Spiritual, Not Religious

Hey, y'all. Welcome to spiritual not religious. This is a podcast for young adults that explores the intricacies of God's kingdom and the modern world.

Welcome to our ninth episode of spiritual, not religious with your host, a very profound and moving man who has been literally on the move, James Henry, who is joined by quite possibly the happiest person on earth at this moment, the recently and happily married Molly June Miller Bachman, and yours truly, a guy who has been super excited for the warmer weather and a chance to take the doors and the top off the Jeep Wrangler, Sean Winger. It's great to be back with you all. And know we appreciate you tuning in as we try to navigate the complexities of belief and faith and just plain living out our lives in this crazy yet beautiful world of ours. Whether you just graduated high school or you find yourself in college or maybe you're starting a family or starting a job or you're just wandering in the wilderness of the world, we invite you to take a deep dive with us as we discuss all things dealing with spiritual and religious things. For everyone who feels that deep calling to deep feeling inside your soul, but you struggle to make sense of that connection with what you see happening in the world, we welcome you.

In this episode of Spiritual Not Religious, we're gonna take a look at a question that seems to come up a lot in our conversations with young and emerging adults. And that is, why are there so many denominations out there, and what do they all mean? With there being a plethora of denominations, it can feel a bit overwhelming, especially to someone who might not be sure what they all stand for. With so many nuances and varied perspectives on doctrine and scripture and the interpretation of these two, what does this say about the nature of who God is? And are denominations helpful?

Or are they a hindrance? And so many denominations kind of have this claim that they've got God figured out more than the others. And so we want to get into some of that. Of course, we want to hear your thoughts and opinions on this topic. And we will let you know how to share those with us at the end of the podcast.

But we've got a lot to talk about. And I'm really excited to be able to turn to some truly wizened and gifted and dear friends to get into this conversation with. And so James and Molly, we have been out of the loop here for a hot second. A lot is going on this summer, and we've got a lot to talk about, but like check-in with us and tell us how it's going. James, you have just taken on a new job, a new place to live, like how is it going, Molly?

You just recently got married. You're about to move again. You've got a lot of things going on. So James, just catch us up. How are you doing, man?

Well, it has been pretty there's been a lot, which is why we've had this hiatus from the from our podcast. I mean, a couple of times, we tried to line this up to be recorded and dropped earlier, and a move came up, and a wedding came up, and then ASP summer things came up, and it was it seemed to be a constantly moving thing, and it has been in my life. I'm really excited in my new position. Changed, you know, the bishop moved me from church to church about four miles down the road from one church to the other. My first Sunday was this past Sunday, and you know, I think that it went fairly well.

You know, no one, you know, threw rotten fruit at me. That's a big start right there.

Or canned vegetables, right?

Still in the can. You know, that's never a good thing. That leaves a mark.

It does. So

yeah, it's good to be back to this. It has been drinking from the fire hose because, you know, learning new names, new systems, more things going on, different town, even though it's only four miles away. It's been adventure, but it's been good, and we're rolling with it. What about you, Molly?

Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm doing super good. I'm excited to be back. I just recently got married to my awesome husband, Baker, so that was really great.

And, we just bought a house. So, we actually move tomorrow. So, we're very excited about that and then, I spend a week with ASP which I'm even more excited about because we love ASP in this place and then after that, I go to Guatemala with my students because I'm a campus minister. So there's a lot going on in my life, but a lot of exciting things and we're excited to do them.

Yeah. Molly, you are out of control. You were just telling us before the show, not only are you moving tomorrow, we also have understood that you have not packed one thing yet.

Not a single thing. No.

That's that just goes to show how extreme and hardcore our hosts are on this podcast. So just throwing it out there. These are the podcast hosts.

Molly is I've always thought of Molly what it takes. Hardcore. That is, you know, what people say, can you describe Molly in a hyphenated word? And I would say hardcore.

Right there. She is.

You tell her so funny.

Oh my gosh. No. God bless your husband. He's such a cute writer.

We're gonna be praying for Baker.

Oh, sure.

As he moves everything in from the house, in a tiny one person car. Gonna be better. Scooter? Is that what electric scooter? He's gonna carry stuff from?

