It’s a new year, so we’re back at it with our annual Galatians study to kick it off! This year Jay brings new study materials and new scholarship — continuing to unlock more and more that this letter has to offer. There is something unsettling that the issues addressed in this letter by Paul are still so relevant to us today. But that makes it just as timely and just as helpful as ever. The Galatians study continues to teach us more and more about grace, while still asking some really important questions. Is there such a thing as grace, or is it just a scam to justify and excuse our own sins? Is the Bible perfect? What was God’s role in the process of writing and assembling it? Is doubt the opposite of faith? Is doubt an aspect of faith? This letter was written to a community that was completely divided, and it was Paul’s way of reaching out to try and help repair it. That’s why we continue to study it because we still need the help. And each year we learn more and more, helping us all grow more and more. It’s a really great thing.

Note: Apologies for the lower audio quality this week. Even though it’s not too bad, we’re still not sure what happened, and we were unable to fix it. We’re going to try our hardest to pinpoint the problem and hopefully keep it from happening again.

This talk was given on January 7, 2024 from Seattle, Washington.

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Apologies for the brief delay on this week’s talk. Josh has been fighting with Covid all week which made editing the video not the easiest feat. But it’s here now and what a way to close out the year. For the last talk of 2023 Jay is going into the book of James! I know, we couldn’t believe it either. But he is and he knocks it out of the park. James is a tricky book, not really because what it says, but a lot of because of how it’s taught and used. Have almost 100% of pastors—including Jay—gotten this book wrong? Today Jay dives into this particular book to talk about the dangers of showing partiality. Are the rich treated differently? By everyone? Are we just as guilty? The Bible, especially the Gospels, talk about loving people equally…but do we do that? Can we do that? How do we love people the best we can? What we tend to know the most about the book of James is when it talks about ‘faith without works,’ but what does that mean? Do the themes of James and the themes of punk rock share similar roots? Is Ian MacKaye a modern-day Paul? And most importantly, can we make life a little bit less of a hell for people by simply focusing on life before death, before we worry about life after death. I’m telling you, this is a great talk. No better way to finish out the year, and no better talk to lead into our 2024 Galatians Study!!

This talk was given on December 31, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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It’s Christmas Eve and Jay has a great one for us today. This talk is a pretty positive one too, go figure! Our talks don’t always have this much of a positive spin on them, so when it does happen, we try to take full advantage of them. And Jay is excited about this one. Today’s talk is about looking at the difference between arguing well and disagreeing well. What does each of those mean. We used to treat them as being pretty similar but maybe they aren’t. Does learning how to disagree well need to come before learning how to argue well? Is it harder to argue well or disagree well? Maybe learning to disagree well should be our starting point. Jay also gets into the topic of love and the different kinds of love mentioned in the Bible. Have things changed to a point where we find our friends loving us more as family, and family as friends? Is it harder to argue/disagree well with people we love than it is with strangers? How important is learning to let go in the practice of disagreeing well? Jay talks about all of this stuff and more. If I was to write out every gem he hits on in this talk, this description would go on for pages and pages. Enjoy the talk and happy holidays!!

This talk was given on December 24, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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Revolution is coming up on its 30th year!! So Jay reflects a little bit on that, and shares some good news as we catch up on what’s been going on with him. Then he dives into the talk, and Jay is back and more inspired!! So, with feeling so inspired after 30 years, Jay’s talk today is about…inspiration! Has Christianity lost its inspiration? What inspires us to do what we do? How do we inspire others to argue well? Can we even inspire others? Do we use more fear than inspiration? Jesus tried to inspire us to almost live in a different world, to behave differently and to love in a different way and it’s not always easy. The Bible isn’t very often teaching us many easy lessons. The Bible is something we have to wrestle with and negotiate with, something we have to engage with actively. Especially if we want to use it for love and inspiration.

This talk was given on December 17, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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Today’s talk isn’t really a sequel the “The Hell Talk” series that started a few weeks back, but it’s pretty darn close. Today Jay talks a lot about Radical Honesty. Radical Honesty is something we need if we want to have Radical Grace—the two go hand in hand. The church as a whole stopped the practice of Selling Indulgences, but Jay sometimes wonders if the church still it does, but it’s just hidden better. Maybe it takes a different form? But is it all the same? Does our theology have us accidentally creating monsters by how we treat and relate to each other? Jay asks us to look at ourselves and ask: What Have We Become? Is grace amazing? Or have we made it only semi-amazing? Are we showing radical grace to people? Are we relating to them with radical honesty? If we could pluck someone from the tortures of Hell, would we? And if so…does that open up a very messy can of worms for our theology? Today’s talk is a good one! It has some people divided, but that’s okay. We don’t want to push anyone away—but we want the type of hard, honest conversations where sometimes that is unavoidable. Those conversations can be rough, but it’s where the change happens. It’s where the magic happens.

