Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 227: Link's Spiritual Deconstruction | Ear Biscuits Ep.227

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

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Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, it's part four of, I think what we're calling four total episodes in our Lost Years slash Spiritual Journey series. I hope we're calling it four parts if it is part four. Well, there may be other parts. I mean, that's what I was getting at.

So in part one and two, we discuss what happened externally between college and becoming YouTubers. And then in parts three, you discussed what happened more internally with you in terms of your spiritual deconstruction. And here we are at part four, it's my turn to spill my guts. And I'm gonna spew my guts all over these notes I've taken

because yeah, just like you, I really, I wanted to, this is a great exercise for me to organize my thoughts. I think as I share, I think there'll be elements of it that I'm still, it'll be kind of obvious that I'm still processing. So I think it's been a very, it's been very good for me to prep for this episode. I feel emotional, I think just in general,

and also nervous to share. Well, you know, before you get into it, I will say that having shared first, I mean, the thing I told Jesse when I got home is like, I was like, man, I just feel like this giant weight has been lifted off of me, you know, like, because it's- Because we talked about it?

Well, it's just, I feel like there's this story that I've had that is so personal and you kind of carry it around and you know how much it has impacted who you are, but you know how kind of touchy it is to talk about it. And to just get it out there, like I started realizing how much emotion I had kind of attached to it,

but it was actually more kind of after I had done it that it sort of like kind of released a little bit. Did you weep in the shower? I don't remember weeping. But no, it's just, yeah, what I'm getting at is. But you did take a shower. It is super emotional. And I will say also that, you know,

a bunch of you are already kinda using hashtag Ear Biscuits. Twitter's probably the best place. That's where, you know. Yeah, thanks for sharing your responses. That's the easiest way to kind of find what people are thinking and how people are processing. We've been reading some people's stories and a lot of people have clarifying questions and I think.

Yeah, if you got follow up questions for us, hashtag your questions. Yeah, so if that's. If you just wanna share your experience or your response. If something comes up in the middle of Link's story, it's like pause it, write that question down. We want your questions.

We're not trying to like close the book on this process. We don't know how often we're gonna revisit this subject, but it now is a part of what we're doing on Ear Biscuits. So we want this to be an ongoing discussion. We are still in process. Yeah. And we want you to be a part of that, so. And also I wanna thank you for sharing these episodes,

this particular series with people that you think it will resonate with or it becomes grounds for conversations with friends or former friends or whatever your situation is. Thanks for sharing what we're doing here with people. So that means a lot to us too. All right, let me get into it.

I think I was trying to figure out why I was so nervous and Christy really helped me process this and I think it's that I don't wanna disappoint people. For some reason, I mean, not only dedicated Mythical Beasts who may find out that my beliefs don't align with theirs, but also my friends, both past and present, and my extended family. I mean, this is not something that I've,

there's been an occasion for me to discuss this with them. You know, and I just, because I just didn't want, I don't wanna disappoint them, you know? So one thing I wanna say, I don't intend to, and I hope that no one listening feels implicated in my story. I'm grateful for the path that I've taken, for the pain and the joy and the mistakes

and the thrills associated with it because I don't think there was any other way for me to get to here. And I know that I'm extremely fortunate because I know that there's so many people who've had deeply traumatic experiences associated with their own spiritual journeys. is associated with their own spiritual journeys.

So I'm grateful, I'm still in process and this is my story up to this point and I am gonna go back. I wanna start by telling a couple of stories just to give you snapshots of, just to help you snapshots of, just to help you feel what it was like to be me growing up in an evangelical Christian environment. So I'll just go ahead and get into the first story.

In 1988, I was 10 years old, and Buies Creek First Baptist Church, the church that I'd gone to my entire life. I didn't have any memories of not going to this church. It's also the church that you started going to and with your family when you moved here in first grade. They were holding a revival, which is a series of nights where you get together

and there's speakers and it gets real. Didn't happen all the time, but it did happen this year and it was called Contact 88. And the T-shirt. Oh, it was red with like a cool 80s font. Contact 88, it seemed more like it was about like extraterrestrials getting to know us.

