Untangling Christianity Podcast

In this episode John and Gregg continue to consider Gregg’s Sunday morning discussion group.

John begins by returning to his uncertainty about Gregg’s contention that the beginning of the “Disciple’s Prayer” in Matthew 6: 9-13 (“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. . .”) is a clear indication that God’s will is not being done on earth in the same way that it is being done in heaven.

Gregg replies that his view is that, for Christians, if one believes that one sins then this obviously shows that God’s will is not being done all the time… because it is not being done in my own life! So it follows, Gregg reasons, that Matthew 7:9-10 should be taken to mean what it ostensibly indicates, and not the opposite (which one participant adamantly asserted).

So the reality of human sinfulness that is readily apparent in our world (through our own actions, through great tragedies such as Rwanda and the Holocaust, etc.) simply cannot be seen as things that God desires. Rather, Gregg believes that those who hold such beliefs do so because, in a rather warped and contradictory way, they feel safer knowing that God is “in charge” of all the evil in the world and that God is somehow “using it” to bring about good (despite the means or reasons for this being unfathomable).

On this topic, Gregg advocates an understanding of sin that originates from (and makes sense in light of) God’s dual nature as both sovereign and father. Thus where God is the source of all truth there are behaviours and practices that Christians may see as categorically wrong (and to be avoided) and categorically right (and to be fostered). Thus sin involves embracing some practices and eschewing others.

Yet where God is love (and is Father or parent), God is also seeking to foster relationship with human beings and so sin takes on other characteristics. In this case sin should be seen as orientations and actions, both conscious and pre-conscious, ommissive and commissive, for which human beings are responsible and which thwart our primary love relationship: those things I do that create distance where I most desire closeness.

Thus Gregg argues that sin is not the problem to which holiness is the solution (sin’s opposite). Rather, sin is both the symptom of and contributor to the real problem, which is the absence of right relationship with God.

John returns to the Disciples’ prayer and wonders about what it means for “God’s will” to be done. Gregg again categorizes this as being in right relationship with God. Thus Gregg sees himself as an agent for God—he literally “works for God”—which is what Christians are called to do.

John sees the topic of self-deceit to be an extremely slippery one, because we never see when we are deceiving ourselves! So John wonders what “counter practices” we may use to counter self-deception? Gregg notes a number of them. First, one cannot “go it alone.” Second, one needs to be open to, and participate in, dialogue (in our churches, communities, etc.). Third, one needs a basic awareness of one’s weaknesses and growth areas. Fourth, one must develop the practices of reading the Bible against ourselves. Fifth, developing good communication skills, such as “active listening.” Sixth, attend counselling. Seventh, travelling in foreign countries / being immersed in other cultures.

Gregg terms these de-centering practices, because they move the self out of the centre and toward the periphery, counter to our typical orientation. By extension, Gregg estimates that middle-aged white males are the most likely to suffer from self-deceit, as these are the most “centrally” placed individuals in Western society (that is, these are the individual most likely to hold power).

The post Identifying Self Deceit (136) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode, John and Gregg again speak about Gregg’s Sunday morning church discussion group. Gregg explains that the most recent session became rather fiery, particularly concerning the idea that the Holy Spirit does not do the majority the work in helping Christians understand the Bible’s original meaning.

John notes how this belief is often underwritten by the understanding that God is all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, which seems immediately compelling for Christians until we start to think them through the implications of these beliefs.

Gregg agrees that this view of the Holy Spirit seems misunderstood and overblown. To that end he identifies two versions—a “hard” and a “soft” version—of this viewpoint. Those holding the hard version believe the Holy Spirit communicates the Bible’s meaning to Christians. Those hold the soft version believe that the Holy Spirit does not typically act in this way but could, at God’s sovereign discretion, choose to do so.

John thinks that this view is rather “mysterious,” and Gregg views this emphasis on mystery to be essentially an attempt to embellish, enhance, or prop-up God’s sovereignty to the extent that even if it doesn’t seem right, natural, or likely (and even without clear examples of this). Thus Gregg is often suspicious that Christians take refuge in the notion of mystery when they are making exaggerated or unfounded claims about God!

