving that God sends people to hell. I don't understand it. It's beyond my ability to grasp. But since I'm committed to God being loving, then I have to say it.

Those same people don't waffle around when it comes to God being sovereign. They don't say, you know, in some mysterious way God is sovereign. No, no.

When it comes to sovereignty, they got a pretty clear notion God controls things. And so it's a matter of them being okay with mystery on the love issue, but not on the power issue.

I think you ought to try to clear up all the mysteries you can and have a theory of divine love and a theory of divine Power that's coherent and not play the mystery card for either one.

But most people I know on the Reformed evangelical tradition will say God's loving and powerful, but they play the mystery card when it comes to explaining that.

Love, you know, interestingly, mystery is one that I haven't changed my mind on, but you've caused me to be more careful with how I talk about mystery.

I don't want mystery to be a cop out, but I do still think there are some things, things that I will say are divine mystery in a way that I find sacred, holy, something that I get out of. Like, it's not necessarily. I'm using as excuse, more of a, like mystery in the sense of spiritual uplifting. It helps me.

So I'll use one because this is one I'm still struggling on, that we've disagreed about. And I am still struggling. I will disagree with myself probably in a week. So let me throw that out there too.

God's relationship to time I kind of put in mystery because I think that I am limited to linear thinking. I can only think in linear time, whereas my belief in God right now, subject to change, probably will change. I change a lot.

I think God is in all things. I would say panentheism, not that God is all things, but he is in all things.

And since we know that time is relative to experience, different people, different places, different gravities, etc. God's experience of time, if he is in all things, has to be different than mine. So I still put that to mystery.

But I don't think it gets God off the hook for anything. It still doesn't allow him to know the future or in the future or anything.

But I still have to think something about God is mystery to me because I can't think in the same temporal frame that he would.

Yeah, yeah, interesting.

That's.

I mean, that's. I can't argue with that. There's a lot we could talk about with relativism and what that would look like if you were able to perceive that.

And maybe when, you know, we build a spaceship that can be near a black hole without getting torn apart, we can figure something like that out, just not yet.

Although, for the silly question, you chose Princess Bubblegum as your teacher. She might be able to help you figure that one out.

I actually chose the Brain from Pinky and the Brain, the cartoon about the rats.

Fantastic. That's a good answer, too. Yeah. So, Tom, you see, we were talking about stuff that you may have changed your mind on.

We talk a little Bit about love, your unique kind of perspective on that. See, I'm curious because we've had you on a few different times.

One of the things I'm really curious about, having a daughter who identifies with the LGBTQ movement. Have you always been open when it comes to that kind of stuff, or was there a time that you weren't as open and you kind of learned differently?

We didn't say that back in those days, but I was queer affirming long before I had any kids. And my own child has come out only in the last few years, so. But, you know, like, what led you.

To change your mind?

Love, of course. The only thing that really matters. Well, the mechanics of it were this.

I was in seminary, and I was in a class that, as a project, you were supposed to put together, like, a curriculum for a lesson, like a Sunday school lesson or something. And I had wanted to get to the bottom of what in those days, we called the homosexuality question. And so.

And I had a couple other friends who were also thinking a lot about it. So we decided for this class to put together a whole curriculum around that issue.

And we use the Wesleyan quadrilateral scripture, reason, experience, and tradition as the four lenses by which we would ask the questions about. Again, in those days, homosexuality was the word we used to.

And it was in that process that I changed my mind, because I read scripture, I read testimonials, I thought about it, I looked at church history, and I just realized the arguments against full acceptance, full acceptance of queer people, just their bad arguments. And they cherry pick scripture. They don't look at the general. The whole drift in scope of scripture.

They take a few passages and they interpret them a particular way. Yeah. So I changed my mind a long time ago. It took 30 years for me to get kicked out of the denomination, but.

Yeah, that's quite the run.

30 years. I was gonna put that down, but is that. Did you, like, talk about that with your group? It was like, you're getting to the end of this project.

And you're like, hey, guys, I don't think queer people are evil anymore.

Yeah.

And they agreed with me. So we came down at the end of that, the three of us all decided, yep, we're going to be Again, we didn't use this language then, but queer affirming.

So when we wrote the curriculum, we aimed it so you had two options at the end. You're either going to be queer affirming like we were, or.

Or you were not going to be queer affirming, but you had to figure out some way to live a life of love in light of that. Now, I now think that that's not a very tenable position, but I know lots of people who try to do it. But that was kind of the two.

We were eliminating the hater option, you know, the Westboro Baptist option.

We were eliminating that and then saying, okay, you're either going to be a queer affirming or you're going to try to be as loving as you can, but still think there's something wrong with the activity or the lifestyle or whatever language you wanted to use. And then the question was, I had to ask myself was, do I stay in this denomination?

Because at the time, there was hardly anybody talking about this issue in my denomination, and it was only sort of growing culturally. This was back in the. I don't know if you guys may be too young to remember this, but this is back when Ellen DeGeneres comes out and we had.

What's it called? Three Men. No, what was that show on TV?

Three's Company?

No, not Three's Company. What's that called? Shoot. I forgot the name of the show anyway, in popular culture.

