Pub Theology: Tradition vs Progress

Mitch has now officially become a pastor in the Uniting Church, and has the sweet wardrobe to prove it. In light of this Will, Hannah and Mitch have a discussion about the relationship between tradition and progress. How do we know what from the past is worth holding onto? How do we know if we’re actually making progress?

Plus the trio come up with a name for the metaphorical Spiritual Misfits pub. 

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Transcript

Will (05:37.261)
Welcome back everybody. Welcome to the pub. I feel like the spiritual misfits pub, even though it is just a pub that exists in our minds, like it's a collective metaphor, this pub that we meet at, it needs a great name. Do you have any suggestions that may have spiritual overtones, undertones, tones of any kind for the pub that we would open as the spiritual misfits?

mitch (06:30.829)
Have you guys seen that cool? Um, the cool meme with, you know, it's like an Aldi store or something. And like above the, the wine, it's got a tag that says water. And then someone's like, Jesus has been here. I really, I really like that. It's very cool. And it's like, yeah, every time I see that I just go, Oh, people are clever.

Hannah (06:44.066)
Yeah.

Will (06:45.545)
That's great.

Will (06:50.709)
Ha.

Hannah (06:53.118)
I couldn't think of a name because I think there is some, like, I have an aversion to bad Christian attempts at being cool. 

mitch (07:42.933)
Did I show you guys my, I can't remember if I sent them through, but my, my Halloween icons that I drew, like I drew these icons of saints for Halloween. And I put them on our, on our front fence. So we had like, you know, all this kind of house Halloween paraphernalia. And I decided to do this, to do saints. My, and my family was like feeling really awkward that I was just being way too, way too Christian. Yeah. I'd have to rep, I've got to rep for the team.

Hannah (08:05.55)
Well, you are a uniting minister now, so you just have to. That's right.

Will (08:05.706)
Way too Christian.

mitch (08:10.825)
Um, but I had, um, I did John the Baptist and the icon was his severed head on a plate, which I thought was like just freaking amazing. So I drew this severed head on a plate. And then I, like, then I had a quote from, I think it was at Matthew's gospel. It was like, you brood of vipers who told you to flee from the coming wrath. Right. And I was like, this is like, this is epic Halloween material. And my, my daughter, Lara and all my kids, but Lara particular, she was like, Oh dad, you can't put it up. It's from the Bible.

Will (08:38.609)
Hahaha

mitch (08:40.085)
Anyway, I feel like Brood of Vipers, that's where this is going. That's a cool name for a pub, yeah, Brood of Vipers. 

Hannah (08:43.618)
Brood of Vipers, I like it. Vipers can't be spelled with a Z to make it extra cool, you know? I take spelling very seriously, so yeah. Brood of Vipers it is.

Will (08:44.609)
Brood of Vipers. I think that wins. Okay.  Welcome to Brood of Vipers. Um, and the, we have, we have, yes, the newly, the newly UCA'd, um, Mitch, Mitch Forbes. I don't know what the correct term is because will you down the track, I don't know, get ordained in that world in some way that you just, okay, sorry, just words. Um, to go back a second, since the last time you came on the podcast, you are officially in the UCA world and you've even sent us a picture of you in your sweet robes. Fill us in. What's happened? Where are you? 

mitch (09:35.685)
Yeah, well, I think, I think I'm, it's a bit, it is a bit tricky actually, because I think technically I have permission to serve in the Uniting Church. So I don't think I'm, I don't think I can call myself a Uniting Church minister. I think I'm still technically a Baptist minister. I don't know what happens when, you know, what happens like when, and if the meeting happens to like, you know, remove us all from the, um, from the fold, like thenI have permission to serve, but weren't like, you know, who am I at that point? You know, like where have I been given permission from? Does that make sense? Anyway, so I've been permission, I've got permission to serve in the Uniting Church as a Uniting Church minister. And I will, as of two days time, be employed by a Uniting Church, which is New Lambton Uniting Church. So I guess that makes me like, makes me a pastor in the Uniting Church. 

Hannah (10:31.534)
I think you need to insert clapping sound effect there. 

mitch (10:42.397)
Yeah, you know, I am, you alluded to it, but I have an alb. I bought an alb from an ex-Navy chaplain friend of mine. An alb. So, it's the... Hannah, you love spelling and I don't know how to spell simple words. I think so, Will.

Will (10:50.329)
Okay, sorry. What is the word you're using? An alb? Okay. Translate.

Hannah (10:55.406)
How is that spelled?

Will (11:01.493)
The beginning of albatross without the atross?

mitch (11:06.261)
I think so. I think it's just ALB. I think it's ALB. Yeah, alb. That's the robe, that's the robe I sent you through. So I'm wearing an alb and a stole. Stole, S-T-O-L-E, I'm pretty sure. Look that up as well, Hannah.

Hannah (11:07.522)
I'm going to look that up while you do this. Okay, you keep talking and I will verify.

Will (11:19.805)
Where'd you steal it from, mate? You're a minister. Do not steal. 

mitch (11:29.081)
No, I got my, I got my, yeah, I got my alb from Murray and then I got my stole from a good friend of ours, Will, Rod Pattenden, the Reverend, Reverend Doctor, Reverend Doctor Rod Pattenden. There was plenty to choose from. I chose a particularly funky one. If anyone was coming to New Lambton on Sunday afternoon, you can see me in it.

Hannah (11:29.278)
It is spelled ALB just for, yeah, just clarifying.

Will (11:33.29)
Yeah, okay.

Will (11:43.085)
Shout out Rod.

Will (11:55.318)
So good.

mitch (11:58.71)
When Kristin first saw me in it, she was like, I don’t think I will ever be able to see you as an object of desire again.

mitch (12:06.626)
She's really... And I think she's serious. She's been very cold to me since.

Hannah (12:07.042)
Hahaha. Your wife is the best.

Will (12:15.993)
Even with the stole?

mitch (12:18.548)
I thought the stole lifted it. Because this is one of the things that Rod was telling me is that..Rod's telling me because he was wearing the alb, he like, and because he's clever and he's an artist and he knows how to make beautiful things, the way that he would show individuality and stuff was to make these stoles. And like, man, this made me feel so inadequate because he's standing there and he's like, he's putting them on, he's showing me. And then he would like recount how he'd used them in sermons and like the message that he was giving from them and stuff. And I was like, man, this guy's clever. Like, he's doing, like he's doing prop bits. I'm just getting up there going, blah, blah. Jesus.

Will (13:01.331)
Oh, don't sell yourself short, man. Multiple people messaged me saying how much they appreciated Mitch reads the Bible.

Hannah (13:07.798)
Mitch reads the Bible was the best.

Will (13:09.933)
And we also had feedback saying how good Hannah's interrogation, I don't know if that's the right word, but Hannah's honest questions back to Mitch Reads the Bible was appreciated.

Hannah (13:22.294)
Oh, thanks listeners. That's very kind.

mitch (13:25.265)
Very kind listeners. The reason why we come back, we love the listeners. No, that's true.

