In this episode of the Pasture Talk podcast, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss troubling trends in the current time and context for Christians. They delve into the concept of deconstructionism within the church, where individuals are actively questioning and disassembling their faith. They also explore the idea of identity and how society is increasingly embracing the notion of self-determination. This thought-provoking conversation invites Christians to engage with these trends while remaining rooted in the grace and love of Jesus Christ. Tune in for a deep dive into these challenging topics and consider how they impact your own faith journey.
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Watch, Listen, & Read the Full Transcript
00:00:00:14 – 00:00:26:07
Clint Loveall
Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Pasture Talk podcast. Back here again with another monthly conversation and this month Clint and I were talking a little bit about what we wanted to do and we thought the beginning of New Year or around the beginning of the New Year, thinking about the year to come, thinking about some of the challenges that we’ve seen in the years following COVID and then looking ahead to what might be some of the challenges of being Christian in our current time and context.
00:00:26:07 – 00:01:06:43
Clint Loveall
We thought, you know, from a pastoral perspective, what are some things that we’re watching? What are some things that we have seen sort of the trail of ideas with up to this point? And what might we from the the pastor URL perspective be wondering, watching, keeping an eye on the days to come. And so we put together a conversation here today in which we want to reflect on what might be some troubling trends on some places where there might be some things as Christian to be thinking deeply about, to be praying regularly about, and to be watching in our own hearts and souls as we seek to navigate the times that we were in.
00:01:06:43 – 00:01:24:24
Clint Loveall
You know, it would be easy in a conversation like this, Clint, to do two things. One would be to be overly negative and pessimistic. And I think that our intention is to do neither of those is to be realistic, but also hopeful, which is the core perspective of being Christians standing under the cross and grace of Jesus Christ.
00:01:24:28 – 00:01:47:56
Clint Loveall
I think the other temptation of a conversation like this might be to try to be prophetic and look ahead and claim this is going to be the thing and this is going to be the thing that you need to do this. And I think that’s far less the spirit of this conversation. It’s more as we are Christians seeking to live as disciples, as we’re seeking to be, those who humbly stand underneath the cross of Jesus Christ.
00:01:47:56 – 00:02:02:28
Clint Loveall
What will discipleship for us look like this year? What are the things that we can do actively to grow in our faith? And I hope that that’s the tenor and tone that comes from what otherwise might be, if we’re to be honest, some difficult conversation. Talking points.
00:02:02:33 – 00:02:25:16
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I think the idea, Michael, is that as we follow Christ, we’re might be where might we encounter some pitfalls? And as we look at the culture around us, what are some of the currents that could be detrimental to Christians that could get in the way or that could distract us from other things? And this isn’t a this isn’t a new thing.
00:02:25:21 – 00:02:46:36
Michael Gewecke
This is just part of being faithful. Whenever a person is trying to follow Jesus, there are things in the world around them that they can get caught up in or that they can get distracted by. And that’s that’s all this is some things that we think we see that we also believe could be problematic for the church and for Christians to navigate.
00:02:46:40 – 00:03:12:27
Michael Gewecke
They’re not new things. I think in in many cases they have roots that go back certainly into 2023 and in many cases way, way further back. But they are things that that we think are worth being aware of for people of faith. And the first one is the newest in some sense, at least it’s got the newest title.
00:03:12:27 – 00:03:39:25
Michael Gewecke
I don’t know that it’s a new thing, but it is repackaged in an interesting way. It’s a movement that some are calling deconstruction ism. The idea is that people who are in the church are deconstructing, literally taking their faith apart and then finding that they don’t have a desire to put it back together again. So they’re leaving the church, they’re deconstructing their way out of the church.
00:03:39:25 – 00:04:04:54
Michael Gewecke
What I think is interesting about this, Michael, and you you know more about the mechanics of social media than I do. But whereas investigating and reevaluating your faith have always been, I think, a part of discipleship, this is different in that it doesn’t really in many ways come from the church. The people are, by and large church people or in many cases used to be.
00:04:04:58 – 00:04:36:41
Michael Gewecke
But there’s a kind of trendiness to this. The there’s a hashtag and there’s a platform and there are videos on YouTube and posts on Instagram. And that is, I think, the concerning thing. Not that people are asking hard questions about the faith. I actually think that’s a good thing. But the idea that there is a a kind of paved pathway toward the exit door is concerning to me.
00:04:36:41 – 00:04:56:04
Michael Gewecke
I think that rather than really wrestling with the issues, many people who engage in this process of deconstruction think that the end is is already set for them in the end is an exit from the church. And I do find that very concerned.
00:04:56:16 – 00:05:26:02
Clint Loveall
I think it’s worth pointing out what makes may be deconstruction a distinctive unto itself. And that is that it is couched around this idea that one is going to take the part of the faith into different components, evaluate each of them, and then dispel with those that no longer fit. And that is different from what we’ve known in the church for a very long time of people who just exit the church doors.
