Episode 2: Rhett & Jessie McLaughlin – Finding a Curious Faith

Jared  

You’re listening to Faith for Normal People, the only other God-ordained podcast on the internet.

Pete  

I’m Pete Enns.

Jared  

And I’m Jared Byas.

Pete  

Alright folks, listen, a quick reminder about our upcoming class, “Putting the Pieces Together After Deconstruction” led by yours truly, meaning both me and Jared. 

Jared  

Right? Yeah. How do you say yours truly plural?

Pete  

Well, “your”… 

Jared  

Y’all’s tr- Yours true-

Pete  

The thing is that English is an impoverished language because the second person is the same form single or plural.

Jared  

Right, that’s true.

Pete  

Which is just a bunch of BS. 

Pete  

Stupid language. So we have to say “y’all.”

Jared  

Yeah. 

Jared  

Okay, as always, this class is live for one night only, which will be February 20th. So put it on your calendar February 20th, from 8 to 9:30pm Eastern Time.

Pete  

And guess what? That’s pay-what-you-can until the class ends and then it costs 25 bucks. 

Jared  

Exactly. So go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/deconstruction for more information and to sign up, we hope to see you there. 

Pete  

And if you want access to all our classes, past, present, and future, plus exclusive Q&A for each class, you can get an all access pass for $12 a month. How? Glad you asked. By joining our amazing community Society of normal people at TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/join.

Jared  

Hey, everyone, welcome to Faith for Normal People. We have had one episode with just you and I but today… 

Pete  

Which doesn’t count. 

Jared  

It doesn’t count. Today counts. 

Pete  

Yeah. 

Jared  

As the inaugural episode of Faith for Normal People.

Pete  

Right. And our topic today is finding a curious faith and our guests are Rhett and Jessie McLaughlin who were just wonderful.

Jared  

Rhett and Jessie met at a church in ’98, they’ve been married for 21 years, and if you have been around the internet, you probably know about Rhett and his lifelong best friend Link from their YouTube show Good Mythical Morning, which has garnered over 18 million followers. During the rise of Rhett’s internet fame, of course, Jessie took the less glamorous but more godly route of homeschooling their kids for eight years. That’s angelic. Eight years, that’s a long time.

Pete  

To homeschool kids. 

Jared  

And is now an interior decorator working in both residential and commercial design. But this year importantly, Rhett released his first solo album “Human Overboard” 

Pete  

Which is awesome. 

Jared  

Yeah, under the artist name James and the Shame, chronicling his journey out of evangelicalism. And Jessie actually sings on some of those tracks which highlight the evolving story of their love through shifting faith, which is what we have them on to talk about today. 

Pete  

That’s right. Yeah. So we had a great time talking about this stuff. And let’s get into it.

Jared  

Yeah. And don’t forget, don’t forget to stay tuned, because at the end of the interview now for Faith for Normal People, we have a special segment.

Pete  

Jared  

Where Pete and I have a chance to reflect on the episode and talk a little bit more personally about it.

Pete  

It’s called “Quiet time with Pete and Jared.”

Jared  

Alright, let’s dive in.

Jessie  

Rhett  

This fear of the unknown and what our relationship would turn into, apart from a commitment to Christ, turned into this, “What do we have?” And then we started realizing that we had a commitment to each other.

Jared  

Well, welcome, both of you, to the podcast. It’s great to have you on.

Rhett  

Thanks for having us!

Jessie  

We’re excited to be here.

Rhett  

Am I right in assuming this is the inaugural episode of Faith for Normal People?

Jared  

That’s exactly right. We…

Pete  

Yeah. We tried to get some other people who just were busy. 

Rhett  

Listen!

Jessie  

I was about to say we’re honored. But nope! No more.

Rhett  

Well, here’s the thing. It’s like, okay, because I feel like, you’re assuming a couple of things about us. You’re assuming that we are normal, and that we have faith.

Rhett  

So I don’t know. I mean, let’s see how this unfolds. 

Jared  

The mystery has been placed before us.

Pete  

Yes. Okay, well. 

Jared  

Let’s see. Well, so we, I mean, we really wanted to bring you on to talk about how the faith shifts have impacted your marriage or parenting and how you’ve walked through that, how you’ve changed that. But to set us up, maybe a little context on what did your faith look like as a kid and in early adulthood? And then we can kind of talk about those shifts?

Jessie  

Well, I grew up in an Evangelical context for sure, in the South, in North Carolina, where we’re both from, and I was a sensitive creative kid who was going to please and that was like, the most important thing to me. So you know, if I’m put in this context of, there is a God that sent his Son to die for your sins and this is the only way to not go to hell, but also to be loved, I’m going to do that real well. So I did that whole Christian thing pretty well. You know, I, as an adult, was diagnosed with OCD. So I think about it now, one of the most relatable scenes, I think for me, in Inside Out is the scene where Sadness touches her memories, Riley’s memories. And so she sees everything through that lens of Sadness. Where looking back now I see a lot of my faith through the lens of that OCD. And so it is confusing to untangle what was faith and what was scrupulosity. And what was a kid just really wanting to be loved and follow the rules and hit all the marks. So I hit all the marks. I was witnessing the kids on the playground, I was, you know, went to a Christian school that is probably—I’ve said this before, but where most of the spiritual trauma that I think about came from, so I got saved a lot at my Christian school, in chapel, even though you know, I was definitely from the camp that “once saved, always saved.” But I was just never exactly sure that I was saved.

Jared  

Well once saved, but never sure. 

Jessie  

Right! Well, yeah, I had, I will never forget this, I’ve said this before, I’ll never forget the chapel speaker, who said if you are 99.9% sure that you’re saved, then you are 100% lost.

Pete  

Awesome. 

Rhett  

Yeah, that’s very helpful. 

Pete  

And how old were you?

Jessie  

I probably, I don’t know, 13-14. 

Pete  

Awesome. That’s fantastic. 