Will (13:26.538)
We love the listeners. 

That's the reason we'd probably, we'd be doing this anyway. And particularly as we know, the pub theology episodes, as we all know, including you listeners, we're not, we're not here to receive any great thought out teaching, we're not here to listen to, um, anything that anybody's prepared. We're here to discover through dialogue together at Brood of Vipers. And what Mitch, what Mitch has raised with his, um, beautiful new wardrobe is a question I do think we could discuss a little bit. And particularly as, um, you know, uh, we're, we're all, we've all been flirting with the UCA and you've, you've fully committed Mitch. And, um, I think it's, you know, it's, it's pretty, um, I'm we're pretty deep, uh, meeting ground and myself are getting, you know, on in our own journey of exploration and, uh, loving the UCA. Um,

But what I wanted to chat with you guys about is, you know, I guess the tension in, in all religions and this kind of came up this, you know, the week before this episode comes out, I had a chat with Sara Saleh, um, beautiful Palestinian poet, fierce activist, um, has lots of intersections in her identity. Um, and yeah, I actually read this really awesome quote from her in an article that was in the Guardian recently.

I'm setting up a long thing here, but she wrote it, well, she said in this interview in the Guardian, the most exciting part of what I do as an artist and even being a person with these intersections is being able to say, I do want to know tradition and honor it and build on it, but I also want to break it where I see that is appropriate. So this is kind of my stimulus for this conversation at the pub as we explore. And as you formally enter the uniting church, Mitch. It is a really interesting bringing together of deep roots in tradition, where you are wearing your alb and stole, and there's kind of a high church element to some of that. But then there's also like part of, I think what appeals to each of us about the Uniting Church is a real commitment to social justice and, and progress, but kind of, I'm keen to like, just talk a bit about the tug of war between those two.

Um, so yes, initial thoughts around this as a topic?

mitch (16:08.625)
Yeah, I mean, I have so many different thoughts and we could go in heaps of different areas and hopefully we will. A shout out to the Uniting Church just at the beginning though. I think, you know, you were both there when we were going through the basis of union. I do think that the Uniting Church set themselves up pretty well to try to, you know, feel the connection to the tradition and

um, and honor the tradition, but also ask questions of it. Like even in their, in the basis of union, they talk about, you know, honoring, you know, the like the creeds, for example, but also the pre like the preaching of John Wesley, but also like, you know, and this has to do with their union and also the, you know, the what is it, the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterians. But then it's, then it talks about like other forms of knowing and knowledge and understanding that, that we learn from as well as the scriptures. And so it brings all these things together and, and

does that wonderful thing that the best of Christianity does is, is celebrates truth wherever it is to be found. Um, so I like that a bit. I think the United Church has given a red hat, a hot crack to do both of those things. And also one of the things that, just to shout out to, you know, I'm joining, you can tell, right? I'm giving them a good shout out. I'm in favor of this. The other thing they do, I think is, what did they, they talked about consensus, was it consensus voting or whatever, or consensus decision making?

Which does mean that whilst the tradition can change, no individual gets to decide to change it in essence, or parts of it, you have to come together and as a group you get to decide when the tradition changes. So it takes it a little bit away from this individualist, you know, this Protestant idea that I can somehow discover the truth by myself and I get to kind of live that truth. And it says actually, no.

You can and you can like advocate for whatever it is, but the tradition is going to change a little slower than that. Because it's not about just one person having like some crazy idea or great idea, whatever it is. It's like it actually has to be born out. I went to an interfaith thing. This is my last thing I'll say and then I'll hand over to you guys to offer some thoughts on all that. But I went to an interfaith thing with a Catholic dude and he made an interesting point because someone asked him about like some of the some of the

the trickiness with the kind of center of a lot of Catholic dogma. And he was saying like, he said, we don't do fats. He said, we change slowly, because we don't just jump on to something because it's like the new thing, like we take a really long time to try to work it out. And there's heaps of limitations with that. But I thought it was a really interesting thought as well. Anyway, that's a bunch of random thoughts.

Will (18:48.365)
Alright Hannah, what are your general thoughts when you hear tradition V progress come up in a battle?

Hannah (18:55.374)
Oh, just before getting into that, it was interesting when Mitch was saying that, you know, institutional faith like Catholicism, not doing fads, I think that was something we discussed when we were at the uniting introductory day, that they are slow to make decisions because it is a collaborative process, but then what struck me was they are so ahead in a lot of social justice issues then even.

mainstream Australian society is like they were supportive of, of queer rights before it was ever legalized in Australia. So I don't know, I think sometimes it can work both ways, but they're just, institutions can be ahead of the curve if they're listening well and following Christianity well. But in terms of

Tradition, I think I spent a lot of time rejecting it. I, you know, that hubris of your teens and early 20s where you think like everything old is the worst and I need to reinvent the wheel. And it was only, maybe in the last 10ish years that I started to really remember my appreciation for certain traditions. A lot of them are deeply problematic.

And I hate that argument if we just do this for tradition's sake, because I think that's really toxic. But maybe that's less about the tradition and people's recalcitrance to change. So maybe we can't even blame that on tradition. But my dad, my parents were going to Gosford Anglican Church with Rob Bower. And I remember he would, dad would go to Saturday evening mass? I don't know. I find the language of this challenging, but it would be quite a high Anglican.

Mass and Dad was finding a lot of meaning there so I'd go with him semi-regularly and I really loved it and that was the start of this finding beauty in old ways but I think the beauty was there because what was driving it was fresh and justice driven and hope filled and current Jesus not just performing odd things because that's what we always do and I think that's

Hannah (21:16.53)
My rebellion against tradition in the past had been young person arrogance but also feeling the dryness of traditions that aren't founded in purpose or I don't know listening or asking questions of the systems like Mitch said before so it's really led me into

an appreciation for what's come before, if it's healthy and hasn't damaged society. And why I'm making those caveats is I think a tradition and people celebrating colonialist structures and that's really toxic in Australia. That's tradition I don't want to part of. But in terms of Christian tradition, there's some really beautiful things to learn from the past rather than this complete rejection. And I guess in recent years, I've been looking into more Catholic tradition.

with Richard Rohr and others, and I remember studying Christian mysticism at uni as well as part of a random secular writing course, and so there's been moments through life that have been peppered with this real beauty of what's come before and respecting that, so I feel mixed and I have lots to learn.

Will (22:35.457)
Hmm. It is, it is genuinely a mixed and confusing thing because on the one hand, I hate it when, for example, people simply use tradition, like it's a knockdown argument against something like same sex marriage, right? That's the classic, you know, well, Christian tradition for thousands of years has always viewed it as well, so we can't even, we can't even have the conversation. So in that sense.

That irks me so much. And I want to just be like, you know, tradition is not, it's not a knockdown. It's not an automatic, um, checkmate. Um, but then I do feel like, uh, I also see, I don't know what the right word is, but the, um, maybe like a, like, if you take a, if you take a little plant, you take it away from, uh, deep roots and good soil.

