As an assist to the Pyromaniacs post Kids? today Apprising Ministries publishes the following transcript of an interview with Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt conducted by Chris Rosebrough. You can listen to the program in Interview with Doug Pagitt of the Emergent Church and Rosebrough later deconstructs it all in Analysis of Pagitt Interview Part 1 and Analysis of Pagitt Interview Part 2:

Time for another edition of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. Boy, have we got a program lined up for you today.

As you know, I’m traveling…recording this in the lovely city of Schaumburg, Illinois… part of the greater Chicago-land suburbs. I’m out here for the Reveal Now conference otherwise known as the “Seeker-Sensitive Movement 2.0”. Apparently they didn’t get 1.0 right, because uh, they made a whole bunch of churches that were attracting a lot of people, and uh…guess what?…they weren’t making any disciples (laughs). Yeah, but we’ve got big churches and that’s all that matters. Just big, big churches…anyway we’ll talk about the Reveal N-…the “Reveal Now” conference later in the week.

And uh…today, uh…I’ve got lined up for you an interview I did with Doug Pagitt of the Emergent Church. Read his book. His latest book is called A Christianity Worth Believing: A Hope-filled, Open-armed, Alive-and-well Faith for the Left Out, Left Behind, and Let Down in us All…a Christianity worth believing.” Well, we’ll leave that up to you whether or not it’s worth believing his version of Christianity or not.

And uh…did an interview with Doug and uh, the interview is just about an hour long and I thought what we would do is just get right into it. Just as a little bit of a heads up, if you were expecting that I was going to be debating the mighty Doug Pagitt at…then, uh… then this interview is going to uh…let you down.

The purpose of this interview is not to debate Doug Pagitt. This is not a polemical interview. Really the goal of this interview was to let Doug Pagitt speak for himself. And to, uh…help you better understand what it is that he is thinking and teaching and believing and promoting as part of one of the leaders of the Emergent Church movement. Doug’s got his own set of opinions and reasons why he believes those opinions and its rooted in his experience, and the one thing I like about the Emergent Church is that the more these guys write, the better radar fix we can get on their theology and their ideas.

Uh…a few years ago, uh, listening to Emergent Church guys and trying to figure out what it is they believed and taught was pretty much similar to trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. Well, that’s…those…that day is passed. The more the Emergent guys write the more we realize what they think and believe. And so, really the idea here in this interview was to let Doug Pagitt speak and for me to ask follow-up questions based upon my reading of his book. I hope that you enjoy it. I hope that you learn something from it. And in the days ahead and maybe next week, depending on my travel schedule and my time to really spend some time uh, digging into this, uh…we’ll be doing some, uh…some review and critique of the things that Doug said. And uh…we’ll go from there. So, with that in mind, let’s dive into our interview with Doug Pagitt of the Emergent Church.

CHRIS: Well then, let’s go ahead and lead off with the first question. Um, why, did you write this book, “A uh…A Christianity Worth Believing?” What problem, uh, were, what problem or problems were you trying to address and solve in writing this book?

DOUG: Well, you know like a lot of people who like to write books it had a couple of starts to it. So in some ways the book that now exists uh…wasn’t the one I initially set out to write. It got recast, re-planned in the writing process…but, um…that happened to me three on different occasions. But, in all those uh…ideations of the book, I was trying to uh…put forward a, uh…a hopeful and invitational uh…presentation of Christianity so that people who felt that either their past experience with Christianity or the one that they had heard about um…and didn’t work for them…

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: …uh…could be explained in some way that would make sense as to why they feel like they really want to be part of the Jesus story. But the versions of Christianity that they’ve heard uh…don’t seem to fulfill that same yearning.

So in a lot of ways this is an evangelistic book. It’s a book for people who have struggled with faith and they’re not sure why. So what I tried to do in the book was to use my own story and say, “Look, there’s a lot of different ways people explain Christianity. And if you run into an explanation that doesn’t work for you, it’s helpful to know that that works for somebody else.” And um…they‘re not trying to be uh…they’re not trying to uh…make it hard on you. They are not trying to make Christianity into something that’s uh…would uh…be a frustration for you. They’re expressing Christianity in a way that makes sense to them.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: And uh…so I tried to do the same thing in the hopes that there were some people who would, who would find the explanation that I give to be, uh…invitational.

CHRIS: Okay, so in your explanation you talk about uh…visiting a passion play. And um…and you…you were not a Christian prior to visiting this passion play. And um…and that this was kind of a pivotal moment in your life as far as seeing the story of Jesus Christ played out in this passion play…uh…what happened to you afterwards when you were invited backstage and then uh…and then in meeting with the people who were Christians who wanted to explain the faith to you. Do you mind spending a little time talking about that experience?

DOUG: Oh no, I don’t mind at all, I’d be glad to. Yeah, I…I…I grew up in a family where we didn’t have any uh…any church experience so, I had never been to a church service before. I didn’t know any of the ins and outs of Christianity. I didn’t even know that Christmas and Easter had anything to do with one another. They were just…they were just holidays. Um…so, I had no knowledge of Christianity at all. And I was…uh…16 years old almost turning 17, when a friend of mine invited me to go with him to this passion play at a church in downtown Minneapolis. And it was there that I saw the Jesus story for the first time. So, everything that I heard in that play was brand new to me, and uh…and I was really taken by the story itself.

I…I felt a real affinity with Jesus being one who was um, calling people to participate with God…and saying to people that the Kingdom of God was at hand and you can join in and that his miracles were a sign of God’s participation in the world. And then they, they got to the resurrection and that was uh, something that was even more stunning. Uh…I… you know I’ve told this story so many times back, you know 25 years ago when I was 16, 17 years old, but uh…I…I remember uh…uh…being so struck at the crucifixion and literally not knowing that the resurrection was coming next. Okay, uh…but, so struck by Jesus um…screaming from, from the cross, “Father, forgive them they don’t know what they’re doing”…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …And, it was so moving. And then the resurrection came and that…that really uh…I mean was…was uh…was uh…life giving for me. And just…I felt something inside me explode with…with hope and with life um…at that resurrection and to know that Jesus had defeated death and that all the oppression that was against Him and all those things and that He was victorious…and so, all that kind of stuff. And so, it was quite moving and I felt my…I felt something going on internally.

And then the people uh…on…on the stage, you know the story ended and they invited someone out to the stage to give a talk, and…and a part of that was uh…the person saying, “Why don’t you come backstage if you’d like to hear more about this story?” And so I did. And it was there that I… that uh…we sat in a circle and…and some really kind people who were, you know, who wanted to help us explain uh…help us understand more about Christianity. And the explanation that they gave was out of a booklet. And they walked us through a booklet. And…and I remember at the time feeling so awkward backstage, it was…it was so different than, than the things I had experienced so far and we started going through the booklet and the explanation in there seemed…seemed different from the story that I’d seen out on the stage. And so, right away I felt this distance about the kind of story I had seen out on the stage and the explanation that people were explaining in the back…

CHRIS: Well what…

DOUG: I didn’t really have words for it…

CHRIS: Uh, huh…

DOUG: …or you know, I couldn’t really name it. Now, I can look back at that booklet and, and I, and I now can recognize the things that struck me odd. But at the time, you know, the 16 year old kid, sort of emotionally filled um… sitting in the back room…I just knew…this is kind of weird now, you know? (laughs)…like its kind of turned the corner.