John wonders: what is the crux of the issue?

Gregg responds that the notion that God’s will is not being done all the time, “on earth as it is in heaven,” has been created numerous vehement objections. So Gregg believes that the real issue is about sin, insofar as many participants are either unwilling or unable to make the obvious connection: the proof that God’s will is not being done all the time, “on earth as it is in heaven,” is the sin in my life!

Thus Gregg believes that the dissenters have only been able to miss this remarkably obvious point because they are deceived into thinking that promoting God’s sovereignty—making God bigger and better—is a Christian’s top priority.

John wonders: what would Gregg do differently next time he teaches this course? Gregg offers that he would go into the process with his eyes more widely open concerning the levels of dishonesty and self-deceit that he could encounter, and realizing that some objectors could well “cycle through” the same objections at great length without ever considering that they are simply protecting their own views without having not given Gregg’s ideas any legitimate consideration.

So John argues: we cannot perceive our own deceit! Gregg agrees and explains that Christians need to become aware that they actually engage in sinful practices (both of biblical interpretation and biblical application): doing what I claim not to do and covering up my tracks as I go! Instead, Christians need to hear and understand both the biblical affirmation of who they are and the biblical critique of who they are, in order to move them forward on the road to becoming Christ-like.

The post Stuck in a Loop of Self Deceit (135) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss the morning discussion that Gregg facilitates every Sunday.

John is interested in the newest developments, and Gregg highlights how engaging with a foreign mindset can be continually surprising.

For example, Gregg summarizes the culture in his church as “hyper-trustful” relative to certain ways of reading the Bible. Yet these poor methods of Bible reading are also acting as a roadblock to serious consideration that God’s will is not being done “on earth as it is in heaven” (as expressed in the “Disciple’s prayer,” in Matt 6, and elsewhere).

In an attempt to address this Gregg proposed J. I. Packer’s view: that the Holy Spirit does not “give us” the right understanding of what the Bible meant—this is down to human skill and effort:

“ ‘The first task is always to get into the writer’s mind the grammatico-historical exegesis of the most thorough-going and disciplined kind, using all the tools provided by linguistic, historical, logical, and semantic study for the purpose.’ Yet he differentiates between the approaches needed for the interpreter to discern what the text meant and what it means. The latter requires the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment.”

Donald J Payne, “J. I. Packer’s Theological Method” in J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of his Life and Thought, ed. Timothy George, 63 (Italics his).

Gregg chose Packer thinking that most of the participants would have heard of Packer (and so value him enough to consider his perspective). He also argued that Christians are best to understand themselves on the metaphor of a “body,” and as such individual Christians were never meant to “go it alone” when it comes to reading and understanding the Bible!

Yet Gregg’s experience is that many participants balked at Packer’s idea and instead insisted that the Holy Spirit does allow them to know the Bible well enough, on their own, without the need for outside assistance.

John wonders: What is this view based on?

Gregg responds: Good question!

Gregg observes how the biblical support offered by the objectors showed not only misunderstanding of the text but also significant misuse. For instance, one participant cited the following verses as indicating that all Christians can and should understand the Bible with only God’s assistance:

a) Job 32:7-10, which is Elihu’s own opinion about Job’s situation. Elihu is the fourth person to speak to Job and his speech is afterward completely ignored. Commentators view his speech as highly presumptuous and incorrect),

b) Isaiah 11:2-4, a passage relating directly to the Messiah (and not to Christians or anyone else).

Gregg also notes that if the Holy Spirit is guiding each believer rightly to understand Scripture then not only should this person not have made these errors but the other, Spirit-filled Christians in the room should have sensed or know that incorrect readings where being offered and stated this. Yet none of them did!

John notes that it is extremely convenient to think that the Holy Spirit’s assistance means that one can understand the Bible without error! Further, John sees it as completely “slippery” when one of the participants is shown to be in error and then simply chooses another verse to prove the original point (rather than considering that the view they are supporting may actually be incorrect).

So John again wonders: What are the criteria for deciding what is correct?