You just put it in like a little pot as a solo thing, trying to figure itself out. Like there is, you know, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a plant ecology roots, you know, expert, but just as the image that came to my mind, just in terms of like, I feel like a lot of people that are maybe, uh, our, our culture kind of is uprooting from many of the great traditions. And there is something we lose when we don't see ourselves, you know, even I feel like, um,

Just, just one example of this would be feeling like when I have moments of kind of existential crisis and freak out, they feel a lot scarier when I think that the story began and ends with me. But when I remind myself that I am, I'm like the fingernail on like this body of work throughout history that is unfolding over time, it makes me feel way more like my freak outs are really not that big a deal. So, you know, I do think it's, but it's the tricky thing is.

How do you work out which parts of tradition are appropriate to reject and which parts are worth bearing with even when you would want to kind of reject them?

mitch (24:46.853)
And what basis are you making that decision? Right? Like that's the other piece is like, what, what is it? Like, I thought when you were talking about, well, this is it, right? Well, like, what, what is the rub? Yeah. What's the rubric that you're using to decide that you disagree with this particular thing, which I think. Like when you, when you're talking about who's, who's the person on the pod, apologize, what's her name? Like, yeah, she wants to break it as well. Like there, there is a sense in which I'm like, yeah, for sure. But then the other part is

Will (24:52.809)
Just based on tradition, the way we've always decided that sort of thing.

Hannah (24:56.071)
It's a self-fulfilling argument, isn't it?

mitch (25:12.957)
Yeah. How are you making that decision where to break it? Like, what is it that you're basing that on? Um, and that's a question that I think that goes on unexamined. Um,  I've got told that I'm not allowed to mention a particular name on this podcast. Uh, I've been given the challenge. I won't tell you, you can guess who it is. Um, but I'll say GK Chesterton has this line, which I really like, and this kind of helps, um, he talks about, I think I've probably said this on the pod before, but tradition being democracy for the dead. So that whenever you're coming to any kind of decision, the dead actually get a voice in that decision as well, right? So it doesn't mean that you can never disagree with them. They're just part of the, they're part of the community of people that are helping you make decisions, but they do get some kind of voice in it. So you consult the tradition, just cause they've died, or just cause these people lived a long time ago, doesn't mean what they have to offer is not super important.

Will (25:45.707)
Mm.

mitch (26:10.429)
And if you take that outside of the Christian tradition and you put it in whatever, like indigenous spirituality, for example, then of course we would say, of course they do. We've got so much to teach us, so much to learn from. It's because we have particular experiences of the Christian tradition that's really problematic that makes us kind of not want to do the same thing. But the idea from someone who I read once, they have this particular picture. I'm not even gonna go. You can do it by process of elimination at the end.depending on who I quote. They talk about if your tradition offends reason, then reason always wins. Right? So if it makes no sense, if it can't, if you can't make sense of it, then reason should win and your tradition in that sense is wrong. And they're using it particularly when it comes to, you know, the tradition reinforcing the doctrine of hell. They're like, well, that makes no sense. Well, exactly. Yeah, how do you Yeah, how do you know? Yeah, sorry.

Hannah (26:40.966)
Hehehehe.

Hannah (27:00.686)
But then reason is so subjective, right? Like if we're...

Because I think that's when we come back to the same sex marriage debate we had a few years ago nationally. People thought they were very reasoned in their opposition to it. And that's, I don't know, I think this is the danger of if we are going down that well, everything is up for grabs or we need to.

be really careful about what's driving our changemaking. And we might never make change, but we've got to realize that context does drive everything for good and for bad. I guess it's just asking the questions of motivation that should be, I don't know, some level of self-awareness should be driving it and people aren't going to agree. So I think sometimes we've waited for consensus that this is a good tradition to break because everyone agrees, but.

Will (27:39.403)
Mm.

Hannah (27:58.91)
as we can see people becoming more and more polarized in their valuing of tradition and then that makes it really tricky to know what sort of ground we're on. Like I come across it a lot in certain spaces that tradition has almost become biblical so people will argue that although this is biblical worldview so you just do this and I'm like well actually that's not in the Bible.

how you've interpreted is not at all how God's saying that. It's really culture that you're bringing into this, or in other words, putting that as tradition. And that's what scares me as often is conflation of tradition as, well, Jesus really cares for this more so. And, you know, as we've talked about at length on this podcast, Jesus is not saying as much about queerness as we think he is, as our culture that has told us it's wrong.

And therefore we go, well, the Bible is saying that it's wrong because we have believed it for so long and we haven't questioned it. Now the question that it raises these huge arguments. And I think it's become this really weird and the mesh thing of people aren't reading the Bible without that traditional agenda. And that scares me.

mitch (29:17.313)
like that. And it might my, my only thing that is, um, I don't know if it's that easy to separate the Bible from tradition. Like I don't, because I think that, not, I mean, not, not in that sense, in terms of like, I think what I'm trying to say there is, um, like for us, for us Protestants, we're built on this fact of what is the Bible? What did, what did the Bible really?

Hannah (29:28.207)
Oh no, I wasn't saying it was.

mitch (29:41.789)
like, what is it really saying? Or what does it really mean? Or what is like, we grew up on the, you know, the authorial intent, right? So what's the author trying to say in this particular thing? But I like, sometimes I think that's like, that is, that's an impossible task, right? So you can, you can sit and listen to the conservative and go, well, that kind of makes sense. Or the progressive and go, well, that kind of makes sense as well. Right. So you end up in this bond. And it's like, how do you decide between those two things, which

then you might side with tradition or you might decide with to use you know the rubric before you might try it side with reason or you know like a greater kind of theological claim maybe about here's the way the thrust of theology that I see and the way that you're reading this doesn't seem to fit within that. And then yeah then you get into one last thought Phil but then you get into the thought that the Bible is not univocal on a whole bunch of things so it's saying a whole bunch of different things at different times so then

Like Walter Brueggemann has this idea, which ones do you preference? So what, what teaching do you preference and stuff? And so then that gets in. Yeah. So that's like the kind of tricky trickiness later on. Yeah.

Will (30:44.981)
Well, that's kind of what I was going to say is that the Bible itself, you know, if you, if you free it from having to be uniform and univocal, um, you actually see the Bible is its own example of the question that we're discussing tonight. Because the Bible is a conversation about which parts of tradition do we keep, you know, do we keep circumcising, um, our, our young boys, do we keep, um, you know, the Sabbath, do we, um, continue these food restrictions, like they're all elements of tradition that at least in the Christian tradition, they were, you know, questioned and ultimately re-imagined or some of them completely let go off. And, you know, people don't, people don't always see it this way. But yeah, both Jesus and Paul, like Jesus and Paul are constantly referencing scripture in really like out of the box ways. that we aren't as familiar with the Hebrew scriptures. So we see like, like there's a little footnote about, you know, Paul or Jesus has said something that references like a Psalm or the prophets. And yet you then look at the way that they're using it and you're like, Oh geez, like if this was a uni essay and they were handing this in and referencing that there would be this sense that was not the author's intention. You are actually, you are like, you are using their work out of context. Um,

So I do think there's like, it's something to say for like our, our sacred text is its own, um, you know, conversation about what, what of tradition is, uh, at the core or the heart and what of it has attached itself over time. Cause the image that I kind of want to think about, you know, this whole question, it's like tradition, whatever it is, if we imagine that tradition is like, you know, a thing that has carried through the ages, it's like a Velcro on the outside. And over time.