00:05:26:02 – 00:05:45:24
Clint Loveall
And that has happened for as long as the church has existed. Those people who leave for lots of reasons, life stage or just disinterest or change in habits or whatever it is, or maybe they just become less and less interested in faith and religion and they sort of wash out of the church. We don’t see them for a long time.
00:05:45:28 – 00:06:06:09
Clint Loveall
That’s a kind of passive move being played. The church has been comfortable with that. We know, and that’s existed. We’ve we’ve tried to be intentional about reconnect with those people and making sure that they know that they have a place in the church. Deconstruction is different than that is more active than that. It’s not just people who, for whatever reason, can wash out of church attendance.
00:06:06:09 – 00:06:29:17
Clint Loveall
These are people who are actively having conversations, who are questioning the core tenets of faith. Lots of times they’re doing that from a more conservative theological tradition. They often grew up with a little bit more of a structure. Their rigid presentation of this is what the gospel is, this is orthodox might be the church word that gets applied there, and this is what isn’t.
00:06:29:22 – 00:06:57:15
Clint Loveall
And so then when they come to deconstruct, to use the language, they come to take apart these different components. Really, the language I think is intentional in the language even gives us a nod to where it’s going. It’s called deconstruction, not called remodeling. This isn’t generally done with the perspective of I’m taking things apart with the goal that it might come back together in a new holistic of faith tradition.
00:06:57:19 – 00:07:22:05
Clint Loveall
It’s rather I’m deconstructing, and generally the language I think points us in the right direction towards the idea of the dispelling of faith altogether. And this is a trend. It is something that people are doing more actively. And it’s not to say that the church has not dealt with skeptics or atheists who have come from the rank of the church that that has happened.
00:07:22:10 – 00:07:47:09
Clint Loveall
But this is happening in larger communities and it’s happening by nature of of these virtual technologies. That’s happening at a remarkably fast rate. And the church doesn’t have a lot of practice dealing with conversations like this. And no doubt this is only going to pick up speed and momentum and it’s going to become more and more of a reality that the church will have to face.
00:07:47:09 – 00:08:11:49
Clint Loveall
And so I think looking ahead, this is something we’re going to have to take seriously and I don’t mean at Klint. I want to be very clear at this juncture of the conversation. We need to take seriously this system of thought that’s happening, this idea of deconstruction. But even more importantly than that, the people who are having these conversations, the people experiencing real faith doubt, people who are experiencing real faith, break down in their life.
00:08:11:52 – 00:08:28:48
Clint Loveall
This is a heavy, tumultuous moment for people and we need to be pastorally mindful of that as we’re doing our work in ministry and our there includes everyone at the Sound of My voice. Every one of us is a minister in this time and place and we need to be mindful of this.
00:08:28:53 – 00:09:04:00
Michael Gewecke
And you mentioned, Michael, that this has so far tended to be a movement kind of within the evangelical or more conservative side of the church, particularly for those who feel like the church kept information from them. Maybe they’ve done research online about scriptural history or about church history or about some doctrinal alternatives. And in many cases they initially feel a sense that they have been not given full information by their church tradition.
00:09:04:04 – 00:09:30:45
Michael Gewecke
And I think Presbyterians are somewhat exempt from that. I mean, we have plenty of other problems, but we’ve generally been pretty open to scholarship and we’ve we’ve had open conversations about the difficulties one finds in the Bible and the ways in which there are struggles to pass on doctrines. I think so far we have been a little insulated from the movement.
00:09:30:45 – 00:10:11:15
Michael Gewecke
I think what is interesting in this, and I think what’s concerning in this is the idea that it’s not coming from the outside. It’s not atheists convincing Christians to leave. It’s Christians talking together, finding themselves disappointed, and then sort of collectively deciding they will exit together under this social media movement and I hope the church will be able to find a way into the current to say, by all means, look at what you believe and examine it.
00:10:11:15 – 00:10:52:30
Michael Gewecke
And by all means, lay out all the information you can get. But then let’s talk about what it would look like to reconstruct versus to deconstruct. I don’t hear much of that in the church yet. I think we’re playing catch up. And if I’m honest, I think we’re way behind. Yeah, I don’t know if that will come. I do think, you know, perhaps that’s an opportunity for mainline Christians, for Protestants like Presbyterians, who have kind of done this before, to speak into that and say, yes, there is a way to be aware of the difficult issues and to seek to be disciples at the same time.
00:10:52:30 – 00:11:16:54
Michael Gewecke
But those are not tracks that you must pick one or the other. There is a way to merge them together and to be thoughtful, thinking, engaged Christians who, though aware of the difficulties of our faith, are nonetheless committed to it. And maybe we can speak into that at some point. I don’t know what that would look like, but it could be an opportunity for.