How far is the house from the house?

It's a wheelbarrow.

It's only like three minutes, so it's not terrible.

Okay. So there is a little bit of light in the tunnel.

Not a drain.

Okay. That is awesome. Yeah. So lots of things going on. Crazy.

Crazy summer. And so we are super glad to be back. Forgive us for not being a little more consistent, but so much going on. Maybe you're having a crazy summer yourself. And but we are so happy to be back into this podcast.

And and this is a very interesting subject that we're talking about. This idea of denominations and and and the role that they play in trying to figure out which is the right path to get closer to God. Because it just seems like a lot of churches seem to have this way of telling everyone that they've figured out the right answers to who God is, and how to believe, and right practices to follow. And so and it's it's led to a lot of infighting, and there's a there's a historical aspect here where the church is the church says like a whole church has kind of has a couple of black eyes because of the way we've treated one another. And maybe we can get into that a little bit.

But if you're listening to this and you're wondering, you know, this is why I don't go to church, because there's just so many choices out there. Like which one's right? Why would I even bother? You're just all fighting each other over the same things. It's ridiculous.

And so I thought we'd kind of get into that a little bit. It did remind me of one of my favorite movies, The Three Amigos. And where Aguapo, you know, is asking one of his elenchmen about if he knows what a plethora is, right? And we have this plethora of denominations, and I feel like, you know, we've got people who are claiming to be spiritual and not religious are like, do you know what a blabberer is? And you know, it's like, yeah, okay, all right, you got us on that.

Because there is. There's a lot of churches out there. It just seems like there's a different one on each corner, and they're right next door to each other. And we can't seem to find any kind of, I don't know, cohesion, able to, I don't know, figure things out. And I think that's a deterrent to God and moving forward in one's faith.

And so Marlon, let's start with you actually. You're working with college students out there in West Tennessee. Does this come up with some of your students as far as just their like yeah. Well, what do we do with all these denominations? Or is this something that you guys are talking about?

Yeah. This definitely comes up when I have students who will say, especially growing up in the South, there's a lot of different traditions that are more, I don't know if I would say the word devout, but more direct in their communication of what they believe and the way that they think people should be. And so I have students who have said, Hey, I came from that. And this is a little bit different. It's more open.

And I need to understand where that comes from. I believe that comes from our doctrine and what we teach and what we believe at our core as a personal Methodist. That's what I believe in. But it is interesting because I grew up Catholic. So Catholics are very different than Methodists and I've seen that before and neither are bad nor good.

They just are. And so I think one thing that's really interesting is when I had students that come from a space who may not have understood different denominations, They kind of take a minute and they're like, can you help me kind of weed through this and then figure out what's best for me? Or maybe they end up coming to the Wesley Foundation, which happens to be Methodist and they come from a different tradition and they're like, hey, I really like this thing but I'm not Methodist. Can I be here? And I'm like, oh yeah, that doesn't, for me, it shouldn't.

I don't think forgot it would. And so, for anyone, I think that denomination just puts us in a place in a box to help us understand our context better. It's not always something that we have to be rigid to. And that's what I talk about with my students a lot.

Okay. And I like how you kind of spun that into a positive, where it's it's helpful in in that respect. Cool. James, gosh, there's so many questions I have for you. But let's start with just kind of your general thoughts on denominations.

Are they helpful? Are they harmful? Are they a hindrance? Are they something that we need to grapple with a little bit more closely? What are your initial thoughts on this?

Well, you know, what's funny, what's interesting to me, not to me, not funny, but what's interesting to me is, you know, if you read closely the New Testament letters to various churches all over the place, you find that the church in Corinth did not look like the church in Philippi, did not look like the church in Thessalonica. That in the beginning, it wasn't some kind of uniform, a demand of uniformity. Christianity was practiced contextually depending upon where you were and what was going on. So we have a long tradition and history, particularly after the death and resurrection of Jesus. We follow the risen Christ.

And the risen Christ is able to adapt and fit to our languages, different languages, different customs. And you know, so many of the customs we've come to think of as, hey, this has always been in the church. Christmas wasn't celebrated for the first eight centuries. You know, we, you know, that's the big deal now, you know, Christmas and Easter. Easter was always a big celebration, but Christmas was not.