Jessie  

Mhmm. It was, it was encouraging, as you can imagine. So you know, and I was always willing. I was willing to make those sacrifices, I was willing to do the hard thing for Jesus that I needed to do. I went to something in North Carolina, they have a thing called Governor’s School, where kids get selected between their sophomore and junior year in a specialty to go and do that specialty for six weeks during the summer at a college with other kids. And I got selected to go and be in the choral program for Governor’s School. So I went, one of the songs that we were supposed to sing was “Imagine” which you know, is problematic if you’re an evangelical. And so instead of just kind of singing the song, I made it my mission that our choir should not sing “Imagine.” I stood up in front of these—I don’t remember how many kids…a lot of kids, probably 50 kids in this choir—and basically preached about why I could not betray my savior by singing these words. 

Rhett  

And this is pre “If I Could Only Imagine.” Which you could have just swapped right in.

Jessie  

Rhett  

So you were very Christian. 

Jessie  

I did a good job.

Rhett  

Yeah. Which is one of the reasons I fell in love with you. 

Jessie  

It is.

Rhett  

Similar background for me growing up in an evangelical household. As early as I can remember being told about this alternate reality of the spiritual realm, of eternity, heaven and hell, it immediately clicked with me that that was the most important reality. That—that was way more important than whatever we were doing in these meat bags, you know. And so I remember growing up, you know, in the South, you’re growing up in a very culturally Christian environment, where pretty much everyone is going to church. But I would see my friends who called themselves Christians who went to church, but then when you spoke with them, it was “But no, you don’t think that Jesus is by far the most important thing like, this is way more important than everything else?” It never clicked with me that they had not placed their relationship with God above everything else. And that mentality sort of permeated every step of my childhood and, you know, youth group and in high school, starting a band. And of course, you know, my creative partner and business partner, best friend, Link. I’ve known him since 1984, in first grade, and so… 

Jessie  

Longer than you’ve known me.

Rhett  

So he was there all along. So when we decided to start a band in high school—The Wax Paper Dogs—which was a…I don’t even know what the genre was, but it was not great. But of course, it was going to be a Christian band. And yes, we were going to invite our friends to the concerts, and yes, there was going to be an invitation after this pop/punk/rap/country.

Pete  

Wow.

Rhett  

Well, you said it was a Christian band. So the rest of that was redundant. 

Rhett  

Rhett  

But you did not use popular songs like “The Wall” and change the words in those popular songs…

Rhett  

No we did not do that. We did not dare do that.

Jessie  

Which is what my Christian band did. So..

Rhett  

We wanted to eventually sign with Tooth and Nail Records. That was the dream. So and then carry that into college, getting involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and not just getting involved, but you know, we got to lead a Bible study, you got to lead the weekly meeting. And then when you graduate-

Jessie  

You gotta be discipling people.

Rhett  

You got to go on staff with Campus Crusade. So for me, it wasn’t about pleasing, necessarily. It was this—I’m sure that was part of it—But it was more of this conviction that like, this is the most important reality. This is what I need to be investing myself into completely. And I need to find a woman who will do that with me. 

Pete  

Yeah.

Jessie  

Enter Jessie.

Rhett  

Jared  

So before we, I think, getting into your relationship and how that works, maybe take us to the rest of that story of, you know, what does your faith look like now? And maybe what contributed to the shift?

Pete  

Yeah, how did it shift? Yeah, like, what happened? 

Jared  

Jessie  

Where did we go wrong?

Pete  

To ruin the fairy tale!

Jessie  

The internet had something to do with it, I think.

Rhett  

I’ll try to be concise. So to me, the way that I summarize this process is: I encountered information that repeatedly challenged my assumption that the Bible was God’s word, right? That the Bible was perfect. And that was a slow sort of erosion. You know, it’s in general, it kind of started with exploring evolution…

Jessie  

Which is what Ken Ham said would happen. 

Rhett  

Yeah, right. Ken Ham was right. 

Pete  

He’s so right.

Rhett  

So it started with sort of a reframing of the Old Testament. But then this, kind of following the same logic, ended up leading me to the New Testament and reconsidering what I knew about Jesus. Basically, over time, the Bible made… It went from, “Okay, the Bible is God’s word. Yes, he used man.” To “Okay, well, it’s a mix of these two,” to, “This kind of just seems like it’s just people. It just seems like people made this thing.” And that, it clicks more for me, when it’s like, “Oh, this is just people like any other tradition trying to figure out, trying to explain why they feel the way they feel, why they’re concerned about what happens after they die, giving them reasons to do good.” And, and this was like, this is over a decade of a process that took place mostly in North Carolina, still involved in the church, still leading a Bible study in our church.

Pete  

Wow, yeah.

Rhett  

All this is sort of happening, still talking about it with people that I’m close to, talking about it with my pastor. Then, in 2011, moving to Los Angeles, the devil’s town, as I say in a song about describing this. And I think, of course, the story goes, according to the internet, we moved to Los Angeles, and we fell for the, you know, lights, camera, action, and Satan. But really, I think what moving to LA did do is—even though we immediately became best friends with the pastor of our church and got involved into church as soon as we moved out here—what it did do is there was less of a cultural pressure. And so kind of you are able to be like, “Okay, I’m have been having all these doubts for 10 years,” or culminating into, “I don’t know if I’m a Christian anymore, but now, I don’t have the cultural pressure to remain that and so I can kind of just consider this and that.” And so I’d say about 2012, about 10 years ago, 2013 or so, is when I said I don’t think I can call myself a “Christian” anymore. And then Jessie…

Jessie  

I remember that day, we were at the zoo.

Rhett  

Jessie can talk about how she was processing that.

Jessie  

San Diego Zoo when you told me. 

Rhett  

Oh, really? 

Jessie  

I was very angry at you. 

Rhett  

What section? 

Jessie  

For a child’s birthday. Anyway. 

Jared  

Oh, that’s-

Pete  

It was probably the ape section. Right. That’s my guess.

Jared  

Yeah, Jessie, I think it’d be great to hear. That’s one of the things I’m interested in, is those initial feelings and how you were processing it, and where were you in your faith at the time, and how did that impact you?