Gregg sees the entire process as offering a very relevant (though perhaps painful) object lesson in self-deceit, which is the overall topic. Yet is also problematic because Gregg no longer believes that the mistakes being made are honest, but are rather aim at reinforcing the participants’ own views and ideas while not simply disagreeing with Gregg but actually failing to engage with his views at all (while disclaiming them all the same).

The post The Holy Spirit Reads the Bible for Me (134) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss a recent session at the Sunday morning group that Gregg facilitates.

Gregg explains how this session was quite different because the adolescents joined the adults for this discussion. The history of his involvement with this group is that Gregg has been trying to engage them in re-considering their perspectives and beliefs relative to other perspectives (such as those of other denominations, atheists, etc.).

Yet Gregg has found that because the culture of this church is so strongly a “culture of trust” relative to such matters that it was very difficult last year for him to bring them to the place of viewing anything related to Christianity or Christian faith from a suspicious perspective. This is quite the opposite in most communities that Gregg is familiar with—call them “cultures of suspicion”—where people are usually all too aware of the failings of Christians and Christianity.

This year Gregg has decided to take a different approach. So he proposes to identify views held by the group that appear to contradict both the Bible and real life and present this contradiction to them. Then he aims to accept their rebuttals or disagreements and address each in turn, until either the disagreements can be shown to be invalid (and so rejected) or valid (and so incorporated).

In this case Gregg has been questioning the group’s belief that God is “in charge” or that God’s will is being done all the time. To do so, last week he raised both the Disciples’ Prayer (where the disciples are taught to pray that “God’s kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”) and the fact that events such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide occurred.

Essentially this amounts to “the problem of evil.”

Various group members disagreed with the idea that God does not cause / work with evil, citing both the first two chapters of Job and Romans 8:28. Following this session Gregg researched a number of articles on both these texts and found some very interesting and helpful material.

John wonders: How did the actual interaction work out? Gregg notes a few interesting things. First, he was surprised when respondents tended to try to use simplified or “easier” examples (such as assault instead of the Holocaust) to prove that there were edge cases in these easier examples that could be questionable, and then claim to have resolved the matter! So Gregg had to keep respondents focused on the hardest possible examples.

Second, Gregg was also surprised when a respondent was unwilling to recognize differences in wording between “God bring good despite evil” and “God uses evil to bring good.” In this person’s view there is no difference in meaning (yet Gregg wonders: how would this person respond if told that there is no difference between “no one comes to the Father except through me” and “Jesus is one path to salvation”?

Gregg believes that both of these cases are based on an impulse to console ourselves in the face of the difficulties and dangers of existence. In this case Christians ardently hold to the idea that “God is in control,” despite both biblical and experiential evidence to the contrary, because holding this belief making the unpredictability and pain of life meaningful and even sanctioned by one who is, effectively, on my side. Nor do Christians typically frame this belief in its starkest terms (such as saying that the Holocaust “had to happen” or that God “used the Rwandan genocide”).

So Gregg argues that evil or wicked treatment may create a greater, more jarring contrast when juxtaposed with a good or loving act, but it may also cause defensive detachment or other issues that do not result in “good.” Further, the world actually becomes less predictable when holding this belief: those believing that God brings good out of evil cannot be sure if any particular evil act is one that God is using for good—or indeed, if every evil act is being used for good (and so whether there is really any evil that we should dispute or resist)!

Ultimately, Gregg argues that being truthful with oneself about the reality of evil also necessitates being more truthful with oneself about who one is and what the world is really like, and this can be very difficult and painful to do.

Similarly, Gregg observes that there is a prevalent view within the group that Christians need nothing more than the Holy Spirit in order to read the Bible correctly. According to Gregg’s experience and his understanding of the Bible this is a false notion which functions to allow anyone to quote nearly anything in the Bible is support for his or her views. Instead, Christians are to see themselves as a body and need to be interreliant, leaning on other parts of the body that are more trained or suited to particular tasks. So the idea that any given Christian will ever be able to understand the Bible as well as Gordon Fee or N. T. Wright is simply bogus.

