Ep. 5 – Is Jesus Necessary?

Pronch :
Hi I’m Pronch

Adam :
and I am Adam, and this is Sacred Skepticism, a podcast where we, two friends delve into the depths of spirituality and belief figuring out where we overlap where we share a ton of common ground and when we are far apart as well.

Pronch :
Each Episode unfolds as a unique journey through our evolving perspectives, and we get to see how each other sees the world

Adam :
And this conversation started and then built and built so we encourage you actually to start from the beginning of this season 1 as the episodes build on the conversation that unfolds as we go.

Pronch :
So Take a moment, sit back, relax and explore with us as we uncover the next layer of our shared exploration

Adam :
We love having these conversations, and what makes it even better is knowing that you’re following along with us, So, welcome to Sacred Skepticism

Pronch :
Okay, so where we left off on our last episode, you know what I didn’t start with. So how are you doing? Should we tell people why I didn’t start with So how you doing? Because we

Adam :
Just picked up this episode like seconds after we left and the last one. How are you doing in the last two seconds? Good, good. Okay,

Pronch :
Good. I’m good. I got a big smile on my face. I’m loving having conversations, but yeah, so where we left off, and again, I don’t want this to be a 20 minutes of you just talking straight. Me either I don’t want that. I don’t either, but I don’t know. But I feel like you’re the one that believes that Jesus is necessary. So I feel like I need you to be able to make your case and to put it out there. That’s fair. So unless there’s a different way you want to take the direction of the beginning of this conversation is that’s the question, why is Jesus necessary?

Adam :
Yeah. So again, for context, so last time we were talking talked about this idea of sin and where we both kind of fall on understanding that word and that idea and then it leads inexorably towards then the question in Christian and especially Christ centric Christians, those who really like Jesus is the centerpiece and the lens for everything that we interpret in terms of our faith. It leads in the question, how does Jesus connect to this? And I would say as I did last episode, that as we encounter the problem of sin, the problem that we have this as people, we are inevitably going to miss the mark again and again and we are going to do things that suppress the flourishing of life instead of supporting the flourishing of life. Yes. That I would say Jesus is necessary for how we solve that problem, which it would be almost still an oversimplification, but so that it’s at least clear and down to earth.

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Yeah, I would say Jesus becomes the question, how does Jesus solve this problem? Why is Jesus necessary? This is basically the core of my Christian faith, which would be the core of understanding of any faith, Christian or otherwise is sort of this question of what is God like? And so that’s the underpinning of all theology across faith spectrum. And then within the Christian tradition we would say that, I shouldn’t say we would say I and others that I would probably lean closely to in terms of our understandings would say the answer to the question of what is God like is God is like Jesus. And so our claim in Christianity is that Jesus, this person who walked the earth was born, lived a life, died, was resurrected, was in fact God in the flesh. So that’s the claim, that’s the claim that the Christianity, the Trisha that I described to would make, and again, I think feel safe saying even the people I disagree with probably on everything else, most people would go, yeah, that’s what we’re saying. We were going to disagree on what that means, but we would say Jesus is God. So that’s the first piece. But I see you’ve got some stuff, so go for it.

Pronch :
Yeah. So I just got a question actually based on one of the questions that I wrote down after our episode where we were talking about the Bible. One of the questions I wrote down and kind of an idea that I wanted to think maybe this is the way Adam thinks of it, was Jesus necessary to kind of set the record straight. All these things had been said, all these stories had been written about who God was and man had put pen to paper and by man I mean human had put pen to paper about this is God, so therefore God comes down as Jesus to say, no, no, no I am God. Is that kind of what you think and where you go

Adam :
There? I love how you just put that. I think that I’ve never heard it put that Jesus came to set the record straight. I think that’s so beautiful. And yes, I would say that again wherever we talk about that I hope we get so popular that we have people that are going to pick apart every single word and be like will. But actually, because I’m sure we could do that, especially when we talk down to earth. There’s a reason we’re still debating this in high formal language and different traditions over years. There’s always ways that our language is going to fail us, especially when we talk about God. God is so I believe is beyond words, it’s beyond our understanding. So we are basically as I think Peter s would say, we’re doing this finger painting of it’s like a child doing a finger painting and then going, look dad, I drew you and God going, ah, that looks just like me.