Right. But it was really about making contact with God, I think. And an Irish guy. Was he not Scottish or was he Irish? Well, as you know, I'm trying to blur the lines between those two things these days. In my memory, the dude is Scottish. Okay, Scottish.

So this preacher that came in from out of town, I guess way out of town, was preaching at least on this last night, like the culmination night, this is the big one. People gonna make decisions this night. He gives a sermon and he explains that every person who's born into this world is born in a sinful state.

Even before you've done anything wrong, you have a compulsion to do things wrong. You have this selfishness. You're in sin, put that in quotes. And God who created you is being perfectly just, just cannot abide by these shortcomings that we have baked into who we are as humans. So that's gotta be punished.

You gotta, and the punishment is not just, it's not a minor punishment here punished, you gotta, and the punishment is not just, it's not a minor punishment here because it's, if you're anything short of God's standard of perfection, well that shortcoming needs to be paid for. It's gotta be taken out on somebody. So that's when it came to this concept of eternal separation from God.

And I'm pretty sure there was a mention of like eternal torment in some fiery hell, right? So as a 10 year old, just imagine 10 year old Link. I was still sleeping with a pound puppy. You know? And this was a big deal. This was something that was talked about in our church, but it was different in revival.

You were really listening. And so I was like, this is a big deal. I mean, eternal damnation, that's scary. And especially if it's coming from a guy who came all the way from Scotland or Ireland to tell me about it. I do think he was rolling his Rs, which I think is a Scottish thing.

Yeah, it was enrapturing. Yeah. But it scared the shit out of him. I just love his accent. How could it not scare you, you know? But then he explained that God is not only perfectly just, he's also perfectly loving. And he wants to make another way

for us to have a relationship with him and not be eternally separated or currently separated from God. And it turns out God's solution is that he sent his son to come to earth, Jesus, live a perfect life, never deserve an ounce of punishment or God's wrath or hell or damnation, but then willingly take it on himself anyway.

And he was executed, hung on a cross, crucified, died and paid the penalty instead of us as individuals paying the penalty. And then he rose from the dead. He resurrected and now he's seated at the right hand of God and he's listening to this sermon right now. And he also is God. And he also is God. And he also is God.

That's an important part of that too. And that happened, that happened some 1988 years ago at the time. And all you, yeah, give or take. Give or take 33. Yeah, so you got, so then he, Scottish dude explained, all you gotta do is accept the fact

that he took the punishment that you deserved. And you also have to get up out of your pew and you gotta walk down here in front of everybody, by the way. But man, I was so scared and I was like, I knew other people, I knew you had already done this. Well, can I just say, I remember being at Contact Eddie 8 and I remember seeing you get up.

And you know what I was thinking? I was like, it's about damn time. I mean, I was like, I did this when I was six. Yeah. I was like, I mean, why is he taking so long? You know, you thought you were a little Scottish. Does he not understand the gospel? Like, you don't have to be double digits.

Were you waiting to be double digits? Because I was like, I don't know what the age of accountability is, but all I know is I don't wanna die and go to hell. I was a bit of a late bloomer and I thought it, I think that was my age of accountability. Yeah, I think everybody's age of accountability is different, especially if you're still sleeping

with a pound puppy. It's like a free pass. Yeah, I went, I remember I've- By the way, we're using a lot of Christianese. Yeah. The age of accountability is the age at which if you aren't a Christian and you die, you won't go to hell because-

Or just before that. Yeah, because you're not old enough to process it yet. You can't make the decision for yourself. And it's nowhere in the Bible, it's just something you kind of have to come up with theologically because if you don't have it, it's pretty bad. Why?

The kid's going to hell. I understood it that day. Right. And so I got up the gumption and I went forward and I remember that they paired you off with people and I got to be led in a prayer by Amy Moore. This girl, you know, I was 10, this girl was like in high school.

It was amazing. Yeah. And she said, repeat after me, and I accepted what Jesus did for me. And at that point, I'm like, Jesus rose from the dead, he saved my life. I'm glad I don't have to worry about that hell thing anymore and I owe this guy everything.