The post Is God Always in Control? (133) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss two different cultures, those who find Christianity and Christian beliefs to be suspect and those who are not questioning or believing that anything is wrong with their beliefs. They then focus on how to work with the latter group.

Gregg explains that indeed he is experiencing culture shock now that he is working with a group of people who largely believe that “the church” is okay and that what we are getting from the church is generally reliable. This is in contrast to engaging with the majority of people at L’Abri, where a culture of suspicion, about Christianity and the church, is dominant. In Gregg’s view a culture of suspicion arises out of people experiencing Christianity in a way that does not work and that may be damaging or hurtful.

The question of how to promote a lecture series about Christianity within a culture of trust has arisen between John and Gregg.

John favours emphasizing the benefits to be gained (such as better interactions with the world around us, with God, with oneself and with others) while Gregg favours emphasizing the issues that need to be overcome. Gregg initially thought that his emphasis was due to his past academic training of presenting an issue and offering a solution.

Instead, Gregg notes that based on his observation the reason that there is low turnout to his Sunday morning discussions is that for most of these people who in a culture of trust their lives take place in the realm of “good.” On the one hand, there is very little impetus for people who seem to see their lives at 7/10 to put in time and trust in something unknown in order to move to 8/10.

On the other hand, however, Gregg suggests that this culture of trust and this environment of “good” offers a distorted picture of their reality. Specifically, the true picture is that we—all of us, Christians included—are self-deceived (we have only to read the biblical prophets for this to be confirmed). Yet there is no practical understanding, or certainly no application of counter-practices, within this church as a manner of revealing and defeating the sinful practices that self-deception fosters.

Yet John wonders: can this sort of thing be marketed at all? For unless someone can see the issue and wants to change, won’t they just continue with the status quo? Gregg replies that while this may be the case in many areas of life, but in Christianity there is the built-in understanding that nearly all Christians accept, which is the idea of sin and sinfulness. Yet when put into practice in the church this understanding falls far short of the biblical description!

So Gregg’s aim: in a culture of trust to breed suspicion, in a culture of suspicion to foster trust. In other words, the tension between suspicion and trust must be kept sufficiently balanced in order to allow it to function properly. So Gregg argues for the need a) to identify one’s immediate reflex and to think about what it would mean to reverse it, and b) to love our neighbours by valuing their ideas and texts as much as our own.

The post Questioning Beliefs and Trust (132) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss a meeting that Gregg had with a street preacher.

Gregg explained that he has never spoken to a Street Preacher before but had his curiosity piqued and so began a conversation.

After recounting his encounter with the Street Preacher, Gregg goes on to explain that he had always assumed that people who preached on street corners had something not quite right about them.

But the more he thought about the situation, the more he came to wonder if instead of being in some way aberrant the Street Preacher may actually represent a distillation of most Evangelical Christian orientations!

In other words, Gregg wonders if the Street Preacher was not and in fact an idealized version of what he typically encounters in Evangelical churches. For example, he had his own way of reading the Bible and that was “the right way;” he maintains control of the conversation; his approach to the conversation is not to have a dialogue but to be completely persuasive.

So instead of taking what he learned at church and twisting it, Gregg wonders if the Street Preacher has not taken what he learned at church and refined it. In other words he’s got “to the heart of it.”

The post Street Preacher Experience (131) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss a quotation by Yogi Bhajan, submitted by an Untangling Christianity listener.

John sees the discussion about Gregg’s response to the Yogi Bhajan quotation as an extension of their conversation about Christian Praise music (in episode #128, “Let them have their music”). John’s concern here is similar to his concern in episode #128: How do we know if / when we are being too picky with our criticisms?

John explains how, in the UC Facebook group, the listener who posted the Yogi Bhajan quotation concluded that she was approaching such quotations in a very different way from Gregg.

John explains this difference using the analogy of buying bananas at the grocery store. In essence, we rarely find the “perfect” banana. So John sees UC listeners as “bringing bananas” to the group (i.e., bringing their valuable ideas, quotations, etc.) and yet Gregg typically sees “too many bruises” on the bananas (i.e., listener ideas are often criticized and perhaps rejected).