Jessie  

I mean, the initial feelings were abject terror, desperation, fear. I guess that’s the same as terror, anger. You know, I would lay on the bed and cry to God and ask God, where he was and why he had abandoned us.

Jared  

Can I ask before you go on just because… 

Jessie  

Yeah, yeah!

Jared  

It sounds like Rhett, you were struggling with this for a long time. Had he brought you into that process? Or when he said, I’m not a Christian, that was really the first you were hearing about it?

Jessie  

No, he absolutely—And I will say like, one of the things I really value about our relationship is I think honesty has always been really important to us. And I was telling Rhett, that I feel the most myself around him. I feel the most authentic like, the most authentic version of myself, I feel around him. And I just feel really grateful that that has kind of always been the case. Even with like, my struggles with OCD before I even knew that it had a name and that’s what it was. You know, I would go to Rhett with these things—and he wasn’t a therapist, he didn’t know—But he would laugh them off in a way that was actually really helpful. Because he wouldn’t kind of enter into the madness with me. But I always felt like super authentic. And I had always struggled with my own doubts. So, you know, hell, man. Hell was a problem for me. [Laughs] But I didn’t have a choice. Like, okay, I have to believe this, I’ll never forget, you know, laying in my bedroom, just poring over Romans 9, and really believing that I was going to figure out this whole predestination thing and make sense of it.

Pete  

Jessie  

Pete  

Right. You just nailed it. Right. Okay.

Jessie  

But! Has anybody with my level of OCD tried it? 

Jessie  

Right? You know, and my dad would come in and try to help me with it. And you know, I had very loving parents who taught me, would do their best to work with me—again, not knowing that what I had was OCD, that what was going on with me. But anyway, Rhett and I had always been honest about the doubts that we did have with each other. But we would encourage each other. So we had little logical proofs that we would use to get us back to why the Bible is true. And depending on who was struggling at the time, you know, one or the other one would encourage. But the difference, I think, in us is that Rhett can sometimes be more in his head, and I’m, you know, more of a feeler. And so for him, he started reading this information, which I had, like, scratched the surface, but I wasn’t going to…I didn’t have the courage to go down the road, also the patience. Like he was reading all kinds of like, textbooks about evolution and the Bible and historicity and-

Rhett  

Just this one guy named Pete Enns.

Jessie  

Yes.

Pete  

Jessie  

That guy meant a lot when you read his work.

Pete  

…I’m sorry? 

Pete  

Or you’re welcome. I don’t know what to say, at this point.

Rhett  

Usually both.

Jessie  

You know, and I didn’t have that in me, and it would have been too painful. And so I’m really like…At the time, him coming to me with these things, the first thing he came to me with was, “Hey, this evolution thing happened. But it doesn’t change, it doesn’t change what I think about Jesus,” You know, and that alone was like, earth shattering. Like I remember I was in the gym, and I was walking up the steps of the gym and I was like, “God, what are you doing? My husband believes in evolution!” 

Rhett  

Because that was a big deal in your family…

Jessie  

It was a huge deal! Yeah, I was arguing with Bart Ehrman—not about evolution, about other things—and my geology professors at UNC, I was arguing with them about what—and they were so patient, I think back to how kind and patient they were with me, who knew nothing and was so convinced I knew everything—But anyway, so this process was painful. But on some level, deep down, it wasn’t surprising. Even though it was the most surprising thing ever, if that makes sense. Like I’ve said before, we were both so committed to Jesus, not just being Christians, we were committed to Jesus. So it was not like, oh, anybody would have seen this coming, especially us.

Rhett  

But I think that the fear that began to creep in for both of us, as it relates to our relationship was, “Does this mean…we’re going to get divorced?”

Jessie  

Rhett  

Right? Because what we had been told by everyone and what we had taught ourselves, is that, “Okay, well, if you don’t have Jesus, then you’re just to sinful people on your own. And there’s no way you can manage this relationship because it’s based on your commitment to Christ first.”

Jessie  

Rhett  

Closer to the edge?

Jessie  

Yes, than I was, and so, you know, there was fear that he was headed down the highway to hell. And then I would go back to, “But I know him. I know this person.” And so it’s this constant like, “Can I trust you? Can I believe you? Do you have some nefarious desire that is pushing this?” And every time I’ve asked myself those questions, even and subconsciously the answer was always, he’s just like reading books about science and history. And for a long time, he wouldn’t even touch those. Everything he was reading was on the Christian side. Finally, when he got to this other side, he started, you know, he could not deny it.

Jared  

So just to read between the lines, and that you can correct me, but what I’m hearing just from my background, is the only reason that you would reject Christianity in the way that I was brought up, was because you had a strong desire to go lead this like sinful, guilt-free life of, you know, go drinking and orgies, and like, that’s why and it can’t be like just intellectual honesty, it has to be this other pull. And so is that kind of the narrative? And that’s what you’re afraid of? Like, “Can I trust that?”  

Jessie  

One thousand percent, one thousand percent.

Jared  

Okay.

Pete  

Well, one thing too, that I’m hearing and something that Jared and I, we’ve talked about a lot here on our other podcast—on the Podcast Which Shall Not Be Named, the Bible for Normal People—is the emotional component of all this. Because there is obviously, you know, Rhett, an intellectual dimension, right? That that was your way of processing this. But you had emotions with that as well. And Jessie, you obviously have emotions with this too. And that’s the part that’s not talked about very often. It’s like, what’s your argument? It’s like, no, there’s a whole emotional thing that’s happening too and that’s so deep at the core of what it means to be human, to have these emotional experiences. And we don’t always talk about it and we don’t value them.

Rhett  

Right. 

Pete  

Because your emotions just get in the way of reason. Well, that’s nonsense. 

Rhett  

Right. 

Pete  

We don’t work that way. We’re not bifurcated people.

Jared  

Yeah, so with that, I mean, can you maybe walk us through—because I would imagine that those feelings evolved and developed and went up and down and changed through that time as you both again, probably feeling your own emotions and fears about your own shifts, but then “What does that mean for our relationship?” So you kind of started, Jessie, with fear? How did it evolve after that?