It wasn't really until Francis said, you know, Saint Francis said, we need to take that seriously. We need to take the incarnation seriously. It's just as in without the incarnation, there is no Good Friday. There is no Easter. You have to have the incarnation.

So it all begins at the nativity scene. So Christianity has always been practiced. There was an attempt at uniformity in 03/25 you know, when they tried to bring it all together and kind of central But even then, the East and the West changed, and the Orthodox ultimately split from It became official in the 1100s, but the truth is, maybe it was in the 100s but the truth is they had been acting different from around May, May, somewhere around in there. Were in And different then there were more splits then around, you know, with the Protestant Reformation. And then once you've started splitting, it's just, okay, well, you know, those Lutherans do this thing.

Let's try something different. So you become, you know, you've got all these different flavors. In the end, I think what happens is because of our own finitude, because we're limited, we tend to pick one thing and get focused on that. Is, each of the denominations sort of has, you know, you go Pentecostal, and they have really bought into the spirit. And that's what they talk about.

That's what they focus on, and the constant movement, the energetic presence of spirit, and how that moves us. You go to some other denominations where all they really talk about, they talk a lot about Jesus. And Jesus is totally you know, I get that. Don't get me wrong. But where is creator in all of that, in the creation that creator made?

So you cut all these pieces, and each church sort of thinks, I've got this piece. And oftentimes they became a denomination in reaction to something they saw that they felt really was counter to what they thought was important. So we come to today, and now, depending on where you are, there might be a predominance of certain denominations. I think God wants us to all work together, so I think demonizing each other's denominations is not good, Not a, you know, is not a ripe approach to the way we ought to live our lives. But I do think it can be a confusing sea.

You know, We're really interested in the forest, you know, the unity of God that is available to us in the whole kingdom, but the problem is there are so many stinking trees in the way. Which tree do I climb to be a part of Right. The

And

I think that any of the trees can work. This is for me. Any of the trees that you choose to climb can work, but you have to find the space to be who God made you to be. And if you find that the denomination you've chosen is like limiting you in some particular fashion, you have to ask the question. The denomination might say, well, means you're the problem, but maybe you will have to really come to grips with in your conversation with God.

Maybe it's not me. Maybe this is not the right denomination for me. Maybe I'm gonna find a community in another place. The key is to find a community, to find Christ, to let Christ move in our lives and shape us in the way Christ will do that. And it looks different for Baptists, looks different for Methodists, Presbyterians.

But if you go to church in many different places, it's going to be, who do you see around you, and whether you can find community there. So I think denominations are not a bad thing, and until we start making them hard and fast, we're right, you're wrong. That either or thinking is really it's not very grown up. It's I'm sorry. For me, it doesn't feel very grown up.

You know, black or white. There are some spaces in between, and I think we look for the commonalities, and that stretches us. We hold intention the things that don't always make sense to us about Baptists or Methodists or Episcopalians. Orthodox. Mhmm.

So those I'm not sure if I gave you a complete sense of thought, but, you know, it's

No. But we can take that in a lot of different directions.

That's good.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we the people who are leading people, or who are trying to understand and make sense of all things spiritual and religious, tend to be very passionate about what it is that they do believe, and those passions can get really stirred up very strongly, and I think those passions come across as a lot of harsh negativism in between the denominations. And I know a lot of different denominations have plenty of jokes about the other, which is okay. Alright.

That's fun. But then but there are many that really stake their flag in the ground and say, no. This is the way, and this is the only way, and there is no other way to go. And if you are against us, then you have no place with us. And for people who are spiritual, not religious, who are, you know, seeking these things out, I I you know, you say denominations aren't a bad thing, but let me play the devil's advocate advocate a little bit here and just say, you know, well, but how are they supposed to know which one is right Or which one is or more accurate, maybe?

How do they know? Or or is this more like, you know what? That's a little too home too much homework for me. I'm just gonna stay home, you know, and just kind of like do my own thing and I'll just have my own little way of doing church and that and we'll just call it a day. And I think maybe at the the center of this conversation about denominations is the idea of living in community.