That. The original Queer Eye?

No, that was long before Queer Eye. Oh, you guys are going to know just the name of the show if I can come up with it. Oh, shoot.

Oh, well, I was Negative five.

Okay. Will and Grace. Will and Grace. Have you guys heard of that?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was making lots of. You know, that was in the 90s sometime. I don't remember exactly when.

Anyway, I ended up deciding I was going to stay in the denomination for three reasons.

One, I really believe that the core theology of the Church of Nazarene that I was a part of, which is a Wesleyan theological tradition, I really thought our core centered around the issues of love. And I thought it was the loving thing to be fully affirming. So I thought theologic. I had theology on my side.

Secondly, I started to realize there were other scholars in the denomination who thought like I did. They were just really quiet about it. So I thought, well, maybe I could become a part of a growing movement that would make change.

And third, I wanted to be a theologian in a Christian university. And I knew there would be students coming in asking questions about sexuality.

And I thought, well, I could be uniquely positioned to help some people in that scenario. And I did help people, you know, over the 20 some years I was in Christian higher ed.

Um, so I stayed in the nomination for those reasons and eventually got kicked out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which we've covered on this show. So. Yeah. You know, queer affirming stuff is something. Another one I changed my mind on too.

Okay.

My journey was a little bit different. I had got to the loving thing and all that, I think pretty early on.

But I had grown up and for a long time still held to inerrancy with scripture stuff.

Yeah.

And I kept the way that I read the Bible and I tried to interpret it.

There's a lot of places where they try to use this about same sex relationships that I think are just wrong, that that's not what the passage is about. But there was at least one or two that I was like, I think that that is actually what this is talking about. So I couldn't be there.

But I really wanted to be.

And I think it was actually a conversation we had on this show with Pete Ends that made me go, you know, I don't think I'm actually an inerrantist anyway, because he was talking about it. He was like, if you think about it, you're saying this is what inerrancy is. That means you believe these things. And he laying it out.

And I'm like, oh, I'm not. I just feel like that word to me was sacred. So I felt like I had to keep something that I was still in inerrants.

And then once I let go of that having to be something sacred that I had to believe, it kind of let me change my mind on that. And it felt really good. I was really happy to be able to.

Well, that's cool. I once had a student who was an inerrantist but was queer affirming. And I kind of pushed him. I thought, now how do you get there?

And it turns out he had read some of the passages, like The Romans chapter 1 passage about man not lying with a man, woman with a woman, and the Leviticus passage of man not lying with of man, whatever. And he had in his mind said, okay, that's God's word, it's inerrant, but it's for that time of day and not for us here and now.

So he kept inerrancy, but did this juggling of deciding some passages are context specific and not universal, which I don't rec. I mean, I think he's right that there are context specific passages, but it's an interesting thing to do.

I think you ought to give up on inerrancy too.

But yeah, what's funny, I actually with the Leviticus ones will probably agree on that point because both of the times it talks about it in Leviticus, it's in a series of laws being addressed to the Israelites after talking about why they're not supposed to be like another nation people. And what we know about those other nation peoples is they were using sex as a form of dominance, of showing authority.

And I'm like, yeah, I think think in that context what he's actually saying is we're not using sex in this way. And I think we can be more general instead of specific with that reading.

So I think for a long time I was like, yeah, Leviticus, that we don't need that to be about that. Sodom, Ezekiel tells us, isn't about that.

But then you have that Romans 1 and I don't think there's a way, if you're going to stay inherent to read Romans 1 and that. Not just straight up say this stuff is wrong.

Yeah, well, what my friend did was, or my student did was read biblical scholars who said that Paul had in mind older men, younger boy, sexual relationships or older woman, younger.

I've heard about that too.

So pederasty basically. And that was common in the Roman times. So you could envision that being about something that I'm also against. I don't think I'm against.

We're all here against pedophilia. Donald Trump, if you're listening, we can.

Say that I love it, but I think there's good reason to give up on inerrancy too. So.

Yeah, but maybe you don't have to for that one. I don't know.

I changed my mind on. Yes, this is going to go back to what we're talking about earlier on Mystery.

I don't know that I changed my mind, but conversations with you guys and with others made me realize I needed to be more specific on what I mean by my suspicion of mystery and what I can affirm in terms of mystery. And so in writing this systematic theology, I've got a whole chapter on that.

And so you guys are partly to be credited with helping me clarify my thoughts on it.

I mean, good.

Anything that'll let us get more pedantic. That's what I'm a fan of. That's where I want to go.

He's actually going to start another Just pedantic podcast, all that. It is.

Yeah.

We'll talk as the pedantry.

It's funny, I do think my relationship with you, one of the biggest things, other than the stuff I've actually changed my mind on, is a lot of that clarifying stuff of like, I think that technically I probably still believe in omnipotence, omniscience, etc. But I will no longer use those words because of what most people think you mean by that. So I'm going to say omnipotent again. I'm going to.

If I think God is in all things, that to me is all powerful. But it's. The problem is if most people think all powerful, they think that means you can do anything. Yeah, that's not what I mean.

So, like, if I had a lion, a lion is powerful enough to turn the light on and off. That does not mean the lion is going to turn the light switch off. So that's where I'm at.