Jessie  

I think, I started going to therapy. This was after we had moved to LA. And Rhett was already at this point, saying, telling me, not many other people, but telling me and Link and close people that he could no longer call himself a Christian. And I started going to therapy, I thought it was because my kid needed it. And my therapist, unfortunately, let me know that it was me who needed it. 

Rhett  

Jessie  

And I needed a session and a half, because I’m a talker. So that, you know, at that point, I really, I didn’t know. I didn’t know I was going for spiritual trauma. I didn’t know I was going to deal with this OCD stuff, you know, I thought my kid was tough. And my kid laughs when I tell this story, so I don’t feel like I’m divulging anything that he would be horrified by. So I think one of the things that I kept having to come back to in therapy was this, “letting go,” which is like, so simple, and so cliche. And like one of the few things in my life that feels like, that works when things are hard, is letting go. And I think this whole process for me, especially as somebody who did have OCD, had this level of like I was going to perform, I was going to achieve, even if that was like being the best homeschool mom I could be or whatever, because I did that for a while. And so letting go of all of my ideas of what our marriage would look like, of what my parenting would look like, of what it meant…You know, all of those….And all the things that I thought were good. I spent my life thinking these were good ideals, but they’re not real. And so really having to come to terms with “Everything is as it should be.” Whether that’s whatever my husband’s beliefs are, whatever mine or whatever is happening with my kids, that it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. Really simple. But that has been very helpful for me.

Pete  

Simple but hard. I mean, it’s huge. To get to that point, I think.

Jared  

And Rhett, did you have similar—I mean, not knowing the history of you, and Link, and your channel, and where you were with your career, and popularity—Was some of the reason you held back from sharing that. Did you have some fears about the fallout? Again, something that isn’t often talked about is how much you lose when your face shifts, like you lose those ideals or the future you thought of your marriage, and your parenting, and for you, maybe your career. Like what was that like for you?

Rhett  

You know, we had been doing this internet thing for so long that I’ve sort of witnessed a shift in the level of vulnerability that comes with being a creator. So getting started in, you know, 2006-2007, in those early days, it was very much about “I have this thing that I am creating that I want you to enjoy.” It’s not about a connection with me. This is before anyone understood what social media was going to become. And over time, it evolved to this, “Oh, this is about people connecting with me and Link, and Link and I connecting with each other, and people feeling like they’re a part of this friendship.” And, yes, they’re into the things that we’re creating, but they’re also into us just being ourselves. And so I think that we ended up disclosing more about ourselves, not in a, “Hey, come along, family vlog” type thing, but just through our podcast. So we were, you know, early days of our podcast was, it was an interview show where we would, it was sort of the WTF of the internet world where you’re just bring on a content creator, and ask them all these questions. And we get very personal. And we kind of prided ourselves on asking them questions about their background, and we’re asking them about their religion, we’re literally asking them about their religious background and their family of origin, and never having really talked about it ourselves. So there were several years where it was like, there’s this giant piece of us that really defines who we are, and, frankly, is why we do what we did. And we only got into comedy through ministry, you know, and there’s this weird, disjointed story of, you know, we would just gloss it over and say, “We were engineers, and then we became YouTubers.” But no, we were missionaries with Campus Crusade, and it is very crazy path. So to me, there was this pressure to finally be like, I feel like I have to put my whole self out there. But there was a lot of fear, because we had never been like, you know, our content is very apolitical, and anyone can enjoy it. And we had a sense of how divisive this might be. We did not anticipate just how much it would, you know, the people back home, what they would say and what they would say to our parents. I didn’t really think a lot of that through. 

Jessie  

Well, we were in denial. 

Rhett  

Yeah.

Pete  

Yeah.

Rhett  

But that for me, you know that was actually a big part of it as I think about what was happening. Because you know, I’m not as much of a, maybe a general people pleaser, but we were very performance-based household, and my parents were—I still have a great relationship with them—We’re all always very much like, you know, you kind of saw the things that they rewarded you for. You do well in sports, you do well in school, you can get up in front of a group of people and make them laugh, like there’s lots of things that were kind of respected in our family. And then when I sort of come out, and of course, I told them a few years before, which was hugely disappointing, but I think that when I became this face of deconstruction, or deconversion, in this in the space, this YouTube space, there’s this weird thing to start—And I’m in therapy, I’ve been in therapy about five years—But I was beginning to process the way that my personality, the personality that I had kind of constructed because of my family of origin, which was so based on being good at a lot of things and finding my identity and that I’m enneagram 3, might not surprise you. But I had to sort of reckon with the fact that in this area, that is ultimately the thing that my parents care about more than anything, regardless of how successful I get in this entertainment space, which they are very proud of. There’s this like, glaring disappointment.

Pete  

Rhett  

Which you know, that happening publicly, while I’m beginning to sort of deconstruct my own personality and what it is that makes me who I am. That has been—and this is all pretty recent, because it was 2020 when we told that story. And that’s when I’m kind of getting into the good stuff of therapy of really understanding how much my personality is based on this performance approach.

Jared  

I think that’s important. And maybe you can say a little bit more and maybe for both of you is: I think sometimes we underestimate…We think of faith shift, as this one piece that we can sort of isolate. But I think once we pull on that thread, we see all these other parts of us—You know, Jessie I heard you with your OCD and Rhett like, performance, those were so deeply integrated into your faith expression that they sort of blur together. What have been some of those other things that you’ve been maybe surprised to learn that as your faith shifted, these other parts of your life have shifted.

Jessie  

I mean, I think a huge one for most women coming out of evangelicalism is just what it means to be a woman in the church. And for me, I had to go through like a really angry phase [laughs] that lasted a few years.

Rhett  

It’s over?

Jessie  

Maybe not! Maybe it doesn’t need to be over? Yeah, my therapist would say, when he—He thinks I’m through it! FYI. 

Pete  

Jessie  

Hardy-harr-harr!

Rhett  

Alright! Woohoo!

Pete  

It’s finally over!