John’s concern is that listener’s ideas are not being honored, and that listeners may think that nothing that they post is ever “good enough.” As a result John worries that listeners might feel discouraged or be deterred from posting.

Gregg’s initial response is that the Facebook discussion about the Yogi Bhajan’s quotation—a Sikh teacher who introduced Khundulini yoga to Canada—was excellent. Further, Gregg acknowledges that he seeks agreement but expects disagreement, at least initially, because many of the ideas that he is promoting are not well known / seem to run counter to standard views within evangelical circles.

Gregg also agrees with John’s “banana” analogy, up to a point: like bringing their “best bananas” listeners are bringing to the group ideas and viewpoints that they like / value. However Gregg would liken these ideas or viewpoints not to bananas but to a variety of different objects—tools, like step stools or screwdrivers, that help listeners to live their lives or understand the world better.

So where John argues that listeners may not feel comfortable posting their valued ideas due to Gregg’s disagreement, Gregg agrees that this is possible.

Thus Gregg approached the a more recent David Benner quotation (offered in the UC Facebook group) differently, by first indicating what he liked about it and then explaining what he found difficult and / or problematic. To that end Gregg asked: What the listener appreciates about the thinker / quotation / idea in question? So what the thinker / quotation / idea in question improves upon—both how it does this and what exactly makes it better.

Gregg explains his criticisms of such thinkers / quotations / ideas in two ways. First, shorter quotations are necessarily harder to assess because there is often insufficient context to be confident that one has fully / correctly understood them. Second, Gregg’s criticisms are typically informed by the work of thinkers who, in Gregg’s assessment, offer better and fuller explanations of the same matters (such that their explanations cohere better with how we experience such things in real life).

In the case at hand Gregg’s main point is that, while a particular quotation or idea may be helpful to inform / remind oneself of something, we all read and understand such quotations or ideas within the context of our own knowledge and self-awareness. So where John may realize that Yogi Bhajan’s comment is not licence for us to ignore all negative responses from others, there is nothing in the Yogi’s words to indicate this (and so prevent readers from drawing this conclusion).

The risk? Taking the comment at face value allows people to endorse viewing the (potentially valid) critiques of others as simply “someone else’s problematic way of being,” and so lose an essential source of information about themselves!

Further, Gregg acknowledges that Bhajan’s words—like anyone’s words—are informed by his context and best interpreted by that context. Placing Bhajan’s words into their Sikh context then creates an understanding of the quotation that Gregg believes essentially stands at odds with his Christian views, and which he would ultimately reject.

The post You Guys are Too Picky (130) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss a poem from an anonymous newspaper clipping titled “I am a Christian.” Gregg received the poem on Facebook as, perhaps, a way of defining what a Christian is.

In Gregg’s view a Christian can be defined in two ways: a) as someone who claims to be a follower of Christ; or b) as someone whom God sees as being a follower of Christ. However both of these definitions has its failings: the first is extremely loose; the second is essentially inaccessible.

John notes that the philosophy behind the Co-active coaching model he is studying maintains that people are “creative, resourceful, and whole.”  John understood the notion of “wholeness” to be somewhat aspiration and mentioned this to an instructor in passing. They demurred. The instructor’s perspective is that all people are whole and it is only because of the negative messages they have embodied that have made them less than whole, however at their core, they are whole.  And so of coaching process can be a way to rediscover and return to that original “wholeness.”

John decided to pass on challenging this further, but found the notion interesting from the perspective that it seemed assumed that the instructor’s assertion was true simply because it had been made and sounded good. Similarly, the statements in this poem are often accepted in the same way. Specifically, in neither case can the predominant viewpoint be questioned, nor is there any reasoning or argument given for why these viewpoints are as they are. So whether it’s an emphasis on chakras, astrology, etc. one is expected to accept these views unquestioningly (as J. P. Sears pokes fun at in How to be Ultra Spiritual.