You know, like tradition gets attached to it. Um, other things that become like, or it's like a, it's like a snowball. So it starts off small and then we attach to it. Um, you know, uh, well, he is, he has a ritual that actually got introduced at a certain point in time, but now it's part of the snowball or it's stuck to the Velcro and there's heaps of things like that. There's so much of the theology that we critique on this podcast that actually isn't

You know, if we, it depends how far you trace tradition back, but it was an add-on at some point in time.

mitch (33:13.633)
Hmm. And I mean, the tradition develops in such a contingent way, right? Like in these, these really bizarre moments. I have a friend who's a Unitarian. So, um, you know, it doesn't believe in the Trinity. It's just like that. And, um, the rate of the way he became one is because he was doing a, I think he's doing a course at Mauling actually. And he found out how.

Hannah (33:21.857)
Mm.

mitch (33:37.909)
they came to settle on the idea of the Trinity. And he goes, this is absurd. Like there's so many power games and like there's so many, you know, political factions that are kind of going on here. So he goes, so I can't trust that part of it, right? But then what he does is he goes, oh, well, because he still has this very high view of scripture, so he goes, well, what is the scripture actually saying at this point, right? So not what's reasonable, what makes sense, but what is like, what is the text saying? So then he just goes and he analyzes the scriptures and then he said he read it.

Hannah (33:45.41)
Good.

mitch (34:07.533)
he read the whole New Testament like three times in three months or something and then he like he highlighted every verse that um I'm not sure if yeah he highlighted every verse that had anything to do with it and then decided that there was more verses in favor and he could explain them away and he did this whole kind of rubric to kind of figure it out and so then he comes to this point where he's like you know well obviously the Trinity's not real um Jesus is all the things that is said about him in the New Testament but the Trinity is kind of a later development right which you know

But it's still built on this premise that the way that we find out what is true is that we look at the New Testament documents, and they're the things, if we can just figure out what they were saying kind of in their original. Whereas, yeah, I wonder whether, even that's like its own kind of starting premise, right? That's where truth is to be found, which is already built on some kind of theology. So, it kind of circles us back to that question is like, what's the arbiter? Like, how do you decide what bits are the attached bits? And what

Will (34:46.87)
Mm.

Will (35:01.111)
Mm.

mitch (35:06.721)
bits of the like central bits and what rubric are using to kind of figure that out.

Will (35:15.253)
Yeah, well, to take us into some really philosophical territory based on that, like when you, when you actually ask, what is it about scripture that is so sacred or so holy or whatever, because for most people listening, you will have only ever had an English translation of the Bible that looks nothing like what the ancient texts actually looked like when they were in their first form or their first kind of manuscript edition. And so you actually have to ask, is it

Hannah (35:31.47)
Thank you.

Will (35:44.113)
Like the thing is obviously like your Bible is a representation of the thing. It's, it's an imitation of the thing. Is there a thing in your physical Bible that you can point to and say, this is what's holy or this is what's sacred? Or is it actually, you know, you think about language, language is just, again, it's like symbols and, um, there's a whole realm of philosophical thought around, you know, like semiotics, I think that's the word, you know, for like things that represent other things.

And when we use a word in, in language, it's, it's not perfect. It's an approximation. And so even then you go, okay, the scripture that we have that's been translated, it's an approximation of some previous thing, and that was an approximation of a message or a, you know, a conversation that started as a, as a dialogue, so even that you kind of like, well, so often we're still boxing up.

mitch (36:30.089)
the truth itself or, yeah.

Will (36:40.053)
You know, we, you, you talk about the Bible and people immediately imagine a book. But if you think about revelation, and then you have that big of you of the revelation is that the Logos, anytime the creator is speaking into creation, you know, anytime that incarnation is kind of occurring, um, where do you actually locate what about scripture is the guide? And I think that's where it

You, you naturally end up having to go beyond words on a page or even words on the tongue, you naturally have to end up going to the realm of spirit and the realm of something beyond something transcendent, do you know?

mitch (37:20.733)
encounter or experience or yeah. Well, I think that's where the that kind of Ba'atian idea of like the Bible isn't revelation, it becomes revelation when God becomes known to you through it. So when you read it, and then you begin to know the infinite God who is who can be known in Christ for Ba'at particularly, that's when it becomes real revelation because you've begun to know

Will (37:34.686)
Mm.

mitch (37:47.649)
know something in that kind of relational sense, not in like the epistemological sense of I know all these like facts, but you begin to know kind of relationally the transcendent God who, you know, who came near to us in Christ. And I like, I think I like that a lot better because it takes the focus off the text and to the transcendent truth that the text is kind of, you know, uniquely pointing to, maybe.

Hannah (40:07.726)
When I was listening to you both talk I was reflecting on how I teach text in my work and I think I come from a very post-modernist viewpoint that we all come with context and value and experience which means we can all be reading the same text and have completely different.

value and meaning that we take from it. So I was like, well, is there any difference with the way that we encounter our sacred text? And I don't think there is. And I think what we're talking about is there a way that we can mediate our experience of the Bible to figure out what's tradition and what's, you know, what's true. And I think

with the fact that we are all individual and we all come with our own perspectives, I think it's impossible for us all to see things exactly the same. What we do talk about is things like textual integrity, we talk about attempts at understanding what the author's intention can be, we talk about context, we talk about technique, we talk about overarching theme.

We talk about structure of the text, the genre it's in, talk about so many facets of it that mean that we get to some understanding. And I think that's how I approach the Bible too. I come to it with lots of tools that I try to attempt to understand it, but I have also resigned myself to the fact that I'm never fully going to understand that. And I am okay with it as long as I'm always learning and listening.

and valuing what people have said about it in the past, but not getting stuck with what has only been said about it in the past, so we'd still be hating other races and queer people and divorced women and people who get haircuts and you know, so yeah, that's it.

I don't think the question is so much are we getting it right because that's an impossibility and I know a lot of people get freaked out with postmodernism but I think it's, I like what Mitch has been talking about the weighing up, I don't know, I think I'm trying to get to something that's, for me it's a lot of what's the harm, what's the fruit of it and if this interpretation of the Bible is harming people.

and producing hatred then that's not an interpretation of the Bible that aligns with Christ. It can be pretty simple and I have done myself into mental knots trying to make sure I wasn't just interpreting things in a liberal way because I wanted it to be right and I have done my time in traditional conservatism, I've done them all.