But that's why I won't use those words, because I think what people think I mean and what I think I mean might be two different things. So I'm like, maybe I just won't use those words.

Well, let me push you a little on that, if you don't mind.

Yeah.

You said God is in all things. That sounds like the kind of language most people would use for being God being either omnipresent or a panentheist.

But you're using that language for omnipotence. So how are you thinking about that?

I'm thinking more panentheism. But to me, if God is in all things and has a part in all things, that feels like it would also be all power.

Because what power exists outside of all things? I'm not really sure. But that's.

You're in my experience, but I have power to decide lots of things that you don't decide for me. So you can be in my experience but not have all the power. Why not? The same to God. God's not only in my experience, but in everyone's experience.

But that doesn't mean they've lost power or something.

Yeah. Being in all things is different than having control over all things.

Yeah, right. Or even having all the power.

I need to keep wrestling with this one, which is another good reason not to use words like omnipotence when I still not quite sure where I'm at. So I had a few different categories I wanted to run through to see if there's anything we changed our minds on that we want to bring up.

So I'm just going to run through a couple. Let's start salvation. TJ do you think in the last seven years you would all have changed your mind or learned more about what salvation is?

Well, seven years ago, I was 18.

That's when we started this.

19. Forgot how old I was.

Your entire adult life.

Almost very close to my entire adult life. So at least a little bit. But by this point, I don't really remember.

Okay, I'll throw out. I'm not sure when it changed. So this is more of like, I think just gradually how I thought about it changed.

I don't know if there was like a. I changed my mind right here, and this is why. But I think for a long time I might not have said it explicitly, but I think I thought of salvation as a.

We're being saved from hell because we deserve hell, and that's why it's salvation and being saved from that thing. And at some point people showed me Greek words and I learned more things. And now I think of it more as wholeness making. And then I mean it.

Anything to do with hell and more to do with what makes me. Me. How am I whole? How am I fully, you know, in love? Whatever you want to say it.

But I think that wholeness making as opposed to not going to hell would be how. I think I've changed my mind on that.

Yeah. Yeah, I've changed my mind. Oh, go ahead, T.J. i was just.

Gonna say at some point I came to start thinking of hell as just being here. Just Earth was it when good as life can be. I was 16. You. But I was 17. I voted in that election for whatever that counted for. And where was I?

This is hell. And as good as life can be on earth, it's just so much worse than heaven that this is hell.

At some point, that's what I started thinking of our life on earth as. And most days, hell's not that bad.

That's a fun quote. Most days, hell's not that bad. I'm still in between annihilationism of like, it just being like, you know, the chaff being burnt up or.

Most days, I think now I'm more Christian universalist of like. I think eventually we all end up in. As part of love. And now I'm not really sure what I mean by heaven either.

I'm like, maybe it's just that whole divine consciousness thing, that process. People like to say maybe they're right. And I think I'm okay with it if that's all it is. But I don't know that one. I'm not.

I haven't changed my mind on. I'm just kind of agnostic towards. I think.

I think I've gained some clarity in the last seven years. I'm definitely not a universalist because I don't think God's omnipotent and can bring everybody salvation unilaterally.

And because of that, I think we have to participate or accept or respond to or somehow make a contribution to our salvation. And not everybody may choose to do that. So I'm not a classic universalist. I'm pretty confident of that now.

I'm a person who thinks that God never gives up. And it could be that God's going to eventually convince everyone to cooperate.

But that, as I see it, is different from universalism, as Karl Barth sees it, or David Bentley Hart or somebody like that.

So are you going to name it?

Name my view?

Yeah.

I call it the relentless love view. And the idea is that in this life, and since I happen to believe in afterlife, God always invites, God always loves.

We always have the possibility to cooperate or not. When we do cooperate, we enjoy the natural positive consequences of cooperation. When we don't cooperate, there are natural negative consequences.

God doesn't annihilate anybody, send anybody to hell. And I have the hope that God's relentless love will eventually win over everyone.

But not the kind of guarantee that most classical universalists will propose.

Yeah, which is why it's an important difference. Well, I think it's a huge difference. I'm more just kind of again, depending on the day. Some days I am in that annihilationist camp still.

And I'm like, there's just no way. Like, Donald Trump, Hitler. There's some characters. I'm Stalin. Yeah. I don't know. But on my good days today, I feel like a universalist.

I think it is more of a. Like, I don't know how long it'll take, but I think that love is powerful enough that I believe at some point we'll all either be in heaven.

Afterlife or divine consciousness. Something of the.

So that's my hope, too.

Yeah, yeah. And, yeah. And that's where TJ will be the first one to start an afterlife podcast. All right, what about God the divine?

Is there anything we've changed our minds on tj about God?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Little anything.

Name or just.

The list of things that haven't changed is much shorter. Yeah, much shorter. I still don't think he was a white man when he was on Earth or that he was tall. That hasn't changed.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I agree, especially with those two.

I. Yeah.

In a weird way, I think the biggest thing that's changed about my views with God is, is the certainty. Like, I just have far less certainty.