And I think that we many of us can agree that we are called to live in community. I don't think any of us are meant to be alone and isolated in our own little islands. And so but being in community is messy, and it involves a lot of moving parts. And so for someone who wants to be in community, and wants to grow, and and and understand and learn about all things spiritual, this feels a little bit like religious to me. Like there come these, you know, only ways of doing things.

And because it says here, this is the only way to do it or this is the right way to do it. And it's a lot. Molly, based on some of the stuff here, what how is this hitting you? Some of the stuff we're talking about.

I think what's hard about denominations is we've made there be an idea that there is a good and a bad, and that these individuals are right, these individuals are wrong. And so whatever side you're on, you have to not like the other side. And I think that, I mean, that's with politics, with everything, we've polarized a lot of things because it makes it easier for us. Have someone else to believe that's wrong, then that means that we're correct. And I think once we think that we're correct, we automatically do not know what the answer is.

Like, once you think you are right, especially when it comes to God and what God is up to, you are farthest from being correct. And that's just what I've experienced in my own ministry and with my students. And I think what's really hard is for young people, they see denominations and they're like, there's just so many things to choose from and I would give you advice and say, go where your heart's tugging you. If your heart's tugging you to, you know what? I wanna be a part of a Baptist Student Ministry.

Okay, try out the Baptist Student Ministry. See if that is where your heart fits. Hey, wanna try Wesley Foundation. This is more Methodist ministry. Okay, this this is might not be where I fit.

Okay, let me try Church of Christ Ministry. Like, move to different places that you wanna try, a Catholic ministry, whatever feels best for you. And you may learn to love that denomination because you love those people and that place. It's not always about the denomination, it's about those people in that place and what they believe as a unit of individuals. So I try to explain that to my students and let them know that it really comes down to community, like Sean had said.

Mhmm. Okay. Yeah. What was your response to that, James?

I think it's absolutely true. Community is the most I mean, in the end, the word church the the root word for church, we've come to think of it as a building, the word church, ecclesia in Greek. I haven't learned the Aramaic word for church yet. I'm really sorry.

I'm kind of surprised.

I know. We haven't learned But church has not come up. But ecclesia means gathering. It's the gathering of the people. It's it so and you know, they we didn't have specific buildings that were designed purely for worship until the 300s.

So prior to that, you know, you could meet in the catacombs or somebody's house or somewhere else. I do think that trying different denominations, like Molly said, can be very good, because part of finding out who we are is, you know, you go into a community, you find out what that community believes, and if it pushes against what it helps you to find more and more of who you are. Because in this journey of life, maybe we get to a place. Before my dad died and we had some great conversations, he had really come to a place where he had let go of so many things, and he was just in a good place. And all those But to get there, sometimes you have to push up against or feel maybe you try something, and it's too rigid, and it's like trying to lock you in.

And in the beginning, it's nice to have some rules. You know, which side of the street to walk on, and whether you can chew gum at the same time you are walking, whatever. The rules that fit in to make you a Christian. And it's nice to have those rules, because then you can be more defined. It helps you define how is being Christian different than being, you know, anybody else?

And so sometimes you you over define yourself only to define, wait a second, you know, there's some okay things that I was okay. Yep. Somehow you find a different path. So I'm agreeing with completely in agreement with Molly that, you know, try if it if this community fits and it and it is helping you to grow, I become concerned sometimes when people just go from place to place and stay as long as it's comfortable.

Mhmm.

Because part of being church to me, being gathering Mhmm. Is, you know, having somebody who knows you well enough to say, Sean, I'm a little concerned about you because I think you're crossing that line. Or Molly, you know, you asked me to hold you accountable about your prayer life, and you know, I just wanted to ask how you're doing. The accountability piece becomes a missing piece if you just move wherever makes you feel comfortable until they say something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Why does it make you uncomfortable?

And is that about you, or is that about God? Is that about who they are? Or where It's the journey. Every moment is a teaching moment, wherever you are. And God is mysterious.

And that doesn't mean God is unknowable, it means that God is infinitely knowable. That there are so many ways to know God. If God is infinite, the way of knowing God cannot be limited to Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, because everyone has a peace, but it's only a peace. It's a peace.