00:11:16:58 – 00:11:40:39
Clint Loveall
You made the comment. I think it’s exactly right, Clint, that there is in some ways a unique moment here for the church, because since these are folks who are not leaving because they’re just disaffected or they’re, you know, just tired of waking up and going to church in the morning, they’re actually wrestling the idea of deconstruction includes with it this idea of actually wrestling with the components of faith are troubling.
00:11:40:44 – 00:12:05:13
Clint Loveall
That’s actually a unique opportunity for Christians to engage with those folks in a meaningful way and say, Wow, yes, thank you for taking this seriously. Thank you for taking a moment where you have enough energy and care to really ask, what do I think about this component of the faith? And then to come alongside them and say, okay, now let’s see where that takes us.
00:12:05:13 – 00:12:46:51
Clint Loveall
Because as reform Christians, we have this deeply held belief that all truth ultimately is God’s truth. And so therefore, if we’re on the path that might lead us to truth, we can trust who is leading us there and who will find at the end. I just really think, friends that we’re going to come across in our daily lives, people who have had unbelievable negative experience of of Christianity themselves, who are likely because of the social media conversations around deconstruction, to have heard other people’s maybe even worse experiences with faith, things that have been done to them by faith leaders or people in the name of faith or ideas that are that are wrong ideas or
00:12:46:51 – 00:13:14:13
Clint Loveall
bad ideas or dangerous ideas or hurtful ideas that have been applied in the name of faith. And as we encounter these folks, that we should be practicing humility and courage, our kind of grace and love and compassion. I think it’s very, very wrong and very maybe the greatest danger that the church will have is to become hurt at people questioning the faith and to push them out, to slam the door and say, well, good riddance, we didn’t want you in the first place.
00:13:14:13 – 00:13:41:22
Clint Loveall
I mean that clearly, I hope that that’s not the tone and tenor of a church. I think we should be in this season deeply open to engaging others and in a heartfelt way, say we hope that the grace of Jesus Christ meets you at this difficult part of your journey. And we sincerely hope that you might find a reconstruction at the end of deconstruction instead of maybe trying to short circuit it or tell people, you know, if you just had faith, you would never do this.
00:13:41:22 – 00:13:57:39
Clint Loveall
I there are paths forward that are that are deeply loving and compassionate and pastoral. But we’re going to have to we’re not going to get there on accident. It’s going to be chosen. It’s going to be something that we seek to do with what we do and say. And that’s going to take some intentionality and choice in the midst of this.
00:13:57:50 – 00:14:23:02
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, absolutely. And if you happen to be a person that is struggling, you know, if somehow the algorithms that control social media has put this in front of you at a time that you are feeling a deconstructing happening in your own faith, we would certainly invite you to reach out to us, reach out to Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Mainline, what we call church.
00:14:23:15 – 00:14:46:18
Michael Gewecke
Somebody has who has seen and navigated those waters. I think they could be very helpful. And I think this is a thing that the church will need to continue to do. I don’t see it. I don’t see it easing off much in 2024. That brings us to our next kind of troubling trend. This is a big one. It’s a continuation of lots of conversations.
00:14:46:22 – 00:15:23:52
Michael Gewecke
We want to be sensitive with it because we know it’s emotionally packed for a lot of people, but it’s the idea of identity and we want to be very clear at the outset. Michael, it is easy at this point to spiral off into conversations about gender identity, etc., but that’s not what we have in mind. What we have in mind is the deeper question of how Americans seem to be coming to the idea that I determine my own identity, whether that be gender, whether that be race, whether that be political affiliation, whatever it is.
00:15:23:52 – 00:15:51:21
Michael Gewecke
It’s the troubling idea that that I and I alone can understand who I am and can self define for an identity for me in a way that no one can question. We don’t, I think, know where that’s going to go in our culture. You know that the pendulum is is moving kind of pretty quickly and pretty far in that direction.
00:15:51:36 – 00:16:24:33
Michael Gewecke
I think it will probably eventually come back and balance a little bit. But the assumption of where we get identity I think is an interesting one for people of faith. And I think this is a moment where we need to remember that we have some previous thoughts and some previous convictions about who we are and and why and where who we are comes from.
00:16:24:37 – 00:17:02:07
Clint Loveall
I think that you’re exactly right in how you frame this conversation because it is so important that we look at our current position with some historical context to understand that in the present moment, which we are, this idea of the self-exploration, discovering oneself, the idea of individual choice and freedom and autonomy in choosing our identity. This is very much heralded as a kind of freeing movement that sort of giving us the the freedom to move beyond some of the social restraints that has existed.