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And so at the end of the day you were never going to be able to perfectly encapsulate it. But I think that the way you put that is, so for me, I think that’s pretty bang on that other people would say in a theologian voice, God is this revelation, we would use this word revelation, but a really good down earth way of saying what that means I think is exactly how you just put it, is that we have stumbled around trying to understand the answer to that question, what is God like? And before we put pen to paper, we were doing it orally. We have stumbled around that question. And the Christian claim would be, our position would be, yeah, that Jesus came to step straight and reveal in a very clear way what God is like and that the answer to that. And then when we go, okay, so what does that mean? Then we look at Jesus and we look at the birth life, death, resurrection of Jesus to understand the question of what God is like. So I think that’s exactly your interpreting where I’m coming from personally. Totally. Right.

Pronch :
Okay. So then if we had all these negative visions of God that were maybe not accurate, and so Jesus has coming to set the record straight

Adam :
Negative or visions that just simply just missed the mark. The mark, yeah, exactly. And that so actually doesn’t necessarily have to always have a negative approach to it, but just that there were aspects that we’re missing and that Jesus reveals to us in new ways where we go, oh wow, that changes things or oh, that plus this new piece completely makes the picture something bigger.

Pronch :
Okay, so then with that, if we’re to look at Jesus and say, okay, Jesus is God and what Jesus does and what Jesus believes and what Jesus says, that’s how we’re supposed to think of God and think of the lessons that he wants to take from us. Sorry, that God wants to take from using the

Adam :
Yeah, I did too. I used the father thing. But yeah, God is beyond gender would be something that I

Pronch :
Would affirm. I would concede that if there is a God, it would be beyond male or female. Yeah, we’d agree. So to that end then what about some of the things that are not the greatest, that are definitely Jesus put down? Is it mist transcription? Is it misremembering? The idea of if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak to buy one? I came to divide families, sorry, I came to divide to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother. The ideas of not being just come together regardless of anything, the idea of I came to divide, those are bad, those are not good in my opinion. Is there a way to look at them? That is good.

Adam :
So we talked about last time the tradition that Jesus would come from would be a tradition that takes an artifact or a piece or a piece of scripture or a word or an idea and then goes, what does this mean? And then people come around and debate. So I would say that we actually do need to start from a point of going is the interpretation that I’m picking up when I read something or that I’ve been taught is that the only way to understand something. And on top of that, we have to understand as two people in this conversation who are coming to millennia away from these writings and from a different part of the world and from a completely different cultural and ancestral background, I’m sure you know that when it comes to translating language, that is not an exact science as well, that we actually do ourselves a disservice if we read something for the first time from our perspective and go, oh, that means that we actually do have to engage on it on a deeper level and understand that we are coming at it from a different perspective and place and location.

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In many ways that location can have meaning we’re coming at it from a different location. So yes, if we look at something and say, I would agree with you, let’s find a place that we agree. If when Jesus talks about I’ve come to bring a sword, if he means pick up your weapons and kill people who are opposing you, I agree, that’s bad. So for me, when something like that comes up, I go, okay, is that what’s going on here? And in that case I might then have to look at the actions of Jesus later when in the story he’s being arrested after Judas betrays him in the story and it being arrested and one of his disciples goes to grab a sword and cut off the ear of someone who’s resting him. And he rebukes this guy, he rebukes this disciple and basically says, have you been paying attention to anything I’m doing?

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We who live by the sword died by the sword and then he goes and heals the ear. So what I would say is not to say like, oh perfect, I found a way to cancel that out. But it requires us to then go is that we have to look then at context that is bigger and one of the biggest things that colonial white Western Christianity does. And the reason last time I mentioned I’m not really good at knowing my verse numbers, verse numbers, one of the reasons that they were created, they didn’t exist before. Basically Europeans got their hands on the faith and one of the reasons they exist is to be able to take things out of context and to be able to say, okay, just focus on this verse and forget about the context. And that is another way that the Colonial Christianity project has allowed oppression to flourish is through taking things out of context or through not admitting that we’re coming at things from a different understanding.