And I think every time I feel like I've got a handle on the Bible, it throws me off. And I think that's a really liberating thing. And I think the danger is when we all agree that we have the interpretation of the Bible, the biblical perspective, and there is no such thing. There are multiple biblical, well, every human has a biblical perspective that can't be the same as others. And people call me liberal for that, but I think it's impossible for us to have consensus and accept in those things.

Will (43:36.065)
Hmm. Well, there's not, you know, even throughout this conversation, like it's helpful to say there's not Christianity, there's Christianities. There's not tradition, there's traditions and.

Hannah (43:46.862)
Yeah and I think that's the singular talking about is probably what's harmful because yeah it's the individuality that means we're accountable for our actions, we're accountable for the work we do in understanding, we're accountable for not propagating harmful practices, all of those things is probably what we should be focusing on rather than whether we agree with tradition or not.

Will (44:11.645)
Yeah. And if tradition, like if big T tradition, trying to encapsulate this singular big thing is used like a threat to shut down a conversation. Then I think it's actually better to go, well, no, let's trace back. Like what's the particular idea that you're talking about and where did it originate, you know, like, cause I think people, it's such an easy shutdown. Well, no, the tradition. It's like, well, what are you talking about? Like which, which aspect of tradition from which angle?

from where are you viewing that from, I think that definitely changes it. Were you gonna say something, Mitch?

mitch (44:44.673)
Hmm. It was going to say it might sound postmodern, but I've just finished reading Confessions by Augustine and he is actually like, it was so interesting. I found it like absolutely fascinating. But he, at one point he talks about how like one of his biggest stumbling block to like to, to coming to faith in the end, when he comes to faith, he's like the Old Testament, cause he goes, it just makes no sense. And he's like.

He's like, I don't know if I can be part of this thing because this is like really weird. And so, and I wanted to know what actual bits for the, it wasn't clarified, but he's like, I just, I couldn't make any sense of it. But then like, he talks about reading the new Testament and even like, you know, before he, um, before what he talked about his conversion, he, he still, even that makes no sense to me. It doesn't make any sense. Like, I don't know what's going on here, but then he spends this inordinate amount of time at the end, like looking at the first line of Genesis and saying, well, I think it means this, but this person thinks it means this, but both of them sound true.

Right. And so, and he's like, and this sounds true. And then he like plays with all these counterfactuals. Well, what about this reading? This could be a really good reading. And he plays, and he goes, but that, and that one sounds true as well. And he goes like all these different ones. And so he's like, he, he's looking at it and going, well, I don't care which one it is, as long as it accords to truth. Right. Which ends up in like a same kind of problem that we're talking about before. But he, like, he is looking at it going, well, there's heaps of different things that you could get from this, like this text and heaps of different ways that you could read it and they all are according with you know, something greater that he's looking at, which is truth, which is where, you know, one of my favorite three theologians might say, you know, that's where like reason comes in. So you're deciding that this thing sounds or accords with truth. You know, as far as you understand it. I know that's not totally postmodern, but it's like, you know, it's getting to that kind of place, right? That there's just more flexibility in understanding it.

Will (46:35.793)
Well, yeah, just multiple, multiple valid meanings. I mean, as soon as you say it's not that there is no, there is no meaning. It's that meaning is, is layered and multidimensional. And I do think to me, it says something when, when it seems like there's a significant conflict between a particular interpretation of scripture or tradition.

mitch (46:43.845)
You can make it say anything.

Hannah (46:46.104)
Mm.

Will (47:02.645)
with some of the other great traditions that God has given us. When it seems like something is in particular conflict with science, or like you're saying, when it seems like something is in particular conflict with reason or philosophy, when it seems like something is in particular conflict with, you know, all of these great pursuits, psychology, or, you know, then I think, well, contrast that with when we do have these moments where it's like, there is actually

particular reading of scripture, what the artists and the poets have said about this throughout time. And, you know, like I know that the postmodernist thing can quickly get into, you know, the kind of like real like, ah, does anything exist? Does anything have any meaning? But actually I think, I think we know at an intuitive kind of gut level, that if we're honest with ourselves, there's a pretty decent chunk of stuff at the center that rings true and that resonates even across, um,

cultures, religions, you know, things like the pursuit of, of peace, um, the end of unnecessary conflict, um, you know, love of, of neighbor, um, you know, basic, you know, like in, in a way we could say that something that is, is removed from a religious frame, but that makes sense through a lot of religious lenses is, you know, um, the, uh, the human rights, what's it called? The, um, the something of human rights.

mitch (48:28.858)
The Universal Declaration?

Will (48:30.709)
The declaration, forgot the word declaration, you know, but like that's getting at something that seems to intuitively line up with a lot of those, a lot of traditions. Um, and obviously, yeah, I know that people will still maybe have, probably not many listeners to this podcast, but some evangelicals might still be like, human rights, who cares about those? 

mitch (48:47.501)
What is that? We don't have rights, we only have grace, Will. I don't know if you remember that, but we're not, we're not due anything. 

Hannah (48:55.722)
No, what we’re due is suffering and punishment.

mitch
Oh, that's true. Yeah, sorry, we deserve it. I do think like one of the things, one of the lines that I draw is when something seems arbitrary. So I like, you know,

I say this all the time. I'm pretty Orthodox Christian in terms of I agree, like I do believe all the Koreans. But then the stuff outside that when something seems genuinely arbitrary, like it doesn't actually fit. So, you know, to, to use, you know, gay relationships as an example, like, okay, so I have this loving relationship where that is of, you know, self gift to this person and you're doing exactly the same thing, but this, but you're not allowed to do it for some arbitrary reason. If it seems arbitrary to me, I'm like, I think I probably misunderstood what.

is going on in the tradition here, right? Now I also know that in like in Catholic thought, maybe it's not as arbitrary as what you think or whatever, but for me, I'm like, that just seems like a very arbitrary thing to decide. And if it's, if something is arbitrary, if it just doesn't fit within that kind of broader sweep of theology, then at that point you can believe anything, right? And you could literally believe anything because you can just have a belief that doesn't accord with like what seems to be the, you know, the general thrust of a particular tradition. So that's where I'm happy to leave that thing alone.

Will (49:41.325)
Yeah.

mitch (50:09.517)
And hell is another example. Like this God of love who genuinely wants to try to rescue people who all of a sudden just changes his mind at the point of death to torture them forever. Like it's arbitrary. It makes no sense. Yeah.

Will (50:12.181)
Yep.

Will (50:18.241)
A lot of those things just seem like, yeah, God's just like a moody teenager with like, yeah, unresolved anger issues. Just, you know, like, yeah, it doesn't seem like there's a lot, there's a lot of loving, a loving, uh, you know, sort of intention behind some of those ideas. At worst they're harmful. And then at best they're just like innocuous and completely arbitrary.

The other thing I wanted to say is that we focused heavily on tradition, but the question of tradition versus progress or tradition and progress, I don't think it's a verse, I think it's a, it's a relationship, but it's not like progress is any clearer in a sense, right? Because the things that we would say look like human progress, you know, uh, let's say it's greater, um, greater access to, you know, wellbeing.

