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(upbeat music)
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- This is Undaunted Life Man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Let's get into it.
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All right guys, here's the thing right from the beginning.
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Normally when I have a guest on this show,
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I say, you know, I have very special guests
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on the podcast today.
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You know, I'm so glad this person was on,
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but I don't think I can actually say that for this one.
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And so I really hope you didn't just skip over this interview
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'cause you didn't recognize the name in the title
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because oh, you're gonna love this story,
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especially, it's like it's tailor made for my audience.
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So my guest on today's show is a new author named
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Crispin Mayfield, okay?
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So he's a author and a couple's therapist
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and he wrote a new book that's out as of right now
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called Attached to God,
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a practical guide to deeper spiritual experience.
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And so, you know, the publisher,
0:59
basically they gave me a list of books
1:01
and they're like, hey, here's some of our books coming up.
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Can you check some of them out
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and see if anyone are of them are interesting?
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And so based on the blurb on this book,
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I was like, okay, that'll be interesting enough.
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But I don't read these books weeks or months in advance.
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I read them like the week of, you know,
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within a few days of the interview.
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And so I read, I did so and this guy is a proponent
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of using something called attachment science
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to help people develop a deeper spiritual life.
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And so I read the book with an open mind,
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but I was like, okay, as I'm reading through the book,
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I'm like, man, like I don't really like
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the way this guy's framing things.
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You know, as you go through the book,
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it's like this guy's a very, very emotional guy,
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a guy that doesn't really have his emotions in check.
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And again, I'm trying to remind myself,
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have an open mind.
1:42
And then he kind of said some universalist things
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and some things that seem deeply, deeply heretical.
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And so I'm doing all this preparation for the interview
1:50
within a day or two of the interview.
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And I'm like, man, I don't know that I could recommend
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this book to my audience in good conscience.
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Like what do I do?
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And I worked with some of my guys here that I go to
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that don't see things the same way that I do,
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or as intensely, you know, Derek, a guy that I work with
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here, another guy named Matt.
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And you know, they were like,
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I'll just go into this interview and just be curious.
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Like, you know, try to find some points of clarification,
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try to find some points of agreement and all that.
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And you know, basically control yourself.
2:19
Don't let him control you.
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And you know, you can't control his reactions.
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Just ask him the questions you want to ask him
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and kind of move forward.
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And so I'm like, okay, you know, I'll do that.
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And so I go to the interview and I'm like,
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I'm a little nervous.
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I'm like, you know, I feel like I'm about to walk
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into a gunfight, but before we started recording, okay?
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And I wish I had started recording so that I could show you
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exactly how it went.
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But before I hit the record button,
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I gave this guy a heads up and we're being cordial
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or being polite, we're chatting back and forth.
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And I congratulated him on his first book
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and how hard that had to have been and all that.
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And I said, hey, man, just so you know,
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we're going to be getting into a lot of the points
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on the book.
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I wanted to you up to tell us what it is about.
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But there were several things that I feel like
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I disagree with in terms of the things that you wrote.
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There were several things that I need a little bit
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more clarification on.
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And so I'm going to be asking you those questions today.
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And so if a question comes off as pointed,
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just know that I'm not, you know, attacking you personally
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or that I'm trying to offend you.
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It's like, I know what my audience would want
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because for me in this show, my number one goal
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is to honor God with it.
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My number two goal is to honor you guys, right?
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More so than any guest or any publisher
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or any movie maker or studio house or, you know,
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marketing company.
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Like I have a responsibility to God
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and I have a responsibility to you guys.
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So I just, I told him off arrows, like, hey, man,
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I'm going to be asking you a lot of questions
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kind of challenging you on your points of view.
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But I hope that we can find some places
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of commonality and agreement.
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He was like, yeah, yeah, I'm excited.
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Let's get into it.
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And so here we go.
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We start wading into the interview, right?
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And it's seemingly going well.
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And I'm a little bit shocked.
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And as my questions got more pointed
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and I brought up some of the more heretical things
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that he brought up in the interview,
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I was even more pleased because even when we disagreed,
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I was like, okay, I'm trying to understand your perspective.
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Well, what about this?
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And what about that?
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In the entire interview, I use his words from the book.
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Okay, so I'm reading his words directly from the book
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and I'm trying my absolute level best
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to make sure everything was in context.
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So I didn't just take some random thing out of context
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and beat him over the head with it
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because that's not an appropriate thing to do.
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So we get to the end of the interview.
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I get through all my hard questions and we get to the end
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and it's like, okay, I feel good about it.
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But there was something interesting
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that as soon as the interview's done,
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just so you know my little program
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that I use to do these digital interviews,
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you have to wait a few minutes
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for the video and the audio to upload from their side
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and your side so that you can pull it off
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so that you can edit it together later
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and make it sound like you're in the same room together, right?
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And I could tell that he wanted to just hurry up
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and get to get out of there.
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So it's like, I don't know if he had another appointment.
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I don't know if he needed to take a poop.
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I don't know if he was just like mad at me.
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Like I had no idea,
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but I could tell that he was not wanting to stay there.
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And even after the interview,
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I was like, hey, man, I really appreciate you engaging
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with all of my questions that I had.
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And you know, I know that that could have been a tough thing,
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but to kind of go through that.
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But I really do appreciate it.
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I think it's going to be good for my audience.
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I'm happy to have you do that.
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And he's like, yeah, thanks.
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And so I'm like, okay.
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And then I record the intro outro,
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which I do after all my interviews.
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And I said in the original intro and outro
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that I recorded right after the interview that man,
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you know, I was pleased with how this went.
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And you know, I may not agree with this guy.
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And if you pick up his book and read it,
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you're going to be like, oh my gosh,
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I would ask him this and that,
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but I wanted to make a good interview
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and you know, be thankful for his time that he gave to us.
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And it was a very, very positive intro and outro.
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And then about two hours later,
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I go to my Twitter, okay?
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And so I'm scrolling through Twitter
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and I get a tweet from some random person.
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I know this is a long intro,
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but hopefully you're enjoying it.
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I get a tweet from @korybowers and it says @kylokasey,
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which is my personal Twitter account, @kylokasey.
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Pagan.
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One word, pagan.
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I was like, okay, like that's odd.
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And so I click on this guy's profile
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and he had just subtweeted something from Crispin Mayfield,
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a tweet that he sent right after he got out of my interview.
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So let's just read his tweet here.
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Wow, just finished an interview
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where someone read in my book when God said,
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I'm your mother now.
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And in the interview, the person told me
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that he thought that was actually Satan speaking to me
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because God is male, throwing up emoji, angry face emoji.
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Because I did ask him about a point in his book
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where he said that God told him, I'm your mother now,
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which is odd considering the fact
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that every direct description of God in the Bible
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refers to him as he or as king and not queen,
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or as husband and not wife, right?
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So I didn't seem like it was that unfair of a question, right?
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And so, but then the hilarity just ensued from there
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because I was going through the comments.
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Like, initially I was like, what a [inaudible] out of nowhere
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to just, you know, kind of throw me under the bus like this.
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And the odd thing about is he didn't tag me in it,
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but weird, it seems like his fans are finding me.
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So unless they're hacked into my system
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and know that I just talked to him,
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I'm pretty sure he's letting people know
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that he just talked to.
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So then somebody responded to him and said,
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are you okay?
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And his response to his, well, to be honest,
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I just ugly cried.
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I told my wife that it's a reminder
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of how painful and harmful evangelicalism is
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and what it's like to have your spiritual
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and emotional experiences constantly undermined.
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Hilarious.
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(laughs)
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Like what?
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The ugly cried because a podcast host
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asked him some direct questions
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and was trying to find some common ground,
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but it got better.
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Another guy was like, so is this some kind of ambush interview?
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His response was definitely turned out that way.
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Again, an ambush interview would have been,
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if I would have been really, really nice to his face
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before the interview,
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only to turn up the heat afterwards
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and to do so in a negative manner, which is not what happened.
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It's a little bit indicative of what he did,
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acting really, really nice and appreciative to my face,
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only to go immediately to Twitter like a true hero, right?
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And complain to his followers.
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And so this was my response.
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Again, I told you guys before, don't get into Twitter spats,
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don't get into Facebook spats,
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but I did want to make some response
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because he was a coward, an absolute complete coward,
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going to Twitter and complaining to his followers
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about how he ugly cried.
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And so this is what I responded back.
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I actually asked you if you had ever considered the fact
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that perhaps the message didn't come from God
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and instead came from the father of lies.
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Accurate framing is important.
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How about you encourage your audience
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to listen to the interview to see if it was fair?
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Now, I know he's not gonna do that
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because this is a type of guy that comes
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from a very leftist liberal worldview
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that wants to be told how much he's right.
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Like again, all the things I thought about this guy
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going into the interview,
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during the interview I thought I was wrong,
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only to be confirmed a couple of hours afterwards.
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This is a fragile, small little boy.
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He can not have somebody poke at his ideology
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and come up with any cogent responses to it.
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So his response is to flame, is to cry,
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is to go up into a hole and warm up to his wife
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and have his wife stroke his hair
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and tell him it's gonna be okay, sweetheart, okay?
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So I kinda wish now that I wouldn't have comported myself
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in the interview in the way that I did,
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but as a thought experiment,
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because I'm open to critique and I'm open to guys
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challenging the way I do things.
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So I want you guys to listen to this interview.
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And I know you're fans of my show
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'cause you're listening to this right now,
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but I want you to listen to this as much as you can,
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as a neutral observer, a neutral listener.
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And I want you to tell me,
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send me an email to info@indaunted.life
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or send me DM's on any of our social medias
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or anything like that
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and tell me if I was fair to this man, okay?
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Now, to truly do that,
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you're gonna have to go out and buy his book,
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go out and buy a copy of Attached to God,
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practical guide to deeper spiritual experience
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by Crispin Mayfield and then listen to this interview
10:05
and see if I was fair.
10:07
See if you would have been able to control yourself
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as you're reading this nonsense on a page
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by this postmodern, universalist
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and see if you would have responded in the same way.
10:16
If you would have bit your tongue
10:18
in the places you thought you needed to buy your tongue
10:20
and if you would have even tried
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to find some commonality with this place,
10:23
because what I did in this interview
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is I tried to honor Crispin Mayfield
10:26
and the work that he put in,
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even though I vehemently disagree with it.
10:30
I tried to honor the publisher that is putting this out
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because they put out a bunch of different things
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from a bunch of different perspectives
10:35
and they can't please everybody and I'm sensitive to that.
10:38
But what he did was incredibly dishonorable
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and guess what, as the moment I turn this off, right?
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I'm gonna go record a different outro
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and then I'm gonna move on with my life
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and I'm not gonna think about this guy again.
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But apparently he's gonna be thinking about me often
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because I'm just the personification of somebody
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that would lord over him and try to hurt him
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in some emotional way.
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And this is my encouragement to all of you.
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This is why I talk about spiritual, mental,
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and physical resilience and how you should cultivate
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that on a daily basis because this guy
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is gonna go through life being a victim
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because he wants to be.
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He doesn't care about strength.
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He doesn't care about resilience.
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He cares about being a victim.
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He cares about being a leftist
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and he cares about pushing the church
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in a leftward liberal direction
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and he wants you to be on board with it
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and I say, no, sir, we're not gonna do it,
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not on my watch.
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So guys, with that, now behind me,
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without further ado, let's get into it.
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Crispin Mayfield, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
11:35
- Thanks, it's so great to be here.
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I'm really excited to talk today.
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- I'm happy to have you on
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because I don't remember the last time
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I had a first time author on the show.
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Like, well, I guess if I had to think about it,
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but you're not a guy that's been on the New York Times
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bestseller list 10 times or something like that.