And I'm a lot more comfortable because I think at some point I probably did have a lot of, like, I'm not sure about God thing. But I'm so uncomfortable with that idea because I'm like, I don't know that. I know that. I know that I'm gonna go to hell forever.

I'm not really afraid of the hell things. And I'm just kind of more comfortable with the. I don't know. Like, I'm still wrestling with it because I think it's important, but.

Well, I've never really claimed to know God because that's not my place. I'm a man.

You're pot almighty, though. Yeah.

So with the title thrust upon me, I've had to form some thoughts over the past seven years.

Been forced to. Yeah. Yeah.

I think for me, the thing that I have.

It's not something I know is certainty, but I've now been bolder in claiming is the most plausible option is to say that God has a material dimension. 99% of theologians would agree with Thomas Aquinas, who calls God immaterial.

And I think God has both a material and a mental dimension, even though God's invisible and God's a universal spirit. And that idea has been helpful to me as I conceptualize how God might interact with us, who have a material dimension as well.

So that might seem kind of obscure, but that's kind of one of the things I've. I don't know if I. If I first had that idea in the last seven years, but it's become something I've been more embracing more.

Yeah, that's one of the ones that I'm struggling a lot with. Yeah, the materialness of God.

Because, you know, I like this panentheism idea that God is in all things, that does confine God to time, even if it be different than how I'm experiencing time. And for some reason, something about that I just don't like. I don't know. I don't like that.

I love the verb you have in that sentence that confines God to time. How about we say other people are confining God to being outside of time? Yeah, it's interesting. You were. The word confined. That's a restriction. Why.

Why think of that as a Restriction. And timeless is not a restriction.

Yeah.

We can't perceive timelessness, which is another.

Good reason not to believe in it.

That's fair. Maybe the existence outside of time isn't real, which is a huge change for me because over a long time I would just say the time's not real.

And I think I remember that. I think I would still probably say something similar. I would say time's not real the way that people think about it. Yeah, get out of town.

You don't think time is real? I don't believe you.

It's real. It's real. I just don't think it's real. The same thing.

We're having this thing at 30. You said you think time is real because you wanted me to be here at 2:30.

You should have heard him for the past, like 20 years.

Yeah, I think he's a hypocrite. Let me put that on this podcast. Josh is a hypocrite. He says there is no time. But once his guest to be at a particular time.

I have changed to thinking that time's just not real the way people think about him.

It.

I believe that given our particular place in matter, that you and I perceive time the same so that we can talk about it in a way that makes sense. But if you were closer to a black hole or something else, we probably couldn't have a conversation of, hey, in an hour, let's do this.

Because that would mean two different things to both of us.

Well, see, the problem is that whether or not time is real, clocks are.

But clocks function differently in different space situations. So an hour passing on the clock here is different than an hour passing an o' clock in space.

Yeah. So one of you will be late.

Yeah, but like, that's just. Time isn't like a fixed thing that just exists.

No.

Well, I agree with you on that. I don't think time is a thing out there in the world that exists. Augustine even said that.

Even though Augustine, I think one of the worst theologians in history when it comes to time. But at least he was right in saying time isn't a thing I'm on.

But I think you're a hypocrite, Joshua, if you waffle about the reality of time and yet live your life, in fact, inevitably live your life as if time is real. You're being a hypocrite. How's that for being strong here?

Oh, that's not the first time you've said that on this show. I think that's fine.

It's my way of saying. Saying, don't you think you ought to have a theology that matches the way you inevitably live? And you inevitably live as if time is real?

So why not have a theology that matches that?

Yeah, I mean, I will seed that time is real, just not the way that we typically think about it.

Well, okay. Yeah.

That's just.

Time is like a pair of spandex.

Shorts.

And life is like a fart with that. What about sin? Is there anything we've changed our mind on regarding sin? I don't think so.

I. Yeah, I'm thinking sin, though, to me, it's less of like a dogma. Did you break the rules or not? I think subconsciously I probably felt that way for a while. I'm trying to think of what it was that Paul Tillich said.

Reading Paul Tillich a couple years ago had me appreciate this idea better because it wasn't as much a. Did you commit a sin? In more of a.

Well, he links anxiety. Anxiety is a huge category for Paul Tillich.

Yeah. Yeah. Just. I felt like it had more to do with not being whole. There we go. So I could tie it back to the salvation thing.

I don't think he used that language, but, yeah, I think that that probably is closer to what I'm thinking. It just has more to do with. Are you participating in love? Are you.

I'm really struggling to try to remember that thing that I like that Paul Tillich said, but it's just not coming to mind. Yeah.

For me, sin is failing to love when we ought to be loving. But I've thought that for 20 years or more longer than that. Probably 30 years. Probably more than that. I bet I've thought that for 45 years.

I think I was a teenager. I thought of that. So I don't know that my doctrine of sin has changed much in the last seven years. I have to think about that.

It's interesting you say it in that way, because that's kind of how I was raised, but not about sin. My dad always, always said that if you can help someone, you should.

Did he also say, with great responsibility, great power comes great responsibility?

He didn't. He also hasn't been shot.

That's good. I'm glad.

Yeah. I think he's been stabbed, but he lived.

That is good.

