In this episode of Faith for Normal People, Pete and Jared talk with Erin Hicks Moon about growing up Southern Baptist and how she started rethinking parts of her faith, moving away from certainty and learning to embrace mystery. She shares her experience with deconstruction, the Bible, and how faith can still be meaningful even without having everything figured out. Join them as they explore the following questions:
Who is Erin Moon, and what is her background?
How did growing up Southern Baptist shape Erin’s faith and beliefs?
Where did Erin’s deconstruction journey begin?
Why do some people go through faith deconstruction while others stay content with their beliefs?
How can we navigate faith without certainty?
How can we rethink the role of prayer in the life of faith?
What does it mean to embrace mystery instead of seeking rigid theological answers?
Does Erin still consider herself a Christian?
How can we handle the tension between faith and the highly polarized cultural landscape?
What might be helpful for people struggling with doubt and uncertainty in their spiritual journey?
Quotables
Pithy, shareable, sometimes-less-than-280-character statements from the episode you can share.
“In almost every faith tradition, there are things that are good that can get weaponized. The community aspect was weaponized [in my tradition] in that you need to conform, you need to not ask questions, you need to just have faith. But we're really going to take care of you when your grandmother passes away. So it's both things. It's not all bad. It's not all good.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“We don't know what faith is. We don't understand what faith is. We want it to offer conclusiveness and authority to what we believe, where everything is just airtight.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever has perfect and correct theology will have eternal life.’ That's what we want it to be. There is a fear there of stepping out into something that is not solid, that there's mystery involved. Safety is so seductive almost to the point of you don't even know that you are being seduced by it.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“If you start asking questions and you are not in a community that honors that type of spirituality, you are immediately on the outside. And there are different degrees to which you can lose that community, but sometimes it is a devastation and you are completely alone. I get not wanting to give that up, but you have to reckon with the idea that these are people who don't love you at your fullest. They don't see you at your fullest. They don't allow you to be who you are. And so is that really community?” — Erin Hicks Moon
“The first time I ever really started to go, wait, hold on just a second, was in college. I was on the university leadership team at my church, and I found out that there was a secret guys-only Bible study. And so I went to our university minister and I [asked], can we get in? And he was like, ‘No, this is for the guys. If you want a woman to go through it with you, you can do that.’...Once I started pulling on that thread of—Wait, you don't like women, you see women as second class citizens—then [I thought] there's a lot more here that we need to uncover.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“I think I'm not the same kind of Christian that I thought you had to be.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“I do think that when Christianity is appropriately applied to society, it is a blessing to humanity. But so often we trip up. We all are trying to consolidate power and we're trying to get our team, whatever that looks like, in first place.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“I would still call myself a Christian. Because I would really love to retake that. Where it's not like this weird MAGA, “we're trying to consolidate political power” as it has turned into in the American version of Christianity. But I would really like us to go back to the simplicity of: yoke is easy, burden is light.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“I don't think God is surprised by the fact that we're humans. I just, something tells me that God is not surprised by that.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“The gifts of God, the way that God interacts with us, Jesus’s words, life, wisdom, all of it—is so much more radical and all encompassing than I could have ever imagined. I still don't have a handle on that.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“What I'm trying to do, and I definitely never do this perfectly or well at all, is to really follow the fruit. What is coming out of me? What kind of posture do I have that is good for the rest of humanity?” — Erin Hicks Moon
“What is my love for Christ doing in my life, in the life of the people that I'm around in the greater world? Does that make a difference? Does that speak to my salvation and the mercy that I experienced with God and the love that I experienced with God?” — Erin Hicks Moon
“If someone has certainty about their faith? Congratulations. That's a mirage. The thing that you have certainty in does not exist.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“What I want more than anything is not to be certain anymore. I did. I wanted to be correct. I wanted to be right. I wanted to have perfect lined-up theology. But it's more of a relationship between you and God in the world.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“Certainty is not available in any real way. What I can go on is the experiences that I've had, the Holy Spirit in me, my life, the people that I listen to, the people that I'm around, my friends, my family, my church. Certainty is fake and a lie. And when we can move past that desire to have everything set in stone…beyond that is something much richer that does not lay in a certainty of facts or ideas or anything like that. There's a mysticism in there. This is not something that can be contained. This is not something that can be boxed in.” — Erin Hicks Moon
“I'm frequently so surprised by Holy Spirit. I'm frequently so shocked by what I see of God in this world. But I had to put away the idea of certainty. I do know that beyond that desire to have that certainty, God wants to meet you in that.” — Erin Hicks Moon
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: March Class “Digging Up Dirt on Joshua” with Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
Books:
I’ve Got Questions: The Spiritual Practice of Having It Out with God by Erin Hicks Moon
Pre-order God’s Stories as told by God’s Children on Amazon in the US
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
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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: Well, folks, this is a very special promo for a truly amazing project we've been working on for over a year now at the Bible for Normal People.
Jared: It's been a while, but we're excited to tell you that you can now pre order our children's Bible, God's Stories, as told by God's children.
Pete: This illustrated storybook Bible is informed by biblical scholarship and contains stories from over 50–50 contributors ranging from biblical scholars and theologians to priests, pastors, and activists.
Jared: These writers represent diverse religious traditions, locations, and lived experiences, and importantly, the reason for this is that it mirrors the many voices we find in the Bible itself.
Pete: Inside the book, curious kids and their adults will find 58 stories from the Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and New Testament.
Jared: And this includes sidebar scrolls providing age appropriate historical, literary, and critical contextual information. Don't worry, those words themselves are probably not in the book, but that is what we're doing. As well as conversation starters that accompany each story, encouraging readers to add their voices to the conversations we find in the Bible.
Pete: With no underlying theological or denominational agenda, God's Stories, as told by God's children, allows parents to introduce children to their own beliefs and traditions in conversation with the stories found inside.
Jared: It goes on sale March 25th, 2025, just in time for Easter, but you can pre order it now on Amazon or at GodsStoriesBook.com.
