Naming the Real

How do we make sense of the ubiquity of violence and evil throughout human history? In this episode—part of The Barbaric Impulse series—we explore how racism, violence, and all manners of evil are connected to a fear of impurity. Using René Girard's mimetic theory, we explore how societies function by finding scapegoats to quell this fear of impurity and, ultimately, how we can choose to live free from the quest for power and violence, embracing a life of powerlessness instead—which becomes a life of unending power.

As humans, we tend towards automatic thinking and behavior that keeps us stuck. Over time, we end up not seeing possibilities for something new or different, even when they do exist. In this episode, we explore the concept of rackets, which is a rubric for seeing why getting stuck is so natural for us: it provides a big payoff (of comfort or certainty or safety) that we like even if it keeps us miserable. And we chart a path for stepping out of rackets and into a life of agency, flourishing, and joy—seeing and seizing possibilities for abundance, no matter the situation or circumstances happening around us.

Despite self-doubt and whatever shame and guilt we may carry, the drive to be good lies deep within our humanity. But how do we become good? In this episode—the final episode in the "Critique of Evangelical Christianity" mini-series—we explore how the pursuit of goodness is often just the ego's game of "looking good and being right" dressed up in fancy clothes, and how rigid religion mistakes looking good for being good. Ultimately, we explore how true goodness only forms in us as we become open to encountering another with openness and vulnerability, which can be terrifying…and is totally worth it.

In a world of suffering, we all want answers and we all want certainty to soothe us, but at some point, being right and certain can get in the way of becoming good. In this episode, we explore how the quest for certainty can keep us from thinking creatively and with holy imagination, and what it takes to recover and develop a life of awe, mystery, and wonder, which are necessary for the cultivation of goodness and virtue.

Christianity began on the margins: from a Jewish man whose parents were refugees. What if this reality—that Jesus was a man "with his back against the wall"—is essential to understanding the Christian message? In this episode, we explore dynamics of power and powerlessness and how alluring power (through rightness, certainty, or respectability) is, and how it can be the trap that keeps us from flourishing.

Christianity often ceases to be a lifestyle—a path towards transformation and goodness—and becomes obsessed with certainty and defending belief systems. In this episode, we explore how spirituality devolves into mere religion, fueled by a fixation with making judgments of who's good and who's bad and fueled by an addiction to certainty and having all the answers. More importantly, we explore what transforming religion back into spirituality looks like, based on non-dualistic thinking and prizing connection and relationship over certainty.

Scripture is easily and often abused and manipulated to support agendas that run the gamut from silly to downright evil. In this episode, we explore some of the history of this abuse and what lies at its root: a "plain meaning" reading that adopts principles from the Bible while ignoring the methods of interpretation that Scripture itself champions. By adopting the developmental methodology which Scripture demonstrates, we can transcend narrow, rigid, or fundamentalist readings and see the transformative brilliance embedded within the biblical tradition.

(1) Naming the Real is launching its first public training. It's a 3-day training [re]Storied, and it explores the practices, habits, and disciplines it takes to live a flourishing life of courage and hope, for the sake of the world! It's designed to help you discover agency, authority, and authorship in your story. Learn more at namingthereal.com/trainings [re]Stories will be the first in a series of public trainings offered (we hope) around the country. The first available training will be held in Jackson, Michigan, May 13-15, 2022.

(2) The Naming the Real Podcast is moving to a bi-weekly production schedule. New episodes will now drop every other week. Due to an upcoming training schedule well as an ambitious slate of future episodes, this new schedule will make sure that episode quality doesn't suffer. I am really excited about coming episodes, please stay tuned for more about what episodes and series are coming your way.

Thank you for being a part of this journey!

American evangelicalism has tragically stripped key parts from Jesus' life and teaching in order to focus on conversion while neglecting ongoing transformation—of us and of the world around us. This "Gospel Americana" is a reduction of Jesus' provocative message to something more manageable, controllable, and comfortable, but without much power and with increasingly less credibility. Yet there is a path to transcending this reductionism (and any type of reductionism) in order to live a vibrant, flourishing life of hope, for the sake of the world. We find it by asking new questions and having the courage to answer them.

From its roots in the first half of the twentieth century, evangelicalism has become a powerful political force within American society. This new series—A Critique of Evangelical Christianity—explores what has gone wrong with evangelicalism as a movement, in order to point to new paths forward: both to vibrant spiritual life and the renewal of our body politic. In this first episode, we explore how hyper-individualism has infected evangelical theology, crowding out essential parts of the biblical tradition.