We don't have to do the whole speech thing.

Sounds like your dad.

Maybe he didn't know about this consciously, but one of the classic ways to talk about sin in Christian theology is to talk about sins of commission and sins of omission. So when your dad says if you have the ability to help someone, you don't. That's still a sin. Well, that's a sin of omission.

You didn't do what you ought to do given the circumstances.

Yeah, I promise. He doesn't.

I do think. Listen last. The last thing I want to. That I think I've changed my mind on. I think that I've changed.

I don't know if this was in the last seven years or if it was before that. The idea that I grew up with was that you could sin and not know it.

So that was like, you know the sacrifices in the Old Testament, it's like, oh, they didn't know they sinned, so they had to make a sacrifice. And you had to, like, always be praying because you might have not known that you sinned and you could die and go to hell at any moment. Kind of deal.

God's gonna. Yeah.

Or even if you said something incorrect but you thought you were telling the truth, but you were wrong, and being wrong is the same as a lie, so you're gonna go to hell. That was a big one. I changed my mind on that. And I don't even have to do away with inerrancy with that.

I think even the Bible was more talking about, like, you unintentionally sinned is different than sinning and not knowing it. You know what I mean? There have been plenty of times that I would look at how I have wronged maybe even tj.

I think there are some things that I was like, oh, yeah, I have a great example.

He was going to come to my house for something he was helping me with, and I told him a couple days ahead of time that I was going to pay for his gas. I completely forgot.

I would say that that was an unintentional sin because in that moment, I was meant to show him love because he was doing something for me and I dropped the ball. So, you know, I think that I would. I don't remember. I think this was like a year ago.

I was like, I'm pretty sure. Usually I just say, don't worry about it. Yeah, probably anyway, 30 something miles a gallon.

Anyway, though, the point is, like, I think that would be one that I like. I unintentionally send because. Not because, oh, I lied to TJ and now I'm gonna go to hell. But more of a true. I wasn't true to my word.

I didn't do this kindness for someone. I kind of took advantage of him. Even if I didn't mean to. I still think, you know.

Yeah. It sounds like you've shifted from a Calvinist to a Wesleyan view of sin.

Calvinist would say sin is anything that misses the mark, whether it's intentional or not. You miss the mark, you've sinned. Whereas Wesleyans would say sins are willful transgressions of a known law of God. So it's got to be intentional.

And sounds like you've made that shift.

Well, that's good.

I think Calvin was a Nick will.

Be proud of me. That's true. Calvin was also a hypocrite, but that's. I don't like him very much. But we'll talk about that some other day.

I'm going to lump the next few categories together. We've already talked about love, so that's, I think, the big one. But I have a humanity, creation and the church.

I'm going to lump those together because I think they kind of go hand in hand. How have we changed our mind on those things? I think I defined the church a lot more loosely.

I can start with the church. I have become much more pessimistic about the church since the Trump era.

I used to have a much higher view of ecclesiology and seeing the way that the Christian right and Christian nationalism has emerged. And I was always kind of suspicious of the church. I always had a, you know, well, there's the true Christians and then there's the fake Christians.

But when so many, not only in, you know, Pentecostals or evangelicals, but a bunch of conservative Catholics follow this Donald Trump and buy into this Christian nationalism and justify all this crap, it's really made me more pessimistic about the ability for the church as an institution to function in a prophetic, loving way. Now I can point to all kinds of Christians who are acting in prophetic ways and are opposing whatever.

But yeah, I'm just more pessimistic about the church because of the way so many have aligned themselves with Trump.

Yeah, I do think that's fair.

I am naively, I'm just going to call myself naive, hopeful that both the church and Republican Party, because I still like what Republicans supposed to be about, are actually going to split. And that whole MAGA Trump section, I'm thinking, is going to be its own thing.

And I'm hopeful because I think that's going to end up being a much larger section than the church that I love.

May it be so. Joshua.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still think I'm naive, but I'm hopeful.

Yeah, I definitely used to think that the church was, you know, where two or more are gathered in my name. Anywhere that is. You call that the church? You're as close to me as any other. I don't believe that anymore.

I think the prettier your church is, the closer it is to heaven.

I've been in a lot of really.

Beautiful churches over the past seven years. I don't know if the Greeks got to me, man. The Greeks got to me.

Art.

Art is what does it.

Art, architecture said about that. Yeah.

I'm not being serious, but, you know, it's easier to buy into the grandiosity.

Yeah.

The mystery.

Well, I'm kind of interested how you'd answer this.

I think my definition of church has gotten far looser because it used to be you have to affirm a certain creed or I would be like, okay, so maybe you gotta believe Jesus and do that. And I think I've come to just more of a point of view. Those who are in love are probably.

That's probably more how I define the church, even if they're not necessarily using the name Jesus. Because I think, when I think. What I mean when I say church is. I'm thinking of those who are doing.

This is going to be a fun callback to before we recorded. I'm sorry, the will of God. So I'm thinking of who is doing the work of love and that's who I want to have unity with.

And I don't think those are always people who are saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, or will agree with me on the creed. But yeah, you know, so I feel like I've gotten looser in some ways.