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So I guess before we even dig into the new book,
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so don't tell us the name of the book.
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It'll be a surprise for guys here in a second.
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But you're writing your first book.
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That kind of feels like your naked on stage, right?
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Like, this is your first foray into this world.
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How does that feel for you?
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- Yeah, it's been, well, I mentioned you
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before you started recording that my wife
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has published a couple of books.
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So I feel like I've been able to see it
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from like the outside and that helps me keep my balance
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a little bit, but you know, social media is,
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it's a blessing and a curse and you know,
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you got to spend a lot of time on there
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when you're starting out with a book.
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So I will be excited to be able to take a step back
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from that at some point soon.
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- Okay, very good.
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Well, let's go ahead and get into the new book.
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So the, or the first book, the only book by Crispin Mayfield.
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And that is attached to God, a practical guide
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to deeper spiritual experience.
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So I always like to give the author a chance
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to briefly describe their book, kind of the SparkNotes version
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in their own words.
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So in your own words, what is this book about?
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And I guess what do you want the readers of the book
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to get out of it?
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- Yeah, so basically it's based on attachment science,
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which is the psychology of relationships.
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And there's about 50 to 60 years of research
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about how we do relationship with others.
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And it started with looking at parents and children.
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Then we looked at partners, friendships, et cetera.
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And I'm basically looking, all right,
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so what does all this research say
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about how we relate to God?
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And because we, you know, in church spaces,
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we kind of have this assumption
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that everyone relates to God in the same way.
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But really what we find out is we dig into the research
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is that people have different personalities.
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They have different ways to relate to the other people
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in their life.
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Some people are really clingy
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at the other end of the spectrum.
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There are people that are like,
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I just don't really want people like, just leave me in the garage
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all day and I will be happy.
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And so it was looking there from like, okay,
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so how do these different people approach God
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and relationship to God?
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And what are the ways then that growth looks like
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for each of these people?
14:02
And so I'm pulling on a lot of research and science
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and my own experience as a couples therapist,
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but then applying that over to what does that look like
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when we're relating to God?
14:14
- Okay, so within that study,
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within that field of study, attachment science,
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we see that there are attachment styles
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and you kind of alluded to a few of them there,
14:22
but I'm gonna get you to do a little definitional work,
14:24
which I'm sure you're used to,
14:25
but you define three in the book,
14:27
three of these attachment styles.
14:28
There's anxious attachment style,
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there's shutdown attachment style
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and then shame-filled attachment style.
14:35
So can you briefly describe those three fours
14:37
so that we're all on the same page?
14:39
- Yeah, so the anxious attachment style is,
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is when you are anxious about the relationship,
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there's always that kind of in the back of your mind,
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like, are we okay?
14:47
And you know, this can be a romantic relationships,
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maybe you've been that person in a relationship,
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maybe you've been in a person with that relationship
14:54
where it's like, I gotta get a text message
14:57
from you every hour to know that you're not mad at me,
15:00
that sort of thing, right?
15:01
But then when we think about that with God,
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we do this, we can take that same approach
15:05
where it's like, I'm so focused on making sure
15:08
that I'm following God, it becomes almost a worry.
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It's something that takes up space in the back of my head
15:14
throughout the day that maybe actually gets in the way of me,
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you know, be attending to the people in my life
15:20
or doing my job well or, you know, really showing up
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in the ways that God wants us to show up
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'cause we're so worried, like, am I doing this right?
15:28
Am I offending God in this way?
15:30
So that would be that anxious type
15:32
where it really feels like I'm walking in this tight rope
15:35
to try to keep connection.
15:36
The second attachment style is a shutdown attachment style
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and this is where these are folks that are like,
15:44
"I don't really do emotions, I don't like emotions."
15:47
And really where that comes from is like if early on,
15:51
you were told, you know, stop crying, don't be so worried,
15:56
you know, sometimes it's like, don't get angry.
15:59
You learn that like, if I'm gonna belong,
16:01
if I'm gonna get connection with my parent,
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I gotta stuff these emotions down,
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I gotta just ignore them.
16:07
And so then you grow up with this approach
16:09
and this shows up with God as well,
16:11
where it's like, if I'm worried, if I'm sad,
16:13
that means I'm not believing the truth of the Bible,
16:16
so that means I don't have faith, right?
16:18
So I gotta pretend like I don't feel those things.
16:21
And so that's where that shutdown attachment style,
16:24
that's what it looks like is I'm just gonna rely on logic
16:27
or rationale or I'm just gonna focus on doing things
16:30
'cause I don't wanna connect on that deep level
16:33
'cause I've been told before that if I have
16:35
these negative emotions, that's gonna lead to disconnection.
16:39
- Right, well, I appreciate you going into all that detail
16:42
on all those different things.
16:43
And so did you get out everything you wanted to get out
16:45
about anxious shutdown in Schaimfield?
16:47
- So Schaimfield is third.
16:49
- Oh, sorry, dude, I totally skipped ahead.
16:51
We're gonna end up that part out
16:52
'cause I look like such an idiot.
16:54
So we're just gonna pretend like none of that happened.
16:56
- Yeah, yeah, good, I like leaning into the editing.
16:59
So, and then the third is Schaimfield.
17:03
And this is that person that's like, I wanna be close,
17:07
but I'm afraid that I'm not enough.
17:09
It feels like there's something wrong with me.
17:10
And that can look like that insecurity of like,
17:14
I wanna be close to others,
17:16
but I'm gonna beat myself up or do the self-critical talk
17:20
to make sure that I'm rejecting myself
17:22
before anyone else gets a chance to.
17:24
And we do that same thing with God,
17:26
where it's like, I know God is perfect and holy.
17:29
And if I can just feel bad enough about myself,
17:33
then God will embrace me because God's like,
17:36
all right, yeah, you know you're bad.
17:37
So now I can, I can, you know, you're bad.
17:41
So now I can let you close to me.
17:43
- Gotcha.
17:44
Well, just so we can be super authentic,
17:45
I'm just gonna leave that part in there from a second ago
17:48
'cause then people will know that I was actually reading stuff
17:50
while you were talking.
17:51
But I do pay attention when people are talking, all right?
17:53
So guys, chill out, relax.
17:54
But what I wanna do now, Chris,
17:56
I wanna ask you maybe one question
17:58
about each one of those styles,
17:59
but then I just wanna flow on a bunch of other stuff
18:01
from the book that I just kind of picked out
18:02
that I wanted to get some clarification on.
18:04
So going back to the first style you talked about,
18:06
which is the anxious attachment style.
18:08
From my perspective, because I, you know,
18:10
when I took your little test,
18:11
that was like the lowest one for me personally.
18:13
So people with this style seem to be overwhelmed
18:17
by this neurosis and they're like overpowered
18:21
by their own emotions and their seeming desire
18:23
to be emotional.
18:25
Do you see that as a healthy thing?
18:27
'Cause as I was thinking through it,
18:28
not understanding it myself personally,
18:29
'cause that's not how I'm wired,
18:31
I don't know how that can be positive.
18:33
So just kind of help me understand that a little deeper.
18:35
- Yeah, so really some of the issue there is,
18:39
is if we are not able to get our emotional balance,
18:44
right, that part is really important.
18:48
And so if it, like you're saying,
18:50
if I'm really overwhelmed with my emotions,
18:52
that's a problem.
18:54
Also, what ends up happening with people with this style
18:58
is they will be like, I feel bad and I need you to fix it.
19:03
And whether that's-- - So like projecting it
19:05
on somebody. - Exactly, right.
19:07
And whether that's with God or with a partner,
19:10
like that doesn't work very well in relationships.
19:15
But really a lot of it is too,
19:16
like if you're carrying around that anxiety all the time,
19:19
then it's gonna really take a toll on your nervous system,
19:24
on your health, on your relationships.
19:26
And so emotions aren't bad,
19:29
but it's being able to say, I feel sad,
19:31
reach out to God, partner, whoever.
19:35
And just having someone say, oh yeah, that is sad,
19:38
like I hear you, right?
19:40
That actually can help reduce the emotion,
19:43
it can reduce it by like 70% actually.
19:46
They've done some studies on just like having
19:48
that emotion named.
19:50
But if I'm like, I'm really sad and nobody can help me
19:54
and you know a thing you can say can help, right?
19:57
Like then that perpetuates the cycle of like,
20:01
I'm alone in my emotions and I'm not letting you in.
20:04
And after a while, you're gonna get really annoyed with me
20:07
because there's nothing you can do to help me either.
20:10
And so it's gonna be like,
20:12
so I'm gonna start ignoring your emotions,
20:15
which means you're gonna try to make them bigger
20:17
and bigger to get my attention.
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20:49
- It's almost like you're setting whoever's up
20:50
on the other side of the equation,
20:51
you're setting them up for failure
20:53
because they can't do it, you know, perfectly to your liking.
20:55
So again, that's the anxious attachment style,
20:57
but now let's go to shutdown attachment style.
20:59
So when I took your little test,
21:00
like that's kind of where I was
21:02
and I'm way far on that side.
21:04
And in the book, you even talked about how the shut down
21:06
attachment style, and this is a direct quote,
21:08
is based on the presumption that emotions such as fear,
21:11
sadness, pain, and doubt are incompatible
21:14
with the life of faith.
21:15
And so for me specifically, this is how I'm wired.
21:19
A lot of the guys that are kind of in my foxhole
21:21
and my core group of men that I have around me,
21:23
they have this style, but we don't look at fear,
21:27
sadness, pain, or doubt, or any of those things
21:29
as incompatible with the life of faith.
21:31
And we're not guys that when you're like,
21:32
hey, what are you feeling right now?
21:34
We're like, I don't have any fricking idea.
21:36
Like I'm just a guy over here eating beef jerky,
21:38
being an idiot, like none of us are like that.
21:41
And so I guess that's where I scored so high on the test.
21:45
But at the same time, I'm like,
21:46
that doesn't exactly describe the whole me.
21:48
So again, I'm dumb, treat me like I'm dumb, help me.
21:51
- Well, I think that's really good to point out.
21:53
And in my assumption there is like, you've done work.
21:56
We all start somewhere with one of these profiles, right?
22:00
And then we go from there and we have to do,
22:04
everyone has to do some work to get to a point
22:06
where we're more emotionally healthy.
22:08
And so I think, even in the book I talked about
22:12
some of the messages we get from church leaders
22:15
about how it's not okay to feel these things.
22:19
And I think there's been a really cool shift
22:21
in the church and it's slow.
22:25
But recognizing that there is, you know,
22:28
this authenticity is a vulnerable thing
22:32
and it's a really, takes a lot of courage.
22:34
And so I see a lot of people stepping into that,
22:37
which has been really beautiful to see.
22:39
So that's like my two senses.
22:41
Like yeah, you probably like and it's also worth noting
22:45
that that might be where you go in distress.
22:49
So when I'm having a fight, you know,
22:52
part of the question is like,
22:53
if I'm having a fight with my partner,
22:56
am I gonna like, am I gonna send them 10 text messages?
23:01
Or am I gonna like shut down and wait for the smoke to clear?
23:05
And I might, in different settings,
23:07
be able to identify my emotions and be able to share.
23:11
But during these times, this is kind of where I tend to go.
23:15
- Sometimes the smoke is half the fun
23:17
'cause it's just like that means there was chaos
23:19
at some point, so that gets into that style.
23:22
So that kind of gets into the shutdown style.
23:25
And then the last one was shame-filled attachment style.
23:27
And in the book, you have this quote here,
23:29
"Churches that constantly remind us
23:31
how far we've fallen from God's ideal,
23:33
often implicitly or explicitly promote shame in the pews."
23:37
So that's the quote.
23:38
Now, from my perspective and obviously from my readers,
23:41
scripture, I'm not a guy that grew up in church.