Radically inclusive, informed by biblical scholarship, and deeply respectful of children's imagination and intelligence. God's stories as told by God's children is a storybook Bible. You wish you had when you were a kid.
[March class promo]
Jared: Hey everybody. Today on Faith for Normal People we're talking about disentangling faith with Erin Moon. Erin is a writer, podcaster, and storyteller who helps people disentangle faith by creating a kind and curious community that welcomes honest doubt and questions.
Pete: And she is the resident Bible scholar and host of the Faith Adjacent podcast and senior creative at Podcast Media Group. In addition, she is the author of the brand new book, I've Got Questions: The Spiritual Practice of Having It Out With God.
Jared: Which we talk about a little bit in the episode, so don't forget to stay tuned, um, also at the end of the episode for quiet time with Pete and myself. All right, folks, let's dive in.
[Music plays over teaser clip of Erin speaking]
Erin: “When we can kind of move past that desire to have everything set in stone, beyond that is something much richer that does not lay in a certainty of facts or ideas or anything like that. I'm frequently so shocked by what I, what I see of God in this world, but I had to put away the idea of certainty.”
[Intro music plays]
Pete: Well, Erin, it's good to have you here on the podcast.
Erin: Happy to be here.
Pete: We've been looking forward to this. And so the first question is—who is Erin Moon or more specifically, I'll let you answer the whole thing, more specifically like what's your background and how has that affected your faith journey? That's, that's a big question. We can go on for a long time about that.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, she's a former theater major. So, you know, really a, uh, in depth intellectual theologian. So that's important, obviously. Um, and my background is I was raised Southern Baptist. I was pickled in the brine of evangelical culture of the nineties and early aughts. And, um, you know, all of the things that that entails. Purity culture, See You At The Pole. Um, D Now, Hot Hearts, uh, a classic, um,
Pete: What is that? Hot Hearts?
Erin: Yeah.
Pete: I missed all that. What is that?
Erin: Did you? Jared, did you ever go to Hot Hearts?
Jared: Do we need to have a trigger warning at the beginning of this episode? You just dropped like nine things that might bring back some memories.
Pete: Our listeners are like, oh gosh.
Erin: Religious trauma. Yes, absolutely.
Jared: No, I didn't, I wasn't part of Hot Hearts. I missed that one.
Erin: You know, I think it was, uh, it was a, it was a purity culture kind of like, Hey, we're gonna, where are our hearts attuned to? Are they attuned to the Lord or, you know, making out with your boyfriend in the back of the truck? Um, that was kind of the vibe.
Jared: I'm a big fan of not either/or, I think it's a, you know, both/and. You know?
[Pete and Jared laughing]
Erin: Well, isn't that the thing? Don't you wish you had been told that when you were a child trying to make out with somebody in a truck? I wish I had been, frankly. Um, but yeah, I, I grew up in that. I attended the same church, uh, until I left the town I grew up in, uh, Canyon, Texas and uh, then I, when I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, I went to a Southern Baptist church and, um, I don't go to a Southern Baptist church anymore. Um, that was, you know, I wanted everything to really, as far as like how that impacted my faith, I really wanted everything to line up in a perfect Baptist faith and message kind of document style.
Like I wanted to check all the boxes and then all of a sudden that did not really hold up to any kind of scrutiny, um, as I went to college and as I started kind of, you know, reading other thinkers and not just doing John Piper Bible studies and that type of a thing.
And so, um, that's really, um, I, I, I'm a, I'm 100 percent a product of Southern Baptist culture. My mom's water broke on the third stanza of I Surrender All in our church. And so that, I mean, that was just such–
Pete: And so she did [laughing]
Erin: She'll love that I said that too. She'll be so excited.
Pete: Does she listen to our podcast?
Erin: [Sarcastically] Um, I, yeah, absolutely she does. She's a big, big podcast fan. Okay. Mm-hmm . Alright.
Jared: So yeah, say, say more about that in terms of kind of the culture. The Southern Baptist culture has molded you and shaped you. And sometimes I think we don't always give a lot of thought to how that continues to impact you in positive and negative ways, perhaps since you've moved on from that tradition, you're no longer a part of a Southern Baptist church, but like you said, in some ways, it's a little, it's a lot easier to take the woman out of the Southern Baptist than the Southern Baptist out of the woman.
So how does that, um, continue to impact you? Do you think in ways that maybe you want to hold on to that have been good or just maybe ways that aren't haven't been so good.
Erin: You know, I really–the, the community surrounding that faith tradition, that denomination, I think is, is a very powerful thing. Like you go to a Southern Baptist funeral and you're going to get fed.
You're going to get fed maybe for a month after that. Like the, there, there is something about that communal aspect that I think, um, Baptists do really well. And, and it's not always, um, without like, we need leverage over you about this a little bit. Um, but you know, I, I think that there is, there are so many things in almost all of the–
In almost every faith tradition, there are things that are so good that can get weaponized, depending on who's doing it, and I think that was really, you know, the community aspect was weaponized in that you need to conform, you need to not ask questions, you need to just have faith. And then it was also like, but we're really going to take care of you when your grandmother passes away.
And so, you know, it's, it's both things. It's, it's not all bad. It's not all good.
Jared: Okay. So maybe. Can we talk about why? Like given your experience and I think you have just like, similar to us, rubbed shoulders with and had lots of in depth conversations with people who have had–gone through a faith transition. Why do you in your, in your own experience, why do you think some people deconstruct their more conservative upbringing and others stay content with what they've inherited? What are, what are the threads that you've seen in your experiences in relationships?
Erin: Yeah. I think a lot of people, they, there's fear there. I mean, I remember reading The Sin Of Certainty, um, by this great writer and, uh, I remember going like, this is, this is exactly the, the whole vibe of like, we don't know what faith is.
We don't understand what faith is. We want it to offer that conclusiveness and that authority to what we believe and where everything is just airtight. Like, you don't like, okay, I've checked the boxes. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever has perfect and correct theology will have eternal life.