CHRIS: Was there any specific doctrinal piece of it that…that stuck out in your mind? That…that didn’t really resonate with the story that you had seen in the passion play?

DOUG: Yeah, I don’t think it was a doctrinal piece… it was…it was an illustration that they used. It was this illustration of a bridge…and God on one side of the brid…of the canyon and humanity on the other side of the canyon…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …God and humanity unable to connect with one another. And then turn of a page a cross was inserted into that canyon.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: And…and I…I now understand that the sort of stretch of a metaphor that they were using with that, but they weren’t…it didn’t sound to me at least…and this is, you know sometimes just my memory or maybe me as a 16 year old, but, they didn’t talk about that illustration as if it was just a metaphor…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …they talked about it as if there was actually, literally a canyon and they put these verses into it. And so it had this other notion to it…that…that there was this distance…this separation between God and humanity…

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: …and that Jesus um…uh…made that uh…that bridge so now that God and humanity could have uh…uh this pathway; which is just such a different way than to hear what Jesus was saying out on the stage, which was that the world is God’s, that God’s the Creator of the earth, that God is the giver of life and that God likes people participating in what God’s already doing in this world, um…that…that this…this was the God of the universe. And…and so, the idea that you had the Creator of the universe trapped on the far side of some canyon seemed like, then and now, still to me, such a strange way to frame the conversation.

CHRIS: Well, I mean obviously that…that’s a…uh…a kind of a Reformation way of talking regarding man’s sinfulness and um…and how our sin separates us from God. So you…you would…you would…you read Scripture differently regarding um…the affects of our sin and its, impact on our relationship with God?

DOUG: Yeah, I mean…I think I read scripture accurately, and, and I, there may be people who like that…that view of…of the uh…you know, of…of the uh…bridge or of the canyon as being an honest reflection of it, but I think that that kind of language is…is inaccurate and what the scripture really calls for is that people live incongruently or out of sync with God or out of rhythm with God.

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: It’s not an issue of distance, it’s an, it’s an issue of conformity. So I think for someone to use an illustration of distance might be a culturally appropriate explanation for certain people in certain settings…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …but it’s not a very accurate way to describe the ramification of sin in someone’s life. It doesn’t put…create distance…it creates conflict.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: It creates angst. And so, if someone finds, and this is, you know, what I try…try to do with the book, if someone finds the distance as being a good metaphor for that, great!…use…use a canyon all you want. I don’t find it to be very helpful. In fact, I think it gets in the way.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: But that’s okay. You know people can use…that…that’s why the English language and human…human construct of languages is so great, that we can keep going if someone finds one explanation to not be as useful.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: There’s…there’s no reason to get pinned in on one. Now, I know there’s some people in certain traditions who only…who…who want only a certain set of language to be used um…and you know, I think, uh…I think they find themselves in…in difficulties…they run into people who…who don’t accept those uh…those…that…that pre-established set of…of concepts.

CHRIS: Okay so, you’ve already established in…in our conversation that you believe that you read scripture accurately, so then you…you believe it’s possible to read scripture inaccurately.

DOUG: Oh for sure, yup, yeah.

CHRIS: Okay. So, um, so from the passion play that you saw God played out, you know the, the Jesus story played out in the passion play…to you being…it sounds like you were given like the uh, “4 Spiritual Laws” tract. I’m, I’m trying to do this from memory.

DOUG: No, I wasn’t. I was given the…I think it was the…the…uh…the “Steps to Peace with God” tract.

CHRIS: Okay, I know what you’re talking about. I’ve…I’ve seen these in my Christian journey so-to-speak. And then from there you had, you had some friends who took you to a… was it a Burger King?

DOUG: Yeah, I have uh…I had two uh…I…uh…the friend that I went to the passion play with had…had connected with some uh…people from a…a… a parent church ministry that worked with high school students. And so, a week-and-a-half later or so we got together and they…they helped to explain more about Christianity to me at that time.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: Um…and…and so…there…there I was met with….I mean, and these…these men – I…I try to make a point in the book and anytime I’m telling this story — these were…these were dear men… they’re still friends of mine, I mean, significant people in my life. I…I… I’m quite confident that I…I wouldn’t have found my way through Christianity without their love and care, so I don’t have any ill will…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: uh…toward them. Uh…uh…but, the presentation that they gave me was a prefabricated out of a booklet um…kind of presentation again…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …which was perhaps well suited for another people of a different experience than mine, but it really ran headlong into the kind of life that I was living with God in those…maybe, ten days. Um…and so they went through another explanation there that they wrote on the back of a Burger King placemat…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …um…that was going on to explain again, some things about uh…the story of Christianity and…and how one could um…have confidence that an experience that they…that they had felt was accurate to uh…the promises that God had given. So…so they…they…they used another illustration…this time not a…not a…a canyon, but a train…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: that had three cars to it. And the train – uh…the three cars represented the facts of Christianity, which is the engine; the coal car, which is faith in those facts. And then the third car was a caboose, and that was feelings and experiences. And they…they mentioned that the train was designed to run just fine on the faith and the facts and didn’t need the experiences. Now, I think what they were trying to get at was “Don’t…don’t…don’t worry if a week from now or a day from now, that…that emotional high you are feeling goes away, the promises of God are still faithful.”

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Uh…but, that’s not what they said (laughs) and uh…and it’s not the impression that I was given. Rather, the impression was that Christianity is, uh…well enough understood as being about faith and facts and not about the lived experience. Which is…which is such a strange way to speak of it because how could you have faith and facts without a lived experience in the first place? Like the problem was the idea that you would break faith, facts and experiences into three separate…uh…three separate entities.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: So, anyway, that…that was….and I…I write about that in the book, try…trying again to…to show that it’s very possible to have an explanation of Christianity that causes one to struggle without actually giving up their faith.

CHRIS: So this particular illustration rather than making things better for you made Christianity more difficult for you.

DOUG: Yes. It…it…it…it caused me to doubt my experience and my understanding. It, it, it destabilized me in, in one of those ways that was, uh…uh…you know, not…not pleasant or…or sort of unsolvable.

CHRIS: Uh huh…yeah, cause I…I looked…you actually reproduce the uh…the offending pa…placemat (laughs) in your book

DOUG: Yeah, I mean I still have the original copy of that placemat.

CHRIS: Right, it looks like they photocopied it and put it into your book here.

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: And what I thought was interesting is…is that, you know, the…the question that uh…you know, they a-apparently tried to be answering is, “How to be sure you’re a Christian”…and at the top of it there’s a note that says, “Truth equals absolute…”

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: …and then they’ve got uh…facts, trust and feelings. And it looks kinda’ like an Epistemology uh…model to me rather than anything else.

DOUG: Yeah, very much…well I mean, I…I…I came to recognize that more when I went to college and started studying um…issues of argument, and rhetoric, and Epistemology and so on. I started to understand boy, here’s where the indoctrination for me and a certain way of understanding truth and putting together a certain hermeneutic of understanding and then an Epistemology…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …um…was…was…was taking place. At the time, sitting in that Burger King talking to these guys who, you know, were going to become significant contributors to my…to my life…um…other than thinking like, they’re indoctri…, you know, they’re… they’re…they’re indoctrinating me into a particular Epistemology…but, when I…when I looked back on it…and I carried it in my wallet for probably 10 years or more…

CHRIS: Wow.