00:17:02:07 – 00:17:29:00
Clint Loveall
And let’s be absolutely blunt about this. In the midst of these conversations, Clint, the church is often called out as being one of the social forces that people are trying to claim their identity out of. Right. And so this is not neutral as it’s related to the church, I think, in many instances. But that said, that said, the church, this is not the first time the church has functioned in a environment, in that culture of individuality.
00:17:29:00 – 00:17:56:06
Clint Loveall
In fact, if you know the early church in their experience, people were given the freedom to make individual choices about a whole range of things that would make even modern society very, very, very suspicious or uncomfortable. And so I know that this is not the first time that Christianity has engaged in a culture that’s been swimming within these waters or falling within this current.
00:17:56:11 – 00:18:21:05
Clint Loveall
I think the point that we need to make, though, is that in the New Testament, as Paul writes about this idea of being in Christ, what we discover over and over again that the way to receive our identity as Christian is always being inside the identity of Jesus Christ that we literally always stand under the one who gave himself as gift for us and as Christians.
00:18:21:05 – 00:18:58:12
Clint Loveall
Clint We’re going to have to be honest with both ourselves and with some real thought and engagement, but also with those outside the Christian circle, the world, as Paul would call them, and to say to ourselves and to others that we are only Christian to the extent to which we stand within our relationship with Jesus Christ, which means our individual identities from a Christian faith perspective, A has to be underneath and therefore draw meaning from Jesus Christ and his identity.
00:18:58:12 – 00:19:27:59
Clint Loveall
And so our identities from a Christian theological perspective are subject to another identity, which means that Christians don’t have full, complete freedom to make claims about ourselves that are not first made claims underneath the identity of who Jesus is. And that is that is countercultural on every level. That’s countercultural. Whether you are consider yourself conservative or progressive, whether you consider yourself to be all in on one side or another.
00:19:27:59 – 00:19:50:58
Clint Loveall
I Clint, it’s subjective ises every one of those claims and says it first has to filter through who Jesus Christ is and that is a Christian distinctive. We don’t hold that over the world. We don’t hold that over political discourse. We don’t hold that over what it means to be American in particular or German or Australian. That’s a Christian claim.
00:19:51:10 – 00:19:58:21
Clint Loveall
But the church has to take that seriously and it will have an impact on who we consider our individual identities to be.
00:19:58:26 – 00:20:27:30
Michael Gewecke
I think, you know, historically that’s where the church has tried to land, Michael, and I think it’s very helpful guidance that we have inherited that first and foremost, we are people of Christ, that that identity supersedes all others, defines all others. We’re not Americans first. We’re not male or female first. We’re not our sexual choice or sexuality first.
00:20:27:45 – 00:21:11:12
Michael Gewecke
Whatever these things are that in the world we use to kind of define ourselves and our identity, those are all subject to who we are in Jesus Christ. That comes first. And I think that’s helpful on both ends. It’s helpful to sort of diffuse some of the very potentially harmful conversations and to add a measure of respect. It also, I think, on both sides reminds us that every person, first and foremost in who they are is a child of God.
00:21:11:16 – 00:21:41:16
Michael Gewecke
Every person is to begin with child of God. That’s true for the person struggling with a sense of identity. That’s true for a person who claims an identity that you don’t approve of. And that should give us a measure of love, a measure of respect, a measure of patience and compassion, as we as we have these conversations so that hopefully they’re less divisive than they are constructive.
00:21:41:16 – 00:22:11:02
Michael Gewecke
And I do think the church has some wisdom to offer. I don’t know what our place at the table in those conversations will be, but I think for people of faith, it is vitally important to remember not only is our identity found in Christ, but other people begin with the identity of beloved Child of God, and we should seek to treat them accordingly.
00:22:11:02 – 00:22:17:34
Michael Gewecke
And I think that could be a very helpful guideline if we could remember it and hold ourselves to it.
00:22:17:43 – 00:22:57:30
Clint Loveall
Absolutely. And it becomes for us a distinctive of our ability to be witnesses to Jesus Christ in our culture. Because as our culture continues to use more extreme language and to experience greater polarization, which we’re going to discuss here in just a moment, as that continues to happen, within our wider context, Christians will become more and more clear in our differences, and that actual difference provides an opportunity, a starting point for us to begin to have conversations with others and say, Hey, listen, yeah, let’s talk about this thing that we’re currently talking about, whatever context that might be, social or political or fill in the blank.
00:22:57:36 – 00:23:19:46
Clint Loveall
But to say from my Christian perspective, you know, I have to recognize that the other is made in the image of God, that I’m called to love my neighbor. And in fact, I’m called to pray for my enemy. And that Christian distinctive, that thing within the the circle of faith is defined by who Jesus Christ was the was who knowingly and willingly took on flesh.