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So that’s a whole, I don’t want to go too deep into that. I’ve already opened up a bunch of branches, but when we encounter things in the gospels or things that are attributed to Jesus, I do think it is important to investigate and understand those things rather than taking what our initial interpretation would be, especially if we’re coming at it from a context that is very far from the original context. I mean scripture was written throughout the old and New Testament by oppressed peoples. And so when those of us who are from the dominant system are going and interpreting these things, we have to understand that we are going to miss certain things. We’re going to misinterpret a lot of other things because we don’t have the cultural understanding ingrained in us that for instance, when we talk about the Old Testament and even last time we talked about Genesis and if we’re not coming from a place of people who have been exiled multiple times, have had the boots of empire on their necks, that we are going to Ms. Key aspects of what they’re trying to communicate because we just don’t have the understanding.

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So I do think it requires us to dive deep and to also dive beyond our traditions and understandings because in many ways it’s like we’re coming at a book that in many ways is written in a different language and of course it was written in a different language originally too.

Pronch :
So then to that end, the idea that Jesus came to set the record straight, let’s use that as a generic term. If that’s the case, the record is clearly still a little wobbly and clearly still not fully straight. And if we’re just looking christocentric like you’ve said, and we want to look at the Apostle Paul and his writings and his views on women and things like that, we need the record to be set straight again. And to that, I want to expand on that. Let’s say Jesus comes again, let’s just say tomorrow find out, hey, there’s this dude Jesus, not a single person who is educated yourself. I don’t believe that you correct me if I’m wrong. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t believe that if some guy comes over and says I’m Jesus or I am the new Jesus or whatever, that you would believe them

Adam :
Not like, yeah, yeah, I need more than that.

Pronch :
Yes, yes. But even if we got the Jonestown massacres and people saying, Jim Jones, Jim Jones that his name Jones, I’ll just use Jones, he created food from nothing, and there there’s YouTube videos of people saying, I saw him do this. I saw this guy produce food from nothing. I saw him heal people, I saw him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have video evidence of people believing that today and all of us, yourself included, please tell me if I’m wrong, would think that this person was not God as a human. Yeah. So why do we believe something that’s so long ago written in a language that we don’t understand, blah blah, all the problems that we’ve described with the Bible, with understanding the Bible and if God were to come today, how would we ever believe that it was, especially with the trickery that we can do in visual effects and this and that, and it just becomes so why do we believe this one thing from a long time ago versus Jones and his believers and his followers that believe that he was there?

Adam :
Sure, yeah. Why do we center in on this person and this story? Absolutely. That’s a critical question. So I’m not super, you’re right. I guess in theory that could happen where God could come again tomorrow in this new form and be like, I’m doing this new thing and I would probably be like, yeah, I don’t really believe that. Here’s set the record straight again. You guys don’t get the fricking record. In theory, yeah, that could happen. I’m not too concerned with that for a number of reasons, but it certainly could happen when it comes to, and the reason I’m not too concerned with that is because my understanding of the story and my practices, I don’t know that. So there are people who believe in a very literal way, Jesus is coming back soon, a K in our lifetimes. There are people who believe that, and I’m not here to say that they’re necessarily wrong that that could happen, but there are people who would believe that that’s not a focus of my faith practice is of going like, I’m doing all this because in my lifetime Jesus will show up in the flesh again.

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Maybe it’ll happen, but I’m not really anticipating that. I don’t think I’m special enough that that’ll happen in my lifetime, but when it comes to then why do we then pick out this story? You’re right. When it happened so long ago and when it happened in so many ways outside of the context that we live in today, I think that what is important is to then really flush out and understand that has happened over many centuries now, and I’ve talked about this multiple times, is the way this colonial project has been married to Christianity in the West and has produced most of the dominant forms that we see of Christianity in the west, not all but many forms. And so there was this marrying of what we would call empire to Christianity that started its own kind of, I would say this unholy tree that spread, but that is not, I would say that is not where the tradition and the community of Jesus followers began and it is not the only tradition that continued and that would be one of the lies of colonial Christianity kind of we talked about earlier, which is like there’s only one way to understand this.

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There’s only one way to understand the cross and sin and creation and dinosaurs were put there as a hoax and all that ridiculous stuff. There’s only one way to understand that and that’s the lie of colonial Christianity to believe that this is the way it is and this is the way it always has been. That is simple. Even if you ascribed theologically to the ideas, it’s just not true that the tradition started and that colonial and white Christianity has a monopoly on this tradition. The church was started in Ethiopia, so it’s not a European project. When I say the church, I mean this movement that began to form communities, it started in Ethiopia, so it’s the continent of Africa before it was ever European and before it was moved anywhere else for that matter really, that was the first area of the church Jesus operated in what’s we now look at as modern day Palestine.