DOUG: …because I hadn’t looked at it…and then I opened it up, and looked at it after I had done a lot more reflecting on how it is that we believe, and why we believe, and so on…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …um…I looked at it and…and I remember saying to somebody who was with me at the time, “Looking at this is…I…I feel like those tobacco uh…those tobacco lawyers who were fighting against the tobacco uh…uh …industry when they found the…the…the…the memos that said that the tobacco industry knew that it caused cancer, you know?

CHRIS: Oh wow.

DOUG: It was like I had the smoking gun. Like…I knew people…I…I could have sworn that somebody told me once that truth equals absolute. I knew they did. And here it is, right here. Here’s the proof. You know, truth was reduced down into a particular hermeneutical argument as opposed to being you know, the, the big beautiful life of God that uh, trumps everything. It was reduced down into a particular uh…um…uh…uh, philosophical argument. Well, so itself…itself’s sort of like, wow, I had no idea there was so much motive in that…in that thing.

CHRIS: So you think that particular Epistemology is fraught with problems then? I mean….I…I…I…

DOUG: Yeah, I think, I…I think that, that when someone, yeah, I mean, I…I think there were a number of things going on there, but…but I think the idea that…that you equate truth with absolute…

CHRIS: Mm hmmm.

DOUG: …is to minimize truth.

CHRIS: Okay. So…

DOUG: Plus, then you’ve just used the word absolute, right?

CHRIS: Right…

DOUG: … the truth has to have a meaning. It doesn’t just equal, right? It’s not a synonym…absolute is not a synonym and that’s what they said there is that it was…

CHRIS: Mm hmmm.

DOUG: …and this is the kind of thing that goes on and on, and I have people uh… pestering at me, bickering at me all the time, about um…wanting to know what I think about absolutes and really not wanting to hear much about what I think about truth…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …almost as if they believe the same thing…that truth is this …is a…is absolute…like they’re…they’re synonyms to one another

CHRIS: But, look…

DOUG: …and people speak about them as if they are.

CHRIS: Yeah…uh…help me get where the boundaries are here. Um…you know, for instance…you know, I’m looking at the train analogy here… facts, faith and feelings and you know, let’s…let’s take it down to a…you know, a grade school analogy here… um…it doesn’t matter if I feel that two plus two equals 97…um… isn’t it absolutely true that it equals four?

DOUG: Well, yeah…uh…yeah, it’s true…it equals four, yes…inside of, you know, with… if…if math rules have any meaning…

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: …then yes, it equals four…

CHRIS: Right.

DOUG: …of…of course. But, that’s…that’s contingent… it’s not absolutely tru…I mean… it’s…it’s…it’s probably improper grammar, but it might even be something more. It’s like when I get on an airplane and the…and the flight attendant says, “Um…everybody, we need you to put one bag underneath your seat in front of you and one in the overhead carrier because we have a very full flight.”

CHRIS: You must fly Southwest (laughs).

DOUG: Well…well the…the…the word full shouldn’t be qualified with the word very. It’s either full or it’s not. Now, I get the point that she’s making. She’s…she’s um…she’s accentuating the idea that it really, really is full…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …but that’s just…that’s a colloquialism, that’s not actually a statement of reality…very full.

CHRIS: So you’re using some pretty…pretty tight theological…not theological, but uh…Epistemological precision here in the language. You…you…you don’t…and…you don’t think modifiers like absolute…or what was uh… Francis Schaeffer’s “truly true”, you know…

DOUG: “True truth”…or something like that…yeah.

CHRIS: …“true truth”…that those…those are not…those are not uh…helpful in…in…in…

DOUG: No, no…they’re, they’re quite helpful, but they’re helpful as rhetoric.

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: They’re…they’re… they’re helpful to make a point. They’re…they’re…they’re…they’re helpful as flavor. They’re not…they’re not accurate. And…and I mean, look we all do it all the time…you know, I just did it right there. We all do it all the time. And anybody listening knows what I mean by that and they probably shouldn’t stop and parse that out and go, “Well people who don’t have the capacity to speak don’t do it all the time so you’re a liar,” right?

CHRIS: (Laughs)

DOUG: That’s not what…that’s not how language functions…

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: …but a document like this, that’s not using a…a…a helpful colloquialism or a helpful stress…stressor…it’s…it’s…it’s not using a…um…a…a…a simple, you know, modifier. It’s actually saying truth is absolute. Now that…d…doing something then…I…I haven’t…you know, I didn’t spend a lot of time in this chapter or anywhere else around that issue…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …I just know that…that is a really big deal for a lot of people, and they, if someone then says, “Look, in philosophical terms…absolutes are an…an improper description”, because you…you don’t use them when you’re talking about philosophy.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …it functions differently — it becomes a technical term, right? And when you start using a…a technical term in non-technical ways…there’s nothing wrong with that, unless you try to make a technical point. So…so I…I don’t know if that’s what these guys were particularly doing. I think rather what they were trying to do is trying to help me understand that “Look, the promise God made, God’s going to be faithful to His promise.”

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Now, here’s what I would have loved to have seen written on the top of the page…was…“God’s going to fulfill the promise that…that God…that He made…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …God’s going to come through. God’s not a liar.” I’m all for that!

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: That’s not what this says. Now, to some people this is shorthand for that. So, they look at it and they go, “Oh, I gotcha”. It’s shorthand…truth equals absolute is shorthand for God’s not a liar…you can trust God…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …but for other people it’s not shorthand, right? It’s saying something else. And what I’m trying to do in the book is to help people understand that maybe your frustration with Christianity is that other people have been using shorthand and you didn’t know it. And so, give them the benefit of the doubt and give Christianity another look if you have felt that you have been — as my title is – left out, left behind or let down…

CHRIS: Okay, so…

DOUG: …so, that’s where I’m going with all of that.

CHRIS: Okay, so let me…let me ask a follow-up question, then. You know, I…I want to come back to what you had talked about why you wrote the book. One of the phrases I hear you, and Tony Jones and McLaren talk about is finding that…you know, where God is acting in the world and getting, getting behind it or getting involved. How do you know when God is acting in the world?

DOUG: Oh, it ????…my own experience, there are…there are so many indicators that help you with that.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: Some of it is to know the…the…the story that we’re involved in uh…the…the story that we’ve…that we’ve read, uh…that we’ve lived. Some of it is that the Scripture itself that would indicate that. Some of it is an act of the Spirit on an individual’s will and an individual’s sensibility. Some of it is…is just recognizing from…from God’s presence in us that there’s a…there’s a…a presence of God in the world. So, there are so many ways and I think that many of the ways um…you know, that work for me don’t work for another person, and some of the ways that work for one uh…don’t necessarily work for me. So, I…I am…I am more convinced than ever that God is…is involved in the world and…and…most of the time…all the time…like, to…to…to try to find places where God’s not involved in the world would be…have to be the task as opposed to where God is involved in the world.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: And I know that’s different for some people. Some people think that God’s involvement in the world is very limited; and you would go around…you know,…like a…like a butterfly hunter trying to find that very special butterfly…and scouring the earth’s surface trying to come up with the place where God’s involved…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Um…I think the…the…the Scriptures uh… teach us that God’s activity in the world bounds from…you know…if there was…an end to an end…you know?