Uh, you know, like things that look like progress are probably there in the tradition, but then how we get to progress and the kind of way that

human history unfold is we know that often ideas that seem like progress at the time can be horrible ideas. Something like eugenics is a good example. And I'm sure there are things happening in our day and age where we will look back. Well, I mean, we know there are, there's lots of things where we will look back and we'll go that somebody's idea of progress was actually, um, just taking us, just taking us around the, the roundabout back again.

And I'm not the kind of person who like, I don't think progress is completely a myth. I do think that there are lots of metrics you can look at and go, you know, you can actually look and see that on, on balance humans on planet earth, um, you know, have better living conditions and life expectancy than we did X number of years ago. And that's a good thing on the whole, obviously it's aggregate. Um,

But I just, I think it's maybe we kind of need to problematize progress as well as something that's necessarily any clearer to figure out than tradition. Thoughts?

mitch (52:32.125)
Yeah, I agree. I mean, but again, like, you know, not, yeah, not all progress is good. I think that's just true. Um, but then you, yeah, you end up in the bind is like, how do we, how do we decide which is good and which is bad? And, you know, just time, pay that out. And, you know, when you're looking back at, at the past, what rubric do you use then to decide that was bad? And this is good. Like you end up in this infinite loop of how you decide anything. Um,

Will (52:58.509)
Well, like a really obvious one, like I feel like Silicon Valley is like, if we, if we take this conversation out of a religious tradition, like Silicon Valley is like the epicenter in some minds of like human progress. And there really is that sense, you know, like the, the internet access to information, social media, everyone getting connected. Like there was a sense in which that was really sold as like, this is an obvious positive step forward for humanity.

When you peel back the curtain, you see that so much of that is actually, um, just reinventing another empire, another way for somebody to become a Pharaoh, another way to enslave. It's the same old story on repeat.

mitch (53:44.861)
Yeah, I tend to buy into, yeah, I'm very suspicious of progress. I feel like it's just cycles of, I mean, like, we progress in some areas and regress in others, and then you just go through these cycles. That seems to be more the way that I see the world. The kind of utopian pitches, I think they're built on Christianity, this idea that, you know, we're moving towards some golden age. I feel less and less optimistic about that sometimes. For that reason that you're saying, right?

But I mean, one of the things with like Silicon Valley is like the thing about like technology is it like, regardless of whether people want it to, it does advance and it changes things for good and for bad. And it's, there's almost a fatalism that comes over me at that point, right? Where I'm like, it's going to happen and there's very little you can do to kind of change it. Um, yeah, anyway, that's a different topic. Hannah rescue me.

Hannah (54:36.718)
Hmm, yeah. Ha ha. Oh, yeah, I agree that the same dilemmas around tradition are found in progress, but I'm a big fan of progress. I think forward momentum is going to generally be good, and I think that is a very naive stance, but, yeah, I don't, like, I think that horrifying,

Realization I came to recently is that progress isn't linear. So when we saw Roe vs. Wade be overturned, I was like, that's definitely not the future progressing to more equal reproductive rights for women. We can go backwards. So I think my concern is not whether progress is good or bad. It's that rights and developments can be easily taken away from us.

And I think with everything that can be potential for great good and potential for real problems. And I think that is human, it's just tradition has great good and real problems. But I think aversion to progress scares me and I think that is often a lot of tradition and wanting to fortify itself. So it has this suspicion of any change and that is messed up. So.

Hooray for progress. It's how we're all still alive and not dying with you know, plagues all the time. I like it.

mitch (56:12.997)
I'll clarify my thoughts in that I like, I really want things to progress well. My desire, my desire is for things to go well and for us to make meaningful change to, you know, to, um, to make more people's lives more fruitful and more fulfilling and more wonderful. My skepticism is as to ever, if we really do that, you know? Um, and even like thinking about what you're saying Will, we're like, like lifting people out of poverty or whatever our life expectancy is.

Um, going up like, yeah, but probably at the cost of the earth, like, and a potential, like, you know, uh, and a, like almost an imminent climate catastrophe on the back of, you know, our lives being a little more comfortable and stuff. Right. So like it's progress in a sense, but at the cost of what was a very sustainable way of living, you know, even if it was like, you know,

Will (57:04.557)
Well, it's the same question of, yeah, what do you, what are your metrics? How do you decide what's, what's actually tradition and how do you decide what's actually progress? And I think that the same way that tradition capital T can be used to evade actual difficult conversations about necessary change, I think the same thing can, can happen with like capital P progress where it's like this, I mean, AI is obviously progress. Some, some might say.

mitch (57:11.393)
Hmm.

Will (57:34.141)
So let's just lean in and not have difficult conversations about whether or not there's anywhere where we should hit the brakes. And I think, you know, if, if we could go back and sit in a room in 2007 with Mark Zuckerberg, maybe we'd have some conversations or, you know, whoever. Obviously it's. Yeah. But again, not even to say.

Hannah (57:49.326)
Hmm. Take the computer off him.

mitch (57:55.106)
Make him go for a walk in nature or something.

Hannah (57:58.628)
Yeah.

Will (57:58.729)
And I think, but the same way that I think when, when people, when people use tradition to, to knock down a conversation, they're not really interested in defending tradition as such, they're often interested in defending a particular bias or prejudice that works for them. And I think it's the same thing with like a lot of progress. People can say in the name of progress, I will defend my right, um, to amass as much wealth as possible.

Hannah (58:15.147)
Mmm.

Hannah (58:26.61)
Mmm.

Will (58:26.953)
while exploiting people that are out of sight and out of mind. Now we would all say that's actually not good progress if, um, if it's continuing to exploit and to colonize. And, you know, I do, I think like, as this is, you know, kind of to, to tie a few things together or to attempt to, I was thinking, cause it's Advent and, um, you know, the beginning of the Advent season and I was thinking about like, uh, how.

Hannah (58:38.638)
Hmm.

Will (58:56.921)
our, our culture with, without, with, or without, um, with, or without you, you too. Uh, but with, or without, um, religious tradition, we really do operate by a liturgical calendar where we have, you know, uh, the, like Thanksgiving happens in America and then the black Friday sales come straight away afterwards, which seems like its own little ludicrous thing. And then we go straight into the Christmas sales and then we have the
Boxing Day sales and then all the Easter stuff comes out. And I was having a conversation with my older bro about, um, we're talking about like, yeah, all of that. And then in the context of how often really appealing theology seems like it, it is, um, you know, it's so revolutionary to not believe in hell, for example. But then we were saying, we kind of were talking about how actually

Um, the kind of like shallow Christianity that supports and doesn't threaten our kind of really capitalist culture is it is propagated for that exact reason. It keeps business as usual going. It keeps Pharaoh in Pharaoh's position. It keeps the empire as it is. And like really subversive kind of what I would see as.

the teachings of Jesus in the sermon on the Mount, really subversive Christianity actually topples so much of what our modern progress oriented society is built on. I don't know if that makes sense. It's a bit of a jumble of thoughts, but I just think that like there's, maybe there's two conversations about progress. Cause I do think when it comes to conversations around justice and people who are really pushing, you know.

pushing for justice that are often those who have been excluded and pushed to the fringes. I'm a hundred percent there for all of that progress. I think there's like a dual conversation around progress that actually appears like progress, but that keeps everything the same. And it's that same thing that goes, oh yeah, we'll listen to you women or you First Nations people or you whoever to a point, but then we will actually keep,.We will keep business as usual going. Does that make sense?