23:42
And so it's like, I don't have, you know, 40 years of doctrine
23:45
that has been pushed down my throat.
23:46
It's just kind of what I gather from scripture
23:48
is that we are completely depraved and unworthy of a way out
23:52
from under the weight of our own sins, right?
23:53
And the only reason that the gospel is good news
23:56
is because even in spite of that,
23:57
God made a way through Jesus, right?
23:59
And so do you find it, everything's within reason,
24:03
'cause we're painting with a broad brush here today
24:04
to a degree, isn't it appropriate for a church
24:08
to almost just remind you of your depravity
24:11
to be like, that's why the gift is so good?
24:13
- Yeah, so that's a really interesting question.
24:16
I'm definitely coming from a place
24:18
of people with this shame-filled attachment style
24:21
that are already coming into church with this feeling,
24:24
like there's something wrong with me, I'm broken, right?
24:27
I think we get those messages a lot in society
24:31
in our relationships, we're getting this message.
24:34
And I generally, you know, it reminds me of, you know,
24:39
years and years ago, I was in a church
24:42
and I was really struggling at that point
24:46
to deal with pornography addiction.
24:49
And so I went to my pastors and I was like,
24:51
"Hey, what do you think about doing this program?"
24:54
It's, you know, it's a men's group,
24:56
it's called Genesis Process,
24:58
it's used throughout churches and recoveries,
25:02
Christian recovery centers throughout the U.S.
25:04
And they were like, well, it doesn't talk about sin enough.
25:08
And I was like, well, we're talking about a group of men
25:11
that are meeting at a church on a Wednesday night
25:13
because the way that they're behaving
25:17
is causing harm to themselves and their wives
25:20
and their marriage.
25:21
I don't think we need to like,
25:23
continually go over that part,
25:25
because if you're already there on a Wednesday night
25:27
because this is a problem in your life,
25:29
you already know that part.
25:31
And so I think there is a question of like,
25:33
different people need to hear different things.
25:36
But I think a lot of churches have made the assumption
25:39
of like, well, this is what people really need to hear.
25:41
They really need to hear that they're, you know,
25:43
rotten and depraved and I think that, you know,
25:48
really, I think that it's important,
25:53
part of healing and part of sanctification
25:57
is understanding that we are beloved by God,
26:00
that we are a beloved child of God,
26:03
that God likes us, that God loves us.
26:05
And I see that with Paul over and over
26:07
because he's like, what are you guys doing?
26:09
You know you're a children of God, like get it together,
26:13
which is like similar but slightly different
26:17
than the like, that you are depraved
26:19
and this is who you always are, right?
26:21
- Right, and we'll get more into kind of the belovedness
26:25
here a little bit, but something that you said,
26:27
just peek my interest so just quickly
26:28
'cause I didn't wanna get into some more parts of the book
26:31
because you talked about people kind of arrive at church
26:33
already kind of with that shamed filled attachment style
26:35
and what I kind of jotted down is I think some people,
26:37
not some people, a lot of people,
26:39
especially in modernity, especially in the West,
26:41
they feel like they have brokenness,
26:44
but they don't, they have this victim mentality
26:48
that they were born looking a certain way
26:51
or into a certain family or in a certain area
26:53
and all of a sudden that means they're better or worse
26:56
than somebody else or, you know, it's this,
26:58
again, the thing I wrote out was victim mentality.
27:01
Do you feel like people are bringing that victim mentality
27:03
because gosh, I just don't really remember,
27:05
I'm not that old, I'm 35,
27:07
but I just don't remember people celebrating things
27:10
that were bad or wrong about them at an early age
27:12
and telling you if you don't celebrate it,
27:14
you're somehow a bigot, is that part of this as well?
27:17
- Well, that's a really good question.
27:20
I think that, you know, in a lot of ways,
27:23
like we've always had a sense of like,
27:26
who are the outsiders?
27:27
And so like, you know, I think about,
27:29
I'm the same age as you and I think about, you know,
27:32
recess or the bus, right?
27:34
And who lived on that street and, you know,
27:37
what went on there and who smelled bad?
27:39
And all those things.
27:40
And, you know, that's like the elementary version
27:44
of what happens is there are insiders
27:46
and there are outsiders.
27:47
And I think about, I think about Jesus
27:50
and Jesus shows up on the scene
27:52
and that is definitely going on in his day, right?
27:55
Who are the people that are clean,
27:57
who is unclean, who's behaving righteously,
28:00
who's behaving unrighteously?
28:02
And Jesus continually is like, yeah, you're welcome here.
28:04
And so I think what's really important about this
28:08
is there are people, you know, as a psychologist,
28:12
and I'm not a psychologist, as a therapist,
28:16
I'm a counselor, that's a specific,
28:18
but like thinking about psychology,
28:20
we really understand that there are a big chunk of people
28:25
that hold some sort of shame.
28:27
And that actually ends up driving
28:29
a lot of our sinful behaviors.
28:31
And so when we understand, yeah,
28:35
I'm loved and I'm accepted for the, you know, who I am,
28:40
then that gives us kind of the grounding
28:42
to be able to move forward.
28:44
And so, I mean, it makes sense.
28:47
Like we're definitely in like a cultural shift right now
28:51
of like, yeah, all the kids that at least felt like
28:54
they were picked on in recess are getting their moment.
28:56
And I think that there's some really great things about that,
28:59
but it's a really good question about like,
29:01
how then do we approach this as a church?
29:04
- Well, it is the pendulum swinging too far,
29:07
is to a certain degree is because like,
29:08
I was a fat red-headed freckle face kid.
29:11
And so it was like, but part of the other thing as well,
29:14
that we might see in the shift
29:15
and I don't want to go too far down
29:16
the sociological rabbit hole.
29:17
But guess what?
29:18
I got to leave the bullies at school when I went home, right?
29:21
But now with cell phones and iPads and all this stuff,
29:25
the bullies are always in your ear
29:27
or they're always looking at you and always doing things.
29:29
So somebody, but again, I already said,
29:31
we're not going to socialize.
29:32
Let's come back to the book, let's come back to the book.
29:34
I wanted to read this quote from the introduction
29:36
and I think from my limited knowledge
29:39
of the attachment style,
29:40
it kind of goes with the anxious attachment style.
29:42
So I'll read it here.
29:44
The most frustrating part was that
29:45
I'd greatly expanded my repertoire
29:47
of ways to connect with God.
29:48
My range was much larger than the basics
29:50
I'd learned in elementary Sunday school.
29:52
So what was it going to take to feel as though God was near?
29:56
I wanted to live in the overwhelming peace I felt
29:58
on those first Sunday mornings.
30:00
Instead, it felt like an on-again, off-again,
30:02
romantic relationship, making my spiritual life
30:05
a tumultuous storm, not at all
30:07
like the fountain of peace I'd been promised.
30:09
After a while, I couldn't help but wonder
30:11
how God really felt about me.
30:13
So again, that's a quote from the intro.
30:15
And as I was reading through that quote
30:18
and then through the lens I was viewing the rest of the book
30:21
and also some of the critiques I've made
30:23
of contemporary worship music,
30:24
I think it's potentially a problem of framing
30:27
that part of the problem might be
30:30
is that we're viewing God as this cosmic boyfriend
30:33
that either texts us back or doesn't text us back
30:36
as opposed to the all-powerful omniscient,
30:39
omnipresent creator of the universe.
30:41
So is it a personality issue?
30:43
Is it a framing problem?
30:44
Like give me a little bit more.
30:46
- Yeah, no, I actually, I've thought a bit about this
30:48
because what we did up until recently
30:51
was we had a lot of traditions and right.
30:55
And so we would be like, yeah,
30:56
you show up to church on Sunday, you sing these songs,
30:59
you take communion, you hear the word, right?
31:02
And actually, like for our brains,
31:04
we actually need that constant reminder.
31:08
And I think that's pretty clear.
31:09
Like that's why in the Old Testament, God says,
31:12
set up these, you know, set up these remembrances of me,
31:16
you know, put the 12 stones together, you know?
31:19
And then Jesus says, you know,
31:21
eat and drink of the bread and the cup to remember.
31:25
And so we need these constant reminders of like,
31:28
we're like God is kind, God is merciful.
31:31
And God is, we're okay with God, right?
31:34
So when I think about Jesus and that communion table,
31:37
it's like, yeah, this is my covenant with you
31:39
that we're good, we're okay.
31:40
You don't have to worry about, am I closer, am I far?
31:44
And I realized that people left those liturgical traditions
31:49
because they sort of felt dead.
31:50
And you know, there, in a lot of ways,
31:53
like there are some good things that came out of that.
31:56
But there's also this issue of like, all right,
31:59
so I'm here sitting in church on a Sunday morning
32:01
and it's up to me and my head to figure out
32:04
do I feel like God is closer or not?
32:06
Rather than like, oh yeah, like this is the thing
32:09
that I do as a Christian and someone who follows God,
32:11
I go to church on Sunday morning.
32:12
And that's part of my faith.
32:15
It doesn't of course have to center around that service.
32:17
But I think it's just having those traditions
32:20
reminds our brains that we're good, you know,
32:24
that we're okay with God, that God's okay with us,
32:27
we don't have to be anxious about, am I closer, am I far?
32:30
And then you bring in this really emotional worship,
32:34
charismatic thing.
32:36
And people have immense like feelings of closeness with God,
32:41
but then what happens when that feeling goes away?
32:44
Does it mean that there's something wrong with me
32:46
or is it wrong with my faith?
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33:18
- Right, absolutely.
33:19
I think that's an important distinction to look for
33:22
in terms of kind of where we're getting our knowledge
33:25
and kind of where we're getting some of the ideas
33:27
and I want to skip ahead to a question
33:29
because you basically talked about it there a little bit
33:32
is in the book, you constantly are talking
33:36
about the warring dichotomy, I guess,
33:39
about what your head knows about God in your salvation
33:43
versus how you feel about God in your salvation.
33:46
And at one point I just started circling every time
33:48
you use the word feel or feelings.
33:49
And I was just like, you know, I was using an apple pencil
33:52
but I'm like, I'm somehow gonna run out of ink
33:53
'cause it was just all over the place.
33:55
But I guess, shouldn't it be a relief, Crispin, to us to know
33:59
that our feelings on the matter don't actually affect
34:02
the reality of God's love or your salvation?
34:05
I mean, just think about, this is a stupid example,
34:07
mind you, but let's say you just hated the number four.
34:10
It just looked funny to you.
34:12
You know, your mom had four, you know, husbands
34:14
and they were all terrible to you.
34:15
You just hate the number four, right?
34:17
Well, that doesn't change, your feelings on the number four
34:19
doesn't change what the answer to two plus two is.
34:22
And so it's not gonna be five just because you don't feel
34:25
like the number four represents you
34:26
or, you know, makes you have positive feelings.
34:29
So isn't that a good thing though,
34:30
that the way we feel about our salvation
34:33
doesn't actually matter in terms of whether or not
34:36
we are saved?
34:37
- Yes, it does, definitely.
34:40
And at the same time, our attachment system is always
34:44
running and it's always attached to our nervous system.
34:48
And so what happens is if I feel like there's a rupture
34:52
in my relationship and listeners,
34:55
maybe you've experienced this before,
34:57
you get into a bad fight with a partner
34:59
and it feels like the world is ending, right?
35:02
Like, and so that on a neuro-biological level
35:06
is happening where like we actually end up,
35:09
like if it feels like I'm far from God,
35:11
there's this part of me that it's impacting my body.
35:15
And so that's, it'd be really nice to be like,
35:17
yeah, I just know that this is true
35:19
and my feelings don't matter.
35:20
And that is true.
35:23
And then the other part of it is like,
35:25
well, how do I start to help my feelings line up
35:29
with what I know to be true?