Gregg finds the same similarities with mediation (relative to the notion that mediators are neutral and impartial). So Gregg would re-frame the Co-active coaching philosophy to say that, in the right situations and contexts, people can be “creative enough, resourceful enough, and whole enough” for the dealing with the matter at hand.

So Gregg argues that the level of “creativity, resourcefulness and wholeness” varies greatly from person to person even within the same person varies greatly depending upon the situation and circumstances. Further, how we define these notions is critical, such that we have all had both the experience of being of creative, resourceful, and whole and of being extremely uncreative, unresourcelful, and broken!

Gregg also focuses on the notions of being “skillful” and being “practiced” (or not) relative to certain activities or aspects of our lives. In these areas the notions of creativity, resourcefulness and wholeness will be very differently defined (and the bar for success set at very different levels) versus areas where we are unskilled or unpracticed.

In terms of wholeness, in a mediation context Gregg would instead emphasize the multiple and distinct responsibilities that exist, with the mediator’s responsibility being to creating the proper context for and facilitating the process of the discussion, and leaving all responsibility for outcomes and decision-making with the clients.

In terms of the poem, John sees it as “standard Christian fare” within the common notion that humans are “fallen” and broken and God makes it better with Jesus.  Gregg finds the poem’s orientation—replacing a negative “I’m not X” with a positive “I am Y”—to be problematic, in that the author views negatively many of the things that Gregg considers to be essential to his own self-understanding as a Christian and to the legitimate outcomes of rightly relating with God! In other words, Gregg has a very different understanding of what it means to live rightly as a human being and as a Christian!

Indeed, Gregg wonders if the poem’s format is not actually more important than its content.

At the end of the episode John gives a plug for his coaching practice and for Gregg’s mediation practice.

The post I am a Christian (129) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg again discuss Christian worship music, focusing on a listener comment about the song “Fierce” by Jesus Culture.

John is of two minds in his response to the song. On the one hand he wonders if the song, in describing God’s love for us as a “hurricane that I cannot escape,” is actually presenting God’s love in a problematic way—such that if we loved our family or spouses in this manner this could create problems (such as requiring a restraining order). Should God’s love be “fierce”?

On the other hand, he wonders how we decide how much criticism (of this song but also of an idea, an action, etc.) is too much criticism. So is it okay just to enjoy the tune and ignore the fact that the lyrics (like a “hurricane”) seem to be in tension with what they are seeking to present (God’s love is good and necessary).

Gregg appreciates John’s view on two levels. First, Gregg wonders just what it might mean that God loves us like a hurricane. For instance, where do we see an example of this in the Bible? Also, by describing God’s love as a “hurricane” or a “tidal wave” the lyricist is evoking massive phenomenon that are transfixing, unmistakable, and terrifying. Second, Gregg wonders: what some examples of this in real life. For example, how has God’s love manifested “like a hurricane” in the life of the lyricist?

Again John wonders: should we not just allow people to “have their music?” Can’t this just be artistic licence. Gregg demurs: the level of criticism that we bring to bear (on music, for example) is relative to the scope of the claims that the music itself is making.

So pop music may, at very most, make a plea for listeners to adopt a certain perspective (for example the older, politically-oriented music of bands like U2 or Midnight Oil). Yet religious music is typically making radical and over-arching claims about what is real and true. So for Gregg, where Christian music necessarily makes grand claims about grand reality then these claims must be backed up with substance: whether with examples within the lyrics or several paragraphs of explanation that might accompany the lyrics.

Gregg also believes that Christian song-writing should be connected with the notion of personal experience. So he argues that the most legitimate basis for such a song is as an “artistic rendering” of a personal experience of God that is also consonant with the pictures of God that one observes in the Biblical text.

Yet to the extent that Christian lyrics are based on personal experiences that demonstrate insufficient connection with biblical pictures of God, Gregg is concerned that the message actually undermines the intent of the writers.

Specifically, in Gregg’s view personal experience is often problematically treated within evangelical Christianity, such that Christians either treat it very inconsistently or incoherently.