[Pete chuckles]
Like that's, that's what we want it to be. But I think there is a fear there of stepping out into something that is not solid, that there's mystery involved, that, um, that that safety is so seductive and almost to the point of you don't even know that you are being seduced by it, because it's just such a part. It's in, it's in the water, it's the David Foster Wallace thing, like what is water?
And, uh, I think some of that is fear. I think there's also the aspect of time. It feels like a really time intensive, mind intensive process that who knows when it's going to end? Spoiler alert–I don't think it does. But that, like, I'm also trying to raise three people. I also have to take people to the orthodontist and, you know, I'm, I'm trying to, I have a job. I have to take my car in to get the mechanics, but there's just so much going on. And I feel like that is. It feels overwhelming to look at that. Um, who has time?
Pete: It's like, you know, um, what we–teaching college students, for example, it's like the show up to campus and everything's in turmoil, the one thing they can count on is what their church told them.
Erin: Absolutely.
Pete: And then without even trying that sort of becomes problematic. And it's like, it's, it's sometimes it's too much, at least at first to go full steam ahead with that. And that's, I think that's understandable.
Erin: Well, Oh, 100%. I absolutely understand that. And I think the other thing is a loss of community.
There is once you start, if you start asking questions and you are not in a community that honors that type of spirituality, you are immediately on the outside. And there are different degrees to which you can lose that community, but sometimes it is, it is a devastation and you are completely alone. And I like, I get not wanting to give that up like thinking, but but also like you have to reckon with the idea that these are people who don't love you at your fullest.
They don't see you at your fullest. They don't allow you to be who you are. And so is that really community? I don't know.
Jared: And sometimes that just reminds me of, um, I was actually, um, preaching at a church in Ohio just this past weekend. And the hosts, we were having a conversation and that the, one of the heartbreaking things is that sometimes these folks who have questions and they're going to their community to ask these questions, they're afraid of their questions.
But they are told that they're a danger and like, there's probably, I can't imagine a more lonely feeling within a faith community than to think like, I'm afraid of myself right now. Like, I don't know what's happening. Where are these questions coming from? They're coming. I don't know where from. I wish they would go away.
Who's going to help me? And then by very, the very expression of those questions, there is no one to help you. They're just backing away from you and calling you dangerous and it's–
Erin: Calling you a heretic. Saying that you're backsliding, like all of these things. And it's an immediate label and it's an immediate ostracization.
Jared: Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm.
Pete: And sometimes it's like, yeah, bring us your questions. Oh, and, and here's the answer within two minutes and that's, um, I mean, that can have a different effect too I think long term on people like I, I. I can't be honest, I just, they're not, they're not itching where I'm scratching or scratching where I'm itching.
Jared: I've, um, I think I shared this in Love Matters More, but I used to, when I was a pastor, I taught a class, it's called For Skeptics Only, so only non Christians were allowed. And you could, you could always sniff out a Christian cause they always ask the most boring questions like
Erin: Pedantic, like.
Jared: Yeah, exactly. Like, so in the weeds, like really no one cares about that.
[Erin laughing]
Jared: But, um,
Pete: But in John 15:7…
Jared: So yeah, exactly. It's like, I really, I have a deep existential question about this one verse in First Peter. It's like, no, you don't. Um, so, but they, uh, this woman that was in my class, I usually go around and ask everybody like why they're there.
It was like a mega church. So most people were there because they were atheists or whatever, but it was a good family experience. They wanted their kids to grow up in the church. And so they didn't want to sit through a sermon. So we gave them this like alternative to just come and like, talk through their questions and stuff.
Erin: That’s cool.
Jared: Um, but one woman in particular, I asked, you know, her very innocently, like why you're there. And she just burst into tears. And it was because her parent–her family had told her she needed to be in that class because she was a skeptic. Because she was asking questions about evolution, like in her mind, she was a committed Christ follower who just had questions, but immediately her family were like, yeah, there's a place for you.
It's called For Skeptics Only, you need to like, go there to get straightened out. And it was like, oh my gosh. Like what an experience to again, be told that like, this place that's for non Christians, I know you think you're a Christian, but you need to go to this class.
Pete: Yeah. Need to be converted.
Jared: I want to tie this hearing your story of your faith transition to also maybe a question of how much of it do you think is, is personality and the way we approach?
Because I've seen a trend that people who go through these faith transitions are often the people who took their faith most seriously and most earnestly, um, rather than the people who didn't seem to be like, oh, it plays this role in my life. And I just, it's, you know, it doesn't grip me the way that it does other people for whatever reason.
And so I don't go down the path where I end up asking these questions.
Erin: Yeah.
Jared: Um, but for you kind of, where do you fit in that, in your story?
Erin: I think, you know, the first time I ever really started to go, wait, hold on just a second, was in college and I was on the university leadership team at my church.
And, there were three girls on the leadership team, the rest were guys. And I found out that there was a secret guys only Bible study, Bible study, and let me put that in big time quotations because they were doing systematic theology by Wayne Grudem, and, but, you know, at the time I was like, well, I want, I want to be in on that, like, I want to, I want to learn about systematic theology.
And so I went. We went to our university minister and he, I was like, we didn't know that this was going on. Like, can we get in? And he was like, no, this is, this is for the guys. Like, if you want a woman to go through it with you, you can do that. But this is for the guys. And I was like, okay, well, we will, thank you so much.
And, you know, but it was, it was this like, wait, hold on. You, you really do think that women don't need to know this. You really don't think that this is a topic that should be of interest to women. And so that was really kind of the first time that I was like, wait, hold on.
And then my childhood pastor, who I adore, um, Brother Jim, we still talk, he's a precious baby angel, um, but he–we kind of reconnected, um, maybe like 10 years ago and he was like, “Hey, I need to tell you that like I'm affirming now. And I'm like, women, yes, love them.” And it was so startling to me to hear his story, his own story of deconstruction. The man's in his eighties. Like there's, there is, that was so powerful to me to hear someone walk through the process of, some of this is not lining up the way the teachings are going versus how we're living this out. And let's, let's unpack some of that and how it changed the way he worshiped, how it changed the church that he goes to, how it changed his preaching. I mean, that was, that was a really powerful thing for me.