00:23:19:57 – 00:23:51:54
Clint Loveall
And there was willing to even die for the sake of those who would be the ones to scorn him and friends. You know, that is a beautiful enriching of the gospel. We’ve always had. It’s a reminder that this great treasure we’ve received is continually relevant, even today, maybe even more so than we have recognized in our context. And so the whole picture is as people address this particular topic, who am I and what role do I have in claiming and naming my own identity?
00:23:51:59 – 00:24:22:15
Clint Loveall
May we as Christians be those with humility, grace and conviction to say, As you do this work, may you find the hope and freedom that we have experienced in finding our identities rooted in Christ. We hope that you will discover that grace for yourself, because Jesus Christ first has a way of reorienting all of our identities to make us whole full people and to live in the way that God intended us to live.
00:24:22:15 – 00:24:28:19
Clint Loveall
This is the claim of faith, and I hope that it’s a clip I claim that we can take seriously in the days to come.
00:24:28:24 – 00:24:58:28
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I certainly think for people within the faith and I think even maybe it’s something we offer to people outside of the faith, the caution of being reminded that who you consider yourself to be is not ultimately the question, not ultimately the point. The point is, who are you in the saving grace of God given to us as free gifts through Jesus Christ?
00:24:58:28 – 00:25:15:15
Michael Gewecke
This is fundamental to who we are, not how we define ourselves. And I think moving forward, that would be a nice balance to some of those very difficult and very painful conversations.
00:25:15:19 – 00:25:41:19
Clint Loveall
And I think that some of that pain that you’re describing, Clint, is actually the thing that courses underneath our next point, because as we culturally engage with these identity conversations simultaneously, we’ve all seen I don’t think we’re taking a stretch here by any means. We’ve all seen a kind of growing apart kind of separation that’s been happening within our a certainly American context.
00:25:41:19 – 00:26:05:54
Clint Loveall
And I think you could make that case even globally. There’s been a kind of polarization of issues of politics, of rhetoric and conversation. And it really feels to many, many people, if not all people, I don’t want to paint with too broad of a brush, but I think it it feels as if that groups have been moving further and further apart and it becomes harder and harder to connect with other people.
00:26:05:54 – 00:26:43:53
Clint Loveall
And as that process is happening, it more solidifies those identities as opposite or separate from others. And then it puts us in a context in which people are no longer working towards the same end from different perspectives, but rather the polarization. The division creates actual boundaries and walls between people are kind of almost trench warfare type mindset, and when that happens, other becomes enemy and discourse and relationship is no longer possible and now becomes a kind of almost a battle or fight over and against another.
00:26:43:53 – 00:27:07:26
Clint Loveall
And that’s going to become a challenge both from a Christian context, but also a larger, larger, more just cultural context of how we’re going to engage with one another in productive and constructive ways. And Christians in particular are going to have to engage that conversation really seriously as people who are called by Christ to be peacemakers and and unity pursuers.
00:27:07:26 – 00:27:13:00
Clint Loveall
I mean, that that is our calling in Christ. And so we’re going to have to engage that in a really serious, sustained way.
00:27:13:04 – 00:27:48:59
Michael Gewecke
It’s hard to predict the future, Michael, but I suspect that we are living in a time that will keep sociologists and cultural historians busy for decades. The early 2020s have become such a time of division and of tribalism, the dividing by political affiliations, even within the political affiliations, the dividing of social media, the dividing of racial ethnic tension that divides over gender and sexuality.
00:27:49:10 – 00:28:15:20
Michael Gewecke
We we live in a moment where there’s very little coming together and there is a lot of coming apart. And I’ve not seen something like that in in my time either on planet Earth. If I was paying attention or in the ministry. I think it does feel different to a lot of people. I think people are constantly aware of it.
00:28:15:25 – 00:28:45:04
Michael Gewecke
I think we’re bombarded by it, and I think it is one of the largest cultural forces that American Christians, at least not exclusively, but particularly have been forced to deal with. And I’m not sure how we’re doing with it. There’s some early evidence that it is fracturing the church significantly. And I think that this is something that Christians are going to have to navigate.
00:28:45:09 – 00:29:32:34
Michael Gewecke
We are going to have to be a calming presence, a better way. A third option, if you will. We live in a moment where people are increasingly less interested in reuniting in reconciliation. And this is the wheelhouse of the people of Jesus. This is this is our charge. This is our task to love enemies, to pray for those who who despise you or disagree with you, to reach out to those that are in need, regardless of their position on some issue.
00:29:32:34 – 00:30:01:35
Michael Gewecke
And I think we’re not doing this very well in my estimation. And I say we I don’t mean First Presbyterian Church. I mean the American church. We have in many cases, let the battle lines of the world into our doors. And we’ve divided up sides and teams based on external things. And I think this is going to be a massive challenge for the church.