In the first case, where Christians will validate their personal experience in particular contexts and not in others and they will devalue (or ignore) the personal experiences of others in the very same contexts. For example, Christians have a tendency of conflating certain emotional situation (such as feeling joyful or guilty at specific times and places, such as during church worship services) with messages from God. Yet if a non-Christian were to be present during the same service and experience the music to be manipulative an the preaching to be demeaning then this experience would likely be attributed to the non-Christian’s “sinfulness,” and simply disregarded.

In the second case, Christians present experience incoherently where they make grandiose claims about divine action (i.e., “This is a miracle!”) or extreme claims about God’s nature (“God’s love is like a hurricane / tidal wave”)—claims that both lack substantiation and seem divorced from real world experiences. In such cases Christians paint themselves as senseless and so portray their beliefs as irrelevant.

John then raises the example of his coaching model, which views people as inherently “creative, resourceful, and whole.” Gregg explains that creativeness, resourcefulness and wholeness are important but offer an incomplete picture of human existence. So Gregg argues that the Christian insistence of human “brokenness” is excessive: as people who have survived in the world we are creative enough, resourceful enough, and whole enough.

So Gregg argues that affirming the Christian notion of being “fallen” necessarily implies that people cannot be whole enough to live with some success reflects the same misunderstanding as to assume that human beings can be “whole in themselves” and fully “as they should be.”

In this way Gregg distinguishes between the forensic, legal question of (ultimate) “rightness with God” with the practical, day-to-day notion of being able to make right and good choices / being a sufficiently good choice-maker.

Regarding personal experience, Gregg distinguishes between common, everyday experiences and uncommon, exceptional experiences (in particular, experiences that are claimed to be of or relating to God). Gregg argues that Christians cannot think themselves to be good interpreters of exceptional experiences—experiences of God—while not being well versed in interpreting common, everyday experiences.

The post Just Let People Have Their Music (128) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss an article by Tim Lawrence, “Everything doesn’t happen for a reason.” This post “went viral” and concerns people trying to support those who suffer tragic circumstances by commiserating that “everything happens for a reason.”

John notes both the author’s passion and a sense of hopelessness and is curious to hear Gregg’s take on it based on Gregg’s own significant losses.

Gregg responds that he found the article to be helpful and yet that it offered an incomplete response to the issue. Gregg also found several of the comments to be quite valuable. So Gregg uses one of the comments to explains how the notion that “everything happens for a reason is rather tricky.” (i.e., by noting that we must first distinguish between “a reason” meaning causality and “a reason” meaning purpose).

So Gregg emphasizes the difference between acknowledging that powerful events necessarily impact us (e.g., Gregg acknowledging that because his father and and brother died—and died as they did—that Gregg’s life is changed) is very different from imputing the necessity of a powerful event transpiring in my life in order that something else should take place (e.g., imputing that it was necessary for Gregg’s father and brother to die in order for Gregg to become a Christian).

Gregg sees the second case as misconceived and wrong-headed thinking. Philosophically this is an example of the “greater good” argument: the idea that good requires (or is dependent upon) evil. In a Christian context Gregg sees this as completely outside of / inaccurate to the descriptions the Bible offers of the relationship between God and the adversary (or Satan, etc.)

John notes how Tim Lawrence asserts that grieving is the one and only thing that we must do when we experience deep loss, yet John wonders if everyone does. Gregg agrees and argues that it is not only those who experience deep loss but also those around them who attempt to avoid grieving, and they do so because they are afraid of the power of grief and the implication that world is far less within their control they they hoped or understood.

Thus Gregg argues that fear is a major driver in prompting individuals to offer condolences that are much more for themselves then for those who have suffered the loss! Such condolences are then actually statements of what those offering them need to think or believe in order to feel safe in the face of loss, tragedy, or even terror.

Gregg pushes further: when such platitudes are offered it is not that people lack the right words but lack the right (or best) conceptions of the matters and the necessary life experiences in order to be fully present to the circumstances without being overwhelmed. So Gregg argues that we are responsible for ourselves, even for our own lack of self-awareness when it comes to an inability properly to cope with such events.

The post Everything Doesn’t Happen for a Reason (127) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.