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Uh…and…and there’s no…there’s no way to get…to get away from it…that the…the presence…that the earth is the presence of the Lord. And…and so…yeah, I…I…I…I just think that…that how we find God’s activity in the world um…is…is informed by so many of the…the…the Christian practices, so many of the…of the Scriptures that are helpful in that way to guide us and direct us and so much of the active work of the Spirit in the world today.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: You…you know…and…and…the…the larger point of this…of this…of this chapter in the book, is not so much to pick on the…the fact, faith and feeling construction…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …it’s more to pick on the use of generic descriptions being applied to individual people’s lives.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: The…the bigger struggle that I have is not that someone should write a better tract. The issue I have is with the use of tracts. Right? I…I think what we ha…what a…a better way forward is to…to use the…the full…let me borrow a bible phrase…the full counsel of Scripture….use the full story of…of…of Genesis through Revelation, and to help people find their own story inside that larger context rather than to create a third party application of a tract and say, “Think about it in these terms.” I mean, I…I just happen to love the bible so much. I think it’s so chock full of…of the kinds of…of directions and stories and instructions and… and uh…and…and prayer that we need, that very often we can find in an evangelistic, or in a discipleship, or an encouragement purpose, a story inside Scripture to…to find, a commonality with someone’s lived experience.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …that I’m more bothered by the idea that…that people like to outsource to these third party tracts. That’s…that’s the part that’s so befuddling to me.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: I mean, if you didn’t have the bible, I’d be all for it. But man, it’s so good, and rich, and full, um…I mean, it just seems like…that would…that should be the comparisons that we’re making for people not into these abstract uses of philosophical terms, or trains, or canyons, I mean…um…

CHRIS: What do you think of the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed?

DOUG: Yeah, I think they’re…I think they’re great and I…I think they function in much the way I’m getting at…they func…they function as these statements of, “We believe these things.”

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: But then they’re in a difficult place and I tried to write about this in the book. By the 3rd century…5th century…19th century…you have uh…such a cultural change that’s gone on that to simply use the Hebrew uh…or um… constructs of the Old Testament, didn’t fulfill the questions that people had from their own cultural environment that wasn’t Hebrew. Um…so you’re…whenever someone is explaining the bible…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …or explaining anything…you’re doing cultural translation.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: And so, I try to…to say, “Look, some of these people make cultural translations that to them worked and to me didn’t seem to work at all.”

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Uh, but that’s…that’s not to minimize the brilliance of that cultural explanation, but it is to name it as a cultural explanation. So I’m not saying if I used the bible as um…as the…the source material for illustrative connection with someone’s life, that somehow um…I…I now am not doing cultural translation. I am doing cultural translation. I’m just using the very story that I want people to be connected to as the source of that translation as opposed to…you know…skipping it altogether and just going straight on to…

CHRIS: Right, and you…and you bring that up in the book and, you know, you give an example…I…I…I think from an African tribe of…of how they…you know… they took the…the basics of…you know…the basic tenets of uh…the Christian faith that we believe teach and confess statements.

DOUG: Yeah…I did…the Malawi tribe.

CHRIS: Right, and they…and you…and they translated it into something that…that they could culturally apprehend…

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: ….and yet the uh…the statements of truth, in fact, as…as being taught in the Scripture were completely intact in the…in the example that you gave; even though it didn’t read like the Nicene Creed. Still, the truths behind it were the same. So…um…I mean…and I thought that that was a very great example, so my question is…you know…going back to the metaphor, metaphor um…you know…you…you have an issue with things being distilled down and…and you like the full narrative, and yet you sang the praises of a…of a culturally adapted Creed. And so I’m trying to figure out, “Where’s the boundaries here”? What…what exactly am I to understand that you’re suggesting could be done better for Christianity when you’re singing the praises of a Creed, which distills things down to pretty concise statements.

DOUG: Oh yeah…yeah. And…and…that’s…that’s a really insightful question; that’s…that’s…that’s a good one. Um…because…it…I’m not trying to say that the Creeds distill things down. In fact, I don’t think they do.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: I think the function of a Creed was to open things up. Wh…if you look at the history of why Creeds are…were utilized, it was because there was division within the church. And the function of the Creed was to say, “We have a lot of things we disagree about, but we all hold together to these things”. So it was an act of commonality, not an act of distilling down. So, it was saying, “Of all of the things that we have, we held these in common”. It was an act of commonality, not an act of distilling them down. And so, that’s why I think that the Creeds function differently — I would say — than a modern day statement of faith. A modern day statement of faith is trying to say, “We believe these things as in contrast to that guy over there who believes that thing”. But a Creed was trying to say, “There’s a lot of disagreement about these things, but here’s what we know we do hold to”. And it was never meant to be the end of the conversation…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …it was meant to be a coming together so the conversation could continue.

CHRIS: Well, let me ask you this…if I’m an Arian…and back in the 4th century…

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: …and the Nicene Creed is…is published…

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: …and I still believe that Jesus isn’t God…isn’t…you know…God, but I believe that he’s a god-like being, it just sounds like I’ve been excluded from the Christian community. What am I to do? What am I to make of that Creed?

DOUG: Well, it’s a bit of a hypothetical for both of us, I guess. I guess it depends on what kind of an Arian you are, right?

CHRIS: (Laughs)

DOUG: Um…but, the…the…the function of it then was to…to try to include all who could possibly be included in…in the faith. It wasn’t meant to say, “We want those guys out”. Now, I think guys like Augustine did that. I think that there were certain writers and there were certain theologians who did it; but the function of the Creeds themselves was not to do that. And I think that people took those Creeds and they used them in ways that they shouldn’t have, but that wasn’t the function of the Creed. So this is where it‘s a little hard to say, “How did people of certain traditions use those Creeds differs from the functionality of the Creed?”

(MUSIC)

CHRIS: Alright, we’re going to take a break here…pause the interview. If you would like to email me regarding your thoughts and ideas about what you’ve hear…heard today in today’s interview with Doug Pagitt, you can do so by emailing me at talkback@fightingforthefaith.com…that’s talkback@fightingforthefaith.com And we’ll be right back.

(MUSIC)

(COMMERCIALS)

CHRIS: Alright, you’re listening to Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough and we’re in the middle of uh…an interview that I did yesterday with Doug Pagitt. Pastor Doug Pagitt of Solomon’s Porch…Doug Pagitt of the Emergent Church Movement…author of the book, “A Christianity Worth Believing”. So far have you heard a Christianity that’s uh…worth believing? Has what you heard been true, biblically? That’s for you to decide. So, today I’m not giving much commentary. I really want to get this out to ya’ll. And uh…would love to hear back your thoughts on what you’ve heard Doug Pagitt say. And uh…you can do so by emailing me at talkback@fightingforthefaith.com… that’s talkback@fightingforthefaith.com .