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And so the traditions that I quibble with to put it lightly that I was also taught and participated in are those western white colonial tree that grew this unholy tree that grew. And I have been very, very persuaded and inspired and drawn into the original alternatives to those things which are ways that the tradition has continued despite no, despite the wrong word, the way the tradition has continued apart from colonial Christianity. I think that we need to understand that that tradition has continued in many ways and in many places and as we dig into that and we find completely new and I believe liberating ways of understanding scripture, of understanding how we are neighbors to each other of understanding ideas like sin, which you talked about last time. The idea of sin being this, and I didn’t never even ask you that really specifically what that idea that what you had been taught about sin or it’ll take that it’s this individual thing and it’s the way that we’re bad individually versus this idea of we can miss the mark and we can do that as individuals and as collective.

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We start to, as we get away from this colonial project and what many people would refer to as white Jesus, that Jesus that flies the flag of I’m going to take your land and you’re going to believe in me, otherwise I’m going to throw you in a pit of fire. As we get away from that and actually understand that that is a caricature, this unholy caricature that was created to take the brand essentially and turn it into something that could amass power and wealth and land for select people. As we get away from that and we discover this dark-skinned, revolutionary Jewish rabbi who was living in occupied territory, who challenged empire and cultivated a life of understanding the power of non-violence and the power of community of being a neighbor, as we discovered that, that is the compelling story that I’ve been drawn into. And that story has endured despite money and power and land and buildings going to this colonial project, that tradition and the traditions I should say because not just one, but the way that tradition in a healthy way has endured to me is why I am continue to be compelled by this story.

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I hope I answered that. I know I went off on a lot

Pronch :
Of branches kind kind of so you can bring

Adam :
Me back, but I also want to hear from you. Yeah,

Pronch :
Well again, I’m sorry listener, but I need to ask the questions and I need to hear what Adam’s thoughts are and you’ve got to ask me questions so I can talk to my follow up to that is it really sounds to me like you’re picking and choosing the aspects that are described in the Bible to be, I like this, I don’t like that. This must be true. This must not be true. And you can’t do that. In my opinion, you can’t do that because who’s to say the thing that you’re picking that you like is accurate and the thing you’re discarding because you don’t like is inaccurate. What if God is a tyrant? What if God is a evil moral monster? What if one of the things that, have you ever watched the 2004 series Battlestar Galactica? No, I’ve never watched it. It was a really great series.

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I’ve heard really good series and the humans in that series were mono, sorry, were polytheists. They believed in basically the Zeus and all of those gods, but the silos, the robots, they were monotheists, they believed in a single God and throughout the entire thing it’s believed that they are the Christians of today, if you will. They believe in the single God and it’s the God. But in the post spoiler warning, spoiler warning, in the post, post, post credit scene, the very last scene right before the show is completely over for the entirety of it. Well, what is the two of the characters are talking and it’s way far in the future. And one of ’em says, well, I don’t know if God’s going to like that. And the other character says He doesn’t like being called that name and it’s implying, holy shit, the god’s the devil that’s being implied for the entire thing. So bring it back, bring it back. From what I hear of what you’re doing there, you’re picking, I like this, I don’t like this, I like this, I don’t like this. How can you decide this is accurate, this is not accurate. How do you get to make that decision?

Adam :
That’s a great question. The exact critique that you brought up is important one, and that is the exact critique that folks who would, what I talk about is colonial Christianity is folks who would say, no, I ascribe that that is the true Christianity. That’s exactly the critique that they would make. And it’s a fair one to do at the surface. And so my piece would be twofold when you ask how do I get to decide what’s accurate and what’s not? So we are talking a lot in the show about beliefs because talking and it’s an audio format and that’s part of the book we want to talk about. But I think I said before, practice is at least equally weighted for me as belief. And so part of how I practice and belief inform one another. And so as I deepen my beliefs, it helps inform my practice.