Rhett  

Jessie  

He’s like, “You know, yeah, Jessie, you kind of raged there for a few years.” I was like “Rage? Really? I had no idea.” But yes, I do think, realizing that—this was never…This was not said explicitly. And I think that’s the hard thing. Because a lot of this, you know, even the work stuff, it’s like even the performance stuff, somebody would say, “Well, that’s not what the Bible says. That’s not. You know, the Bible says it’s by grace through faith.” And yet you can’t deny what the culture says, which is, “It’s really important that you not F things up. And like, you might not even be saved.” Like nobody’s- I mean, I guess I did have that chapel speaker explicitly say that, but like, there are so many double messages, and there’s so much cognitive dissonance. And I do think that that really contributed to just a lot of the mental anguish that I experienced. I just kept trying to make it make sense. You know, along those lines, it was this idea that, “No, yes, you and your husband are both equal, under God, you know, as servants of the Lord, whatever. But he’s the one who’s in charge.”

Pete  

Yeah, but in another way, it doesn’t really work that way.

Jessie  

Right! But also your whole identity is kind of your husband and your kids. And like that sets women up, you know, as a homeschool mom, while my husband was out getting famous, I was at home homeschooling the kids now I will say Rhett, never, he always thought the homeschool thing was kind of overboard. He was always like, “Are you sure you want to do this? This seems odd. And like hard.” But I was convinced that that was the best for my kids. And you know that—and this is something we’ve worked so much on in therapy is—That idea that I have my own identity. And like, it doesn’t mean that being a wife and a mother is not a huge, huge part of my identity. But it sets us all up for failure, if all of my hopes and dreams are tied on my relationship to my husband and my relationship to my kids, if my kids mess up, what does that say about me as a mother, if that’s my whole identity?

Pete  

Yeah, if the outcome is wrong…

Jessie  

Exactly. 

Pete  

Then you’ve failed, right?

Jessie  

Exactly. 

Pete  

Right, yeah.

Jessie  

You know, and so not only does that set me up for pain, it sets them up to be the recipients of all my projections. 

Pete  

Oh, gosh, yeah. 

Jessie  

And so that’s something I’m continuing to work on, is what it means to be a person, my own person, not that these relationships aren’t a huge part of that. But if we’re talking Enneagram, I’m an Enneagram 2. So relationally, relationships are a huge part of how I relate to the world, how I see myself in the world. So what does it mean for me to be a person apart from all of my relationships?

Pete  

I mean, the shame of it all is that self-discovery is not really encouraged in many Christian contexts. And I think you have to know yourself, you have to know what makes you tick. And…And anything that’s contrary to that is more—not to overstate—It gets a little cultish. You know, it gets a little mind control-y, you know, where you simply can’t discover who you are.

Rhett  

Yeah. Yeah, I think this is a great point. This is actually where I was gonna go, I think in terms of one of the things that has been huge for me through this process, is the—and again, this, I’m always very… The Old Rhett is always present and sitting on my shoulder, judging the things that the New Rhett is saying, so I can see…

Pete  

Well, we’re judging you, right now, so go on ahead.

Rhett  

So I’m playing right into the narrative that I have become my own God. 

Pete  

Yeah [Laughs]

Rhett  

But I do think that I have found it much more beneficial, personally, to spend less time trying to figure out God and to spend more time figuring out me, and I think that there is such a one size fits all approach to our background, in particular, and even when you think about campus ministry coming up through Campus Crusade, and you go to the conference, and you know, they divide the men and the women up. And it’s like, this is the men’s message, this is the women’s message. So it’s not really one size fits all. It’s one size fits men and one size fits women. And you never get into the, like well, what is it about me and my personality and the things that the way that I see the world that is interpreted that changes the way I interpret God? 

We never talked about these individual characteristics that have such an influence on the way that we see things and whether we approach faith. It was always like, “Okay, well, this is generally how all you guys should be living and approaching this and thinking about that.” And it wasn’t until I got out of that environment, and got into therapy, that I started to think about things on that level and actually began to see some progress. And I think one of the things that happened as it relates to us is this fear of the unknown and what our relationship would turn into, apart from a commitment to Christ, turned into this, “Okay, well, what is there? What do we have?” And then we started realizing that we had a commitment to each other. That was the baseline that I think was there all along. I think we were trying to explain it with some colorful religious language. But then when we started realizing, “Oh, I actually like you. I like being with you. I like doing life with you. And that might be enough.”

Pete  

Not only that, but it might be that—that awareness might have been masked, or prevented from even happening, if you’re in a religious context, where you’re not encouraged to think about “Who am I? What makes me tick.” 

Rhett  

Yeah. 

Pete  

Right. And that’s that, I mean, I just I always find that to be a big shame. I think when church does that—and they tend to do that—It’s dehumanizing.

Jared  

It’s also interesting, what you said, Jessie, I think you’re the one that said it. There’s this coded language in Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, where it’s almost like you have to have this hyper social awareness to know when to actually take things seriously and literally, and when not to.

Jessie  

Jared  

Because if you don’t have that, you just take everything seriously—because I’m someone who just takes things seriously. And so whenever I would come across something, like there’s a number of people in the church who just wouldn’t take it seriously, because somehow they knew that that’s like coded like, like, “Well, we don’t really do that. We don’t take that seriously.” It’s like, Well, how am I supposed to know, and I just think it’s interesting in terms of your relationship, that was one of those things that it almost worked to the…It worked to an ironic advantage, where kind of the code was… Like the real thing is that you’re committed to each other and you’re connected, and you like each other. But we had to sort of code it with Christ, with our commitment to Christ, “That’s the thing that holds us together.” And then when you don’t have that, you’re kinda like, “Oh, wait, maybe all along, we just connected and committed to each other. And we actually like each other.” And, but it just highlights this coded, everything was so coded, like looking back, it’s, it’s a world that was so confusing. And that’s why I find—I’ve seen so many examples of this and I think you you both are this way, from what I’m hearing—Is that people who take it most seriously, are the people who ended up transitioning out because they didn’t get those messages that those are like very slight coded messages of “No, whenever we say like sacrifice, we don’t like literally mean to like sacrifice. That would be absurd.” It’s like, “Well, no, no-one told me I actually did sacrifice.” 