This talk was given on December 3, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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Today’s talk is about honesty! About what honesty means in Christianity. What honesty is like when you grow up in the church. Do we have a low regard for honesty? Have we compromised the Truth so we can continue to believe what we believe and to stay comfortable? Would we rather have certainty over honesty? That is at the heart of this talk. All of that. But Jay also shares memories and stories of the impact that his friend Carlton Pearson had on his life. And how Carlton helped Jay see the Fruits of the Spirit even in the midst of extreme darkness. And isn’t that the whole point of it? The whole point of everything? To help us see that. To help us learn that tradition and theology don’t count for much of anything if there are people out there suffering—friends, strangers, and enemies alike. And isn’t that the true point of Christianity? To help those who are in need. To help those who are suffering? Revolution isn’t that concerned with the afterlife. We want to focus on life before death. Because there is a whole lot of living that that needs to be done before we can think of any life beyond it. 

This talk was given on November 26, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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We have a lot to get into today! Yes, today’s talk brings into question a lot of issues with the late stage of capitalism we find ourselves in now, but there is more to it than just that. Today we’re learning more about contradictions, and we’re learning about growth. We all change and grow, and we should! But let’s not be too quick to forget our old selves, because empathy really comes into play when we remember what we used to be like and how we used to think—and we use that memory and the person we were, and we add that to who we are now. That is how we start having good conversations! Today’s talk also deals with both how we “other” people, but also how we tend to “other” ourselves with labels and identities. This talk isn’t real clear cut, it’s about having a nonbinary way of thinking. Seeing more than just our side of an argument or discussion. Because while we’re fighting each other, the whole system is crushing us! But we outnumber the bullies. Together we can do this! It’s our hope that today’s talk will be a good step in starting to liberate us from bondage, liberate us from hate, and liberate us from “othering.”  We hope this talk helps us find the Tammy Faye in all of us. We’re all going through enough, we don’t need to keep hurting ourselves or each other on top of it. 

This talk was given on November 19, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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The world is a pretty horrible place right now, so today’s talk going to be a heavy one. And there is almost no Bible in this talk. Today Jay will be talking about love, more specifically Agape Love. Agape Love is a term that makes some of us cringe, we’ve heard it used and abused. So it’s not the most comfortable topic to dive into. Are Love and Grace siblings? What is Agape Love and how is it different than the love we know? Does Love outweigh scripture? Can we love our enemy and still have them remain our enemy? So, as you can see, it is an interesting topic to discuss especially in these times. It’s going to be a tough one and if you don’t want a deep dive into this topic, or if you want to have an asterisk next to Grace then this might not be a talk for you this week, and that’s okay…but we hope you do listen. 

This talk was given on November 5, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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The other parts of Jay’s Hell Talk are still being developed and researched, so this week we’re taking a bit of a break from the Hell series and just hear some stuff that has been weighing heavy on Jay recently. No sermon, he’s just sharing his humanity this week. Critics often help feed us, here at Revolution. They fuel us a lot. But the stuff they say still hurts and still sucks. Jay shares some of his experience with that. He reminds us that when we attack people, we hurt people. Plain and simple as that. We can’t forget that we’re all just human beings. Jay also talks about distraction and division, and questions if religion has become too dangerous. He asks us to question why we don’t allow ourselves to hear and to listen. Why are we scared of communication? What is the essence of humanity? And if Jesus was here today, what would he say?

This talk was given on October 29, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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We got the start of something real interesting going here! A multi-part in-depth study on Hell. Yes, the Hell. But it’s not the study you think. It’s a study where we really dive into the concept, origin, and histories of Hell. Growing up in church, very often asking questions is discouraged. But now we can ask questions, and we should ask questions, and not be afraid to! None of Paul’s writings mention Hell and they were written closer to Jesus’s time than the Gospels were. That offers up some very interesting questions to us, and questions are okay—What does Jesus talk about when he talks about Hell? Jay dives into a little bit of that today as well. Does the concept of Hell fly in the face of the Beatitudes? What do we love when we love God? Is the suffering we witness today Hell on Earth? Why is Hell defended and championed so much? Why does everyone want to send everyone else to Hell all the time? It’s time to reexamine some of the things and theology we’ve turned into golden calves. Revolution has always tried to focus on living before death and living well, more then it ever did on the thought of an After Life. But this is a topic well worth diving into, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Please note: Today’s talk is just the basics. It’s just setting the foundations for the series as a whole and some of the concepts that will be talked about in the future. We’re not going that in-depth today. We understand this is a very complex topic. This talk is just the base work. Some of it may sound too over simplified, we get that, but this is just part 1!

This talk was given on October 22, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.

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