And without any further adieu, we’re going to dive right back into our interview with uh…Doug Pagitt of the Emergent Church.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …but again that’s…uh…that’s not the argument that I was trying to make in the book.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: The argument I’m trying to make in the book is, “Hey, um…uh…recognize that…you know…if your grandma, or your friend, or…your pastor at your church was really uh…uh…pushing a particular view on you…that’s…that’s their prerogative to do…don’t give up on the faith because of it.

CHRIS: Okay. You had said that uh…that if…you wouldn’t have had a problem if at the top of it, rather than saying, “Truth is absolute,” if it had said something to the affect of…you know…”God is going to keep His promises”.

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: What do you believe to be the promises of God?

DOUG: Well, I didn’t exactly say I wouldn’t have had a problem with it, I said that it would have been better to me that way.

CHRIS: Okay, well…

DOUG: I probably still would have struggled with the whole…you know…the train business.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: Um…

CHRIS: So…what are…what are those promises that you…you…you would have struggled less with?

DOUG: Well…well there…there…I mean…there’s a bible full of them.

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: Um…and so…

CHRIS: What do you consider to be the primary and central promises of Scripture?

DOUG: I don’t do that with promises. See…see and this might be a different epistemological approach that we take. I…I don’t think when you take truth you say, “Well, here’s the primary one and here’s the secondary one”.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: I don’t think there’s anything secondary about a promise of God, so…so they all count. And that’s…that’s…and maybe that’s what you’re hearing when you said you’ve heard things from people like me and Brian and Tony and others. Um…we’re talking about the narrative — it’s just what’s being left out — you know…I try to push that in the chapter on the bible.

CHRIS: Right.

DOUG: Um…to try to say, “You know…look, if…if you memorize 300 bible verses like I did…you know…good for me and good for you, but it’s 1% of the verses in the bible, there’s 99% that you haven’t memorized”. And I think that’s really important. And I don’t…I don’t feel very comfortable with this idea that there are some promises of God that are…that are central and other ones that are tangential I mean…if I heard someone saying that, the first thing that would pop to my head, “Well who are you to decide which ones are primary and which ones are tangential?”

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: So, I…the…the question itself sort of begins with a level of comfort, that…that I don’t…I don’t possess.

CHRIS: Okay, that’s fair enough. Um…let me…let me circle back then. Um…you know…coming back to like, uh…Paul’s writing uh…his Epistle to the uh… Corinthians…1 Corinthians. He says that he chose to know nothing among them except for Christ in him crucified. And then in Chapter 15, he reminds them of the Gospel that he preached.

DOUG: Mm hmm.

CHRIS: Um…how…how do you define the Gospel?

(Long silence)

CHRIS: It’s Good News…but, what I mean…what’s… it’s…what’s the bad news? What’s the good news? I mean…how did the…what’s the interplay between them? And why is, you know…if the Gospel is a…a message that’s important enough to be uh…passed along in the Christian tradition and Paul even in Galatians says that, “If somebody preaches a different gospel, let them be in Athema”…

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: …you know…that…it seems to me that there’s a certain level of importance regarding…

DOUG: And that’s what I try to do in the whole book, right? Is I try to explain this is what the Gospel is…

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: But…but that…but the idea that somehow that’s a statement…

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: …is…is again, maybe it gets back to this same root of this kind of Epistemological attitude, that there would be a statement would be better or one part of it would be more appealing or more accurate to what the Gospel is than another. I just don’t think we should be competing one part of the…of the Gospel story against another part.

So the Gospel story is…is creation, and regeneration, and fulfillment, and reconciliation, and feeling, and beauty. It’s all of these things…the…the…the…the Gospel of God is…is Jesus. The Gospel of God is the life of…of people who live that Gospel afterward. And there are going to be a whole series of statements that are gonna’…that are gonna’ make that up, but to pick one or two of those statements over the others…I. First off, I think would be a misreading of what Paul was trying to get at. I mean, I think if Paul heard someone say, “Um…well…hey, you know…boil that…forget everything else you read or don’t worry about the rest of what Paul wrote…I’ll just give you this one line and this is really what Paul was getting at as the Gospel…um…well I’m not sure he’d be comfortable with that.

DOUG: Um…so…so I think that…that the…the Gospel is this living, beautiful good news that always um…strikes at the heart of where someone finds themselves. So when someone um…uh…feels that…that God is there…is…is working against them…to hear that they are loved by God and they are the beloved one and that…and that God loves so much that He gave His son; that rings as Gospel truth. And when somebody else hears that um…that they should not um…uh…love only those who are like them and only be kind to those who are like them in the…like Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount; that they have to love God, themselves and their enemy; that that’s gospel, that these are all Gospel.

And so…so…you know…I mean, I…I kinda’ get picked on sometimes by some people on the Internet who…who like to write blogs when…when I try to argue that this…the bible is the smallest version we should ever have of the written story. Like, that’s as reduced as it should get.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: You get any more reduced than that, and I think you’re leaving out some really important pieces of this whole thing. So, when I hear “Essentials of the Gospel,” I hear the entire Scriptures, and the life of the people who’ve lived that…uh…that…that…that Gospel call. So for me, the Gospel is: Scriptures, and Jesus, and the Spirit active and working today, and God’s uh…reconciliation and His healing and blessing of the world. That’s gospel.

CHRIS: Okay. Fair enough. Um….one of the things I found myself resonating with um…in your book, was your critique on how people use the bible. And particularly…you’d already talked about this in our interview here, but I wan…I want to flesh this out a little bit…of how people will take…you know…get a little box of 300 bible verses…you know…put them on their mirror while they’re shaving and…and…and memorize verses completely out of context.

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: Um …uh…I thought that what you had to say there was actually very helpful and useful, and actually resonated with me, because one of my pet peeves when uh…people quote to me bible verses out of context it’s like, “Do you even know what that says if you were to put it back into the narrative?”

DOUG: Right.

CHRIS: And so, um…I thought that that was a…a very…a very helpful uh…piece of it, and so I would actually agree with what you had to say there. But, uh…one of the things you took issue with though, is…is that you said that uh… you don’t like it when people use the bible as a weapon.

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: Can you explain what you mean by that?

DOUG: Yeah…well…um…there’s…you know…there’s this one passage where Paul’s describing the…the…the Christian engagement with the…with the Spirit and he…and he uses a phrase that…that…that you’re…you’re to guard yourself with: the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, and the…and the shoes of peace…uh…I think I’m missing one in there…and the sword of the Spirit.

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: Um…and so, people then have taken that…and it’s…it’s…it’s the sword of the Spirit “comma”, which is…which is the Word of God. And that…um…so then people take that to mean the Words of God, which is…is a little pet peeve of mine, but anyway…um…to take it to mean the bible. And then they use the bible…they would say, as something to uh…be an offensive weapon to a-attack other people and to try to um…devour. Um…and you know and it also gets partnered with…with the other…the other passage where…where Paul says um… to Timothy, um…”The…the…the Word of God is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword and able to separate you know…that which can’t be separated,” to paraphrase.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Um…so it’s…you know…its sharp like that. But again, that’s…that’s…and then it gets taken into our day and people end up saying, “Well, if you’re offended by the bible, okay”, you know? And I should pull this out and I’ll use it like this weapon and…and you put that together with people with a quick wit and a sharp tongue, and all of the sudden you have people using the bible in ways to bring about um…uh…frustration, and disagreements, and gossip, and slander in ways that uh…I…think work so counter to work against…so much of what’s um…what the…the…function of the…the bible is, which is to help people to live a godly life; and to help them know how they can function in their life so that they can participate in God’s hopes, dreams and…and imagination for the world.