As far as personality goes, I, I, I'm like a weird bulldog. Like I want, I'm, I'm, I want to know the answers to things. I really, I would love to be correct. And I would love to be right. Um, and some of that, that, and that's kind of where I started. I was like, I need to fix these beliefs and make them right.
And I, I think part of it is, hey, you need to come to terms with the fact that you don't know everything and you're going to be wrong and that's just how it is. And there are things that you can't possibly know. Um, but that's really kind of how it started for me.
Jared: So some of the things you're talking about could be chalked up as, you know, those are just traditions within like a Southern Baptist framework of, hey, you know, guys in a Bible study like that go to the text and you're not going to find that kind of thing. But there are, we come, it seems like a lot of us come to a point where we start getting into the text itself of scripture, of the Bible, and it starts getting to be problematic and, or the presentation of who God is in the text or how we experience the world, kind of, is at odds with our view of God. And you talk in your book about kind of contending with God and some, at some point it comes to like, I'm contending with the text. I'm contending with God not just uh, these traditions and how they've gotten it all wrong.
So what were some of those things that were more, I don't wanna say deeper, but they kind of cut more to the core of the faith where it was sort of like, yeah, I can question these traditions that are kind of superficial, but then I start looking at the text and saying, oh, even there, there's maybe some things that are shaking this foundation of certainty for me a little bit.
Erin: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, once for me, once I started pulling on that thread, the whole sweater just started to come undone. And, you know, soon it was biblical inerrancy. Can we, is that a thing? It was created by somebody who drove a Ford Pinto. Like, I don't think that that's–that's not something that's a, that's a real thing that's a tradition, but it's been set up as a tradition.
Pete: Is that true? A Ford Pinto?
Erin: No, I don't know specifically.
Pete: Okay, cause I was really like, wow!
Jared: You've really, you've really done your research.
Pete: That's pretty recent.
Jared: A Ford Pinto.
Erin: But I mean, that was the thing. It was like, oh, we came up with this in the seventies. Like this isn't a deep ecumenical tradition that we've been doing since, you know, Athanasius, that's not a, that's not a thing. Um, and I think really, Richard Hayes. When I started reading, uh, the Moral Vision for the New Testament and that understanding of like a narrative interpretation of scripture versus a more literal one, like adjusted my perspective on so many things, so many things made more logical sense, uh, faith sense to me, like I felt Holy Spirit in them as opposed to this, is the Bible a checklist or a manual for life?
And if not, how the hell do we read it? Um, you know, I wanted to know, like, I looked around and I was like, I don't even think Christianity is a moral good. Like pretty much everybody sucks. Um, and so these types of things, I, I was like, once I started pulling on that thread of–wait, you don't. You don't like women. You see women as a second class citizen. Like, then it was like, Oh, okay. There's a lot more here that we need to uncover.
[Midroll music plays]
Jared: So the slippery slope is real is what you're saying.
Erin: [Laughing] It is so real, 100%.
Jared: If you question the second class citizenship of women, you will inevitably question inerrancy. That's what I hear you saying.
Pete: If you're on the wrong slope, the slippery slope is a good thing to have.
Erin: Absolutely.
Pete: Careening down, hit a wall at the bottom, pick yourself up again, find another hill.
Erin: There are, there are worse things than going down a slope, certain slopes. So–
Jared: Where are you, where have you landed for now? Um, I didn't even, I shouldn't even use the word landed, but your, your slippery slope made me think of landing somewhere. So I'm, I'm passing that off on Pete. That's his fault.
Pete: Where is your slide slowed down?
Jared: Yeah, just, I mean, I mean, really it is a question for, I think a lot of people, and this is maybe a vulnerable question to ask you, but are you still a Christian? You know, why or why not? Like what? Where has this led in your journey?
Erin: Well, I think I'm not the same kind of Christian that I thought you had to be.
Um, and there might be some versions of Christianity that would take umbrage with the fact that I'm calling myself a Christian. Um, but yes, I 100 percent believe that an honest and faithful interpretation of scripture coupled with attentiveness to Holy Spirit and the fruits that people are, you know, offering to the world that the claims of Jesus are like the most radical ideas that we can actually live out.
Um. And I, I, I do think that when Christianity is appropriately applied to society, it's, it is a blessing to humanity, but so often we trip up, I mean, all the time, I mean, I do it, we all do it, we all are, you know, trying to consolidate power and we're trying to, you know, get, get our team, whatever that looks like, um, in first place.
I, and this has been true for me since I was eight, but I like really love Jesus in a weird way. Like if, if, if, if we talked about like Helen of Troy, the way I talk about, like how, the way I feel about Jesus, like that would be weird. Um, and, and I don't, I don't, you know, I don't know him physically, but, when I was eight, I was like, this guy rules.
He was big into snacks and I really appreciated that. And he was also like, if you're mean to kids, I think you should tie a rock around your neck and drown in the ocean. And I was like, more people should listen to that because I agree. You know, it just, it didn't, it, it felt very yoke is easy burden is light.
And I think we have really tried to make it so freaking complicated and we have done the same thing that, you know, we've put guardrails and guidelines and all of these things around it when it is really very, like, there's a very simple way to love God. There are a million ways to love God.
And, but yeah, I think I, I, I desperately want Christians to be Christians, to not get distracted by the S word that, you know, is there to, to steal and kill and destroy. I think that is, we, we just get, we, we find ourselves so turned the opposite direction of, I think where Jesus is pointing. And because it's, because everything.
Because it's so hard to die to self, and it's so hard to, to genuinely love people and love God as you, you know, and love your neighbor as yourself. Like, it's really hard to do that. And so, we like to distract ourselves with the shiny things of Christianity. So, yes, I am still a Christian. I would still call myself a Christian.