Rhett  

Yes.

Jessie  

Well, I went through several months of deep inner turmoil over whether or not I should wear a head-covering. 

Rhett  

Jessie  

Now, nobody in my family—like this, everybody in my family would be horrified if I showed up with it. This is not what I come from, but I was-

Rhett  

It was gonna be a baseball hat, which is weird.

Jessie  

But I ran into women at Walmart in head-coverings and occasionally, you know, or women who didn’t wear makeup and clearly that’s not me, but maybe it should be? So, 100% like yes, I would…I was wondering how everybody knew that, like, “Why aren’t we still wearing head coverings because it says so right here. I know, you’ve got all these explanations, but like, wait, so the men and women thing that’s, that is true. But this is kind of something we can’t.” Yeah.

Rhett  

Well, this is an overgeneralization. But I find that most of the people that I knew, in high school, who were deeply committed, and took it so seriously, tend to have deconstructed to some degree. And it’s all the people that I went to school with that were just those very surface level cultural Christians who they graduated, had kids, and they’re in deep now. It’s like, you know, it’s like there tends to be this criss-cross, just depending on your disposition.

Jared  

Right? Well, we’re looking at coming to the end of our time, and I wanted to have a chance to have you articulate: What does it look like now for you? In your faith, like in your spirituality, your faith, however you would articulate that, and how has that—what I want to say is manifested, but that’s a weird word to use—in your relationship, like how does that express itself in your relationship now?

Pete  

Like, do you have quiet time two times a day or three times a day? How does it work for you guys?

Rhett  

Yeah, once together and once separate.

Rhett  

Jared  

Jessie  

I think for me, I would say, I am the most at peace, more at peace than I’ve ever been. And it’s strange, because I always heard that it would be the opposite. And I feel God’s presence—I don’t have a definition for that in the way that I used to, and I’m really cool not having a definition for that. And the unknowing is the most beautiful, wonderful, like luscious, peaceful thing I’ve ever experienced. And it’s really uncomfortable at first, just like with, you know, some OCD, cognitive behavioral tactics where exposure therapy, it’s so uncomfortable at first, and then it’s so helpful and beautiful and life changing. And so, for me, I just am so happy to be curious. And I don’t like, the level of fear is much reduced. I just, I mean, things are gonna happen. And I don’t have control over them, and I’m gonna mess up, my kids are gonna mess up, me and Rhett are gonna fight, I’m going to have angry years. We’re not going to do it perfectly. But I… 

Pete  

You don’t have to.

Jessie  

Right. And we actually don’t have to, I think I used to, I would have said I didn’t have to and not really meant it. So I think this like, wonder of the present—which again, sounds so cliche, but being able to say, “Hey, I’m listening to this podcast, what do you think about it?” Or a book we’re listening to that is wild, and we’re both like, “This could be true, or it could not. I don’t know. Hmm! What do you think?” Which would have been so dangerous. Like that was not okay, you can’t…Everything is in a box before you even know anything about it.

Jared  

So rather than the unknowing creating fear, it actually generates life and curiosity.

Jessie  

Yeah. 

Pete  

Not bad for an OCD person to get to that place. 

Rhett  

A long way, a long way.

Pete  

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Rhett  

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately in terms of like, “What faith do I have?” Right? And—you guys, correct me if I’m wrong in the quoting of this verse in Hebrews, the definition of faith—Is it “the assurance of things hoped for…” 

Jessie  

“The evidence…”

Rhett  

“The evidence of things unseen?” Is that some…That’s one translation. 

Pete  

Close enough, we don’t read the Bible.

Jessie  

Rhett  

And I’m sure that in the context, the writer of Hebrews with saying things hoped for was probably talking about things that would come to pass and Jesus returning and whatever. But I think that in the…. I do think that “things hoped for,” I think that’s sort of the modern day understanding of faith, meaning that it’s kind of the things that you want to be true. Right? I think in a lot of ways—I still love reading about all this apologetics and, you know, people arguing about the historicity of the resurrection is sort of my hobby to continue to…

Jessie  

He watches these YouTube videos while we’re working out in the morning, that’s what he’s watching!

Pete  

Jessie  

-In our home gym in the garage.

Rhett  

And you know, if you take something like the resurrection, okay, take that as an example. And of course, there’re really smart people who can, who know a whole lot more about this subject than me, who can make very good arguments…Very cohesive arguments, right? On either side of this issue. But at the end of the day, you kind of get down to this point where, what do you want to be true? Right? Like, if you want Jesus to have risen from the dead, there’s a cohesive argument that can be made, that this is the best explanation of the early church or whatever. There’s also, you know, you could also say, “Yeah, probably not.” You know, it’s like you can kind of—And really smart people with a lot of convictions can get down to that. But so I asked myself, like, “Well, what I want to be true at this point in my life…” And I think that this is where there’s a lot of connection between the two of us, it’s much less defined, and it’s not dogmatic, and it’s not written in a book somewhere. But I think we kind of want the nature of the world—we have a lot of similarities and alignment and what I think we generally want the nature of the world to be, and I would say that the sense of wonder, you know, I’m not a materialist, I am sort of in practice, but that’s not what I want to be the end all. You know, I don’t want that to be the nature of the world. We want there to be something more.

Jessie  

Some magic. 

Rhett  

And I think that we look for that together. And I think that—that kind of defines the ongoing sort of journey that we have together.

Jared  

The connection isn’t so much a list of facts that we agree on, but our mode of being in the world.

Jessie  

Jared  

Excellent. 

Pete  

That’s wonderful. 

Jared  

Yeah. I think that’s a great vision for us to end on. Thank you so much for talking about things that—I mean, I’m not good at vulnerability. So even you talking about it makes me like…

Rhett  

Jared  

Squirm. So….This is good. This is good. It’s good practice for me. But thank you so much for jumping on and having a conversation with us.

Jessie  

Thank you for asking us. It was really fun to get to talk to y’all.

Pete  

Same here. 