35:32
And feelings is like, you know,
35:35
it's funny that you said you circled it
35:37
'cause I remember writing it and I was like,
35:39
I wish there was another word for viewing.
35:41
- A different word, that could be the same thing, yeah.
35:43
- Exactly, but really it's like, it's our experience,
35:48
you know, that's what I'm really trying to focus in on
35:51
is like, if God likes me or if God loves me
35:55
or if I don't have to worry,
35:57
how can that match my actual experience day today?
36:00
And how can I walk in practices towards that?
36:04
- Right, so it's interesting you say that
36:06
'cause to be honest, after reading your book,
36:08
I didn't think you would answer that question that way.
36:10
And so I'm gonna skip ahead to another quote
36:13
because this quote stuck out to me as well.
36:16
This was on page 118 of your book, right?
36:18
So this is over the halfway point, you have this quote.
36:20
"Before you become too worried, I want to be clear
36:23
"that we can't base our theology entirely on our feelings."
36:27
But up to page 118, I felt like the entire book
36:30
was about feelings and every page thereafter,
36:33
I felt like really focused on the essential nature
36:35
of feelings over facts or over head knowledge.
36:38
So did I, it wasn't a deliberate misread
36:41
because I was reading it with an open mind
36:42
as much as I could, but is that a fair assumption
36:46
of kind of what somebody could potentially come away
36:48
from your book thinking?
36:49
- Yeah, so basically what I'm going with is
36:52
it's trying to make sense of the way that we feel
36:57
in our faith and definitely written for people
37:00
that are like, have this sense.
37:02
I mean, I think it's pretty clear from the introduction.
37:05
Like, if you're reading this book, like you're in a place
37:09
where I'm, you know, I'm trying to figure out like,
37:11
why does the way that I'm told faith is supposed to work?
37:14
Why isn't it working this way?
37:16
Why is my experience not fitting the thing that I've heard?
37:19
And so-
37:20
- Is something broken in the way I'm doing it?
37:22
- Right, exactly.
37:24
And so I think it was so helpful for me to, for example,
37:29
recognize like, okay, my whole life,
37:32
I have felt like it's up to me to keep my relationship
37:36
with God.
37:37
And so like, I need to get it right.
37:39
I need to do it right.
37:41
And therefore there's actually a lot of anxiety
37:43
that I'm carrying around tied to that.
37:46
And then to see this research, this scientific research
37:50
about babies and their mothers and find that babies
37:54
actually do the same thing.
37:56
They have this biological response of anxiety
38:00
when it feels like they're in charge of the connection
38:04
with their mom.
38:05
And so I think that was really helpful.
38:08
And then like, you know, also thinking about
38:10
the shutdown attachment piece of like,
38:14
if you got a message early on that emotions aren't okay,
38:19
then it just totally makes sense
38:22
that you shut those down and you try to ignore them.
38:25
And so I think a lot of it for me was saying like,
38:27
these are actually like biological processes
38:31
that just naturally happen.
38:32
And so when we're given these messages about God,
38:37
then it makes sense that we're gonna respond in this way.
38:40
And then what I did was I said like, okay,
38:42
so if this is what science tells us we need
38:46
for a secure relationship
38:48
and it doesn't have to be like super responsive,
38:52
I live in Portland where people are more progressive
38:55
and people use like lots of emotion words with parenting.
39:00
And that's helpful to some extent,
39:02
but like you don't have to like use all the feeling words
39:05
to be a good parent.
39:06
But really what I was finding is that yeah,
39:13
if this is what the science says for a secure relationship,
39:16
I wonder if that's present in the story of scripture.
39:20
And that really prodded me to do a lot of like theological
39:24
research about how do we understand like the purpose
39:29
of the law, how do we understand Jesus is covenant?
39:32
How do we understand how God approaches people?
39:36
So yeah, that's, you know,
39:37
and there are lots of books out there
39:38
that will teach you the right theology.
39:40
I was trying to make sense of like, you know,
39:43
how do you make sense of your experience in light of this?
39:47
- Okay, and it sounds like you're still on that journey
39:50
of trying to understand.
39:51
I mean, I guess you could coyly say it's a lifetime journey,
39:54
but it's still something that you're on.
39:56
So there's another quote,
39:56
I appreciate let me kind of go down that rabbit trail
39:58
for the clarification on that.
40:00
But you also had this short quote that, you know,
40:02
that I found interesting and you said this,
40:04
it seems God cares more about fame and glory
40:07
than our emotions and experience.
40:09
And with all these quotes guys to anyone that's like,
40:11
you know, a big Kyle fan or a big Christmas fan,
40:13
I'm trying to keep all these in as good a context as possible.
40:16
I want to be as fair as possible.
40:17
But whenever I read that, the thought came to mind like,
40:21
have you ever considered the thought that maybe the Bible
40:24
isn't about you and your feelings?
40:26
I'm saying this to you as much as I'm saying to anyone else.
40:28
Listen, that the story of the Bible is not the story of you
40:32
that perhaps we are not the point
40:33
that perhaps God is about God and we're not the primary focus.
40:38
- So I hear what you're saying because I have that same
40:43
like feeling of like, yeah, it can't just be about me
40:47
and it can't be individualistic.
40:49
But here, when I think, and it's even that quote
40:53
is a little bit of a, you know, a misnomer I guess or, you know,
40:58
what I would say is like God's fame and glory
41:06
is health and healing and healthy societies.
41:11
And I think that's pretty clear
41:13
when God brings Israel out of Egypt,
41:16
God says here are the ways we're gonna do life together.
41:20
And a lot of that is around justice
41:22
and a lot of that is about, all right.
41:24
So there are always gonna be people
41:26
that are suffering and that are marginalized.
41:29
How do we pay attention to them?
41:31
And so when I think about this, like I think about,
41:35
God really cares about, not just about me,
41:40
God cares about humanity, God created us
41:44
and is like, this is the way that I want things to go
41:47
because it's good for everyone.
41:49
And that's slightly different than like a God who's like,
41:52
I don't want you to lie because that makes me really mad
41:56
and you need to keep me happy.
41:58
And I think about like me as a parent, right?
42:00
Like I, when I am working on my kid's behavior,
42:05
it's not because to keep me happy.
42:08
I mean, there is like, yeah, you're doing that thing
42:10
that's annoying, but generally,
42:14
it's like, yeah, how do we have a healthy family?
42:16
I want you to learn the ways to relate to yourself
42:20
and to others in ways that are gonna be healthy
42:23
and good for you, which is not the same
42:25
as like happiness necessarily, but my goal is health.
42:29
And I think that's the same approach
42:31
that God takes with us.
42:32
And I think that's really clear when you look at the law,
42:35
which I think was a gift to the people of Israel.
42:38
And then you have Jesus who comes and says like,
42:41
yeah, I'm gonna tell you again, here's the way to live.
42:45
And then Paul continues on in that tradition of saying like,
42:48
this is the way things are gonna go best for you.
42:51
- I would say even in light of that,
42:53
that even more than health than our personal health
42:57
that God would be obsessed with our obedience
43:01
to what he's doing because it's one thing to say,
43:03
here are the healthy things you could do.
43:04
Like let's just use COVID as an example
43:06
so we can [inaudible] everybody off in this episode.
43:08
But let's say with COVID, we had said, hey, if you're fat
43:12
and you're vitamin D deficient
43:14
and you have all these other preventable comorbidities,
43:17
COVID could probably kill you.
43:19
And it's definitely gonna kill people like you
43:21
at a much higher clip than it's gonna kill people
43:23
that are in shape that are taking vitamin D
43:25
and doing all these other things to take care of themselves.
43:28
So there's the law, everyone knows that.
43:30
Like no one's smoking cigarettes thinking,
43:31
I'm extending my life and taking a big puff,
43:34
you know what I mean?
43:34
But it's like, I feel like God is way more concerned.
43:38
And this is my read from scripture,
43:40
it's not just, you know, Kyle's wisdom.
43:41
He's way more concerned about our obedience to the law.
43:44
And a result of that is that it causes us to be healthy.
43:49
Is that, does that make sense in terms of like,
43:51
it's one layer removed maybe from what even
43:53
you were talking about?
43:54
- Yeah, and I think that's like a difference that we have.
43:58
I really appreciated the Bible project.
44:01
I don't know if you're familiar with them.
44:03
They did, they're doing some great works,
44:06
they're based out of Portland.
44:08
And they did some really great work about looking,
44:10
kind of summarizing what's the latest understanding
44:14
around how the Jews viewed the law.
44:17
And really they were looking at like,
44:21
of course there was this idea of following the law,
44:24
but really there were these ideals that God had
44:29
for the people and God was like,
44:31
here's some examples of what that looks like.
44:33
So justice, caring for the poor.
44:35
Those are things that are like on God's values.
44:40
And then God says like, all right, here are the things
44:42
that the ways that we can make that happen.
44:44
And I think that Jesus actually makes that point
44:48
'cause Jesus comes along and says, all right,
44:50
Sabbath is like the thing that we do every week.
44:53
It is the cornerstone of Jewish culture.
44:56
And you know, you all have these rules around it.
44:59
And he says, but if it's harming people,
45:03
then we need to change it.
45:04
He says, you know, of course like this, you know,
45:08
man wasn't made for Sabbath, Sabbath was made for man.
45:11
And I think that's where I take a lot of my approaches.
45:14
Like it seems like Jesus is saying that the law is there
45:18
for our good, not us for the law.
45:21
- Okay, so I'm not really familiar with the Bible project.
45:24
So I can't say one way or the other about that.
45:26
So anyone in my audience that's currently screaming
45:28
like, Kyle, ask him this, bro, maybe later,
45:30
like maybe we can do a second part to this.
45:32
But I wanna kind of get back to a couple of quotes
45:35
that you had in reference to shutdown style
45:37
because me personally, as I was reading it,
45:38
that was the most pertinent to me
45:39
'cause that's my style.
45:40
So I'll read these quotes here.
45:41
Here's the first one.
45:42
You genuinely believe life is better
45:44
when everyone stays calm.
45:45
You consider yourself logical and solution focused
45:48
because you're not clouded by emotions.
45:50
You can clearly see problems and solutions.
45:52
You're the person others can call
45:54
when they need an urgent solution.
45:56
So the funny thing about that quote,
45:57
as I was reading it, is you are framing it
45:59
as if that was a bad thing.
46:00
And so let me go and get into the next thing, your style.
46:02
I was like, oh, screw you, Crispin.
46:04
You don't know my life.
46:05
Let me go and get into the next quote here.
46:07
Men's ministries have run full speed ahead
46:10
with military metaphors that thrive on extinguishing feelings
46:13
in favor of the quote unquote facts of the faith.
46:16
These provide biblical license
46:18
to do what feels natural in the first place.
46:20
Shut yourself off from emotions.
46:23
Okay, so for me personally, I run a men's ministry.
46:27
I've worked with a lot of other men's ministries
46:29
and I have never advocated for men shutting down
46:33
their emotions as if it's a binary, zero or one offer on.
46:37
The other ministries that I've worked with
46:39
and the other ministries that I'm aware of don't do that.
46:41
However, we would be advocates
46:44
and I'm a supreme advocate for a type of stoicism
46:48
that is having your emotions under voluntary control
46:52
because they're like Nehemiah in the Old Testament
46:55
that just came to mind.
46:55
Like if he was just sitting there crying
46:57
at the crumbled walls of Jerusalem
47:00
and never got himself together enough
47:03
to get up and start working,
47:04
they never would have rebuilt the walls.
47:06
Like so his ability to take his emotions
47:09
and use them as fuel in other places was a positive thing.