CHRIS: Okay, so um…let me ask you…I…I want to find…find exactly what you’re talking about here. I mean…I think we all think of examples of people that we know, and I can even talk…talk about times when I’ve done it myself…um… sharp tongue…sharp wit…bad mood…bad combo if uh…somebody disagrees with uh…the theology…with theology that I understand. But is there…is there um…a proper use of Scripture to correct theological and doctrinal error?

DOUG: Oh yeah, yeah.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: Its prime function is for correction, teaching, and training in righteousness. Yeah, for sure (laughing)…

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: …for sure. Uh…

CHRIS: So what…when you’re talking about it being used as a weapon, you’re not talking about somebody who carefully says, “You know I understand that you think that God is a toasted cheese sandwich deity who lives just beyond the rings of Saturn, but the bible doesn’t say that…let me show what Scripture does tell us about God.”

DOUG: Yeah…I…yeah…I mean, I guess that would work for somebody…I…I just…I mean…all the people who I know who believe things that are so…you know…so…so much in the camp that you’ve described there…you know… toasted cheese sandwich outside the rings of Saturn…um…tend not to give the bible very much credence in the first place.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Which is part of the point I try to make in that chapter, which is, “Look, people believe the bible because they believe that it’s from God”. So they’re really giving authority to God, which is the right thing. I just don’t know anybody who…who in their right mind say, “Well, I don’t really have much thought about your God, but your bible, boy, that…I’m really gonna’ listen to that thing.”

CHRIS: (Laughs)

DOUG: Um…which is…that’s…it would be so bizarre and…and…and counter to the…counter to the Scripture itself…and…you know…it’s um…I mean, we’re not supposed to worship the bible, and…uh…you know…I have some friends who say that people they hang around with talk about our…our Trinity as the Father, Son and Holy Scriptures.

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: Um…and I’m not sure that’s…that’s…that’s the way to take it. So, so I don’t even know that u…that…that using the bible in that kind of way…like to teach someone that their wrong about something if they don’t already give authority to the bible…

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: …I can’t imagine that working very well.

CHRIS: Well, uh….what about our Prosperity uh…friends? You know the…on…on…

DOUG: Well, that’s a different story because they give authority to the bible.

CHRIS: Yeah, they give authority to the bible, and yet they’ve…they’ve turned the Scriptures into some kind of a…you just gotta’ understand the proper principles…apply them to your life…claim the right things and…and you’ll have health and prosperity. I mean…uh…you…you think that’s a…a misuse of God’s word?

DOUG: (Long pause) Oh, yeah…yeah…I do, but…you know…but…but…and I don’t want to just pick on them, right? I think anybody who…I…I use misuse of God’s word in a very generous way. Meaning, if someone interprets it wrongly or expresses it wrongly, or…or…or um…uh…puts an accent on a place where the accent wasn’t meant to be…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …that they’ve used it in a way that it wasn’t intended to be used, for sure. So, that’s a misuse.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: Um…but, the greater reason that people do that is because they have a cultural or culturally created understanding of what God’s all about….

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: …and then they’re using the bible to reinforce that…

CHRIS: I…I think in…

DOUG: …and that’s a struggle we all have…we all

CHRIS: Right. And I think in the case of the Prosperity Gospel, I think you…you’ve probably…you’ve got the right order there. I…I see…the Prosperity Gospel as a very uniquely American phenomenon as — at least in its creation – it…it…it addresses American uh….capitalistic uh…issues and desires pretty…pretty straightforwardly.

DOUG: Yeah…yeah…uh maybe. I mean…my…my experience with…with Prosperity theology has been far more in developing countries than in the United States…

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: …because I don’t spend a lot of time within the United States.

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: But, quite powerful and the…and the most prevalent expression of Christianity in Africa…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …and Central America. So I don’t know that it’s distinctly that…but…but…but…I…what I’m…what I try to point out regularly when I can is, “O-o-okay look…yeah in Pentecostalism — especially Prosperity Theology Pentecostalism – it’s easy to trace that back to it’s cultural roots and you can see where it comes from and you can…you can put the pieces back together, you know?

But, you can also do that with Reformed Theology. Like I…look…God…God bless the Reformers, and I’m not trying to a thing away from the great contribution they’ve made to faith, but their organization of understanding Scripture came out of a cultural understanding of the world that they brought to the Scriptures, not that they got from it. So, when as soon as one group says, “Well, those guys over there”…you know…do a John McCain, “That guy over there”…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …what he’s doing, is he’s starting with his culture, but what I’m doing, is I’m starting with Scripture. That’s (laughs) first off, it’s rude. Secondly, it’s so inaccurate…it’s not true either. We all start with a set of presuppositions. And, what we ought to do is say, we start with a set of presuppositions, and the larger community of faith or those people that we see from other traditions and the Scripture, should teach us and correct us when we have gotten it wrong because of the presuppositions we’ve brought to it. And anybody – in my view – anybody who thinks that they’re beyond that…that they’re culturally neutral when it comes to reading the bible, I think that’s the real, fatal flaw…because they’re not.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: And all the rest of us know that they’re not.

CHRIS: Let me…let me…uh…

DOUG: So, when they talk like they are whether they be the Reformers, or the Orthodox, or the Hasidic Jews, or the Pentecostals, or Emergent types, or you know, Independent, Fundamentalist Baptist whatever’s…I…when people say, “I’m neutral…it’s just the bible…not me,” that’s…that’s like the that’s…that’s just…just beyond the pale. It’s so…so not right.

CHRIS: Have you read uh…C.S. Lewis’ uh…he…there was back in the late 40’s, early 50’s uh…there was a…a publishing house that published a translation of Athanasious’ uh…“Why the God Men”. And…um…and Lewis wrote the introduction to it; and it’s a fine little essay called uh…uh…“The Importance of Reading Old Books.”

DOUG: Oh? No.

CHRIS: And…and uh…Lewis basically uses this analogy and this metaphor. He says that um…”Fish cannot see the water that they’re swimming in”…

DOUG: Right.

CHRIS: And so what happens is, is that each century, each generation has its own set of…of things that it can’t see because they’re just assumed questions. Um…that…you know…it’s… it’s like furniture in your house. You don’t see it because it’s there the whole time…

DOUG: Yes.

CHRIS: …but the furniture moves from century to century to century. And so, he makes a very strong case, in…you know…in that little essay on the importance of reading old books, ‘cause the questions in the 3rd Century are different than the questions in the 2nd Century…

DOUG: Right.

CHRIS: …in the 19th Century…the 20th Century…and even at the time of the Reformers. I…you know, personally I…I don’t have a problem with saying, “Yeah, there’s definitely cultural influences that are going to affect the lenses that I…that I wear when I’m reading the bible”. And one of the ways in overcoming that is by looking at the uh…the…the Christian writings in history through the Millennia instead of just the latest books that have come out, because those are gonna’ all have the same set of assumptions that I have right now.