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But also as I go and I practice my faith in the world, it can affect my beliefs and go, oh wow, I used to think this about community service in terms of how it impacts my faith. But then when I learned here, lemme give you a quick example. We would’ve believed not even 2015 years ago that if we’re trying to help people overcome substance addictions that well, you wouldn’t give them more substances, but we actually know now that safe supply is a really important harm reduction measure. And so practice informed our understandings about that topic. So practice will inform my understandings. That’s one thing. And so as I practiced, it does help me figure out what I think is healthy belief and what I think is maybe not. The second thing is when it comes to, because we’re talking specifically it seems about scripture, about the Bible in this context of picking and choosing and stuff, the experience for me of scripture is one that absolutely is evolving and I’m not, what I don’t think is healthy, whether it’s in a very, very traditional sense or a very progressive sense, is trying to flatten the Bible and make it work for you.

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So when you talk about picking and choosing, you’re right that it can come off that way, but I would say I would agree it’s not healthy or fair to basically just say, well, we’ll take the things that we like and then the things that we don’t find a way to explain away. I think that there’s always going to be stuff that we have to struggle with. And so like I said, there have been times where I’m like, I don’t know why that is the case. And we talked about that a little bit last time. So there are things that we wrestle with, there are things that we struggle with, but I do affirm that we should not try and if we try and take this ancient collection, this library of texts that was written by many people with many audiences in many contexts and in many genres, and we try and flatten it and say at the end of the day, this is what it means, I think going to end up, it’s going to end up backfiring our faces because we’re going to end up missing key and critical elements.

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But what I will say so that I’m not completely avoiding your question, which I’m not trying to, I’m just trying to add the layers of context, is the we are always going to interpret and there’s actually no avoiding that. And so even people who go like, no, I’m just taking the literal reading right here, your interpretation is going to be a literal interpretation. So we’re always going to be engaging with scripture and having to then practice interpretation, whether that’s interpretation of thinking to ourselves or thinking with our community, our church or tradition or as I’ve done many times, I’m reading a commentary which is an author who’s taking maybe a book or a portion of the Bible and going, this is what we think it means, or here’s a bunch of ways that people have interpreted this. So we’re always going to be actively doing the process of interpretation.

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Anybody who says that they’re not though, that’s who I don’t trust. That’s who I would say I don’t trust. So for me, I would not say that it’s picking and choosing, but I would say my interpretation process is going to be based on two of the things that we talked about specifically last episode, which is what brings life versus what takes it away and the lens of Jesus and how the life and death and resurrection of Jesus then become my sort of, if I’m talking about lenses, like I’m wearing glasses, they kind filter how I’m understanding that. So I would say it’s not for me picking and choosing, but in the process of saying Jesus is my lens there is I will say there is a fair and objective understanding that the tradition and scripture itself is not that came from kind of the colonial European project is that is not the context that it’s written in. And so if we start then with those interpretations, it’s not about picking and choosing, it’s about going, let’s actually take this for the people and the place and the time that it was written and let’s actually start there.

Pronch :
Okay, so sure. I think that’s objective and it is, I think that the idea that these books were written in a time to specific people and they’re not actually books. Some, a lot of ’em are letters. There’s some of the, there’s specific audiences in mind with the text that we call the Bible. Sure, yep. I’ll give you that. And we have to look at with that context in mind. Sure, understood. That seems like a very roundabout way of communicating. I am God, I am good. Do as I would have communicating through a book that is a collection of communications to other people that are not us. Seems pretty dumb in my mind. Let’s just say, I’m going to put my God hat on here. I’m going to be God for a second. It seems like a

Adam :
Terrible plan.

Pronch :
I’m going to communicate with my creation, my goodness, and my hopes and my dreams for my creation and what I want them to do and thrive and all the stuff that’s been written about me is wrong. I’m going to go down as a human and I’m going to blah, blah, blah. I’m going to create this one time text that is written in a single time for a single group of people or for a group of peoples that are not the people of today. That’s a really dumb plan for trying to communicate with you, Adam in 2023 in Canada versus connecting with, I don’t, I’m going to just say John Smith who is clearly not the name for what I’m about to describe an uncontacted person in the Amazon in Brazil who’s never met anybody outside of their tribe because humans have decided that not communicating with them and not destroying their society is a good idea that uncontacted person knows zip about God, zip about Jesus. Because how we know about God and how we know about Jesus is through this text that is 2000 years old that we are now trying to deter how should we interpret it? How should we understand it? It seems like a pretty dumb plan is what I’m trying to say.