47:12
And so the sense that I get Crispin
47:14
from reading your book and from reading those sections
47:17
is that perhaps you personally are uncomfortable
47:20
with stoicism and or maybe you've seen stoicism
47:23
as this negative thing, you've seen it modeled negatively
47:27
where it was binary.
47:28
Someone just didn't show emotion
47:30
and it hurt their spouse or hurt their children
47:32
or hurt the people that they work with.
47:33
But it seems like you're just uncomfortable
47:35
with that more controlled approach to life and faith.
47:38
I mean, is that fair?
47:39
I don't want to miss miss.
47:40
- Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm thinking,
47:42
I'm reflecting on a lot of my own experiences
47:45
at Bible college and men's chapel.
47:47
And like I said, I think that there's been a lot
47:50
of like shifts there.
47:51
But yeah, I think if we're using it
47:54
to just like shut down our emotions,
47:57
then I think that is a problem because
48:00
then you have the other people in your life
48:02
and emotion is how we feel connection.
48:04
On a neurobiological level,
48:07
that's how we feel connected.
48:08
And so that's really where it can become a problem
48:10
is if I'm just like totally shut down or checked out,
48:14
then the other people in my life
48:15
aren't going to feel connected to me.
48:17
- Okay, so to be clear,
48:18
you would advocate for a controlled stoicism
48:23
where you can troll your emotions
48:25
so that you can be a person that can be relied on
48:28
in a pinch or even just in a positive scenario.
48:30
- Right, yeah.
48:31
And that being said, when it comes to emotional regulation,
48:35
one of the best ways that we can emotionally regulate
48:37
is through connection.
48:39
There's actually studies out there that they've done
48:43
where they looked at people and noticed that
48:46
when they were connected with a partner,
48:48
the partner was with them,
48:49
they didn't experience pain from a shock
48:51
in the same way that they did when they were alone.
48:54
There's studies about like if you are looking at it,
48:58
this is so funny, but if you're looking at a hill
49:01
and you're thinking you have to climb up that hill
49:03
and then there's someone standing next to you,
49:06
when that person standing next to you,
49:08
you estimate it to be not as big as when you're alone.
49:11
And so there are these pieces.
49:12
Yeah, I totally hear you where it's like,
49:14
we can't, we don't wanna let emotions run amok.
49:18
But we wanna figure out what are ways that I can,
49:23
those emotions are data that I'm getting, right?
49:26
How do I take that data in
49:29
and then decide what I'm gonna do with it?
49:31
- Okay, I appreciate it.
49:33
Go ahead, I'm sorry.
49:34
- Yeah, no, and I was gonna say,
49:35
and I think like sometimes doing that
49:38
is having that connection, right?
49:40
So there's that time where it's like,
49:42
I'm really [inaudible] off, I'm gonna do,
49:45
I'm gonna go back to the store
49:47
and I'm gonna give them a piece in my mind.
49:49
And then we talk it over with a friend
49:52
and then it's like, actually, yeah,
49:53
like I just need to get that out.
49:55
Like that's actually not a smart idea, you know?
49:58
- Well, as I'm talking to you,
49:59
it's like I'm obviously doing some self-reflection,
50:01
which you know, as a counselor,
50:03
you cause people to do self-reflection.
50:04
That's ultimately your job is to make them do the work.
50:06
Like you don't wanna do anything, you're the counselor,
50:08
you just get paid no matter what.
50:09
But the thing about it is,
50:10
and I have counselor buddies that are gonna,
50:12
they're definitely gonna text me right after they hear me say that.
50:14
But like even for a guy like me,
50:16
is I'm kind of a, gosh, this is gonna sound so [inaudible]
50:18
saying out loud.
50:19
I feel like I'm a well-adjusted lone wolf.
50:22
So when you talked about The Hill,
50:24
I've worked out alone 98% of the time
50:27
that I've worked out in my life.
50:28
And I've worked out for, you know,
50:31
between sports and just, you know, exercise,
50:32
I've worked out for most of my life,
50:34
almost my entire life, right?
50:36
But like I do that alone.
50:37
And so I don't need that person next to me to be like,
50:39
"Let's go do it, let's run up The Hill, we can."
50:42
But almost everyone else in my life needs that.
50:45
Like they don't have that inner FU that's just like,
50:48
"I'm gonna do it."
50:49
And if you don't think I can do it, watch me do it.
50:51
So it's just interesting, there's not a question in that.
50:54
I just thought that that was interesting as I'm thinking like,
50:56
because again, I wanna be fair to the content of the book,
50:58
but I also wanna be fair to the audience
51:00
that's not wired like me.
51:01
Because one thing that I feel like,
51:03
especially guys that are trying to be, you know,
51:04
podcast hosts or influencers are like,
51:06
"Hey, I've done it, so shouldn't it be so easy for you?"
51:09
I was listening to a guy the other day
51:10
that on the same day he ran a marathon
51:13
and squatted 500 pounds.
51:15
The thing about it is though,
51:16
is you can't just train for three months and do that.
51:18
Like that guy is genetically predisposed
51:20
to be able to do both of those things.
51:22
And he did the work to get there,
51:24
but to just blanket advice to everybody and say,
51:26
"Hey, be like me because I'm an influencer."
51:28
That's really, really stupid advice.
51:30
But I did wanna get into something else
51:32
because there were a lot of quotes in this book
51:34
that just caught me off guard.
51:35
And I'm like, "Surely there is a deeper explanation for this."
51:38
So from the book, I wanna go back to it here.
51:40
When I was growing up,
51:41
my mom would often quote Max Lucado,
51:44
"God loves you just the way you are,
51:46
"which was followed by a catch."
51:47
But he refuses to leave you that way.
51:49
He wants you to be just like Jesus.
51:52
The second part was a stab in my side.
51:55
And so I'm reading, reading, reading, yep, get it.
51:57
I'm with you, I'm with you.
51:58
And then you say the second part was like a stab in my side.
52:01
And so I guess the question that I would ask
52:04
is if the first part of that statement
52:06
that Lucado said were true,
52:08
that God loves you just the way that you are,
52:11
then when the world do we need Jesus for?
52:13
I mean, why was the cross even necessary?
52:16
Because if he loves you just the way you are
52:18
and doesn't want you to change,
52:20
there is no separation from him.
52:22
- Right, yeah.
52:23
Well, and so I think, I mean, for one, yeah,
52:26
that's that like question, like what does the cross mean?
52:30
What does salvation mean?
52:32
And I think that, so, oh gosh,
52:37
I mean, we're hitting on a lot of things.
52:40
One is like, if the idea of like being just like Jesus
52:44
is being purified so that we can be with God, yes, 100%.
52:49
If being just like Jesus means like I don't,
52:54
I need to be perfect in the way that Jesus was perfect
52:59
in order to like really forgot to like me or accept me,
53:04
that's where we run into issues.
53:06
And this is for people that grow up
53:08
where it feels like God is always disappointed in me.
53:11
God has always like frustrated or disgusted with me.
53:16
And so, yeah, there is this piece of like,
53:18
of course I need to change.
53:19
But what we find is that when we experience delight,
53:26
when there's that sense of like that person that really likes us
53:30
and you know, you walk in the door and their face lights up
53:33
and it doesn't have to be like, you know, super emotional,
53:36
but we just know those people in our life, right?
53:38
That feel safe, that feel connected,
53:40
that we look forward to seeing.
53:42
Those are the relationships that actually help us feel secure
53:47
and it is in that security
53:48
that we actually will make better decisions.
53:51
We will make more ethical decisions
53:54
in they just study about people that feel secure.
53:57
They run more ethical businesses.
53:59
And so there's something sort of ironic about like,
54:02
if I know that I'm okay, even if I mess up or if I screw up,
54:06
I'm actually less likely to do that.
54:09
And so I think there's that piece,
54:11
but I think the other thing is that
54:14
when we think about holiness and God being perfect,
54:18
it really, you know, we end up feeling like
54:21
I'm so dirty and rotten, God doesn't like me.
54:25
And I just don't see that throughout scripture.
54:28
I see God continually showing up.
54:30
Like if God was so disgusted with us,
54:33
then Jesus would have just been puking everywhere.
54:35
But I think that God shows up and God wants to,
54:40
I think about it as like a therapist.
54:42
So as a therapist, when someone comes into my office,
54:47
I don't think like get out of here, like come back when you're better.
54:51
Right?
54:52
I'm like, I'm really glad you're here.
54:54
It's good to see you.
54:55
And I generally like my clients.
54:57
I genuinely like them.
55:00
And that doesn't mean we're gonna whitewash
55:02
the ways that they're harming themselves or others,
55:04
or the ways that they need to grow,
55:06
or the things along the way where they haven't matured.
55:10
But it's like, I'm so glad you're here.
55:14
And don't worry, I'm in charge.
55:16
I have the treatment plan.
55:17
I wanna work towards healing and maturity and growth.
55:21
And you're also gonna have to make some sacrifices,
55:25
do some hard work, take some risks along the way.
55:29
So I'm in charge, but that doesn't mean
55:32
that you're off the hook either.
55:34
We're gonna do this together.
55:35
And I think that's actually a really good picture
55:38
of like how God approaches us.
55:39
And I think it's just so, I mean,
55:42
just think about the people in your life
55:44
that have been, like coached you.
55:46
I think that's in whatever regard,
55:48
whether it's, or coached or mentored, maybe that's sports,
55:51
but maybe that's just like in that sense of feeling like,
55:54
here's this person that's helping me develop,
55:57
but there is this sense of like,
55:59
they really like me or they really get me.
56:01
And like there's that kind of secure,
56:03
like foundation that we can build on.
56:05
- So I agree with parts of that sentiment
56:08
where I feel like, well, this actually attaches
56:11
to another quote that I wanted to ask you about.
56:13
So you keep, apparently you had,
56:15
you saw these somehow beforehand
56:16
because you keep dovetailing in the crap
56:18
I want to talk to you about.
56:19
There was a, and he didn't, by the way,
56:21
I don't share my stuff before the interview guys,
56:23
get out of your own heads.
56:24
But here's the quote.
56:25
We've heard a version of the good news
56:28
that includes the bad news that we are revolting to God.
56:32
It stains the good news like a Trojan horse
56:34
implanting shame in what's supposed to be a balm
56:37
to our suffering.
56:39
And so I guess in my worldview and in my reader scripture,
56:43
that's not a version of the good news.
56:45
That is the good news.
56:47
You know, if we weren't revolting sinners,
56:50
then there is no need for a savior
56:52
that can make us clean before a holy and just God.
56:57
The reality is, is that God does love us
57:00
in spite of who we are.
57:02
Because who we are is sinners in desperate need of a savior.
57:06
And we have to be the ones to realize that.
57:08
Otherwise, we should feel no need to have a savior
57:12
because if we don't feel like we need a savior,
57:14
then why would we reach out to him?
57:16
And so it's, it's the opposite of what you kind of said.
57:18
Cause I've had people say before,
57:19
Hey Kyle, let me go get my life together.
57:21
And then I'll come back and talk to you about this Jesus thing.
57:23
And it's like, no, no, no, you missed it.
57:24
You missed it.
57:25
- Right.
57:26
Right.
57:27
- Yeah.
57:28
Kind of the other side of it to where it's like,
57:29
no brother, you need this.
57:31
Like, but you have to acknowledge that you need this
57:34
because I can't force it down your throat.
57:35
Just like I can't force you to exercise and eat right.
57:38
So again, I don't feel like that's a version of the good news.
57:40
That is the good news.
57:41
Am I, am I crazy here?
57:43
- Well, it depends on like that difference
57:46
between like revolting and dysfunctional.
57:48
Like we're definitely dysfunctional.
57:50
We are people in need of a healer.
57:53
We are in need like, yeah, we're, we are,
57:56
we are screwed on our own, right?