All right. And I wanna get into that, those different pieces of understanding who God is through a lot of different lenses when we come right back. So don't go away. And welcome back to our second half of Spiritual Not Religious as we are talking about denominations, the plethora of denominations. And is this a a helpful thing?

Is it a hindrance for folks trying to figure their way in the spiritual wilderness? And so we want to jump back into talking about these different denominations and the folks who feel like that they have sort of cornered the market on belief and interpretation, and kind of have the right way of seeing who God is. And there there are so many. There's the Baptists, there's Presbyterians, there's the Methodists, there's the Catholics, there's the Pentecostals, there's the Congregationalists. There's so many, right?

Sometimes I feel like you can it feels like you're standing in front of that Coke machine at a fast food restaurant, and you have like 1,000 different options of beverages to choose from. And it's like, well, which one do I choose?

Doctor Pepper.

Doctor Pepper, just straight up Doctor Pepper. Okay. Wow, always AL-eight. And if you're not sure what AL-eight is, move to Kentucky and then you'll be happy. Yeah, great, great choices.

But yeah, we can try a lot of them and and kind of see which one fits best, I guess. But there are just so many options out there. And what do we do with all of these options? And how do we move forward? We talked about how community is extremely important, and this is kind of, you know, what we feel like God wants us to be involved in, his community of other believers.

That involves a type of worship, and a type of learning and discipleship, and a type of service, and just kind of like learning how to be someone who is moving closer to God in community with others. And I think at the heart of it, I think a lot of us want to be in that kind of a community, but how do we know which one to go to? And so with all the different choices out there, what would you tell a young adult, an emerging adult to do next? Like, how would you encourage them to seek out the type of community? Do they just start asking their friends which churches they go to?

Do they just walk through the doors and just like, oh, good luck. See how this works out. What advice would you guys give?

I would definitely say that if you're feeling a nudge in your soul of like, hey, I wanna join a church or I wanna go to something and be a part of something deeper. If you know the name of the church, look up their online services and watch a service online first so that you know what you're gonna experience. You know what you're gonna see. You know how it's gonna go. And then if you resonate with those things and you feel, okay, I think that this is good and faithful in the way that I feel that God is good and faithful, then, you can step into those doors feeling less new because you've understood a service before.

I mentioned that to my students because that's always helpful or you can go to church with a friend. Like, talk to a friend. Hey, like, are you someone who goes to church? Are you, you know, what denomination are you in? Things like that.

If you're close enough with them to ask those questions and then, you can go to church with them and experience it together and then, you're not alone in that And you can talk about it after, debrief after, see how you feel. There's so many things to choose from that I encourage you to try them all in a way that feels healthy and good for you. And just find the community that fits the needs of the world and your needs together.

But James, what do we tell the person who says, Yeah, no, no, thanks. Not for me. There's too much infighting. There's too much disagreement. That's why there's so many denominations because no one can agree on the real basic kinds of things.

And so why should I be involved in something where all there's just gonna be is more infighting, more disagreement, even, I don't know, more anger towards each other, and that's the last thing I need is is more of that in my life. There's there's already enough of it going on in the world. I don't need to find it in a in a church setting. What do you tell someone who is

That is absolutely true. You know, the difference we want to Here's the big challenge I think that we have is the church has made itself out to be people who've got the answers. But once you get in there, you find out there are more human beings just like the people you know down who fight with you at the condo board about whether or not you're allowed to walk your dog at, you know, in the afternoon. I mean, because people are people and they get into a room and we all want to believe we're right. And especially when you first choose a church, if you choose one, you you really start to think these are I finally found it.

These are the right people. You've got a lot of passion, a lot of energy around that. And and so, yeah, then you're willing to fight with everybody else who sees it differently because you have just changed your life to something different, and this is the way. And suddenly, as you I find as I've matured in faith, I can recognize a lot of people who are on the journey at just different places, and it's okay. But so what I say is, yeah, there are people inside churches and people The problem with some churches is they say, We've got it all together.