Because I would really love to kind of retake that. And where it's not like this weird MAGA. Like, we're trying to consolidate political power as it has turned into in the American version of Christianity. But I would really like, I would really like us to go back to the simplicity of yoke is easy burden is light.
Pete: You know, one thing, I mean, there's a lot that you just said that I think is interesting and really important to talk about. And one thing that strikes me is you've had an experience of Christ. I'll be it at eight, it doesn't matter, you know, and continually so and, and, um, maybe you know, some would say an awareness, just, just, just an existential experiential awareness of God.
And that's the very thing that I think your tradition and others like it would say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. It's not, it's not your experience. It's not your intuition. It's not your sense of truth. It's, um, an objective documented reality, namely the Bible. And that's–that's the only sure way of staying down the right path.
So, you know, frankly, I can hear them saying, young lady, uh, I don't care about your experience at all. It doesn't matter. What matters is right theology. And that's what the men have to teach you.
Erin: Right, exactly.
Pete: Yeah. I mean, I'm not trying to be too facetious here, but I think that's the train of thought that you hear.
Right. And, and our experiences is derailed. Our humanity is derailed of our experiences.
Erin: And I don't think God is surprised by the fact that we're humans. I just, something tells me that God is not surprised by that. But I think part of that is also, in my particular tradition, it was like, there's a Trinity, sure, but we don't talk about Holy Spirit.
Like, because one, your heart is evil, everything, like your mind is going to distract you. There is nothing good in you. You are like dirty rags, that type of a thing, but also you have Holy Spirit in you. So I guess good luck figuring out where that line is.
Pete: I thought the Holy Spirit just inspired the Bible and then hung out. Like I'm done.
Jared: Really? I just, I always grew up thinking the Holy Spirit was just your guilty conscience. That's the only time it's like, oh, I feel bad. That must be the Holy Spirit.
Pete: If you feel good.
Jared: Yeah.
Pete: What’s going on, Jared.
Jared: Exactly.
Erin: Right. Exactly. Or that there's even any kind of communion with the spirit.
Like that was never, it was like, please don't, please don't look at Holy Spirit. It makes us very nervous because that's, that feels open to interpretation. And that's really terrifying for people who have built a system that is very guidelined it out. You know what I mean?
Jared: It's so interesting. I just now had this thought, though, um, I grew up part Southern Baptist and, you know, my dad was Southern Baptist, my mom charismatic. So we grew up with a, a very distinct understanding of the Holy Spirit, which was like slain in the spirit. And like emotion, sort of like emotionless Christianity was kind of infantile Christianity. And when you matured, you matured into an emotionally deep Christianity. But it's interesting because the framework was still very fundamentalist and inerrant.
So what it ended up having to be was that the Bible, the interpretive lens through which we read the Bible became very metaphorical so that it could make room for these emotional experiences and kind of prophetic, uh, utterances that like told the future. So it really, the Bible did become much more of a, this enigmatic, like puzzling problem that you had to solve a sort of the Rubik's cube of, um, you know, and when you unlock the code, I literally had a book called The Bible Code.
And when you, and when you unlock it, then you unlock these deep, uh, mystical, emotional experiences.
Pete: Is that more of the Baptist side or?
Jared: No, that's the charismatic.
Pete: That's the charismatic side. Okay.
Jared: So anyway, just, it was interesting that the spirit. It was sort of one extreme of the other. Either the spirit is just your guilty conscience, or the spirit is this highly individualized, almost ecstatic emotional experience that you get to have with God.
But it wasn't communal. The idea of the spirit working in and through a community of faith. Would have been pretty foreign.
Erin: Oh, yeah, cuz you hear you hear people say all the time “Oh Holy Spirit said this to me” and then you know on the other side of the argument, “Well, Holy Spirit said this to me” and so it just it feels so subjective and that is really scary to Southern Baptists, let me just tell you.
Jared: How do you navigate coming to a place where it seems like a lot, some of your faith shifted as you learned about what the Bible is and how it functions. And I guess I'm, I struggle sometimes figuring out how not to be a hypocrite, where it is on the one hand, I want to open it up to individual experiences.
And to your point, Pete, of like, there is maybe a reasonable argument to be made to like, well we can't just completely lean into that because, then we end up with just conspiracy theories where we're just like following gut instinct.
And so how do you navigate that? Especially kind of in the political landscape that we find ourselves, or maybe social is a better word, the social landscape that we find ourselves where it's like, yeah, on this one side, I want to double down on the, like, I don't know, the scientific methods pretty great guys, and then on the other side, it's like, but I want to allow room for experience and emotion to actually take a place that matters.
Erin: Well, for me, it was, I don't know how to pray. I don't know how to, what am I doing when I'm praying? You know, you, I, I grew up with the ACTS method, you know, here, we're going to, we're going to outline this. We're going to go through these steps and then you've prayed. Congratulations. You did your 20 minutes of Oswald Chambers. You can go now.
And when I was like, I really, I really want these, this connection with God, I long for it. I want it. It's past intellectualism. It's like, I want faith, real faith. And that was for me kind of leaning into prayer as a lifestyle, I guess, sort of like just a continual conversation with God, looking for God and all of these things and my day to day and the mundane, and then looking at what was bearing fruit.
Like what was, you know, bearing fruits of the spirit. That is to me, I hate to use the phrase litmus test, but that's as good as I can do, frankly, I don't know how to do any better than that. If I see those fruits in you, then I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to walk this way. If we're not talking about that, if something else is coming out, if we have a posture of the anti-fruits of the spirit, I, I don't want to look at that anymore. That's not something that I'm interested in. And so the, the, the, I, and, and what that did to me was realize, it helped me realize that God, the gifts of God, the way that God interacts with us, Jesus words, life, wisdom, all of it is so much more radical and all encompassing than I could have ever, and I, that I can imagine, I, I still don't, I don't have a handle on that.