Hannah (01:01:24.562)
Yeah and like as you just pointed out we think we're making progress by being more inclusive and justice focused but Jesus was talking about it thousands of years ago so is it progress if it's as old as those ancient teachings and then I was thinking about like I would label myself a progressive Christian and say you've just made me question everything I stand for what does that mean a Christian that's progressing into what so um

It's interesting we use this language and probably don't excavate the meaning or the intention as much as we are in the pub tonight. And I don't have an answer for that. Would you guys identify as progressive and why do we use that language?

Will (01:02:09.005)
It depends who's asking. And because again, like all language, it means different things to different people. I like to think of myself, you know, this is not, this is not as trendy as some of the other labels, but I like to think of myself as like an ancient progressive Christian in the context of this conversation. 

Hannah (01:02:29.742)
which feels like an oxymoron too.

Will
Yeah. But I think that as soon as you lose the two sides of it,  like, as this whole thing, like it's a constant conversation and to live in the middle of what, and I think like Mitch said, it helps when you take it out of Christianity and you think of like, you know, you sit with first nations, people who are so in touch with, um, intergenerational wisdom and honoring those that have come before. I think our, our Western culture, regardless of Christianity is not great at, at honoring like, you know,

wisdom of ages past. So I do want to be tapped into that. I actually want to go back further, because often I feel like it's, you know, it's stuff that's gotten lost again, like hell did not, it was not a concept in the mind of the early Christians. It got added in later. So sometimes you need to go back further in the tradition than just 500 years ago. I think a lot of people, they talk about tradition, they're talking about since the Reformation.

But yeah, I mean, I definitely identify with what most people would call progressive theology. Most, most people would definitely look at my theology and say, Will has progressive theology. Will is a progressive, but I, for the exact reasons we've, we've kind of listed in this conversation, I find that is a little bit simplistic.

mitch (01:03:56.861)
Yeah, I mean, I tend to use it as a label because it's kind of helpful, I guess, for people to know that there's a collection of ideas that cluster around it. So, you know, I'll say I'm on the more progressive end of the, you know, the Baptists I've said in the past are the more progressive end of like Christians or something, but it's really like, yeah, as you were saying, Hannah, I never really think about it as progressing towards anything particular, it's just a label to say, you know, here's a cluster of ideas. But often.

often say, I only really have three controversial ideas. I mean, and there's a whole bunch of sub ideas that kind of fit underneath them. But otherwise, I feel like I'm pretty Orthodox Christian, like I believe, I believe it all really. And I say that heaps on the pod, actually. Nile, my good friend Nile, shout out to Nile, he talks about, he talks about himself as an open evangelical. So which is kind of a nice way to think about it. So he broadly has evangelical convictions.

but is open, like open to questioning them and to, you know, discovering something new and stuff. Brian McLaren used to talk about a generous orthodoxy. So an orthodoxy that had space for other ways of thinking. And I like, yeah, the guy, he would say that. Yeah. But I really liked that. I loved that idea. Like the idea of the generous orthodoxy.

Will (01:05:07.585)
The Godfather of the progressive Christians would think that, wouldn't he? He's, it's beautiful idea. And I think what that actually taps into, I thought about this for, I like, I'm way more interested in whether you're open or closed than whether you identify as conservative or progressive, because as we all know, you can be at either side of a spectrum and be completely closed off. Um.

You can be othering, you can be othering somebody from wherever you are. And yet, um, to, to have a sense of wherever I'm located, I have an open posture towards the world and towards whoever I have viewed as the other. Like I want to humanize rather than dehumanize. Um, I'm way more interested in that.

Hannah (01:05:49.922)
Yeah.

mitch (01:05:53.317)
Yeah, I mean, I think, um, uh, lost my train of thought, but, um, go ahead. Yeah.

Will (01:06:02.677)
Yeah.

Hannah (01:06:03.15)
Well, I was going to say, if you want to gather your thoughts, I think I'm just realizing that what progressive for me is progressive against. And when Mitch said open evangelicalism, is that what you said, that term? Yeah, and I was like, oh, I can't even deal with any kind of label of evangelicalism. And I had a reaction to that. I think I like the idea of a position that is open and has things to learn rather than I'm rejecting that part of myself or that whole thinking. And so, yeah, maybe it is a challenge to be like, progress shouldn't be an angry reaction to things, maybe progress should actually be a, how can we include bigger things or take on new ideas? And maybe I've been more on the latter, the rage and the reaction.

Will (01:07:00.833)
It makes me think, I feel like part of our, like, I'm really stoked that, um, culturally there's been so much more conversation about, um, trauma and self care and mental health in recent years. I do think the next stage of that conversation is around helping people to understand that the goal is to metabolize those traumatic experiences so that they no longer dictate.

You know, the goal is, is not to be triggered by the same things for the rest of your life. And, and understanding at a certain point that I do have a reaction to the word evangelical because of some of my past experiences, but I want to reach a point like healing looks like a point where even if I never go back there, I'm actually at peace with people who are there, even, even if I want to reform what that is.

I'm not in a constant state of fight or flight around it. And I feel like where our cultural conversation at just at the pop psychology level is at is that people understand I have trauma and I'm triggered and stuff affects me and I should have boundaries and I should get away from that stuff and all of that is valid. But I, I really hope that we can increasingly, you know, get that larger level conversation around how do I actually, again, like metabolize even the harmful parts of tradition that I've experienced so that my life is no longer lived in reaction to those things.

Hannah (01:08:30.206)
Mm-hmm. And that's progress, isn't it?

Will (01:08:34.829)
Absolutely. I mean, it's like the words, they feel unfair, right? Like, cause it's like, well, who's, who's against progress. Um, but then I suppose it does work the other way. Cause conserving things like a, a conserve is like a jam made out of fruit, which is delicious. 

Hannah (01:08:49.687)
Mm. Is that a preserve?

mitch (01:08:54.653)
I think that I think you can use them interchangeably. Can you I'm like, yeah, conserve and preserve. Yeah. Oh, I mean.

Hannah (01:09:01.051)
Both are happening in jam and in tradition.

Will (01:09:02.465)
Conservatives don't just want to ruin the world. They want to try and conserve what was good and beautiful. So, yeah.

mitch (01:09:05.181)
conserve something that's precious about it. Well, of course we want to do that. Yeah, whatever is good and beautiful should be conserved

Hannah (01:09:09.698)
Hmm.