And I like to think of the church more like a 12 step program. That is when you go show up at the door, we all have got problems. We've said this before in a previous podcast. I said this, know, wouldn't it be great if churches were like 12 step programs? Because you come late to a church, and somebody gives you kind of a look sometimes, a little judgmental perhaps.

But you come late to a 12 step meeting in recovery, and they stop the meeting, and they give you a big hug because they know you almost did not make it. And, you know, they know what it is to walk that fine line. And sometimes churchy people try to look like they got everything all together. And 12 Step programs admit they don't have it all together. And the bottom line is what church is about is it's for all of us who we don't have it together.

And so now we're going argue about it because we're convinced our way of not having it together is better than your way of not having it together.

Right.

And so it's very easy to become convinced you're right. And it's the either or. It's back to that either or thing instead of recognizing that there's room for both of us. But for me, I have found this path that really works for me. We could extend it beyond Christianity.

I have found this, you know, for some Christians, that's not a comfortable place to go. But the truth is I have found a path that works for me. And you know, you've got to trust if you're going be in dialogue with people who look at the world differently, it's got to be a dialogue, not a monologue. And I do think it's hard. I think Molly's right.

Safe thing to do is to watch it from a distance for a while. I've known people who said to me, I watched you for six months waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know, until you were going to tell me who I was supposed to hate, who I was supposed to judge. And after six months, when you didn't do that, I thought maybe I could come in person, because maybe you actually did that. Maybe most people aren't willing to hang with you for that long of a period of time. But if I were going to say something to you, no matter how old you are looking for a church, trust yourself in this journey.

If you're starting to feel the nudge to go to a church and you go to one, and it just, everything about it feels wrong to you, then trust yourself on that. That must not be the right place for you. There's always the possibility, you you've know, just come on a bad day. But chances are fairly good if it doesn't feel right to you. And if the people ignore you and you don't feel welcome, that's not the place for you.

But it's hard. It's hard to want to join something that doesn't affirm or encourage you to be who you are and help you grow in faith. So denominations can be wonderful. Each one of them has a charism, a gift. But each one of them probably has a shadow side too that's just

not And

we all come with that. So sometimes the shadow is especially obvious to you in certain places, and maybe because you've been in contact with it, or maybe because you have a similar shadow, and it makes you uncomfortable. But church is a hard thing to find.

Sorry. Well, they're on every corner.

Well, you can find one. But finding the community that you can belong in, that's where the challenges are.

We disagree, Molly?

No. I'm sorry. I Sean, you had something to say.

Well, I I I it does make me want to talk a little bit more about the character and nature of God. When I contemplate God and God's nature, it's it seems to me that God is a very diverse being. There is a lot of and you you mentioned this in the first segment, James, you know, these lenses of seeing God, these ways of understanding who God is. And I think it was one of the reasons why you both had said that denominations were good because they were all these different lenses and approaches of understanding ways of understanding who God is. And I think that that's beautiful.

And how can we look at the denominations and these different faiths as ways of seeing who God is. And of course, historically, again, black eyes for the church because we have just beat each other to death, literally, hurting each other, killing each other, the things we say. And I'm sure that this is just breaking God's heart, but the way God has created this world, this universe, with all of the complexities and all of the different things. It's just this how many trees? There's not just one tree.

How many different species of animal? There's not just one kind yet. It's just how many different stars, how many it just goes on and on that reveal the character and being of this god that we're all trying to kind of get closer to figure out in our denominations, yet just another way of experiencing God. And I guess the hang up here is that the folks some folks just feel like they've they've got to be right about it. And that just kind of begins to build walls of separation, begins to like keep people away from God maybe.

I don't know. What what are your thoughts on that, Molly?

I think I've seen, especially in my context, a lot of, someone will say, well, I have proof in the Bible that I'm right and that you are incorrect about this statement. And they show their proof where I don't see their proof as proof. I see it as something different because I see it from a different lens as you were saying. And so I think there's moments where we can talk and educate one another and have discussion. I think it has to be with the right people and with people that have open minds and that are ready to have those conversations.

I'm one of those people who, if someone wants to come to me and have an open and honest conversation about who I believe God to be and who they believe God to be, it's completely different. That is totally okay with me. I'm just happy both of us believe in a God that loves us. So for me personally, I try not to get hung up on the denomination because I've seen how that can be really hurtful to people. I just try to realize that no matter what lens you look at it through, God loves each and every one of us.