Adam :
Sure. Yeah. So I love how you put that. So basically why couldn’t, isn’t there a better way that then would’ve avoided misinterpretations and bigotry and this and that or something that was susceptible to the Roman Empire basically creating their unholy bastardization of this and perpetuating it. Now for hundreds of years there have been a better way agree. So to that, why did things happen in exactly the way that they have happened so far in the tradition? I don’t know. I have to just confess. That’s a good answer. That’s a good answer. But what I will say, two things that you mentioned there, one that we’ve talked before, I think that we actually agree that when we’re talking about scripture, that I don’t think, think similar to you, that God didn’t come and say, I’m going to just create this one text and that’ll be the perfect, and that’s how we’ll always learn.

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I do think that there is this divine dance and inspiration in scripture, and I think that it is this brilliant, as I’ve said, it is a tool for how we understand God, how we understand Jesus. It’s been the critical tool, one of the critical tools for me in that journey. But do I think that it’s the only vessel for God communicating God revealing God’s self? No, I don’t think that. So that would be one thing is I don’t think it’s good to do what again often many, many folks in more traditional evangelical traditions too, which is elevate scripture basically to the level of just below the trinity itself. So scripture is an incredibly important tool for us engaging in our faith and understanding who God is, but that is not the only way that we come to know about God, understand God. Second thing is when you talk about someone who has no context or experience to the Christian story or to Jesus, one thing I do want to take exception to in there, and I know this is a hypothetical situation, this person doesn’t know anything about God.

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There are traditions for basically almost all of human history that we think that have had some engagement with who is God. And so the Jesus piece, you’re right, that context wouldn’t be there, but are there communities that have zero experience or exposure to the Jesus story who do have an understanding and traditions and beliefs around God? Of course. And do I think that they’re any less that somehow it’s this project of going and they obviously must have a wrong one because they haven’t experienced the Jesus story yet? No. I would say that that’s not fair, and I say that’s actually the colonial project talking and saying, well, we have to make sure that our understanding is the one that is perpetuated everywhere. So those would be two things. And I just want to say just on that piece, the ways that God reveals God’s self over centuries before scripture too.

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We’ve only had this actually for a little blip too, and the Jewish people were engaging with these ideas on scrolls and in oral traditions before there was ever a bound book. So I actually think we have to understand that the project, if we can call it that, of God revealing God’s self is way, way, way bigger than this book that we’ve bound together the last 400 years that has been a collected kind of curation, a library of texts for the past couple thousand. It’s way, way bigger than that. So the plan, if the plan was only based on get the Bible in people’s hands and then read it and then read in the correct way and pick and choose the right things, if that was the only way that God was going to reveal God’s self and that God was going to reveal what it looks like for us to be engaged in the work of supporting the flourishing of life, I agree that would not be a good plan, but I don’t think that that’s the only way that it happens. I think that it’s been the focal point, particularly in colonial Christianity for a long time, and that we’ve missed many of the other ways to our detriment because of the way that the Bible has been positioned over the past few New years. We’ve missed to our detriment all the other ways that God is working and all the other ways that people are reflecting who God is.

Pronch :
So I hear that, and I agree with you, that there’s probably more to the plan if there is a plan, but the idea of an uncontacted person and the humans of long ago troubling with the idea of who is God, what is God and what is this? What I would put, and what I was thinking about when you were saying that is, well, the sun isn’t dragged across the sky by a chariot. Several thousand years ago, it was believed that a God hauled the giant fireball across the sky in a chariot and that another God hauled the dark sky over and there’s the God of love and the God of this and the God of that. There’s the

Adam :
Sunshine of Helios, I think.

Pronch :
Yeah, or the sun God raw. It really depends on which culture you want to look at, because every culture, when they didn’t understand something, they attributed it to a God. And what happens is, as David would say in dog debate, it’s way more sexy when you discover the actual truth to discover that we are on a ball that is flowing through space at millions of kilometers now or orbiting around this giant ball of plasma, blah, blah, blah. When you actually discover what’s actually happening, it’s like, wow, that’s so darn cool. So the idea that humans have been looking to a God and looking to why are we here and how does this happen, and clearly it’s a God that makes this happen. All of those things get, oh, oh, it’s actually this. Oh, okay, now we understand there’s not a God with a chariot dragging.