Rhett  

Thanks for having us. 

Pete  

It was wonderful. Thank you for being here.

Song Lyrics

I picked up on it first thing

You weren’t like the ones I’d known

Mighta been from the same place

But coming from somewhere all your own

A few hours on a wooden bench

That’s all it took to do me in

Knew then had to make it quick

Before I made us fall into sin

Said I don’t know where we’re going

But I know I want you to go with me

Don’t care much about the destination

As long as you’re there that’s where I wanna be

The talking took a different tone

And started to make you cry

What if there’s no way for us to know

What happens when we die

The blur from those tears faded

And you saw it for yourself

Hard truths all turned to maybes

And more than a savior we needed help

Said I don’t know where we’re going

But I know I want you to go with me

Don’t care much about the destination

As long as you’re there that’s where I wanna be

A move west to the Devil’s town

Losing old and making new friends

Finally put our crosses down

And watched those two boys start to turn to men

So much we’d been warned about

Ended up being pretty good

I keep waiting for the bottom to drop out

Like we said it would

Still don’t know where we’re going

But I know I want you to go with me

Caring less and less about the destination

As long as you’re there that’s where I wanna be

I’d like to go back to the old us

Take your hand and say it’s all gonna be okay

We could only do what they told us

Without that who knows who we’d be with today

I don’t know where we’re going

But I know I want you to go with me

Don’t care much about the destination

As long as you’re there that’s where I wanna be

As long as you’re there that’s where I’m gonna be

Jared

And now for Quiet Time…

Pete

With Pete and Jared.

Pete  

Well, folks, welcome to a new segment on the podcast, which is going to be called “Quiet Time with Pete and Jared,” because that’s what we do here.

Jared  

Yeah, we’d like to be quiet.

Pete  

…And have time

Jared  

And time. Yeah. 

Pete  

But what we want to do is just engage what we just heard in this Faith for Normal People podcast, and how, you know, we’re processing some of these things.

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

Because a lot of stuff came up today that I think, you know, Jared and I both resonate with and how we’re also on this sort of quest, for seeking, and for understanding, and for being curious and things like that.

Jared  

And if you’re used to listening to Bible for Normal People, there is a sense in which in that episode- in that podcast, you know, Pete, you and I come at it more from an expert point of view. Like we have taught some of these things, these aren’t really new concepts to us. But in Faith for Normal People, it’s an opportunity for us to kind of in real time process and talk about kind of where we are with some of these things.

Pete  

Because we don’t know what’s going on with faith

Jared  

We don’t know, yeah at this point, we don’t know. 

Pete  

Jared  

But I think it’s an opportunity for us to maybe get a little more personal and talk about things that’s going on with us…

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

Around faith and the questions we have and so…

Pete  

And “faith” is that…It’s like the “So what?” question.

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

You know, you can, you can assess as we do the biblical text and talk about it, and we get sort of excited about that. It gives me a lot of energy. But at the end of the day, it really is a “So what?” question. And that’s a much bigger question, than, “What does this verse say?” 

Jared  

Right. 

Pete  

It’s many, many more things involved in this. You know, what we heard with this episode today with Rhett and Jessie.

Jared  

And Jessie.

Pete  

It was really helpful.

Jared  

Yeah. And what struck out for me…What struck out? A baseball note. 

Pete  

Struck-out [Laughs]

Jared  

What stuck out for me was, again, I think, a little bit of a sadness around this arrested development that can happen. When you mentioned at some point in the episode, that it’s a shame that a lot of Christian teaching, has us say, “It’s not about us,” right? That’s the first line of Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life.” It’s not about you. And ironically, because I’ve been reading that book, again—the rest of the book is kind of talking about how it is about you. So it’s kind of funny—But it creates this arrested development, where we, you know, I think the normal way to develop as a human is to be introspective, and to think about what you like, and what you don’t like, and what brings you joy, and what brings you sadness. And I feel like too much Christian teaching shortcuts that. It short circuits it, where I can be a 27 year-old and not really done any of that work. And because I was told not to look at myself.

Pete  

In the iterations of Christianity that we may have been familiar with.

Jared  

Yeah, yeah. Sorry. When I say, “Christian,” I’m thinking of more Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian teaching.

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

And how that it’s sad to me, the arrested development that can happen. It’s—Most of my personal growth happened when I got real honest. Because it’s this double whammy, where not only are we told not to focus on ourselves, but we’re also rewarded to pretend we’re better than we are.

Pete  

Hah right, yeah.

Jared  

And so it’s this double whammy, where we’re not doing the work, the work we’re doing is to keep up a facade and to keep looking good.

Pete  

Which is tiring.

Jared  

It’s tiring, it’s not actually productive. Because we’re not working-

Pete  

It’s dehumanizing.

Jared  

-To be a better person. We’re working to make sure we no one’s

Pete  

You can’t be a better person, Jared. 

Jared  

What do you mean?

Pete  

We can’t be better people…because we’re sinful.

Jared  

Hm, right. 

Pete  

Right, and we have to forget about all that stuff and just give our lives over. But…

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

And I…and we’ve, this is not I’m not offering a solution because this is stuff that you know, I really—Man, if you people could get inside my head, the stuff that I think about all the time, it’s with my OCD, especially—But something Jared, you and I, have talked about and mentioned several times is John Calvin, who’s not everybody’s hero, he’s not particularly mine, either, but he wasn’t an idiot, right? And in the opening line in his magnum opus called “The Institutes of the Christian Religion.” He basically, his starting point is, “You can’t know God with without knowing yourself,” and conversely, he says, “You can’t know yourself without knowing God,” but it’s two sides of the same coin. And I think that much of modern Protestantism that we’re engaged with, has forgotten half of that equation. Like knowing yourself, well you’re a sinner, what else do you have to know? And for me, it’s letting that roll off my back over years where like, you know, Jessie was saying, “curiosity,” and not knowing. Is it…I mean, I’m with her, it’s extremely liberating for me, maybe because we have similar processes with, you know, OCD or whatever. But, you know, I hear the journey that they’re on. And it’s similar to I think, how we have processed things, and had to process things, being honest with ourselves and with, let’s say, facts, or the data, as far as I can tell, also without being materialists. Which, you know, Rhett says is not another lie. So…

Jared  

Can I ask you—just because I don’t know if other episodes will have an opportunity, maybe I’ll ask you a personal question—How do you feel like your OCD and faith expressions intermix? Because I don’t think…I haven’t heard you talk about it in terms of scrupulosity, but I’m sure it had an impact.