In some ways there are probably a lot of people I used to be like, I would consider them Christians, but now I'm like, yeah, they believe the right things, but they don't seem very loving to me. So I'm not sure that I would, you know, and I don't want to do the true Scotsman kind of argument because, you know, that's just how I'm defined.

Probably would distinguish between church and Christian.

I think there's a lot of people who are, I would still have to say are Christian because I don't want to be, oh, that's not a real Christian, because I hate those kind of arguments. I'm not trying to do that. It's just that's not who I'm trying to have unity with. Yeah, yeah.

And it's easy to say or even to believe in something and not act it out, you know, which goes Back.

To the Donald Trump stuff.

Yeah, if there's no acts, there's no works. What are you believing? What is belief for you if it's not showing in your actions?

It's really hard to know who counts as Christian and what counts as the church. I haven't figured those out myself.

If you do it on love, which I'm very inclined to do, like Joshua, then lots of Buddhists and atheists or Christians are a part of the church. And it seems like you start to lose any kind of meaning for those words if that's the case. So I don't know how to make sense of all that.

That's my biggest challenge, too. I half jokingly tell my one friend who's an atheist that he's the best Christian I know.

And, you know, it's a joke in the sense that he's not a Christian.

But also, me and him have talked enough and TJ also, that we're like, yeah, no, legitimately, if we think of, like, Christian as those who are acting like Christ, he probably actually is the best Christian I know, even though he would not call himself a Christian. So I would respect him and also not call him a Christian. Except for in joking ways. And on podcasts where everybody hears yeah.

Most of the people who I find it easy to define as Christian usually prefer to go by Chris.

Good line. DJ Can I make things uncomfortable for you, Joshua again, and others who are listening to this podcast?

Oh, I love that.

I was having a conversation with a good buddy of mine at the gym this last week. He's a Mormon bishop and we talk religion a lot.

And he's a guy who came up to me 12 years ago or so, whatever it was, when Obama was running against Mitt Romney and asked me if I was voting for Obama because I was against Mormons. And I asked him if he was voting for Romney because he was Mormon. There was some other reason.

Anyway, we were both talking about he's a strong Republican, but he doesn't like Donald Trump.

And I was telling him, and I'm telling you now, Josh, and your listeners who like the traditional platforms of the Republican Party but are not happy with Trump.

I was telling him that right now in America, people fall into a bunch of different camps and categories, but the most important people politically in America are Trump. I mean, are Republicans who don't support Trump. You carry the biggest burden. Right now.

We're leaning on you because Trump is not going to be influenced. And listen to lefties and liberals and AOC and Bernie buddies and you Know all those kinds of folks.

And of course the MAGA fans are just going to do whatever he wants. It seems, it seems like that happens over and over. It's you folks who align yourself with the Republican Party.

But see the problem with Donald Trump right now. This is your time to shine. We need your voice desperately.

We need you to, you know, grab a pair of balls and get out there and say what needs to be said. Because I think you have the most power and influence at this point in history. So I want to encourage you to use that moment.

Yeah. I do try to take the chances I can to not shy away from saying that I think Donald Trump is evil. Like, I don't think people are born evil.

I don't think, you know, there's a lot like I try not to use the word evil. Just try not to use the word evil. But looking at his actions and what I believe about God, I'm like, that this is just truly evil.

And then also taking morality of it out of it. Nothing about this administration is Republican.

And that I think is just going back to the rationale, analytical stuff that we're talking about earlier with theology on the political side.

I think that's the thing that makes me the most angry is why is it the side that's supposed to be small government is supporting the president who spent more money federally than any other president in history. Yeah.

And the same people who are non interventionists are supporting a president who's going to war with Venezuela without the Congress. I mean, it's. You're right.

Makes no sense.

There's so many things that isn't part of the Republican Party.

Yeah.

And it's trend that is maybe worrying, but gives me an idea. We've had two actors as president. Both were pretty bad, generally speaking, if you ask most people. So I think they were both broken.

I'm talking about Ronald Reagan.

Yeah.

If someone's lost. And the Celebrity Apprentice star, Donald Trump. I think we need a Democratic actor president to see if it's something wrong with her.

Is it like an actor's problem.

If.

We just got a blue, famous blue actor like, you know, James Cameron?

I want to suggest something to you, Joshua, as a language that might help at least it's language I use and I find helpful. I don't think Donald Trump is evil, but I think he does evil habitually.

So in other words, he is not intrinsically evil, but he has these habits of lying, of being prideful, all these. I mean, I could just go on and on and they become habits in his life. So he's not evil, but he does evil habitually.

Yeah, I like that he does evil habitually. I think I would probably also add supporting someone who does this much evil and enabling him to have the power to do more evil is also evil.

The support. I agree with you and the people supporting.

Yeah, the people who do this and justify themselves, they do so by saying the alternative is more evil than what Donald Trump is. And I just think they're wrong about that. I think they're not just wrong. Most of them are self delusional.

They're trying to talk themselves into supporting the feelings they have. They're not being very objective. None of us are truly objective, but they're not even trying to be. No, I agree.

I agree. And I'm going to tie that in and TJ's orthodox comment in for.