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It’s not across the sky. We’re on a ball rotating around the blah, blah, blah. So the ideas that Jewish people of long ago and the uncontacted person today that might have a concept of there is a God, there is something out there, well, it’s probably actually just something that they don’t understand and they need to understand it better. And I’m willing to admit that there are things that we don’t understand and right now those things, they’re attributed by many people to a God. Where did we come from? Where did the universe come from? How did the universe come to be? How did life on earth come to be a biogenesis, which is different from evolution for anybody who doesn’t know the difference there a biogenesis, how did life begin versus evolution is how did life adapt? That’s very much different questions and evolution cannot answer the question, how did life begin? It’s not a question that it’s not designed to answer that question. So yes, there’s stuff we don’t understand, but it doesn’t mean that we won’t understand it. And that’s my response to that.

Adam :
So love it. One thing that I don’t love that I have to say that we have to be very careful with, and again, it’s hard, we’re just using examples here to try and communicate our thoughts. So the idea of the God of the gaps, which is I think kind of a little bit what you’re talking about, that idea when we don’t understand something, we’ll attribute it to God, and so Yep, I would agree with that. Yeah. So that is something that, I’m not saying it’s solely or singularly a modern white understanding, but it is a heavily modern white understanding of God, and we should be very careful not to when we look at ancient traditions or other cultural traditions to reduce their traditions or understandings or their pursuit of God to those things because that is, that’s a very white colonial way that we can often dismiss other traditions and cultures is to go like, ah, yeah, they just didn’t understand.

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And there’s a real movement that we see in the West, particularly in white Christian churches, to actually just try and do that is to go, you just have to have faith and you don’t believe in, so I don’t need to have a mask because of faith over fear. So we actually have to be very careful when we point that lens. I’m not saying that there aren’t in ancient traditions and in cultures around the world, examples of how an aspect of the faith tradition is. We understand this through God, but that the tradition in itself is bigger and richer and deeper than the God of the gaps is something that we also have really understand. And as you just said, so the evolution is not designed to answer certain questions. We can’t look at other faiths and dictate what other faiths or other cultures or traditions or times eras and say that their tradition was designed to do X.

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So for instance, their tradition was designed to basically answer questions that they didn’t understand. So the Jewish tradition that Christians interpret in the Old Testament, specifically in Genesis of the Genesis story that is not designed, I think we’ve talked about this, that is not designed to be scientific or even just a, this is literally how the world was created. That wasn’t the purpose of why that story was written. That wasn’t what it offered to people. Then Genesis is not designed to support an actual understanding of this is the way that the earth was created. It’s designed to teach us other, it was designed to teach the Jewish people and give them encouragement and other ways and help ’em understand their place in the world. And so I just think it is really important that we’re very careful when we do it is important to go. We have to examine how the God of the gaps is a pretty flimsy premise, but we should first be pointing that critique at modern white Christianity, the way that it perpetuates that and understand that the traditions of ancient peoples or of peoples who are beyond white Western Christianity has much more going on than only a God of the gaps interpretation of we attribute God to things we don’t understand.

Pronch :
Okay. So I agree that there’s more, but would it not be, I think the word is wrong, would it not be right to correct people? Let’s say you go back in time and you have the ability to communicate. We are on a ball going around a giant ball of plasma 93 million miles away. Let’s say you had the ability to communicate that correctly. Are you saying that a tribe of people who worship the sun God and do a rain dance to pray and wish for rain to come down, do you think it would be wrong to communicate? Ah, let me just tell you what’s actually going on here. Is that what you’re trying to say? That we need to allow the incorrect worshiping?

Adam :
Yeah, I would say, I’m not sure why we would interfere at all if we want to get into a different topic of,

Pronch :
Yeah, yeah, we’re definitely off topic here, but I’m very intrigued What

Adam :
Say. What I will say is, and again, I think this is something that I be very careful of, and I want to say this because I love you and you’re my friend. What you just proposed is the colonial project. It is going insane, colonial. It’s going insane. People have wrong beliefs, and so we need to come and correct those and we need to assimilate them into what is proper, that people use the name of Jesus and Christianity and tithing and going to church on Sundays in order to commit horrible things to people over centuries. And so it is a very colonial posture to basically say that we need to get people on board with the right stuff. Now, if we’re talking about things that we know are actively harmful, like some sacrificing

Pronch :
Babies or Exactly,

Adam :
Yeah, sure. I’m all on board. If we see something happening that is suppressing life and not supporting the flourishing of life, to go and say, yeah, we have a different understanding of what it means to be human. But when it comes to something and just saying your worship practice and your understandings are something that need to be corrected, I think that’s a very dangerous thing that white Christianity has done to the deep, deep harm of people and the world for a long time.