Pete  

Yeah, I’m not sure if scrupulosity was more my issue as much as just I can’t shut the head off at all. 

Pete  

Like, in middle of the night waking up, like sleeping two and a half hours, getting up for two hours, and then going to sleep, hopefully, after that. That’s more for me, and what my—again, I hate to use the word journey, because it’s so cliche, but it is that’s been a meaningful word. That-

Jared  

Jared  

It’s a good metaphor.

Pete  

I’m on a path, and I am. And it’s learning to embrace the mystery and the curiosity. All the things my OCD doesn’t want me to embrace now, like, it’s actually normal now. You know?

Jared  

Right. 

Pete  

And, you know, to what extent my OCD is manifesting, you know, you can ask other people, but I feel better. I actually feel more at peace, saying, “I have no idea what God is up to. And I don’t even know if I want to know, because I can’t find my car keys right now, and I have to get someplace.” You know, or I’m trying to be a good person, you know, love the people around me, and those are the things that occupy my thinking more and not being obsessed about how does it all work.

Jared  

Which for me, was a function of control. And so being—and I learned this, when at the time, I quit one of my programs, my academic programs, and my wife at the time said, that was like the most proud of me she’s ever been. 

Jared  

And I think it’s because she recognized like, that was not a healthy space for me to be in. Someone who is prone to needing to know things as an element of my need to control things. That was a really unhealthy space just to be around other people who praised and lauded, and everything was geared toward knowing more.

Pete  

Pete  

Who supported your dysfunction.

Jared  

Right, exactly celebrated my dysfunction.

Pete  

Your horrible coping mechanism 

Jared  

Which, I guess what you said, you know, sparked that thought of, “Yeah, once I got away from that, I started to see that my life, I wanted it to be more oriented toward loving.” And for me, a big mantra has been, “You can’t love and control at the same time.”

Pete  

Right. Exactly. 

Jared  

And so that was not a great environment that would have been conducive to learning to love better, because it really, it encouraged control. At least in the form that I was used to it, which was through knowledge, I had to know as much about the world. And what I mean, a lot of my Christianity was driven by like, “Well, if I need to be in control and know as much as I can, what’s better than knowing everything about God?” 

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

That’s like the highest award.

Pete  

Might as well get right to it. You Know?

Jared  

Right, exactly.

Pete  

And I went to—speaking of that—I went to seminary, and then to graduate school after that, because I wanted to know. And the thing is, there’s a way in which, that’s a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Jared  

Inherently, right. 

Pete  

But, it was many, many—I mean, I’m embarrassed to say—probably within the last 10-12 years when I’ve really come into touch with how, I think I know why I was driven to do that. And the control issue is very big with me. 

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

You know, I want to control everything. I want to control you right now, Jared.

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

And I am. Am I controlling you?

Jared  

Telepathically. 

Pete  

Yeah, right. 

Pete  

And of course, you know, control is an illusion, and learning that too, but the unknowing, the curiosity, and mystery is another big word. All those things come together for me where I’m like, you know—and like Jessie was saying, I feel….Like, I feel God’s presence at times. And I don’t try to think about it. You know, I don’t know, I just let it be and just, I don’t have to categorize it.

Jared  

By bypassing the function of control that you’re used to, which is that cognitive process.

Pete  

Which is a cognitive thing, and that’s not to get into left-right-brain-thing because that’s all…

Jared  

Another episode maybe? 

Pete  

Well, yeah. And that’s actually, you know, people don’t think there’s a left-right distinction anymore.

Pete  

But still just you know what I mean—That it’s, I think a lot of my journey of faith has been learning to honor my head and resist living in it, because that’s ego control and all that kind of stuff. So..And knowledge can do that it actually can disrupt your quest for knowledge.

Jared  

Right. 

Jared  

Right. 

Pete  

That happened in graduate school, too.

Jared  

Yep.

Pete  

Because it’s like, every question that you try to answer has 10 different answers, and any answer you have is going to elicit 10 more questions. So this is a bottomless pit. Now, for me, it’s fun. It’s curiosity. It’s like, I get to think about these things. And I don’t have to be—In fact, I know I’m wrong about a lot. I just don’t know what I’m wrong about. 

Jared  

Right. Exactly. Excellent. Well, that was a good quiet time.

Pete  

Yeah, it was a quiet time.

Jared  

It was.

Pete  

With Pete and Jared.

Jared  

Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you want to support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just want to give a little money, go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/give.

Pete  

And if you want to support us and want a community, classes, and other great resources, go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/join.

Jared  

And lastly, it always goes a long way. If you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others about our show.

Outro  

Thanks for listening to Faith for Normal People. Don’t forget you can also catch the latest episode of our other show, The Bible for Normal People, wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by The Bible for Normal People podcast team, Brittany Prescott, Savannah Locke, Stephanie Speight, Natalie Weyand, Stephen Henning, Tessa Stultz, Haley Warren, Nick Striegel, and Jessica Shao.

Outro  

Pete  

You guys have a complicated setup, which is good. 

Jessie  

Pete  

We’re just like pressing the button. And… 

Jared  

Yeah, we were just critiquing ourselves based on the videos we’re watching. Have y’all earlier. We were like, “Well, they got cameras set up here. And it’s like going back…”

Rhett  

Well see, here’s the thing though, once you….This happened a few years ago, but things got to a point where I can no longer, like I cannot do anything. They passed a level of complication where I could not operate anything in our studio. 

Jessie  

It was irreducibly complex.

Pete  

Good one. And therefore proof of God? Is that where you’re going with this?

Rhett  

Mhm, you see where I’m going. 

Pete  

Okay.