This preacher or Jesus? Jesus. Okay. And I really like Scottish people. Now. That might be Irish. But I don't wanna talk to them because they are scary. And I was like, you know what? I'm doing, this is my life now.

I got it all set up. And I'm singing in the choir next week. I sing in the choir with a bunch of adults the following Sunday, still wearing our Contact 88 t-shirts. I was beaming. I was a little bit jealous, I was like, maybe I should've waited so I could sing in the choir. I wanna fast forward to high school

and tell a second snapshot that was just very formative. You wanna tell that story before or after a break? Let's tell it after a quick break. Oh, let's have a quick break. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm gonna guess for some of you, that thing is-

Anno Bay! Hi, I'm Nick Fried, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore.

So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. So in high school, everything, we were still very involved in church and in youth group. I mean, if I had to rank the things that I associated my identity with, yeah, I was a soccer player in high school and I was pretty amazing at it.

I don't know what else I would say besides that. That would be number three. Math Olympiad. Math Olympiad. But number one would definitely be that I was a Christian. Everybody knew that, that like, we were really involved in our youth group. We had friends who weren't involved, but like our closest friends were and we, you know,

we were truly devoted to God as high schoolers. We clowned around, but we were devoted. And we understood it not just as a belief system, but as a relationship with God. Like you said last week, that was something that we were actively pursuing, talking to God through prayer in a convers with God, like you said last week, that was something that we were actively pursuing, talking to God through prayer in a conversational way, really figuring out how the Bible applied

to our everyday lives. And we tended to, you'd boil it down to some oversimplified things, or at least in action. Like we didn't cuss, not in public at least, right? We didn't fool around with our girlfriends or we felt guilty about it when we did at least. That's more, yeah, that's clear. And we definitely did not drink.

Oh, that was an easy one. That was an easy one. I mean, it was illegal. Yeah. That would be extreme. I did listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I felt bad about it and I was called out on it by some of our friends in the youth group.

But one Saturday night, our friend Trent, who was not involved in our youth group, I'll just put it that way. His parents were out of town that weekend, so he threw a party on a particular Saturday night. You know what story I'm gonna tell? Uh-huh. I remember this night.

So he threw this party and I decided to go. I was 16, I was able to drive myself, and I told my mom I'm spending the night at Trent's house. She was fine with that. You did not go to this party at all. I wasn't there for any and then left? You may have been there earlier, but my recollection is that you were not there at all,

but you could have left early. That's my recollection, but we know how recollection goes around here. I definitely know what happened after you left if you were there and that's, they broke into Trent's parents' liquor cabinet or I think they just opened it. Right.

And started drinking stuff out of it. It wasn't chained. Trent's older brother was there. That seemed to make me a little more comfortable, but I wasn't gonna drink because that wasn't me. I mean, we were, I had to preserve my witness is what you call it.

When it's like your reputation is someone who's like, God is enough for me so I don't have to search for other ways to be happy. Was like this message that you were trying to send, I think, to our friends, that's what we wanted to do. But after a while, I just, I was like, you know what? Screw it, I just wanna have a little fun. I'm gonna drink for the first time ever.

And I did, a lot. And the majority of everybody there was drinking and I got drunk. I didn't do anything specific that I regret, besides maybe the decision to break the law and it was, you know, lie to my mom and, but my, I was just. You probably did some annoying things.

I'm sure I did a lot of annoying things. I was very silly and then I didn't feel too great. And so I remember when the party had died down and everybody was like, everybody was crashing wherever they were gonna crash. I crashed in this guest room with our friend Jason. So we're like, you know, trying to go to sleep. And I just remember staring at the ceiling

and feeling so guilty. And I said out loud to him, I was like, man, this guy, I'm supposed to be an example to him as what it means to have a relationship with God. I'm like, I just want, I just feel so bad. What I did, that's not me, man. This isn't me. This is, I just remember saying, this isn't me.