It's so rich and it is so massive and so counter cultural that it was, I was like, oh no, this is, this is a, this is a God vision for me. Like this is what, this is what makes sense to me. If God is God and Jesus is who Jesus says he is, then this all encompassing radical mercy is, that's what I'm going to walk towards.
Pete: Yeah. So just, I mean, um, you mentioned something just, just now, um, that's interesting. Other people say it too. Prayer. It's difficult. It's, it's not easy. You know, it's a struggle and you have to go through the paces and all kinds of stuff, but you seem to have at least come to some peace with the idea of, um, an all the time kind of thing.
Is that what you said? Something like, could you just unpack that a little bit? Because I think that's a very interesting concept.
Erin: I think for a very long time, I saw faith as something that happened in very specific places. Um, God was in church, God was at my small group, you know, it was, it was very boxed in. And when I, when I wanted to, I think when I wanted to kind of reach for something different that was not so checkboxy, not so–everybody in their right space and I don't want, I don't want any of this to bleed over here. I don't want my food touching. Um, that was, that was more of a, where is God working already? And how can I plug into it?
Not what can I do? What can, you know, what can I bring to the table? No, God is already working in so many ways. And where, where can I see that? Where can I, you know, where can I step into what he's already doing? Um, and that to me, the prayer is just that lifestyle that, that I'm trying to always trying to keep the connection with God, that's what I want to do. Um, I don't do it well, but that's the, that's the hope.
Pete: It's like seeking. I mean, seeking awareness and it was one way of putting, I think what you're saying. I remember, uh, years ago speaking with a spiritual advisor, just, he was a friend of mine, but, uh, we were talking and I mentioned how much I like going out and splitting wood.
And like, I really like it. I just, it feels like a right thing to do. And he said, you need to look at that. Like maybe, maybe those are these God awareness moments or something about that activity where you actually find God. Now I hate splitting wood now. I don't know how that works, but, um…
Erin: You’re growing, you're changing, you're evolving.
Pete: I feel God when I watch Netflix for six hours at a time. My faith is evolving or devolving one of the other, but, but yeah, I, I think that, um, I like that concept and I think a lot of people that I know have sort of gone down a similar path or journey and thinking of prayer not as this mechanical thing.
I don't know about you, but every time I try practicing some like, um, a liturgy or something. It's like, it's really great for a short time. And then it's like, I'm just doing this again. And it's not, it doesn't work. And then I've learned to say, God doesn't hate me. I'm not being faithless. I'm actually being in tune to what's happening and what's not happening.
Erin: Yeah. And I think that's so important.
I mean, I think to your point about splitting wood, there are so many ways to connect with God. God has put so much into each of us to where we feel alive and we feel loved and we, there's an outpouring of that love that comes out of us. I mean, my, uh, my daughter, she is like, this is so weird, but she's like a volunteer nut.
Like she just loves to–she, she told me that she's like, I just love volunteering in my community, but I mean, that is, that is a place where she feels alive and she feels connected to God and she, and I think there are a million ways that God has placed in the world for us to be connected with God. But we've, we've, we only want it to be the spiritual disciplines.
We only want it to be, you know, charity and those things are good, but they're not everything.
Jared: Well, I think there's an institutional side to that, which is, it's interesting that, I mean, not to be too cynical, but sort of the endorsed activities of godliness are also those that help prop up the institutions.
Erin: What? That's crazy.
Jared: I know. Right. I'm crazy. Nevermind. Nevermind. I'm way off base,
Pete: You’re just nuts, Jared.
Jared: But the other side of it, so that, that's kind of my one side of the analysis, but the other side, I think, goes back to what you said earlier, Erin, about, yoke is easy and burden is light. And for me, like that does not compute with what Christian–Christianity is supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be boring. It's supposed to be difficult.
And I think it comes down to not to kind of get to root cause analysis, but I think some of it comes from this anthropology or kind of study of who we are, that sort of is like opposed to God. And so like, so to follow our own, our body and our, our minds and our intuitions about what feels good to us is like anathema.
That's the exact opposite of what you should do if you want to be godly, because there's this dichotomy of the flesh and the spirit and we are the flesh. Um, and God is the spirit. And so anything that we would naturally want to do can't be of God. And so that just is so like, messed up.
Pete: Like eat.
Jared: Um, yeah, exactly.
Pete: That's. Right.
Jared: What you don't fast once a month for 30 days? That's what I do. Don't do that. Yeah. So anyway, just maybe connecting those dots of. You know, and maybe it's a question to you too, because I think for a lot of people, this idea of spirit, this idea of, of, um, yoke is easy, burden is light, this idea of following those activities where we're praying all the time and finding the good and the God in what's already happening is a major shift in how we think about theology and God.
And I don't know if you had that experience too, of more of an embodied faith where you, you aren't so divided where it's sort of like spirit, good and spirit is all those things we do at church. And when we're in this space doing those things and flesh is bad. And that's whenever I'm doing this, like, how did you come?
And I think as a woman in particular, Those messages are maybe even more harmful. So how how did you connect those dots?
Erin: Well, I am a survivor of purity culture, so color me surprised that I even had a body. Uh, but also please don't let your breath–
Jared: I was gonna say it was a stumbling block. You knew you had a body early on.
Erin: 100% like, you know, don't make anyone else stumble. Uh, think about your brothers. Um, and that was, that was so, and it is still so deeply ingrained in me. I, I, I am still surprised that I have a body and I, something that, that I remember happening was I started, I started taking yoga at the YMCA. And that was like the first thing that I did when I was an adult on my own.
I got a gym membership, like a big girl. And I was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to do the thing. And then. Someone that I previously really respected, Albert Mohler, was like, by the way, the thing that you're doing is heretical. It's demonic and, but, but I had felt so connected with God while I was doing it while I was moving my body while I was, while I was being in my body and thinking about God and just, I was, I was like, no, that's not, that's not true, but, but that's how we've, we, there is no attachment to your body in those spaces.