DOUG: Mm hmm.

CHRIS: And so I…you know…I…I think that it’s…I think you’re right in the sense of saying that, “Yes, there’s cultural influence”. The question I would have is…is…that okay, let’s go back to the Reformers. There’s definitely cultural influence that plays in their biblical interpretation. The question I have is, has that…that culture influence distorted their reading of Scripture so that they’re not conveying it’s meaning accurately, and can you give an example?

DOUG: Yeah, I think sometimes it is…yeah…for sure. Um…I think some of their view of God and…and how they would articulate an understanding of God and the…the…the character and the nature of God, um…definitely does. I think that there’s certain Reformers who had certain views about government, and about the role of women in government and the role of women in society that influenced their reading of Scripture. I think that there’s uh…their…their understanding and their teaching about Scripture when it has to do with the cosmos; that was uh… influenced by the fact that they understood the earth to be a flat disc covered by a dome even…even as late as some of the later Reformers, but they didn’t know what to do about um…how to understand Scripture in light of a…of…of a changing cosmology.

DOUG: So, yeah…for sure…they do. I mean…yeah, and there’s times where those teachings…um…and…you know insight… the great thing about the Reformation, it’s not a single stroke, right? It’s uh…it spans uh…a couple hundred years…350 years…spans different countries, different languages and whole different theological positions.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: So, whether you’re talking about a Calvinist, or Zwingli, or…or a Luther, you’re…you’re talking about people with really different views from one another…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …Right? So, depending on who your favorite Reformer is …you know…I’m in Lutheran land, here and so when we say reformer around here it tends to mean…um…you know…Martin Luther. Uh, well, Martin Luther had some views on things that I think were quite distorted, for sure. And I think John Calvin had some views on things…and…and you know…Doug Pagitt has some views on things that are quite distorted. So, I’m hoping that the community of faith stays alive long enough to root those out of the system because I wasn’t able to see them for myself. That’s not a fatal flaw to the other good things that I have to say…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …And the…and also it’s the other good things Reformers have to say. It ought not be seen as a fatal flaw.

CHRIS: Alright, this will be our last question because I gotta’…I gotta’ watch my time and yours here. Uh…there’s a…

DOUG: Yeah, cause I’m paying for the call. (Laughing)

CHRIS: (Laughing) I can’t believe I talked you into coming on my show and paying for the call, you know…I…

DOUG: (Laughing) Well, of course I’d come on your show.

CHRIS: (Laughs)

DOUG: But…but…you know I’m… I’m recording this myself and I’d love to be able to use it on my own little Podcast, if you don’t mind.

CHRIS: I’d be happy to send you a clean MP3 so that you can uh…use it cleanly, if you’d like.

DOUG: Sure.

CHRIS: Um…here’s…uh…here’s my next question then for you. Um…there’s been a…you’ve obviously…the Emergent Church is a…you know…there’s a lot of discussion and debate and uh…going on about the Emergent Church. And Pyromaniacs uh…you know…they…they have what they call the Po-Motivational Posters, and they recently did one of you. And it had to do with uh…Platonic thinking and the claim is, is that….uh… whenever somebody disagrees with you, you call them Platonic, but you’re not sure what that means, but…

DOUG: (Laughing). Yeah, that’d be a good one, wouldn’t it?

CHRIS: Yeah.

DOUG: Hey, what kind of question is that…are you some kind of Platonist? (Laughs)

CHRIS: (Laughs) …are you some kind of Platonist…What’s funny is I’ve heard you use it, but uh…it wasn’t until I read your book that I really began to understand where…what direction you’re trying to come from there. And, uh…according to you in your book there’s this…there’s this dualistic way of thinking that has crept into…into Christianity, according to you, that came about as a result when Christianity goes from being uh…uh…something that’s primarily of a Hebrew tradition and…and is adopted and sucked up into Greek culture. Can you explain that?

DOUG: Yeah, and that’s a…you know…and…and that’s good point…it’s a little inaccurate in my book. I mean…the…the…the difficulty of a populist book like this, is that I have to take some broad sweeps sometimes.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Um…Judaism had felt some deep effects of…of Platonic thought itself. In fact, um…many would argue that the Sadducees were…were…were influenced greatly by Platonic thought into the first century of Jesus. But what I…what I was trying to argue was that the…the Jesus narrative that we read is deeply rooted in…in Old Testament vision and in an Isaiah the Prophet…you know… like, Jesus functions in this Isaiah the Prophet-like role. So, He quotes Isaiah a lot, He opens the scroll — the way Luke tells it — in the synagogue and finds the part where it says in Isaiah, um…“the Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the poor,” and so, He’s taking on an Isaiah-like…like a…a…a mantle; and so it’s functioning that way inside of the Jewish community. And within a few hundred years, there’s a different set of questions being faced by Christian people.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: And that…in the early centuries the question was, “What’s God’s participation in the world for…for Jesus”? To Greek-thinking people and I …I go sorta’ broad…and I…I guarantee you I’ve gotten emails from people who are Greeks and they tell me, “That’s not just Greeks”, it’s like, “Okay, so, I get it”. So, in the broad sense of things Gentiles use Paul’s kind of language — the Greeks and…and the Hebrews…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: …that’s the Gentile — had a different cultural orientation around um….uh…the…the…the functionality of human beings and God. And so, I try to argue that some of the reason why we’ve ended up with a kind of Christianity that ends up being um…dualistic, meaning separating spirit from body to such a degree that we have in Christianity today, can be taken back to when Christianity made a move to not only make sense to the Hebrews, but to also make sense to the Gentiles and the Greeks.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: And the Gentiles and the Greeks had a very complicated set of issues. I…in the book, I sort of grab all those together into one little bag and call it “Greek Thoughts” and…you know…pick a couple of names in the telling of this story so people would…you know…click into somewhere in their…in their…you know…maybe in their World Civ class, and can sort of recall some of this. So, it’s accurate, but it’s not meant to be a precise reading of the distinction between Aristotelian dualism and Platonic dualism.

CHRIS: Okay. So,

DOUG: Which I’m not doing it. Now there’s some people…those Pyromaniac kids over there, they’re just big into that ‘cause they’re proud to be Platonists…you know…they’re…they’re proud to be Ari…Aristotelian.

CHRIS: (Laughs)

DOUG: And you know, I’m like, “Good for you”! But your version? It doesn’t work for most people in the world.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: Your…your version? It’s the problem to many of us…not the help. So, so we kinda’ bicker back and forth and they must have a lot of time on their hands ‘cause they make little posters…

CHRIS: Alright. (Laughs)

DOUG: But, anyway, that’s…that’s…that’s where I was going with it.

CHRIS: Okay, I…I…I get it…so, um…the…so basically, you make the claim that this…this sharp dualism that exists kind…is…is this idea that the matter in the flesh is somehow evil and bad and the spirit is good; which you identify is a Gnostic notion, not a Christian notion.

DOUG: Yes.