I'm just really sorry I did this. And he was like, hey man, just go to sleep. You'll be all right. Just go to sleep, you'll be all right. Just go to sleep. Next morning we woke up and Jason was in there scrambling eggs for everybody. It was just a new day, it was like nothing had happened. But for me, it was like my life had changed.

I just, like it was that big of a mistake in my mind. And Jason said, you should suck on some pennies. And I was like, what? He said, when you go home. He had all the secrets. On the way home, you need to suck on some pennies so your mom doesn't smell liquor on your breath. She just smells money.

And so I had to get home because I had to go to church. Yeah. And my head was pounding, had a hangover, felt horrible. And I opened my ashtray when I got in the truck to drive off and that's where I kept all my loose change and I got a handful of pennies and threw them in my mouth and sucked on pennies all the way home.

I felt so bad when I got home. I told mom, I just can't, I don't feel good. I can't go to church today. She's like, okay, fine. And then, but we did have to go to Nanny's for lunch because you don't miss Nanny's for lunch. And I could not get off the couch. I felt so bad.

So I'm laying on the couch and after lunch, we're all sitting in there hanging out and I'm just laid out. And I remember my mom looking at me just saying, Link, you look like you're hungover. And I was just like, I think it was something I ate. What does that mean? I think it was pennies, I ate pennies.

I just sucked on them. I didn't swallow them. That was all she said and we never, my mom and I have never talked about it since then. Uh-oh. It's not one of those things that comes up. Just gonna listen to this. Sorry, Mom. But that afternoon, you came by

and we got in your car and we were hanging out and we did what we would always do when we were 16, 17 years old, that we would just drive around and talk and listen to music. Right. I remember we were doing that this day and I knew that you were gonna find out that I had gotten drunk the night before.

I mean, if I didn't tell you, somebody else is gonna tell you and that it would be better for you to find out from me. That was tough. I remember we were driving and I told you at Trent's party last night, I got drunk and you looked at me and you slowed the car down and then you pulled over

on the side of the two lane country road that we were driving down beside a field. And I looked at you and you looked at me and you said, get out. Oh, wow. And I said, what, what? He said, get out, man. And I opened the door, I got out,

and just picture an extremely wide cinematic shot of a guy standing on the side of the road beside a car in the middle of nowhere, Harnett County, just fields and a few farmhouses in every direction you look and you drove off and I just stood there and I knew how to get home because we had driven all these roads, but it was at least six miles away.

You were a good ways out. It was at least six miles, maybe eight from my house. I started walking because you didn't stop. I mean, you went straight down that long straightaway and then you disappeared over the horizon. And I just started walking home. And I started thinking about the decision I had made and it was like the biggest decision,

I guess I would have described it at the time as an act of rebellion. I don't know if that's what it was, but it was a big mistake in my mind. And I just started crying, like weeping, like tears just flowing off my face and just walking on the grass on the side of this road. And I remember it was hard to see where I was going. You know, if I was gonna step in something.

And I remember looking up, how far do I have to go to even clear this hill? And then I saw you coming back over the hill. First I saw your head, then I saw your shoulders, and then you cleared the hill and you were walking. You weren't in your car, you were walking on the side of the road. And it was kind of awkward because it's a long ways to walk. So, okay, I get it, you're walking.

But we finally did, we met, you know, we were walking towards each other and I don't remember exactly what I said but I know it was basically, I'm so sorry for what I did. And it wasn't that I had, I wasn't sorry that I disappointed you, it was that I was so sorry that I disappointed you. It was that I was so sorry that I disappointed God.

And I mean, I don't think we, I don't think there was a hug. I don't think there was a handshake. I think that our MO at the time was like, just we knew what we both felt and what we thought and about what had happened. And I, you know, I interpreted it as a, like a physical representation of not only the fact that you love me as a friend, but that God forgave me.

That, you know, I think it was, we tended to think a lot in terms of symbolism, you know? And so I don't know how much of that was going through your mind, but I think that it really hit home for me. I just felt like this is a big deal. There was a lot of disappointment here, but I'm not, you know, I'm not it really hit home for me. I just felt like this is a big deal. There was a lot of disappointment here, but I'm not, you know, I'm not, God hasn't rejected me.