Pronch :
Okay. So that’s super interesting that that’s how you see that. I see. And I don’t like this. I think we’ve got to break this down more, and I think next time you should poke at this. Okay, poke at me for this one. Because the idea of not conveying something that is scientifically accurate, not conveying belief structures and things that cannot be proven through science. Yeah, okay. I will agree with you. The colonial project, everything you described, I absolutely will. But when it’s scientifical proven, peer reviewed, the earth is a ball that goes around a sun and the heat comes off radiation, blah, blah, blah. You shouldn’t be praying to a sun God to get the harvest. And I can’t see why communicating scientific facts would be wrong. I really can’t see that. So I want you to poke and prod at that in our next episode.

Adam :
And the one I’ll leave it with is just to poke and prod at that, whether it’s right or wrong, I just don’t know. Why would we poke at that Again, if we’re talking about something that doesn’t, we’re not talking about sacrificing children, which No, we’re

Pronch :
Just talking about praying to us on

Adam :
God. Which again, and to be clear, the people who are sacrificing children most in today’s world, I would say are people who are forcing white evangelical Christians who are forcing their children to undergo conversion therapy to believe that they believe. So let’s not make a caricature of other cultures and let’s point the lens back and say we do that in white Christian culture. But my thing for that to tease would be, I don’t know why we would do that. And the other tiny little piece I’ll tease is it is a much broader conversation that I’m not qualified to talk about, but when we talk about understanding accepted consensus, peer reviewed science, it was peer-reviewed science for decades that people of different racialized identities had different pain indexes. And we’ve actually come to understand that that is total horse crap. And again, you used a very good example of we are on this hurdling ball.

:
We can probably safely say that, but we should not deify the systems. I would say we should not deify or say that they’re beyond reproach any systems that have been raised in this colonial project. Because we know even in science and medicine that we have a ton of things that we’re realizing now that have not actually whether they’ve been peer reviewed by a bunch of old white guys for decades. And then we’ve had people from outside of that particular cultural identity come and say, actually, you’re missing a huge piece here. So that would be the piece that I would tease there and go, we actually should examine with a critical eye, even those systems, the same way I would want to examine with a critical eye, faith, and religion. If we apply the same kind of principle of just saying, well, people need to know this and it’s correct, then you can trade Christianity for science. But you might still end up doing a ton of harm.

Pronch :
Sure, sure. I feel like we can go for another hour. We

Adam :
Could. I know. And we started by saying that this episode was going to be about why Jesus necessary, but we went on a different track, so we’re going to have to come back to that because we went back to a scripture and it was kind more of a s scriptural episode again.

Pronch :
But I feel like it always will come back to that. I feel like it always will, because

Adam :
That’s a big sticking point for you. It’s

Pronch :
Where you’re at sticking point for me, and I wish we could have five conversations at once. I really do. I know. I know. So it’s hard. I think we need to plot things on a whiteboard or something of like, have we talked about this? Have we covered this? Yes. Have we covered this? No. So yeah, we’ve been going for almost an hour here, so we should probably leave it here. We know where. I want you to poke me on the next episode. Yeah, we’ll

Adam :
Create a Google Doc. We haven’t been mapping this, we’ve just been chatting, so maybe now we’re getting into it enough where we have to go, okay, where are we going to go with this so that we can actually grab onto one thing and just really dig into it. But I really appreciate just the candor and the openness in going in these places. And again, all the things, anything that I can critique in any of these episodes are probably because I’ve believed and participated in those things. So I just want all those moments to be seen. They’re as important for me to hear and remind myself as to say to anyone else. And so I appreciate the room that we have with each other to poke and to disagree and to challenge each other.

Pronch :
Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Well, let’s try to make a bit of a roadmap going forward then.

Adam :
Sounds good.

Pronch :
Alright, talk to you next time. Next time.