CHRIS: Okay. So uh…and you believe that this dualistic thinking…it still permeates uh…the church and…and the Christian community and uh…and so…when…whenever you call somebody a Platonist, you’re trying to point out the fact that they’re engaging in some kind of a…of a dualism that uh…that isn’t really necessarily biblical?

DOUG: Yes. Well and…but I…you know….honest to goodness I don’t know that I’ve ever called somebody a Platonist. I had one conversation with Todd Friel where he was trying to ask me about heaven as a place. And I said, “Todd it sounds to me like you’re using whole categories that aren’t of interest to me. You’re using categories of heaven as a place rather than a reality, and I just don’t…that…that…that comes from a particular Greek orientation…that there is a location.” And this get complicated, but he brought up complicated issues, right?

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: And so…it…it’s…it…to most people’s minds…you know….grandma went to a place. But, then they…you ask them for a minute, what kind of a place does a soul go to?

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: You know, like…is there a boundary to it? Is there a wall? And, you know…and see, people know that that’s not how it…how it really goes, they just use that as the…the quick and the shorthand.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: And then some people actually believe that. They actually believe that the soul will be…will be separated from the body, and will live on in a soul existence. And I think that that’s as close to Platonic dualism as you get. And I think guys like Todd hold to that…

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: … and it’s shocking to me because we are Resurrection people. What we hold to is the Resurrection of the body not the…not the…the…d-departure of the soul from the body.

CHRIS: Well, let me…

DOUG: And I know, that…you know…all the sudden…you know…like…these people all think that people like me don’t care about the bible, you know?

CHRIS: Uh huh.

DOUG: I do care about the bible. And what I’m going to continue to proclaim is the Resurrection…not the separation of the soul, which will then will be freed from its chains of this…you know…mortal body. Now, the problem is that in certain parts of the bible, you hear that very kind of language.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Right? I mean…anybody who has studied the writings of Paul knows that Paul bounced back and forth, and somehow in his head held these two things together in a way that…you know…I…I haven’t been unable to wrap…wrap my head around, so and I don’t think he’s expecting me to…I think he’s…you know…he wasn’t thinking about me in the…in the uh…when he was writing…

CHRIS: Well, I mean…definitely the bible’s not about you, Doug. (Laughs)

DOUG: The bible’s what?

CHRIS: It’s not about you.

DOUG: Yeah, right (Laughs)

CHRIS: Um…Paul did…did say…you know…I…my question is, do you believe in an intermediate state? You know Paul said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”.

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: Um…I mean…

DOUG: But, I think what Paul’s getting at there…I think Paul would also say, “To be in the body is to be present with the Lord”.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: So, I don’t think he’s saying that, “In the body you’re not present with the Lord — after the body you are present with the Lord”.

CHRIS: No…I…I…

DOUG: I think what he’s trying to say is, “It doesn’t matter if you’re in the body or out of the body”. I think his argument there is to say, “All these questions that we all have about how all this stuff works, here’s what we know. You’re gonna’ be present with God”. That’s…that’s the Good News, right? He’s not trying to say…make some statement about the…the ordering of…of intermittent afterlife stages.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: It’s just…holy moly…if that’s what he’s getting at in the middle of writing…the you know…this…this Epistle…this…this encouragement…this blessing to these people and…and that’s what he’s getting at, is he really…now he wants to pause for a minute and make a statement about the…the nature of cosmology as it relates to the human soul? N-no he’s not. And so when someone does it with…takes those passages and creates that…that’s fine. They can say, “This is my source material and now it’s me talking”, but they don’t get to say, “The Apostle Paul says such and such”, if that isn’t what he said.

CHRIS: Well then, here’s my question for you, Doug. If uh…if the Lord should tarry and uh…you…you…you crump sometime in the next 50 years…um…

DOUG: (Laughing)

CHRIS: …which is more than likely for us because I think you and I are both in our forties. By the way, I was really jealous of your blog pictures of your uh… your trip to France…um…it wasn’t right…that just…

DOUG: It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. I just showed the pictures the other day and I’m jealous of myself.

CHRIS: That was just not right.

DOUG: I mean what kind of guy gets to go and stay in a villa on the French Riviera?

CHRIS: I’m staying in Schaumburg, Illinois.

DOUG: Dude, I’ve…I’ve stayed probably at that…so…I’m…I’m…I’m…I’m with ya’.

CHRIS: (Laughing) Anyway, so uh…so when uh…when you die…okay…

DOUG: Mm hmm.

CHRIS: …is there an intermediate state…what is your understanding of…of… you know…what happens to somebody who experiences the separation of body and soul in a very violent act called death?

DOUG: Yeah…well…I…I think that…that we are present…that…that God’s presence, that God’s participation, that God’s care is existent now and will be existent when I take my last breath.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: And so, I think the Good News that we can proclaim is that we will not be abandoned and that Death will not be the victor.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: Now, how that all gets…you…you know…fettered out is…is probably speculation, well, most probably…I’ll…I’ll use that…It’s probably speculation beyond what anyone of us should put too much confidence in…

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: …outside of, God’s care for us is consistent.

CHRIS: Okay, so you’re pretty much an agnostic in that sense.

DOUG: (Pause) No, I just think that none of the versions that I’ve thought of or have heard seem like they’re gonna’ hold much water.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: I’m not an agnostic on it. I’m just…I…I don’t think there is one, yet. Um…I mean…and…and I’m not…I’m not overly torn by it. I mean…I try to write this chapter in the book about heaven and about this little boy whose…whose brother died…you know…just after birth. And…and…you know…the…the boy’s…you know…making statements that are to…that are to…meant to encourage his family and so I think we need to make all the statements we can make to help people understand the reality that God’s care for them will never be extinguished.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: So, if someone needs to say, “Your…your uncle crossed the pearly…the…the…the line of the pearly gates and stepped into the presence of God”, o-o-okay…say it…say…I mean…proclaim it…become poets. But, when people take the words of the poet that are meant to inspire and to teach truth and they turn it into exacting language of the engineer, that’s when I think we’ve done something funny.

CHRIS: Okay.

DOUG: And so, I’m all for…like I was just reading over the weekend um…the Book of Revelation in its similarity to the book of Isaiah.

CHRIS: Mm hmm.

DOUG: And man, it’s just…it…it… it’s awesome, right? Uh…but you know, you start pausing on some of those words and start doing some, you know…. Leary’s study, uh…connection…of you know…Thompson’s chain reference interlinking…and all of the sudden, you’re like…holy moly, I’ve just turned this thing into a math problem…you know…old school math not…not…not new math…. nothing beautiful….you know….

CHRIS: Right…

DOUG: …creative, beautiful…math.

CHRIS: Right…creative, beautiful math. (Laughs)

DOUG: Yeah.

CHRIS: Okay. Hey, Doug I’d like to thank you for uh… coming on our show.

DOUG: Well, it’s certainly my pleasure.

CHRIS: And uh…hopefully we’ll talk again in the future.

DOUG: Yeah. Anytime.

CHRIS: And thanks for paying for the phone call.

DOUG: …And good luck at the Reveal Now conference.

CHRIS: Alright, thank you.

Well, there you have it. What’d ya’ think? Do you agree with him? What do you think of his ideas? Email me: talkback@fightingforthefaith.com I’d love to hear what you have to say about this. Until next time, God bless you.