For the other thing I changed my mind on before we wrap this part up concerning humanity and creation and stuff, I have changed my mind on how people are born. I think I would have at the beginning of this podcast that people were born evil. I don't think that. I do think people are born good.

I think creation is good. I don't think creation was good. Then one thing sinned and now everything is an evil. I like the orthodox mindset of more. The existence of sin created.

These systems of sin that we are all born into that create makes us have a more likelihood to participate in these sinful systems or these broken systems that aren't wholeness making systems. So I like that mindset better. And I think creation is still happening.

You know, it's the birth pains of creation continually happening and it's still good. Yeah, good. I think that's where I'm at. Which is a more positive note than all the evil of Donald Trump. Probably.

Yeah.

So I think if we were able to maybe embrace more of the good that is part of inerrant creation and less of this hate in dividing, that I don't think comes as natural for us. I think we are born in these systems and succumb to evil actions and I think we can resist it by being more true to the good that we were created as.

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. I think we're always intrinsically good. We always have the capacity to do good or evil and we're influenced heavily by our environments and systems.

So yeah, I'm with you 100%.

Awesome. DJ. Any other thing you change your mind.

On as far as creation goes? I wouldn't say so.

Broad strokes, purposes I have pretty much always believed that God calls the Big Bang and everything in between now and then, minor details as far as I'm concerned.

Really inconsequential thing. I've changed my mind on, actually, I think this has to do with humanity. Breastfeeding in public changed my mind on that one.

I used to think of it more as, like, you know, other bodily functions used in the restroom and stuff. I had a friend who was like, yeah, why wouldn't you think of it more as, like, sneezing, eating in public?

And I'm like, you know, that does make a lot more sense. So, yeah, changed my mind on that one. Just from a pretty clear argument, I've.

Changed my mind that I used to think of Jack Black as a kind of poser musician, but now I think he's legit. I mean, he's really got a voice.

He's really.

Come on.

So that's a challenge. Yeah. Yeah.

You didn't like Tenacious D, Right?

So most people who run podcasts or do public speaking seem to rarely mention times that they were wrong or change their minds, which is usually the same as being wrong. But let's talk about why that might be and why it is important that we can change our minds and admit when we've been wrong in the past.

Tom, have you ever been wrong about anything ever? Someone said no.

Wrong about things just today. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to say that you're wrong about something if you're trying to be right.

And you know that there are sometimes really negative consequences about being wrong. And if you want people to look up to you and take your opinion seriously or your leadership seriously.

So I can understand why I and others sometimes are reticent to admit our fallibility. But the strange thing is, is that once we do, we discover that most people admire that.

If only Donald Trump would learn this lesson, if he would realize that saying I'm wrong is a sign of strength, I think that would be a really healthy move for him. At least. I found that the case in my life and the life of many other people.

Yeah. Yeah. And I do get why it can be scary, because you don't want people to think you're trustworthy and not a hypocrite.

Right.

I think you only come off as a hypocrite if you just change your mind and never address that you used to be wrong. Then I think you do come off as a hypocrite. Yeah. At least address it.

So I. Tom, I know you're about to go, you know you got a little bit of time real quick before we go? You know, we always like to ask if there's something practical people could do for church unity or Christian unity or just unity in general?

Since we both agreed that it's hard to define church or Christian, what do you think is something people could do that would help us better come together?

My goodness.

I think what I think help me be more sympathetic toward others, more united toward them, is remind myself of my own flaws and failures, and then that allows me to have more empathy for others and their flaws and failures, including what I think are their flawed ways of thinking. So that's one thing I would suggest also before I go. You might.

I didn't think of this before we got started, but I'd like to invite you guys and your listeners to be a part of a upcoming online conference called Open and Relational theology online.

It's February 12 through 14, and we're looking at about 24 books written in the last year on open and relational theology, all kinds of different subjects. Maybe I'll give you the link and you can put it in the show notes.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be awesome. Be awesome. Yeah.

Hey, thanks for the opportunity to chat.

Yeah. And thank you for helping, at least helping me change my mind some the last couple years. I really appreciate it.

Well, I can say the same for you guys.

Well, it's good to see you again, Tom. Hopefully it won't be too long.

All right, see you later.

All right. Bye.

Bye, Tom.

So, T.J. what do you think would change in the world if everybody did exactly what Tom said? Nothing. Nothing would change in the world.

Nothing ever. Yeah, he was wrong. Get him back here. I'll say it.

Is that. Is that your real answer right now? No.

I think the church and the world at large would, you know, unify.

I just say it.

That's what the question was. But it would get easier to live.

Well, maybe an answer Tom would be really proud of. I think we'd see less Donald Trump's in the world or less success of people who behave in that way. Because I think a lot of.

Not just politics, but you have pastors and a lot of different leaders who thrive off of this polarization, making. Making enemies out of somebody. And I kind of feel like we'd see less of that. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah.

And if they still wanted to be popular, they'd just find something else to do that people liked.

Yeah.

Other than fighting. Yeah.

But before we wrap up, we like to do this thing we call The God moment.

We will just where you ask everyone to share what God's been up to in their life, whether that be a blessing or challenge or remote worship, whatever it may be. And always make you go first, Josh. So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us?