57:58
But I think.
58:00
- And you believe that and to be clear, you believe that.
58:03
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
58:04
But I think, and actually like to,
58:08
to really kind of dive deep into it,
58:11
really what we understand is the whole temple.
58:15
Let's see, this is where it gets nerdy.
58:17
The whole temple system.
58:18
- Let's go there.
58:19
- Let's do it.
58:20
The temple system was set up because, you know,
58:23
especially like at the beginning,
58:25
when Israel is brought out of Egypt
58:29
and God is, you know, understood as one of many gods.
58:34
God's, we're, we're unable to be in the same place as people.
58:38
And so there's something about the, about a deity,
58:42
about a God that can't get close to people.
58:45
Otherwise people die, which is what you see throughout scripture.
58:49
And so there needs to be this like blood hazmat suit,
58:54
sort of, you know, if we're gonna get close to God,
58:56
like there needs to be a sacrifice.
58:58
And that's really clear when we look through Old Testament law.
59:01
This really is this whole picture of like,
59:03
God wants to be close to us.
59:05
How can we, how can God bring us close?
59:10
And so God's trying to figure out the logistics of this
59:13
because of the way that sin works.
59:16
God can't be near sin, but that's slightly different,
59:20
but very similar to like God hates us, right?
59:25
Or like hates us as we are.
59:29
It's more like there is this division
59:31
and we need to be saved and we can't come close.
59:33
And so then Jesus is basically saying like,
59:36
I'm going to spill, I mean, he spills his blood
59:39
for all people, right?
59:40
And, you know, as Christians, we understand the temple system
59:43
then isn't needed anymore.
59:45
And this is all in an effort of God coming to get us.
59:49
It's not because God's like, you know,
59:51
I really, I could care less about you.
59:55
And yeah, I think a lot of it is about God's feelings.
59:59
And the early Christian fathers understood that God,
1:00:03
I mean, this was actually influenced in part by stoicism,
1:00:08
but they're like, yeah, God doesn't actually have
1:00:09
a lot of feelings.
1:00:10
God loves us and just like any parent where it's like,
1:00:15
yeah, like you can do things that make me really upset,
1:00:18
but that doesn't change the fact
1:00:19
that I'm going to keep showing up.
1:00:21
- So I kind of feel like as you're saying that,
1:00:23
like God seems like he's, he's almost outside
1:00:26
of the world of feelings because he's outside
1:00:28
of the material world and he is the material world.
1:00:31
And so it's kind of like saying you love someone
1:00:33
versus saying that that person is love.
1:00:35
It's like we don't get it.
1:00:36
Like that doesn't make sense to us in our material
1:00:38
'cause we can't touch that.
1:00:39
We can't put that in, you know, in a beaker
1:00:41
and heat it up on a Bunsen burner.
1:00:42
Like we can't do any of those things.
1:00:43
Sorry, science people, if I messed up that reference,
1:00:45
but I feel like it gets into an important part of your book,
1:00:48
which to be honest, I wasn't sure the point
1:00:51
that you were trying to make whenever you were talking
1:00:53
about this, but the quote from the book is,
1:00:55
perhaps you've heard that sin separates us from God.
1:00:58
You may have even been told that the only way
1:01:00
to end that separation and get close to God
1:01:02
is through the punishment of sin.
1:01:05
But the Bible tells another story.
1:01:07
Now I'm curious how you come to that.
1:01:09
And part of what I'm about to do is more so
1:01:12
for my audience from a reference point
1:01:14
than it is like a challenge 'cause anytime someone's like,
1:01:16
well, what does Isaiah blah blah blah say?
1:01:17
It's like, I don't know.
1:01:18
It's like the Bible's so incredibly long.
1:01:20
But whenever I read scripture,
1:01:22
I read through like Isaiah 59 too,
1:01:25
but your iniquities have made a separation
1:01:27
between you and your God.
1:01:29
Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is death,
1:01:33
but the free gift of God is eternal life
1:01:35
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1:01:37
1 Peter 2, 24, he himself bore our sins
1:01:40
in his body on the tree that we might die to sin
1:01:43
and live in righteousness by his wounds you have been healed.
1:01:47
There was a punishment there.
1:01:48
Then we've got John 3, 16 and 17
1:01:51
'cause no one ever reads 17 'cause they get on the 16.
1:01:54
Forgot to love the world that he gave his only son
1:01:56
that whoever believes in him should not perish
1:01:57
would have eternal life.
1:01:58
And now 17, for God did not send his son
1:02:01
into the world to condemn the world,
1:02:02
but in order that the world might be saved through him.
1:02:05
And the last one I'll say here is 1 Corinthians 15, 17,
1:02:08
one of the most important scriptures in the entire canon.
1:02:11
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile
1:02:15
and you are still in your sins.
1:02:17
And so the Bible does tell that story of separation
1:02:21
that we can't come before the Father
1:02:23
in your own words just a second ago.
1:02:24
You basically said, you know, sin can't be in his presence.
1:02:27
It doesn't work that way.
1:02:29
But the only way that we end that separation
1:02:33
is through the punishment of the cross.
1:02:35
That's the only way.
1:02:36
But then you say the Bible tells another story.
1:02:39
Like how does it tell another story?
1:02:41
- Right, I love that you're asking this.
1:02:42
I love getting into the weeds around it 'cause--
1:02:44
- Okay, so let's get it.
1:02:45
- So for one, one of the contact of that is like,
1:02:49
we see continually God showing up with sinful people.
1:02:53
So this idea of like, we are separated, you know,
1:02:56
sin separates us from God, but like Adam and Eve sin,
1:02:59
God shows up.
1:03:00
Moses kills someone who runs to the desert meets God.
1:03:03
Jacob steals the birthright,
1:03:05
wrestles with God in the desert.
1:03:07
And so this really basic idea of like God,
1:03:10
like sin separates us from God just doesn't hold up
1:03:13
within that narrative.
1:03:15
However, the wages of sin is death.
1:03:17
Like we are going to,
1:03:20
if we continue in the ways
1:03:25
in our dysfunctional ways,
1:03:26
it is going to lead to death.
1:03:27
And there are a million different ways that could go
1:03:30
or like we could interpret that.
1:03:34
You know, and so as Christians,
1:03:36
we generally think about heaven and hell.
1:03:39
There are lots of different interpretations
1:03:41
within the Christian tradition about that.
1:03:44
But you know, I really look at it as,
1:03:48
yeah, we are sinners.
1:03:51
We are in this broken system.
1:03:54
We are, we're in this world that is sinful
1:03:57
and we need rescuing from it.
1:03:59
And we need this world changed.
1:04:01
And so within that, like yeah,
1:04:03
in Jesus in his death overcome sin, right?
1:04:08
Like that is he defeats sin and death.
1:04:13
And so what we find there is that sin has been,
1:04:18
has been ruling the world essentially, right?
1:04:20
And we see that over and over where like we live in,
1:04:23
I mean, Paul talks about that,
1:04:25
about that, the powers of the world are sinful.
1:04:29
And we need to be rescued from that.
1:04:32
And so when I look at that, I'm like,
1:04:36
yeah, God comes to us with us
1:04:39
and gives us that freedom that we need from sin.
1:04:44
And that punishment part,
1:04:47
that's where I just,
1:04:49
we've generally assumed that Jesus is punished
1:04:54
by God in our place.
1:04:55
But there are other ways of looking at that,
1:04:59
which would be, for one,
1:05:02
most of the temple sacrifices weren't for sin.
1:05:06
They were, we are shedding blood
1:05:10
in order to have this connection with God.
1:05:14
And so there was one time a year
1:05:16
where there was a sin sacrifice.
1:05:19
And that was more, that was about like,
1:05:22
all right, like where we've wronged God,
1:05:27
we need to say we're sorry.
1:05:30
But in terms of like the sacrifices around like entering
1:05:34
the holy of holies, those weren't sin sacrifices.
1:05:37
Those were these blood sacrifices that needed to be made
1:05:41
in order to get close to God.
1:05:43
- Okay, so something you said there, you said a lot,
1:05:45
there are a lot of ways to read
1:05:47
all these different theological topics.
1:05:49
And the obvious answer to that is, well, yeah, duh,
1:05:51
like of course there is, like you obviously,
1:05:53
you pointed out the obvious,
1:05:54
like people have been arguing about non-salvific
1:05:57
and salvific things like constantly.
1:06:00
That's where like when some people really wanna like
1:06:01
go to bedrock on like this very obscure word in the Greek
1:06:05
and that doesn't really change how they're gonna live their life,
1:06:07
I don't really get it, but sure,
1:06:08
if you wanna do that with your time, go for it.
1:06:10
But I guess, I guess Crispin in this conversation,
1:06:13
I'm not as concerned about what a lot of other people think
1:06:16
I'm more concerned about what you specifically think.
1:06:19
So do you believe that Jesus, the son of God
1:06:24
is the son of God and he was put on this planet
1:06:27
in order to die so that we could have a direct pathway
1:06:31
to the Father?
1:06:32
And then with that, do you believe that hell
1:06:34
is a real place that you go if you reject that?
1:06:37
- That's a really good question.
1:06:39
So.
1:06:40
- And I want your answer and don't obfuscate it.
1:06:42
I want the answer, we're staying in the pocket on this one.
1:06:45
- So in terms of, yeah, with Jesus born to die,
1:06:51
that's it, you know, it's obviously prophesied
1:06:57
that Jesus is going to die.
1:06:59
And I believe that that is how like that's what Paul
1:07:03
was so excited about is there is a sacrifice,
1:07:07
God sacrifices himself in order so that everyone
1:07:12
can come in to the people of God.
1:07:14
And so I believe that definitely,
1:07:18
that without Jesus' sacrifice, like Jesus' sacrifice,
1:07:21
I mean, I also believe that God didn't mess up
1:07:25
when God created the temple system.
1:07:27
So God is basically saying like, yeah,
1:07:32
in order for us to be in relationship together,
1:07:35
there needs to be the sacrificial system.
1:07:37
And then Jesus, you know, does it for now
1:07:41
and then throughout the rest of time, right?
1:07:43
Hebrews talks about that.
1:07:44
And so that's what I believe was happening with Jesus.
1:07:48
And so, and then, but you know,
1:07:53
I think the other part is that Jesus came to proclaim
1:07:58
the year of the Lord's favor to proclaim good news
1:08:01
to the poor, to proclaim sight for the blind.
1:08:05
And he had all these teachings basically saying like,
1:08:10
this is the way that we need to do life
1:08:12
and we need to do community together.
1:08:13
And he harkens back to that Old Testament law.
1:08:17
And the religious establishment did not like that
1:08:20
and had him killed.
1:08:21
And I think both of those things are true
1:08:24
that Jesus did come to die, that was prophesied.
1:08:27
I also think that if we skip ahead to the end,
1:08:30
then we miss a lot of important things.
1:08:32
That's not even answering your question,
1:08:33
but I think it's something that came to mind.
1:08:35
- Well, I feel like you answered the first part,
1:08:38
which is that you do believe that Jesus came here
1:08:41
and part of his plan in coming here was dying
1:08:45
so that we would have a way to the Father.
1:08:46
But the second part that you avoided
1:08:48
what I've got about that-- - Yeah, but I'm getting--
1:08:50
- I'm getting forgot.
1:08:51
No, well, let's go.
1:08:51
- I'm getting there.
1:08:52
- It's hella real place.
1:08:53
And you give your answer first and then I'll give you
1:08:57
something about it. - Okay, yeah.
1:08:58
I am not sure.
1:09:00
And I legitimately, like someone just asked me about that.
1:09:03
And yeah, there's a lot, you know,
1:09:08
when Jesus talks about Gehenna,
1:09:10
it's really unclear about,
1:09:13
is he talking about the trash dump outside the city?