Because like you're saying, you're a dirty rag, like you're disgusting. God hates you. Thank God, we have Jesus. Otherwise you'd be blown to hell and back, you know, just from standing. And while there are aspects of that, that may or may not be true. I think we forget that God gave us our bodies. God gave us our bodies, put our brains and our belief systems in our bodies.
And that's how God wants us. Christ wants us to be his body. And so I, I can't, that was so hard and it's still really hard for me to be comfortable, um, talking about that because you just, you, you don't want to be a distraction to anyone. You don't want to cause anyone to stumble. You, you don't want to do that, but also your body is good. And the faith that you find in it is also really good.
Pete: I'm interested in something, um, Erin, your comments on, um, you just mentioned Al Mohler that made me think of it, nothing personal against him. But, um…
Erin: Meh.
Pete: You know, how–Well, that's, that's, that's your issue. Sort of, sort of mine, but not really, um, how, like how to be Christian in just a highly polarized culture that we live in and what does that look like? And um, you know, how can we contribute to not being polarizing figures, but still standing ground in matters of justice and righteousness?
Erin: I don't know. I think for, for lots of reasons, that is a polarizing position to stand for justice or to, um, to, to not kind of fall into the quote unquote traditional, which who gets to decide what's traditional, but…
I think that is a polarizing thing just on its own just because of the climate that we're in and so I think what I'm trying to do and I definitely never do this perfectly or well at all, but is to really follow the fruit. What is being, what is coming out of me? What kind of posture do I have that is good for the rest of humanity? That is showing the things that I love and that's what's coming out in my actions or my beliefs or my ideologies and that type of the thing. I, I don't, I don't know if that can not be polarizing anymore. Um, I, I, I wish it could. I mean, I think about the difference between like a Jimmy Carter Christianity and a Trumpian Christianity.
Like those are very different. And there are people who are discussing whether or not Jimmy Carter is a Christian, if he is in heaven, because he was not, he did not fall under the assumption under what is assumed to be quote unquote American Christianity. And so I, I don't, I don't know if it can't be–if it can be not polarizing.
Pete: Right.
Erin: I, I wish it, I wish it wasn't, but what I'm trying to do is not worry about that and worry more about what am, what is my love for Christ, what is that doing in my life, in the life of the people that I'm around in the greater world? Does that make a difference? Does that, does that, does that like speak to my salvation and the mercy that I experienced with God and the love that I experienced with God?
I want that for the, I want that to come out and I think if that's polarizing, then I I guess we're gonna have to be polarizing.
Jared: What I hear is not so much trying not to be polarizing, but trying to have a North Star for yourself that you can have integrity behind and kind of move toward, despite all of the noise and everything else.
Erin: Yeah, I think we can only do the best that we can do. And, you know, if, and if these are, if this is what we've been given, if the book of nature, if the, if scripture, you know, other people, all of the, you know, prayer, Holy spirit, all of these things, like we have to cobble together the best we know how and that can often be, it can often piss people off.
Jared: How do you, maybe this is a, maybe a, a final question as we, as we sign off here, um, how do you do that?
[Pete and Erin laughing]
Cause I think again, a lot of, a lot of our listeners–
Pete: How do you do life, Erin?
Jared: All right. Let me finish. I'm just kidding. Um. How do you, how do you, you're talking with such passion and conviction and there, I, I think I can see kind of in your, in your eyes, like there's a particular vision you're moving toward, which I think is very inspiring.
How do you do that without certainty? Right, because I think for a lot of people it's sort of like, well, I can't get to that kind of confidence or that kind of vision for my life without certainty that I'm going on that path or without some sort of certain knowledge or certain understanding of who God is.
And I think there's a lot of people who've kind of got that rug pulled out from under them. And they're just, they're waiting for the day where they can have that confidence and have that vision. So how do you have conviction in that way, while also on a path that maybe says there isn't a lot of certainty left.
Erin: I think for me, I go back to, I believe. Help my unbelief. I go back to this, like, there is like, we can, if, if someone has certainty about their faith, congratulations. That's a mirage.
Like you, you, the thing that you have certainty in does not exist. And I, what I want more than anything is not to be certain anymore. I did, I wanted to be correct. I wanted to be right. I wanted to, you know, have perfect lined up theology. But I think it's more of a, it's more of a relation, so stupid, but it's more of a relationship between you and God in the world.
Jared: Not a religion. It's a relationship. We're coming. We're coming full circle, Erin. Full circle.
Erin: You got to deconstruct your deconstruction at some point, you know, um, but there is, there is truth to that. You're not going, it's just not, it's not available. Certainty is not available in any real way.
And so what I can go on is the experiences that I've had, the Holy Spirit in me, my life, the people that I listened to, the people that I'm around, my friends, my family, my church, whatever. I think we just, there is–certainty is fake and a lie. And when we can kind of move past that, that desire to have everything set in stone and to beat the level and save the princess and, you know, fight the last boss and get all the points.
There, beyond that is something much richer that does not lay in a certainty of facts or ideas or anything like that, but there's, there's a mysticism in there. There's a, this is, this is not of, this is not something that can be contained. This is not something that can be boxed in and I'm frequently so surprised by Holy Spirit.
I'm frequently so shocked by what I, what I see of of God in this world, but I had to put away the idea of certainty, the idea of, you know, this is right, a, b, and c, and d, e, and f are wrong because that's, that doesn't hold up under scrutiny at all. And so I don't, I don't know that I have like an answer, but I do know that beyond that, beyond that desire to, to have that certainty, God wants to meet you in that.
I truly do believe that. And it, it goes beyond intellectualism. It goes beyond all of the things that we want the guardrails. And it's just so much bigger and so much more powerful than I think we can even begin to understand. And so I just go back to that. I believe, but also like, help me because I don't.
And I think, I think that's the tension that, that we all live in. That's really hard to live in.
Pete: Well, thank you, Erin, very much for being here. We had a great time. It's been a long time in coming. And glad you could carve out some time for us.
Erin: Well, thank you for having me. I, I love you guys. I've listened to you for forever.