Oh, man, yeah. But I'm trying to think of which one I want to go with. That can be a challenge. The God moment might even be a challenge. The pile grows.

You know what I am going to say so in the podcast we just recorded.

And then also last week when I was talking to Josh Patterson about a comic book written by Jason Aaron that I can't say the name of without making this an exciting, explicit episode. So I'm not going to.

I think I've really been coming up against how much I don't have a good grasp on my own thoughts around the will of God and what it means for God to be in all things. So I'm challenged to struggle with that a little bit more. Think a little deeper on that, see if I can come to terms with that better. Mm, yeah.

Alright, that's good.

Rough way to start off a year, man. For me, I have twofold. Twofold. Yesterday, as I was leaving work, I stopped to go to the bathroom. I was washing my hands.

I looked at the mirror and realized my pupils were different sizes. Now, usually this means you've suffered some severe head trauma or possibly an aneurysm or a stroke or some kind of malignant brain injury.

I feel fine. I'm gonna put that one up to God. Thanks. But also, I have not recorded since Christmas, at least not this show.

That's weird, actually.

Yeah. So I'm gonna talk about Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone. Listening to this super late. I love Christmas. I love spending time with my family.

And my favorite part about Christmas this past year at least, was not the presence. It never is the presence. It's his presence. Amen.

And.

Giving out presents is pretty funny, but giving presents, it's been more fun for me for quite a while.

But my favorite part of this past Christmas was we're like two weeks out, you know, and my dad texts me and he's like, hey, man, we need to do some Christmas shopping so we can. We can get it done. And I'm like, all right, sure. I had one day off that week and he was like, okay, cool, Saturday, we'll do it Saturday.

And might as well start early to beat the crowd. Like, okay, cool. So I'm already waking up at 7am on my one day off that week.

Rough and Then he's like, we might as well get breakfast because one of his favorite restaurants is over there. That area where we're gonna go shopping. He was like, oh, okay.

So naturally, I'm waking up at 6 on my day off to go get breakfast at 6:30 and then go Christmas shopping. So we do all this, all of it. We go to a flea market to shop because we live in South Carolina.

Who doesn't like a good flea for Christmas? Who doesn't?

They're trained these days. Did you know that?

I've heard of it.

They have circuses.

Oh, yeah. It was in A Bug's Life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Carol Coraline. But we go to the Barnyard flea market. We shop for a couple of hours. He doesn't buy anything. Okay, whatever. We go to Barnes and Noble, Walmart.

We had been shopping for about five and a half hours and we're leaving Walmart.

I have my last stop, like high school. Yeah, that's all fun.

It's a lot more fun to shop in person.

No? Yeah, it is.

But we're walking up to the counter and he still has not bought a single thing.

Not one.

So as we're walking to the counter, you know, the self checkout.

Because who.

Who has real cashiers these days? He said, I say, you didn't want to. You didn't need to buy any. Any presents. He said, no, I finished shopping a couple weeks ago.

I love this story. This is awesome. Yeah.

So I think he just really wanted to spend some time together and watch me shop for several hours. That was my favorite part of Christmas.

What? Non ironically, that was your favorite part.

Yeah, I think it was.

That doesn't sound fun at all.

No, it was pretty fun. It's really funny. That is pretty hilarious. That's so funny. Also, I found out what a Barbie Dream House looks like in person.

I still haven't seen one of those. Dude.

Huge.

They're crazy. They're huge, man. It's my height. Well, which isn't that big, but that's.

Big for a dollhouse, so it's pretty crazy.

If you like this episode, please consider sharing with a friend. Share with an enemy. Share with your cousins.

Especially your cousins.

Late Christmas spirit and whatnot. Go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts to promote our show. I thought I was wearing one. I'm not. Help us raise money.

Help us raise money for our podcasting needs and to let others know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern church. My personal favorite shirt, however, I don't Remember what it's called? I never do, but it's very plain. It's very normal.

Just as the whole church podcast on it.

Is it the TJ quote on the back? Is that.

Is that. Is that ours?

Yeah.

Okay. I couldn't remember if that was for ours. Oh, it's both systematic.

Both of them have that. It's the same joke. It's wonderful. People should go check it out.

My favorite joke is. That's my favorite one.

Yeah.

Logo on the sleeve. It's a good shirt.

Yeah. Also consider checking out the other shows in the Lozal podcast podcast network. You can listen to the homily with Pastor Chill Will from Chapel Hill.

You can listen to Let nothing move you with Brandon Knight or my seminary or not my seminar. Well, my seminary life also with Brandon Knight, but I think I just said that. Did I say it backwards? Let nothing with you, Christian Ashley.

My seminary life with Brandon Knight. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So we hope you did enjoy it.

Then we're going to have on Andrew Fouts returning to the show to discuss Christian persecution around the world and what Open Door Canada is doing to help. And finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan is going to be on the show. And now, Josh, I'm not sure if you.

He doesn't know, but I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but, you know, One Piece is going to be a seasonal anime now.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're kind of just following in. In oda's footsteps.

Yeah, yeah. We're just gonna have the same length of season one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're getting close.