1:09:16
What I think is most important,
1:09:19
so here's where you'll pin me on the or the heretical part,
1:09:24
is that I don't think that God ever gives up on us.
1:09:28
And so if there is a hell, which seems likely,
1:09:33
like I wanna, there are all these different ideas of hell,
1:09:38
it seems very likely that there's hell.
1:09:40
I don't think that God,
1:09:42
I don't think that the point where we die is the end.
1:09:48
And there's a few reasons for that.
1:09:51
There's a really great book called
1:09:53
The Evangelical Universalist, where by Robin Perry,
1:09:58
super nerdy, but basically he talks about like,
1:10:02
yeah, like there, like, yeah, hell exists.
1:10:06
But some of these passages that we've interpreted around,
1:10:09
you know, everyone dies once and is judged,
1:10:12
doesn't point to the direction that we think
1:10:15
it does necessarily.
1:10:16
So yeah, we're judged, you go to heaven or hell,
1:10:19
but that doesn't mean that if we look at Colossians
1:10:23
one, right, in everything, Jesus,
1:10:27
let's see, God created everything
1:10:32
and God is reconciling all things.
1:10:35
And you, like, so either God didn't create the people
1:10:40
that are in hell that aren't reconciled
1:10:42
or like you have to include everything in that.
1:10:44
And of course, like, you know, you can hold up
1:10:46
all these scriptures, you can, you know,
1:10:48
you can hold up all the scriptures
1:10:49
about Christian universalism.
1:10:51
You can hold up all the scriptures
1:10:52
about eternal conscious torment.
1:10:54
You can also hold up all the scriptures
1:10:56
about what's it called, you know,
1:11:00
where you just go out of existence.
1:11:03
But I think there's got to be a way to hold it.
1:11:04
And I really like the Eastern Orthodox tradition,
1:11:09
which is like we trust God and we trust that God is good.
1:11:14
And we can't always know everything,
1:11:17
kind of what you were saying before.
1:11:19
We don't, like, we want to have a dogma.
1:11:21
I want to know everything.
1:11:23
I want an encyclopedia of all the things
1:11:26
in the universe in the afterlife.
1:11:28
And I think it's way more important to say,
1:11:31
I trust God and I trust that God is good.
1:11:34
And I don't think that, you know,
1:11:37
some of the worry is like, so what does that mean?
1:11:39
Does that mean you don't evangelize
1:11:41
or, you know, you can go into all that stuff.
1:11:43
But I'm like, no, like, I think that
1:11:45
if the only reason you're following Jesus
1:11:48
is to get out of hell, like you've missed it
1:11:51
anyway in some sense, right?
1:11:53
Like there's this dynamic of like Jesus saves us
1:11:57
and saves us now here and now.
1:12:01
And so if it's just fire insurance,
1:12:03
then I don't think that's much of a faith anyway.
1:12:07
Not to be like, people's faith.
1:12:09
- Well, yeah, but to kind of get to bedrock on that,
1:12:12
you know, removing all the qualifiers,
1:12:14
'cause if you say, you know, hey, are you a Democrat?
1:12:16
It's like, well, yeah, I'm a Democrat,
1:12:17
but I don't, you know, agree with all their policies.
1:12:19
We already know the back part.
1:12:20
We already know you don't agree
1:12:21
with everything that they all say.
1:12:22
That makes you a zealot.
1:12:24
So would it be fair to say that you are a universalist?
1:12:27
- I would call myself an ultimate redemptionist.
1:12:33
And I look at the Old Testament in the tradition
1:12:38
of restorative justice as a good place to go,
1:12:43
which is you would throw me in the camp of universalist.
1:12:50
But what that means is, you know,
1:12:54
I definitely would be in the camp of George MacDonald
1:12:57
and C.S. Lewis to say, yeah, like people are judged.
1:13:02
But there also is a potential that people could repent.
1:13:09
And so when I think about Hitler, for example, you know,
1:13:14
yeah, do I think Hitler's in hell?
1:13:17
Yes, and if Hitler could go through
1:13:22
a restorative justice process,
1:13:27
imagine if he had to come to terms with the pain
1:13:31
that he has caused so many people and sit with them
1:13:36
and look in their eyes.
1:13:38
Sometimes I think about like empathy,
1:13:39
like what if the empathy part of your brain was turned on?
1:13:43
How painful that would be.
1:13:46
And so I think there's a path for that.
1:13:48
My reasoning for that is in part
1:13:50
because of the way Old Testament law is set up
1:13:53
where there's always very often like,
1:13:56
all right, if you accidentally cut off,
1:13:59
this isn't an actual example.
1:14:00
If you accidentally cut off someone's leg,
1:14:03
you have to have your leg cut off,
1:14:05
or like you can help that person the rest of their life
1:14:08
tend to their crops.
1:14:10
So there's one piece of it.
1:14:14
And then the other piece is actually looking
1:14:16
at Old Testament prophecies where it's like,
1:14:18
God says things like, I'm gonna totally destroy Assyria.
1:14:23
There will be nothing left
1:14:25
and all the men, women and children
1:14:27
will be utterly destroyed and killed.
1:14:30
And then in that day, there will be a road
1:14:34
between Israel and Assyria and I will call Assyria my child.
1:14:38
You know, you're like, wait, you said that you just,
1:14:41
we're gonna destroy everything.
1:14:43
So, you know.
1:14:45
- Well, I will say this.
1:14:46
Most of the times when he asks someone,
1:14:48
are you a universalist?
1:14:49
They won't just say yes.
1:14:51
And so it's interesting enough,
1:14:53
you at least admitted to being a universalist sympathizer, right?
1:14:56
So like, I guess we can put it in that way.
1:14:59
Obviously I have some massive issues
1:15:02
with that whole ideology.
1:15:03
But this would be my advice to you
1:15:05
and to anyone listening to this
1:15:07
so we can move on.
1:15:08
Number one, stop listening to Rob Bell.
1:15:10
And number two, when you read through the New Testament,
1:15:13
read the red letters.
1:15:15
Jesus talks about hell constantly.
1:15:18
Like he talks about the wages of doing X, Y and Z
1:15:22
leads to being cast into the lake of fire,
1:15:24
being cast into hell.
1:15:26
And so my kind of easy thing,
1:15:28
taking away all the other theological tomes
1:15:30
that you could read is if Jesus said it,
1:15:33
and that's what those words mean,
1:15:35
even in our English context,
1:15:36
I'm gonna go ahead and go with that.
1:15:39
But even with all that,
1:15:39
so I'm glad we kind of got through the universalist thing.
1:15:41
- And I was gonna say, that's why we don't like
1:15:45
to say we're universalist,
1:15:46
'cause it's like Rob Bell, right?
1:15:48
Which is different than life.
1:15:49
- Well, it adds, well, 'cause again,
1:15:52
it's when you're breaking someone down
1:15:54
to their lowest component parts,
1:15:56
and then you're filling in the rest of their story,
1:15:59
you're not always gonna get the story accurately.
1:16:00
You might get the headline,
1:16:02
but you're gonna miss out on paragraph three.
1:16:04
So I get it, again, I'm just trying to be fair.
1:16:06
But I do need to go to something that,
1:16:09
obviously there are a lot of things in your book
1:16:11
that I disagree with.
1:16:12
We've talked about some of those.
1:16:13
You've given me some clarification,
1:16:14
and I think that's great.
1:16:16
I think this is an example of how you can get clarifying
1:16:18
information without calling the other person
1:16:20
a horrible Satanist.
1:16:21
But there was one section of your book
1:16:24
that I found very, very confusing,
1:16:27
and that I thought,
1:16:28
well, let me just kind of go ahead and get into it,
1:16:30
because there's gotta be something
1:16:32
that I'm missing here.
1:16:33
So in the book, you're talking about a day
1:16:35
when you woke up feeling like God was disgusted with you.
1:16:38
Like you just had that feeling from the moment you woke up.
1:16:41
Your wife, she suggested that you go for a walk,
1:16:43
go to this nearby Catholic garden,
1:16:45
and to kind of clear your head, I guess.
1:16:47
And when you got into the garden,
1:16:48
you see the statue of Mary holding baby Jesus.
1:16:51
And then you say that God spoke to you,
1:16:53
and guys, we don't need to get into the speaking
1:16:55
and all that stuff, like just we're going with the story.
1:16:57
So you say that God spoke to you and said,
1:16:59
that's like you and me.
1:17:01
You can cry on my chest whenever you need.
1:17:04
Which, yeah, like God is the ultimate comforter
1:17:06
that absolutely sounds like something,
1:17:07
like when you hear that whisper,
1:17:09
that that whisper is probably coming from God.
1:17:11
But then it was the next thing that you claim
1:17:13
that God said to you that was very confusing.
1:17:16
You said that God told you this,
1:17:18
I'm your mother now, and you can cry on my chest
1:17:21
whenever you need.
1:17:22
I know you're so tired and sad
1:17:24
and feel so bad about yourself.
1:17:26
So obviously the thing I'm keying in on there
1:17:28
is I'm your mother now.
1:17:30
Now, when you read the Bible fairly,
1:17:33
there are several references that show God
1:17:35
to have some traits or actions
1:17:37
that can be easily considered more motherly
1:17:40
on the motherly scale.
1:17:42
But the Bible clearly and always,
1:17:44
when referring directly to God, does so in masculine terms.
1:17:48
He's referred to as he and not she,
1:17:51
king and not queen, husband and not wife.
1:17:53
That is how we're constantly to look at him.
1:17:55
So as I was reading through that section,
1:17:58
I was reminded of something Bill Hiebel said
1:18:00
a long time ago.
1:18:00
And though this is not me co-signing,
1:18:02
everything Bill Hiebel has said.
1:18:03
There have I got it, got it, got outside the cancel map.
1:18:05
But he said that you have to listen to those whispers,
1:18:09
but then put them through the filter of the Bible
1:18:11
to see where the whispers are coming from.
1:18:13
And so if you hear someone whispering in your ear,
1:18:15
your horrible father, your terrible husband,
1:18:17
you should probably just kill yourself.
1:18:18
That's probably not something,
1:18:20
that's definitely not something
1:18:21
that God would tell you, right?
1:18:22
That's coming from the father of lies.
1:18:24
So I was wondering for you,
1:18:26
has it ever occurred to you
1:18:28
that it wasn't God speaking to you that day?
1:18:30
But instead it was Satan, the father of lies
1:18:33
saying, I am your mother now.
1:18:36
- No, because I know that the devil comes
1:18:41
to steal lie and destroy.
1:18:43
And so if I know that God is saying I'm here for you,
1:18:48
I'm here to heal you, I'm for your good,
1:18:53
then I know that's God.
1:18:54
And there is, yeah, I mean--
1:18:56
- That's not what I, just to be fair,
1:18:58
that's not what I was asking about.
1:18:59
It's the I'm your mother now.
1:19:01
All the other stuff I'm good with,
1:19:02
hey, you're tired, sad, and you feel bad about yourself.
1:19:05
Come cry into my chest, I'm good with all that,
1:19:08
but I'm your mother now.
1:19:10
Like that seems very heretical.
1:19:12
- Yeah, it's interesting that you say that
1:19:15
'cause there are throughout scripture,
1:19:20
Jesus talks about like being like a mother hen.
1:19:23
You know, I don't think that God is contained within gender.
1:19:27
And I think it's okay for God to say,
1:19:31
I mean, some of the context of this is my own trauma.
1:19:36
And so looking at, yeah, God showing up and saying,
1:19:41
you know, in fact,
1:19:43
God does talk in the Old Testament about,
1:19:49
you know, I remember like when you were a baby at my breast.