So this was just a delight for me. Thank you.
Jared: Same here.
[Quiet Time music plays]
Jared: And now for quiet time…
Pete: With Pete and Jared. Well, you know, Jared, with this, uh, wonderful chance to talk with Erin, uh, anything hit you from this? I have a few things.
Jared: Yeah, I mean of course the first thing that stands out is a couple of times and especially it stood out at the end. She talked about mysticism and that's been something that we've talked about a couple of times in the way she talked about it actually reminded me of a Rumi quote who was a Sufi Islamic mystic
Pete: dude.
Jared: Yeah and it says, “Beyond right and wrong, there's a field. I'll meet you there” and the idea of meeting people in a place that's beyond the calculation of theology where we're keeping score. Who's better at it? Who's more right? Who's not maybe beyond that? We can meet together and start having more productive conversations.
So I like that tied to the idea of mysticism. It doesn't feel so woo-woo, but feels more pragmatic. Like, can we move beyond some of these conversations?
Pete: It’s an acknowledgement of all of our human limitations. We're talking about things and trying to come up with like finally, right. So, so for me, that's, that is what, that's what mystery sort of, or mysticism sort of means for me anyway.
It's just, it's acknowledging that especially if the topic is like ultimate reality or God. You know, or the meaning of life, stuff like that. Those are huge questions. And we do the best we can without, um, the, the, what a systematic theology would do. I, I was thinking of the word, the alchemy of our systems, you know, sometimes it's like.
Jared: [Laughing] The alchemy of systematic theology.
Pete: We kid ourselves into thinking we can make gold out of iron or something. So, um, but that isn't to say that our energies and trying to articulate concepts and think through them is a waste of time. It most certainly is not. It's just not the final word.
And I've, I've had this analogy I've used for years and not a lot of people like it, but it's like, our theologies is like, we're, we're, we're drawing a picture at the age of two with crayons.
And we're showing it to our parents and they say, oh, that's a great cow. It's a ship. Like, you know, we can't really quite remember, but it's adorable. You know, it's adorable that they're trying so hard and, and, you know, the child doesn't understand the inner life of the parent. It's just, it doesn't work that way, so–
Jared: Well, and what you said makes me think of two things. One is recognizing our pursuit of, uh, our Christian faith. Sometimes we think of it as the goal is to get across a finish line. And that's the kind of the, the point. Rather than saying, maybe part of the point is more like going to the gym where you're getting stronger, but the point is the process.
Um, and so sometimes I wonder if we maybe can shift how we think about that. And I think that's maybe like more of a quote, mystical move in the city, in the way we're talking about it.
Pete: Yeah. And, and, um, I agree with that. The, the, the thing that always comes up though, is that the Bible has some finish line language.
Well done, the good and faithful servant, right? You've done it, finished the race. It's over now. And, but if we, if we see those things as, um, contextually meaningful metaphors at a particular time, maybe not the only way to think about things. And of course, this always brings us back to what is the Bible and what do we do with it, right?
But, but it's true, you know, so, and that's part of the tradition, the tradition, it, it keeps being translated and, and, and moving and transforming. While holding, it's still a tradition that's still holding on, but it's also going to places that the tradition itself didn't.
Jared: Right. And that was kind of my second point too, is when we think about our work, thinking about God and the work of theology and the work of trying to express our, our Christian faith.
Um, in the world, I also think about, um, you know, with your, with your crayon analogy, I think about it too, in a more serious way, as we try to study God or try to understand the divine in a similar way that we try to understand the universe, like the scientific process that we go through, which is where we, it's not like we're not doing anything productive.
We are moving in a certain direction, perhaps the more you're involved in that, the more you recognize there's always more questions. Being at being one of the smartest people on earth as like a astrophysicist, you still have questions because there still are–because in the same way that God is this very difficult concept to put your arms around, so is the universe.
And so it's like, what do you mean you can–You know, I, I guess that there's, there's a similarity for me in terms of the process of gaining knowledge and the humility that comes along with it as you gain that knowledge. That you just start to see complexity behind complexity and the answers are not easy to come by.
In these fields, and we're talking about things that are so big
Pete: and, and there's, um, the provisional conclusions we come to are helpful, right? Like, it's okay to say gravity pulls me down to the earth.
Jared: Which isn't technically correct.
Pete: It's, it's incorrect. But that's okay. You know, and it's, it's, to me, it's similar to looking up and saying God is up someplace, even though that's, we can't do that either, but it's still a meaningful thing as long as we realize that these are placeholder concepts.
Jared: Well, and maybe I thought where you were going to go is maybe the point is to look at the fruits, like what Erin was saying.
Pete: Right.
Jared: So like with gravity, it's sort of like. In science, a lot of these are practical, asking, does it work? Does it solve problems that we're facing? Does it help us figure things out?
And I think in theology, that needs to be more of a litmus test. Like, is it working? Is it producing the fruit of the Christian faith? Because if not, like we gotta go back and we gotta have some different hypotheses here.
Pete: Yeah. Our theologies don't always do that.
Jared: Right.
Pete: Yeah.
[Outro music plays]
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.
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Jared: And lastly, it goes a long way if you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others about our show. In addition, you can let us know what you thought about the episode by emailing us at info@thebiblefornormalpeople.com.
Stephen: You've just made it through another episode of Faith for Normal People.
Don't forget you can catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible For Normal People Team, Brittany Hodge, Stephen Henning, Joel Limbowen, Savannah Locke, Melissa Yando, Tessa Stoltz, Danny Wong, Lauren O'Connell and Naomi Gonzalez.
[Outro music ends]
[Blooper beep plays]
Jared: Yeah, exactly. Some of it is making out in the van
Erin: In the back of the truck. Okay. That's all I wanted to do.
Jared: Exactly.
Pete: Of course. A truck.
Erin: It's absolutely a truck.
Pete: Gosh, people. How about a Prius for heaven's sake.
Erin: Oh, there are no Priuses where we grew up. Not a chance.
Jared: That's right.