00:30:01:35 – 00:30:17:48
Michael Gewecke
I actually think that this has the potential to reshape the church. And again, I think maybe religious historians will one day look back on these days trying to figure out exactly what happened and where we missed.
00:30:17:52 – 00:30:53:38
Clint Loveall
You mentioned the doors of the church. That was actually an image that was right top of mind for me. We weekly, if you’re a practicing Christian, you’ll go to worship and most American Christians will go to worship in some kind of sanctuary somewhere. And that idea of sanctuary is intended to point us to the idea of safe space of of a place with a kind of firewall that for a moment buffers us from the concerns of those things external to the Holy God, and for a moment directs our attention solely upward, then gratitude and praise to God.
00:30:53:38 – 00:31:35:06
Clint Loveall
And Clint, I think that Christians are going to have to take very seriously that we are responsible for making our sanctuary various places directed to Jesus Christ, directing us to God that we need to be very careful and be very careful. I mean, we need to make the actual choices that will keep those external trenches and battle lines and polarize teams out of our sanctuaries so that for a moment we can once again hear the voice of God who will ultimately be the unifier of all of those things that the at the end, you know, we have these parables where Jesus makes very clear in the teaching that the wheat and the chaff will be
00:31:35:06 – 00:32:04:49
Clint Loveall
sorted, that that God will work out the stuff in the end that we get divided over. In the meantime, we come to the sanctuary with all of that in the mix, seeking humbly to lift up our praises and petitions to God, confessing our sins, and the fact that we too have gotten it wrong, and then inviting Jesus Christ to renew and transform us, that we can be the reconciling, unified people of God working in the world so that others might see the very grace of Jesus Christ that we’ve received.
00:32:04:49 – 00:32:33:18
Clint Loveall
This is the gospel, and it will it will all rise and fall on whether we take that charge seriously and we protect it and we grow it and nurture it, or whether we give in to the kind of rhetoric, language and polarization and the things that culture is doing, whether we let that inside the church or whether and we sort of baptize it in our own places, or whether we let Christ be first, and then we let that work its way out into the world that needs to see it.
00:32:33:23 – 00:33:03:45
Michael Gewecke
And again, our tradition, I think, is tremendously helpful here. Michael, This is not the first time that the church would have faced something like this, meaning think of the New Testament split between Jews who were coming to Christ and then the inclusion of Gentiles and the massive animosity and differences and the cultural issues and all of the things that created read a book like the Book of Acts and just see the battles that took place over those kind of differences.
00:33:03:45 – 00:33:38:40
Michael Gewecke
And again and again, Paul And and the disciples and the leaders in church said that our ultimate affiliation is Jesus. Whether you keep this day or that day, whether you eat that food or that food, whether you’re a Corinthian or you live in Jerusalem, whether you are Jew or Gentile, you know that that wonderful rhetoric of tearing down the walls that divide us and finding a way to meet at the cross.
00:33:38:47 – 00:34:09:05
Michael Gewecke
And and so this isn’t something new that we need to do as Christians. I think it is an old thing that we’re doing in an in a new era of it, in a particularly polarized and challenging time. But this is an old calling, right? The idea that we’re brothers and sisters in Christ. And if someone thinks differently than you on an issue, it doesn’t mean separating from them.
00:34:09:05 – 00:34:35:26
Michael Gewecke
If they vote for a different candidate than you do it. It doesn’t mean calling them evil and having nothing to do with them because we are ultimately connected not by our opinions, not by our practices, but by our faith. In the risen one. It is Christ who is in the center, and all of us as forgiving sinners owe our allegiance first to him and then being connected to him.
00:34:35:31 – 00:35:13:48
Michael Gewecke
We are by definition and irrevocably connected to those who do the same our brothers and sisters in Christ and and our calling has not changed to live that out. That is not easy. That that is a very yeah, very difficult. One of the most challenging things to do and in the history of the church one of the things we’ve most often gotten wrong but but certainly as we head into an election year, the idea of tribes and teams is going to be writ large on 2024, and it will be a challenge for the church to navigate that will.
00:35:13:53 – 00:35:55:55
Clint Loveall
And your your point is really well made. And I want to bring it back out. This idea that the church has given us an ancient storehouse of wisdom that if we bring it out and will put it in our current moment, we will see once again the wisdom of it may be in surprising new ways. Clint And one of the things that I think is really lost in our present moment is how seriously the church has taken words, in some cases spending hundreds of years to have knockdown, drag out battles over the meanings of specific words that now you go to a Christian education class in church and you start talking about the idea of
00:35:55:55 – 00:36:24:57
Clint Loveall
the Trinitarian formulas. Are you talking about the language to describe Jesus as humanity? And people’s eyes gloss over and they’re like, Man, could we move on to something else? But the church has understood that taking words seriously is essential. And this is why I’ll be really brief, because if Jesus Christ is the Word of God, if He is the truth, then every word applied to him that rightly describes him is itself true.