1:19:55
And so, you know, I don't see that
1:20:01
as heretical.
1:20:02
And I also think like that
1:20:06
that I'm like doing a quick Google search, right?
1:20:10
- No, you're good, but we're doing it live.
1:20:12
It's all good.
1:20:13
- Right, yeah.
1:20:14
Yeah, you know, it says,
1:20:16
can a woman forget her nursing child
1:20:21
that she should not have compassion on the center for womb?
1:20:24
Yes, okay, well, that isn't quite it.
1:20:28
Yeah, I don't think that God is like,
1:20:31
of course, like God is continually referred to as he,
1:20:35
because that's the, you know, in some ways,
1:20:38
the culture that that was written in.
1:20:41
And I think that's okay to use our,
1:20:43
like we're going to talk about God
1:20:46
in the ways that we understand God.
1:20:48
But I also don't think that God is limited to gender
1:20:54
because I don't think that God is gendered that way.
1:20:59
- See, I think all the examples that you would be able to find
1:21:02
are the ones that I have already acknowledged,
1:21:04
which is like God is described as having traits
1:21:06
or actions that would be considered motherly.
1:21:08
But again, when we're directly referring to God,
1:21:11
it's always in the masculine.
1:21:13
And I do mean, 'cause this question that came up in my head,
1:21:16
it might come off as unfair, but I mean it to be fair, okay?
1:21:18
I don't mean this to be needlessly biting or offensive.
1:21:21
But potentially, do you think that you might feel
1:21:24
like that is appropriate because living in the very,
1:21:29
very progressive and very, very, you know,
1:21:31
blue city that you live in, where a lot of language,
1:21:34
we've tried to ungender things that make us uncomfortable.
1:21:37
And we've tried to just pretend like there is no binary.
1:21:39
There's a spectrum of gender somehow.
1:21:41
Like that is kind of a thing that is very,
1:21:44
that is very much so part of that culture.
1:21:46
And that could be a culture that maybe you've been marinated
1:21:49
and steeped in.
1:21:50
And I'm not trying to treat you as if you're
1:21:52
some sort of ignorant sponge that just, you know,
1:21:54
gathers up things that they hear, hear, are there, right?
1:21:57
But do you think that might be a reason
1:21:59
why that didn't, you know, hit your ear as a skew in some way?
1:22:03
- No, and actually in the book, I said like,
1:22:07
oh, that's not what I've been told.
1:22:08
And then God, you know, and I even give that caveat of like,
1:22:13
I don't hear from God that much.
1:22:16
I'm not like a super like charismatic person, but,
1:22:20
but yeah, it really was the thing that I needed to hear.
1:22:23
And I think that God shows up and does that.
1:22:26
Like that's something that I clearly see throughout scripture
1:22:28
is that God continually, in our moment of need,
1:22:32
shows up in these ways to meet us where we're at.
1:22:37
- Well, my encouragement to you, Crispin.
1:22:38
And again, I mean, sincerely, you know,
1:22:41
as a brother in Christ, even though we have some significant
1:22:44
disagreements on how we view theology or doctrine.
1:22:47
Like I would maybe look into that a little bit further
1:22:51
for yourself.
1:22:52
I don't care about writing a second book.
1:22:53
I don't care about a clarifying interview.
1:22:55
Okay.
1:22:55
Got your words are out there, right?
1:22:57
They're already in print, right?
1:22:58
If you're listening to this, you can go get the book right now.
1:23:01
And so like I just would dig into that a little bit further
1:23:04
because, you know, if he's the father of lies,
1:23:06
he can do things that don't seem like lies
1:23:09
that end up blowing up, but he needed to crack the door open
1:23:12
just a little bit.
1:23:13
So I just think that we,
1:23:15
this leads to the question of like, if God is mother,
1:23:18
why is that a problem if God wants to show up as mother?
1:23:23
- The thing is, is like, I would have no problem with it
1:23:27
if he was ever described as both in the Bible, like directly.
1:23:31
And so for me, it comes really right down to rigid doctrine
1:23:34
to where it's like, no, no, no, like God is not some sort of,
1:23:37
you know, non-binary, purple-headed, you know, weirdo.
1:23:41
Like that's not, that's not how we see him described.
1:23:44
And so again, if we're looking at things categorically,
1:23:47
we have, we don't want to get into this postmodern idea
1:23:49
of, well, that's your truth or that's my truth.
1:23:51
It's like, no, no, no, there's either capital T truth
1:23:54
or there's opinions, right?
1:23:55
So that's more so what I mean.
1:23:57
But, you know, we've spent a lot of time on this podcast
1:23:59
going over a lot of different things.
1:24:00
So I want to kind of crescendo with this
1:24:02
and maybe we can make this our last question here.
1:24:04
So most of my audience members are really grounded
1:24:08
in biblical truth.
1:24:09
I've got people that are on the reform side.
1:24:11
I've got people that are on kind of the non-denominational side.
1:24:13
I've got just, you know, regular old Baptists and Methodists.
1:24:16
I've got it all here.
1:24:17
But the people that listen to this in general,
1:24:19
they take the Bible literally, they take the Bible seriously.
1:24:22
And in your book, you seem to draw a lot on wisdom
1:24:26
that comes from outside the Bible, right?
1:24:28
So from the study of attachment theory
1:24:31
and everything that went into that theory
1:24:33
and all the studies therein, you mentioned 50, 60 years,
1:24:36
worth of papers and books and all this other stuff.
1:24:38
And so to my audience, I'm gonna let you have
1:24:41
the last word here.
1:24:42
You get to pitch my audience directly.
1:24:44
So with that being said, knowing that that's the type
1:24:47
of stuff that they're appealed to
1:24:48
or that they're attracted to rather,
1:24:51
why should they read your book?
1:24:53
- Because going with this, if we know, I mean,
1:24:58
knowing what makes for a secure relationship,
1:25:01
knowing what we need to connect
1:25:03
and knowing that like God created us that way,
1:25:06
God created us for this connection
1:25:08
and this desire for relationship,
1:25:10
it was really fun for me to go back
1:25:12
and look at scripture through this lens
1:25:16
and really a lot of fun like to read
1:25:19
what's kind of the most recent like biblical study
1:25:23
around this, like how are scholars understanding
1:25:26
these themes?
1:25:28
And what I found throughout it is continual good news.
1:25:31
I just found more and more good news
1:25:34
that God is continually on our side.
1:25:38
God is continually chasing us.
1:25:41
I think anyone who's a Christian has that experience
1:25:44
on some level of like, right?
1:25:46
'Cause we can't choose God on our own.
1:25:48
And so I think for me, it was just like fleshing that out
1:25:51
of like seeing God as a good parent.
1:25:54
Seeing God is continually showing up wanting to be with us
1:25:58
and wanting to heal us and help us grow and mature.
1:26:01
- Well, I gotta give you some congratulations
1:26:05
on your first book.
1:26:06
My sense is that it will not be your last, I will be curious
1:26:08
to see in future books how your theology or doctrine shifts
1:26:13
or changes or deepens.
1:26:14
I think that'll be an interesting thing to pay attention to.
1:26:16
But as far as this interview, that's all for me.
1:26:18
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:26:20
- No, that's it.
1:26:21
Great. Thanks so much.
1:26:22
- All right, Crispin Mayfield.
1:26:23
Thank you for coming on "On Daunted Life" a man's podcast.
1:26:25
- All right, thanks.
1:26:27
- There you go guys.
1:26:28
Again, my challenge at the end of my intro was,
1:26:31
was I fair?
1:26:32
'Cause I feel like I was incredibly fair.
1:26:34
I've showed this to people in my life
1:26:36
that have no problems telling me
1:26:38
if I've done something wrong and they're like,
1:26:39
man, you shot it about as straight down the center
1:26:41
as you thought you could have.
1:26:42
I can't believe that's how that guy reacted.
1:26:44
So again, shoot me an email to info@ondaunted.life
1:26:47
if you feel differently and kind of give me your thoughts
1:26:49
on the interview.
1:26:50
I would absolutely appreciate it.
1:26:51
But before that you guys go,
1:26:52
we are gonna do a quick resilience boost
1:26:54
at "On Daunted Life."
1:26:54
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness
1:26:56
with content that forges of spiritual, mental,
1:26:58
and physical resilience.
1:26:59
And because I'm such a nice guy.
1:27:01
And because I'm so, you know, positive
1:27:03
and I'm okay with things,
1:27:05
I've got the links that I would normally do
1:27:06
for anybody that would come on our podcast.
1:27:08
I've got a link to Crispin Mayfield's book attached to God
1:27:11
and I've got a link to his website.
1:27:12
Now, I will say one thing from the beginning,
1:27:14
and there's no tongue in cheek here, okay?
1:27:15
There's no sarcasm and I'm not winking into the camera,
1:27:18
even if you're just listening to this.
1:27:19
This is not a good time for you guys to go
1:27:21
and flame him on social media or reach out to him
1:27:23
and say how much you think he's stupid or all that.
1:27:25
Save it, okay?
1:27:27
Don't do that.
1:27:28
Like for one thing, it's not a good moral thing
1:27:32
for you to do to go after somebody like that
1:27:34
and to call him names and do any of those things.
1:27:37
Like that's not a positive thing.
1:27:38
So I'm not interested in you guys doing that.
1:27:39
I don't want you to do that explicitly.
1:27:41
If you do that, you're going against
1:27:42
what I would ask you to do.
1:27:43
And on the second thing, a guy like that
1:27:46
is going to internalize all the things you're saying
1:27:48
and then treat them emotionally
1:27:50
because that's how he's wired.
1:27:51
And you're basically giving him ammunition
1:27:53
to use on the people in his life that like,
1:27:55
"Oh my gosh, are you seeing all these people
1:27:58
that are so mean to me?
1:27:59
Look at these evangelical footage happening."
1:28:02
Don't do that, right?
1:28:04
Just save it.
1:28:05
Again, no one has ever changed their mind
1:28:07
based on a Twitter beef or based on a Facebook
1:28:09
back and forth on comments or something like that.
1:28:11
Just save it.
1:28:12
Plug this away, share this with some other people
1:28:15
in your life to get their opinions and just move on.
1:28:17
I certainly have.
1:28:18
All right guys, before we let you go, we are going to do,
1:28:20
we already did the quick resilience boost here.
1:28:21
I go, I'm messing my own self up.
1:28:23
I'm just here to thank you now.
1:28:24
Thank you guys so much for listening to the show.
1:28:25
Thank you for dealing with all of this
1:28:27
and thank you for dealing with my intro.
1:28:28
That was a little bit different for you.
1:28:29
But wherever you are listening to this,
1:28:31
please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five star view.
1:28:34
If you want to come speak live at your event
1:28:35
or on your podcast, you shoot me an email to info@undontin.life.
1:28:38
Again, the email, INFO@undontin.life.
1:28:42
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok and like us on Facebook
1:28:44
and check out our website for everything else,
1:28:45
including how to donate to keep more content
1:28:47
like this coming your way.
1:28:48
Just go to www.undontin.life.
1:28:51
And also we don't want to thank the band,
1:28:52
August Burns Red, for allowing us to use their music
1:28:54
for our content.
1:28:55
The music on this podcast is our song "Cutting the Ties,"
1:28:58
which is off their 10th anniversary
1:28:59
re-recording of their album, "Leveler."
1:29:01
The links are in the description.
1:29:03
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:29:05
Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
1:29:08
keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:29:12
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:29:15
(upbeat music)
1:29:17
♪ I don't die ♪
1:29:18
♪ Let me go ♪
1:29:19
♪ And die ♪
1:29:21
♪ When all you want ♪
1:29:22
♪ Is a sign ♪
1:29:24
♪ You may stand ♪
1:29:28
♪ And you'll be revived ♪