And no matter who you are, what you've done, what you're going to do, who you're gonna be. God loves you in a way that no one can ever love you. And so we should just be joyful that we have a God that loves us well. And that's what I why

Sounds like a big God there.

Yeah, pretty big. I mean. Yeah,

Yeah, James, what do you think? Different lenses, different ways to interpret God and that's okay? Or is that, know, no, we've got to be right about these things. We've got to be doctrinally sound. There's too many heretics running around out there, and they're leading people away from God, and that's harmful.

That's why we have to have the right denomination, the right church.

Well, and I understand the desire to be right, because if I'm honest with myself, I like to be right. I don't It has to take a real contemplative approach to being with other people to say, yeah, this, I can feel it. I want to be right right now. I want to really win this conversation. Which by the way, you can't win a conversation because it's a conversation.

You know, there's no winner at the end except both of you, all of you who've been in the conversation because it's a conversation. Not a debate. But yeah, And the challenge for us all, and it's is we are finite beings. And the elevating I believe scripture is the gateway to understanding and knowing God. Okay.

I know that now I've crossed into something else. And each one of the denominations does something ever so slightly different. Mhmm. Sometimes it's not ever so slightly. Different with their interpretation of what scripture is for some people.

And what's interesting is the idea that scripture is inerrant immutable and absolutely like God breathed, that idea is about 200 years old. Not 2,000 years old. Fundamentalism and getting back to the fundamentals started in the early 1800s. The idea that the Bible could be taken literally. Prior to that, no one thought even Martin Luther, who was the reformer, did not anticipate that we would take it literally.

He wanted to throw away the book of James. I mean, was like, yeah, this should never have been in here, the epistle of straw. I've forgiven Martin Luther for that. Wanted to throw me away. I mean, throw James away.

But the truth is there are so many lenses to see scripture through. There are so many different if you try to make it a monolithic book, why does it come from so many different places? If you try to make it a group of gathered stories of how each one of those communities, those individuals, named and unnamed, experienced the power of god in their lives and then wrote about something that was beyond words in a way that tried to communicate that experience to other people so they could be transformed by the experience. One of my favorite Hebrew Bible Old Testament scholars, Walter Bruggemann, always said in his introductory, I read that. It's a great big thick book.

I don't know where it is right now. It's in a box somewhere over there. Down there.

All is moving.

Somewhere moving is what it is. But he said what we should do is he pictures the the Bible like we're the jurors. And we are hearing all the testimonies. And the wonderful thing about the Hebrew Bible is they're unafraid to have one group that seems to think this is the only way. And then you get the prophets who are like, you know, it's really nice that Israel thinks it's chosen for some privileges, but it's chosen for a purpose, and that's to proclaim something and be a different kind of people.

And part of that is to look out for the poor and the widow and all that. And you've completely gotten all your religious rules together. I don't God doesn't care about your religious ritual if you treat everybody else like garbage. No. I don't want go.

So, I mean, all those voices, you listen to them all, and then, you get to be the the jury, the judge, the one who says, I hear all those testimonies and the testimony, it's because God can't be put into a tiny box. All of the testimonies are a little bit different. They catch different nuances of God. Even the same is true of the New Testament. There are nuances to the flavors of the way each one of the gospel writers talk about God.

Each one of the letters, even when Paul's writing to the Philippians, it's a different flavor than when he's writing to the Corinthians. Those Corinthians were they were a wild bunch. Paul was like kind of reigning them in all the time. Know, in the Philippians, he's like, dudes, you guys have supported me all along. You're great but got some things gotta tell you.

You know, get your stuff together too and those people in Ephesus, well, in any case, they were wearing armor, the armor of God. But come back around. The stories, we hear all the stories. There's not one way to approach the stories, unless you feel like they've got to all be literally God breathed. That's relatively new.

If you believe that, I want to encourage you. I'm okay with you believing in that place. But I'm at a place now where, for me, these are reflections of God. And if I listen closely, I'm going to hear the spirit breathe fresh life into me right now, right now. Not just what it was originally intended to say two thousand years ago, three thousand years ago.