00:36:24:57 – 00:36:48:34
Clint Loveall
That’s the sort of theological framework we build this upon. What that means practically is that some words help us get closer to discipleship than other words do, and they all need to be filtered through who Jesus Christ is. Not every word is equal or helpful, not every word is spoken rightly at the right time. They need to be measured.
00:36:48:34 – 00:37:16:22
Clint Loveall
We have this word discernment. They need to be discerned or judged. And because of that, Clint, we live in a moment where it seems like words are cheap, words are free. You can go today and and distribute words to thousands of people with hardly any effort at all. And what that makes us feel like, I think, culturally, is that all words are distributed and equal and from a Christian perspective, that’s not true.
00:37:16:22 – 00:37:40:19
Clint Loveall
How we speak matters, how we describe others, how we describe God, how we describe ourselves. These words they can both build up and they can break down. They can create as God created with words or they can destroy. And so I think as Christians in the coming year, one of the practical discipleship practices that will be given to each of us is an opportunity to measure our words.
00:37:40:19 – 00:38:03:45
Clint Loveall
How are we using them in a way that either builds or destroys? And I think that we should be very mindful of the tongues that we’ve been given. To reference James should be very careful to not light forest fires and instead be very careful that our tongues are are creating in God’s image in the world that we’ve been given.
00:38:03:45 – 00:38:28:15
Clint Loveall
And I think that that’s going to really take Christians who are seriously pausing and considering, what am I saying? Why am I saying it that way? Why am I describing other in this way, or why am I describing the problem in this way? Because how we speak in many ways frames both the problem that we see in front of us as well as the solution that we seek to bring to bear.
00:38:28:15 – 00:38:44:19
Clint Loveall
And from the Christian perspective, that’s a essential task as we seek to lift up Jesus Christ as the ultimate solution to every problem. And so how we speak in the words in the days to come. Clint, I think this is going to be important.
00:38:44:24 – 00:39:32:40
Michael Gewecke
I wonder, Michael, if that’s in some ways two sides of the same coin as as we become increasingly tribal, as we as we pay more and more attention to our own team and who’s on it and who is not on it, if therefore, also a greater temptation to speak down on or speak against those who disagree. And it seems to me that we’ve seen an increase in that I think both on social media and in public speech, speech has become, it seems to me at least as I’ve experienced it, increasingly negative more about what we’re against and who we’re against than what we’re for and who we’re with.
00:39:32:42 – 00:40:04:57
Michael Gewecke
And I think the danger in that, again, is it paves the path for Christians to act like the world. When the world demonizes its enemies and calls them names and and embraces a very ugly rhetoric against humans, We shouldn’t be surprised, but neither should we understand that that somehow gives us permission to engage in the same thing. Jesus has been very clear with us how we speak to one another.
00:40:04:57 – 00:40:46:45
Michael Gewecke
The Scripture you mentioned, James. There are hundreds of other examples that challenge us on taming our tongue and putting forth salted speech that honors others and honors Christ and lifts people up rather than pushes them down and I think it is disturbing. Again, if you look at the church as a whole, how comfortable large portions of the Christian faith have been in calling people words like evil or enemies or dangerous.
00:40:46:49 – 00:41:13:12
Michael Gewecke
And I think that rhetoric is not well founded biblically. I think it comes from a place of fear. I think it comes from a place of that that tribalism, that polarization. I think it it doesn’t come from a place of grace and love and and we’ve been we’ve been clear. I mean, the litmus test is is very telling.
00:41:13:17 – 00:41:42:19
Michael Gewecke
If it doesn’t come from a place of grace and love, it probably doesn’t need to be said and Christians need to take that seriously. We need to wrestle with that. How are we talking about others? What are we posting? What are we putting out in the world that does it? Does it sound like Jesus? Does it have the essence of Christ in what we say and and what we further distribute?
00:41:42:19 – 00:41:55:55
Michael Gewecke
And this, I think, again, this has been a big challenge over the last few years. Some Christians, if I’m honest, have not handled it well, and I think it will continue to be a challenge in the year ago.
00:41:56:00 – 00:42:28:12
Clint Loveall
I think you mentioned this and I think it’s a very helpful word as we come to summarize some these challenges we’re all going to face in the coming year. And this last thing I want to just call out, as I said, you’ve you’ve already mentioned is this idea of being afraid of fear. And if you’re at the sound of our voice and you’re watching this any time in the year past 2020, a friends, this is a universal reality.
00:42:28:15 – 00:42:54:32
Clint Loveall
I just want to be clear. You and whoever else you might imagine, friend or foe is experiencing a moment in which fear is right at the doorstep. And Clint, I just had my alternator go out on my vehicle and the dashboard of the car threw up a little battery sign saying, Hey, you might want to check in to your battery because it’s not getting the charge that it needs.