Will (01:09:12.293)
And whatever is worth like moving towards should be progressed towards. 

mitch (01:09:16.076)
Yeah. I actually, I don't find a lot of things triggering or traumatizing to be honest. So I love, I've, I love, I really enjoy playing with ideas and like just putting them all out there and just going, Oh, what about this? What about that? Um, but I think everything can be interrogated like, and I like that kind of posture to go, Oh, there's no belief that's like off limits to go. Oh, how does, does that actually work? Does it acccord? Does it hold? Um.

You know, and that can be quite a scary thing for a lot of people, but I kind of find it quite engaging, but there does seem to be some things that you've committed to in order to try to help you decide, you know, how you, how you come to, you know, whether this thing makes sense or whether it fits or, you know, whether it accords to your experience or whatever, um, at the risk of, uh, quoting Don Carson twice in a week, which I, I very hesitant to do. He does talk about this idea of, um, circling around truth and the idea that like,

Um, that our job is to kind of circle around truth and hopefully the more you kind of open your mind to different thoughts, you, the closer and the tighter the circle gets, so he's like, you will never get right to the center, but you can kind of circle around it and the more you, the more you think and the more you like, uh, engage in the more you, um, study and research and experience the world, like the, the tighter the circles get, so you can say some more, like you can say some things with like a lot of clarity.

I really like that idea, even from Dr. DC. 

Will (01:10:39.649)
Just for the sake of pushing back against Dr. DC, what if, what if you...I do like that. And every idea is helpful in its place and its moment that, you know, that wisdom is being able to tell when, when something is helpful and when the same thing might be completely unhelpful. Um, but what if you flipped it and you went, my evangelicalism taught me that truth was a really small thing that we were always like trying to like narrow in closer on.

And what if it's actually the opposite? Like what if truth and beauty are so many places and your walk is actually like the circles are getting bigger and you're learning over time to see. Truth and beauty in more places rather than narrowing down. I don't know. Could be different reasons for that, but you know what I mean? Like.

mitch (01:11:29.937)
Yeah, no, I, I agree with you. I'm, but how do you decide whether you're finding that truth anywhere? Right. It's because you have some kind of picture of it somewhere. Right. So, well, like, yeah, I mean, that's what I mean. So I don't disagree with you as in you are finding truth in all these different places, it's not like it's only found in this one place, but the, how do you know it's true, you know, um, and there's, there'd be a whole bunch of things, right. Like it can't be contradictory or like, what I said before, it can't be arbitrary. It has to accord with.

Will (01:11:39.002)
I feel like it, man.

Hannah (01:11:40.514)
Because I want it to be, yeah.

Will (01:11:49.15)
Mm.

mitch (01:11:59.001)
know, this particular thing that I see is the highest truth, it has to accord. So there's all these kind of like things that you would use. And so there, you know, so you are finding truth in all these different places, but you're circling around like, what would they say, capital T truth, or, you know, the, uh, logos, or, you know, the underpinning transcendence of the universe, or the transcendentals, like good truth, goodness, truth, and beauty or something, you know, yeah.

Will (01:12:23.165)
Let's just say the circle is getting bigger and smaller at the same time.

mitch (01:12:25.737)
at the same time. Yeah, I like it. I like it. And on that...

Hannah (01:12:27.807)
We are traditional and progressive.

Will (01:12:31.629)
If, if Interstellar taught us anything, it's that time is weird and that sometimes things get bigger and smaller at the same time.

Hannah (01:12:42.534)
is not how I expected this podcast to end with an interstellar reference but I like it.

mitch (01:12:48.162)
It's good.

Are we ending or what are we? Any other last thoughts?

Will (01:12:50.321)
Yeah, well, probably time, probably time. But yeah, any last thoughts, Hannah? 

Hannah (01:13:02.538)
I'm bloody confused after our conversation tonight. So, but like, in all honesty, I really love sitting in the awkward spaces because I think that's where good literary analysis occurs. I think it just frustrates me when I'm thinking about faith because I would love to lock in some hard and fast answers and I can't. I don't know. I think sitting in those gray spaces is very important and also liberating that there isn't a straightforward.

thing here and anyone who tells you this is the absolute way to do it is an asshole. So, um, that's good. I'm frustrated, but it's good.

Will (01:13:42.849)
I was listening to, um, the latest episode of the imperfect podcast. Another great podcast, if people are interested, from the resilience project, um, and they were interviewing the winner of Alone. Um, Gina chick, I think is her name. And, um, she, you know, yeah, she was in the wilderness for 60 something days. Just. Just being. Amazing at surviving. Um, but one of the things she was talking about is like, you know, the, the work of, um, being able to sit with whatever emotions come up in you. And, uh, I'm butchering how she worded it, but like the image I got was like to befriend, to befriend even the parts of you that are uncomfortable, that are anxious, that are uncertain. And when I hear things like that,

I really, it really appeals to me in terms of what I, what I long for out of my spiritual practice, my spiritual tradition, the grounding of my worldview is to be able to sit even in the existential discomfort of not having all the answers, but to like befriend and come alongside that emotion, because that's an experience of being honestly human. When you say, I can't nut this out. I can't figure it out. I just have to kind of befriend.

the uncertainty and believe and have faith maybe that I'm not alone in it, that actually divinity is here with me, that God is here with me. Um, I think maybe it's a really beautiful thing to remind ourselves of the problems we cannot solve even with all of our brilliant thinking and talking, but it's okay to be there.

Hannah (01:15:25.851)
Mm.

mitch (01:15:25.901)
Hmm. I came across an idea of like different types of knowing. I think they were using Greek terms, episteme and gnosis. So like the epistemic knowledge of like the facts that you know about a particular thing and gnosis being the kind of idea of like a relational knowing. And this person was saying that.

you know, in terms of like epistemic knowledge or the list of things that you can say, maybe that list gets smaller and smaller and smaller the things that you know. But in terms of gnosis, like the relational knowingness is particularly in terms of God, you can know that and you can know that you can know that in the depth of your being that you're being held by God. And that all of us are being held by God and that God is genuinely always and forever drawing people closer to God's self.

Um, and, and you know that not because there's a list of, you know, doctrines or ideas that you're subscribed to, but because you know it because, um, because you know it in the depth of your being. And I liked that, you know, I can, I can subscribe to that. And I think most people can, um, Insane that I do, I sit very comfortably with going, ah, I believe the puzzle's created and that's my tradition. And then I want to think broadly and expansively about everything.

Hannah (01:16:28.418)
Hmm.

Will (01:16:28.798)
That's some good stuff right there.

mitch (01:16:41.845)
taking in to use the democracy of the dead, like all the stuff that the tradition has said, but being like opening up to the light of experience and reason, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

Hannah (01:16:54.114)
Mmm. It's good stuff. Mmm.

Will (01:16:56.621)
and we love you for it.

 Well, thanks friends. Bye listeners.

mitch (01:19:25.777)

Peace everyone. You too.

Hannah (01:19:35.447)
Bye friends.