Right. But if you listen, spirit can speak into your life right now. I don't think I answered your question, Sean. But you know, I said some things.

You did. And it was great, actually. I really love that. And in fact, I think as we try to look at landing the plane here, we have so without question, there's so many denominations. In fact, even the non denominations are denomination.

It's like I think they're the fastest growing denomination, the non denoms, which you know, that's just kind of like a clever way of saying, well, not claiming to be Baptist, we're not claiming to be Methodist, we're not claiming to be this, that, and the other, but really, we kind of fall in line with one of those. And that's really kind of the truth, once you kind of get down to the nuts and bolts of it. And so if you want to call yourself nondenominational, okay. Alright. That's cute.

But I think for me, it comes down to if you're if you're looking for a community to plug into, and we I would think I can speak for all of us here, that we encourage you to seek that community out, because I think that is what God wants us to be in his community. And whether that's a Pentecostal church or a Quaker church, you know Cool. What whichever one that, you know, you feel like you can plug into. I think one of the the hallmarks that should be looked at is the compassion and humility of the congregation, particularly of its leaders. Because I feel like I I just I keep seeing that lived out in the person of Jesus Christ who claimed to be the representation of God, who claimed to be God.

And when I see how in one moment, Jesus is standing with this naked woman who's been cast before him and is, you you know, asked to render a judgment.

Johnny?

All of the the religious laws are on the line here. And he turns it on his head on on its head. I don't know, there's some compassion there, and there's some humility there. And he just took thousands of years of how this church is supposed to be done, and turned it on its head in a completely different light. And so I think for me, if I were to be able to encourage someone, I would encourage you to definitely get into community, but also look for those defining factors of whatever charge you're getting into.

Where's where's the level of humility? Where's that level of compassion at? Molly, if you were to give someone some advice for looking for a community to get involved with, what what would you tell them? And then James.

I would say find a community of people who support you and love you and care for you well, look for people who are not looking to be right, they're just looking to be loved. That is where you'll find where God really resides.

I love that. What do think James?

What do you say after what Molly said? I think a place where you feel seen for who you are and accepted. Because to quote someone I know personally, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. And if you recognize those things about yourself and everyone else, and the people that you go to and form community with recognize that about you, and you can be on that journey with them in the good and the bad. And you know, look for some people who accept you, but are also really willing to call you out when you're, you know, like, you listen to what you're saying.

So someone who will call you out and hold you accountable to be the best you you can be. Not try to change you to be a different person, but you know, when you're deluding yourself to call you out. Someone a place you can be known and know others, and in knowing and to know God as well. So that's I said a lot after I really Molly captured it. So you know, you need the soundbite.

Go for Molly what Molly said.

No, I really appreciate both of you. That was really great. And again, this is a subject that I think we could probably spend a lot of time on. There's a lot of things we left off the table in this discussion, but we would love to hear from you, our listener, if you've got some questions or you've got some thoughts that you would like to add to this conversation. Molly here in just a second is going to tell us how to get in touch with us so that we can be responsive to you, and we do.

We wanna have a dialogue. We want this to be more of a conversation than us just kind of you know talking to you for about forty five to fifty minutes. So, Molly, tell us how can folks get a hold of us to keep this conversation going. You're muted.

You can follow us on Instagram at spiritual dot not religious underscore religious. And then for our email, it is spiritualnotreligious@gmail.com. Alright.

Fantastic. Hey, guys, it's just been so good to be back in the saddle with both of you and just talking about these things and loving on our spiritual not religious friends as we ourselves are learning to grow and to understand our faith and our belief and our passions and living into community with one another. It's not easy, but what beautiful work we are called to. And we appreciate you listening. We appreciate you sharing this with friends.

We welcome your agreements and disagreements. We would love to hear from you. But in

the

meantime, know that you are loved, and as our good friend James loves to say that you are infinitely precious. And what's the other part of that James? Infinitely precious

And unconditionally love unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

You sure are. Well, we love you guys, and we look forward to seeing you sooner than later, hopefully. In the meantime, God bless.