00:42:54:32 – 00:43:33:00
Clint Loveall
And I think in the year to come, we would all do really well for a spiritual dashboard where the light turns on when fear begins to overtake us, when we start getting keyed up. And I don’t care on what issue or what side or what language or any of this, when you begin to feel afraid, that is a moment that our our warning light should go on and we should return back to the savior, because the most common command in the New Testament, the most common command in the book that describes the coming of the Savior is do not be afraid, not because life isn’t terrifying friends.
00:43:33:10 – 00:44:00:21
Clint Loveall
First century Christianity was a terrifying moment to be Christian. It was a it was a fear filled culture for your own life, for your faith, your community, all of it. But friends do not be afraid. Is a command because of who is the one that we live in. And this brings our conversation back full circle. There are so many concerns that we should be rightly concerned about as we engage in this world as Christians.
00:44:00:21 – 00:44:29:03
Clint Loveall
Absolutely. But I sincerely hope when it comes this year, and I’m phrasing that intentionally not, if when it comes that you feel afraid, afraid for our country or afraid for something of importance to you, afraid of a value, when that comes, turn back to Jesus and find in that peace and hope, because turning our attention anywhere else is surely to mislead us.
00:44:29:07 – 00:45:24:33
Michael Gewecke
It’s a wonderful invitation. Do not be afraid, not easily done in a world fraught with danger. But as we lean into the gospel and the fruits of the Spirit joy, compassion, love, gentleness, kindness, and as we embrace the idea of seeking to be more Christlike, we will hopefully find that our fear, our thoughts of self, our thoughts of who’s all my team and who isn’t are our words, particularly words that could do damage or be be harsh to others that those things kind of drop by the wayside and we’re able to move forward in a in a better way of discipleship and of faithfulness and of obedience.
00:45:24:37 – 00:45:38:35
Michael Gewecke
It’s a wonderful invitation that we’ve been given. And as we make our way through the coming year, hopefully all of us will be able to avoid some of the pitfalls as we take steps forward in our own faith journey.
00:45:38:40 – 00:46:02:42
Clint Loveall
That’s where we have to essentially put this on pause, because the reality is this is going to be an experience for all of us, of course, this year, but in the years to come. And so our invitation is don’t try to do this alone. We hope you’ll be part of this community as we seek to think and to grow and to be disciple than what we say and do in the world around us.
00:46:02:42 – 00:46:23:51
Clint Loveall
So certainly, if this conversation has been encouraging, challenging, if it’s connected with you, subscribe here on YouTube or to the podcast, we’d love to have you engage in these future conversations. Of course. Have you found this helpful? Give it a like that helps other people find it in the midst of their own journey and might be a voice of help for them in this season as well.
00:46:23:56 – 00:46:47:47
Clint Loveall
But Clint, it’s hard to end a conversation without this, without expressing gratitude. Thanks for sticking with us all the way to the Not all of this is easy ground to travel. In fact, most of it isn’t. And we’re grateful to have people like you who are willing to engage with us and to submit to the to the difficult parts and conversations of faith and to discover in them the hope and grace of Jesus Christ.
00:46:47:47 – 00:46:51:33
Clint Loveall
So that said, thank you. Thanks for being with us. Can’t wait to see you next time.
00:46:51:34 – 00:47:14:33
Michael Gewecke
Thanks, everybody. Hey, we want to thank you for listening to this broadcast. We’re grateful for the support and the connections, the relationships we get to make through some of these offerings. We hope that they’ve been helpful. We know that there are lots of choices that you have, lots of things you can listen to. We want to make you aware of some of what we’re doing, and we greatly appreciate you being a part of it.
00:47:14:47 – 00:47:33:39
Clint Loveall
Absolutely. We want to just thank you for being one of our audio podcast listeners. It’s amazing to have you with us in the midst of our conversations. Of course, I hope you know that you can find the whole archive of all of these conversations at Pastor Taco. We would love for you to join us there. You can find options for subscribing by email.
00:47:33:54 – 00:48:07:17
Clint Loveall
You can easily share things there with other people who you think might appreciate recordings like this. And of course, we just want to welcome you. If you’re ever interested in joining us for the video podcast, you can do that on YouTube. It is YouTube.com slash AFP Spirit Lake. There you can comment and engage with us, or if you would prefer to do that without going to YouTube, you can actually just click the link in the description of this podcast where you will be able to send us form and information and reach out to us.
00:48:07:30 – 00:48:16:33
Clint Loveall
We’d love to hear from you and engage in conversation with you. Thanks again for taking time to be with us. We look forward to our next conversation and can’t wait to see you then.