I'm already forgiven. And we walked back to the car, we got in and we drove off. And yeah, it was just a picture of forgiveness. And I think it was really powerful. And I mean, the thing is we were devoted to God and we were devoted to helping each other stay devoted. You know, it was so important to us. And we were steeped in the teachings that our church

and our family gave us and the experiences we had within the church. So then when we went to college and got involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, all of a sudden, everyone in that group was also devoted to God in the same way. Everybody wanted the same thing. It was actually, it was exciting because it was so much

easier for me to be who I'd lived my entire life aspiring to be, somebody completely sold out for Jesus. You know, I think we, in episode one we painted this opportunistic approach to like our involvement in Campus Crusade that like really served our career. And I just, you know, there was absolutely, and I do think we talked about it, there was a parallel path of like,

spiritually and personally, this is how we wanted to live our lives. This was a perfect scenario for that, you know? Yeah, we weren't there. We weren't there first and foremost to try to become comedians or have an audience. Because we didn't even know that was an option. It was like, this is what we want. These are the people that we want to be around.

So the things that we weren't doing and the things that we were doing may seem a little odd. Like, I mean, there wasn't any partying ever in like the traditional tropish collegiate sense. There was a lot of group dates going on. You know, if you were interested in somebody that was like the way to be as pure as possible about approaching dating.

I was really good at organizing those. I could have a men's Bible study take a women's Bible study out for just a night on the town. And you know, as long as you're in a group, it's like you can stay out of trouble. Christy and I never kissed until we were engaged to be married. You know, it was, and that was my decision.

That's not something that anybody forced on me. You know, that wasn't the action, like the specific teaching of anybody, but it was like- I did not subscribe to that particular- You know, I had- Interpretation. I had come off of a relationship in my senior year of high school, freshman year of college

that I felt like I had made mistakes in not being self-controlled and I was eat up with guilt associated with that. And I just did not wanna screw up my relationship with Christy because I saw that it has so much potential. And I wanted to please God, you know? And I wanted to do it right.

You know how I think. There's a best way to do everything. There's a perfect execution of everything and I'm gonna try to, it's safest if I stay within that, you know, especially when it comes to disappointing God or not. So yeah, it may seem odd to you listening. But you were a great hand holder, I'm assuming.

That was, like I was so calculating, I was like, I'm only gonna go out on a date with her once a month and we're only gonna talk once a week and I want her to, you know, I want her to, I don't wanna get in the way of her being devoted to God and I want to be devoted to God and her second. You know, I felt for the old me reading back through my journals, and I'll read one in a second,

but I wanna say that, yeah, I was extreme because of just the way I interacted with the environment and the teaching, but it was thrilling to be, like we said before, it was thrilling to answer a higher calling, to connect with God, and to go through it with really great friends. It was the most meaning and satisfaction I'd ever experienced in my life, within that context.

But as I prepped for this, I did go back and I read through my journals, and whenever I would journal, it was always in the form of prayer. I was writing a letter to God because it was hard for me to pray. But if I wrote it down, at least I could concentrate and I could get my thoughts out.

And it was at least my side of the conversation with God. You did that too, some, right? Yeah. But I wanna read an excerpt from this one journal entry from, this is my junior year, so January 20th, 1999, okay? So this is what I wrote. Lord, I'm frustrated about us. I just feel guilty that it's not clicking

like I'm just bad or wrong or lazy or something. I'm tired of feeling pressure and guilt to spend time with you. Lord, I would quit trying altogether if I didn't know how stupid and mindless that would be. To whom shall I go? Which was like my paraphrase of a Bible verse, meaning where would I turn if I turned away from God?

And it wasn't just that journal entry, like the vast majority of my journal entries over those years, it was actually heartbreaking. They were filled, and I'm talking like 80% over those years, it was actually heartbreaking. They were filled, and I'm talking like 80% of anything I would write, it was filled with me apologizing for disappointing God. A lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of frustration for not being devoted enough.

And I didn't really appreciate or recall that internal struggle that I was having. I'd kind of forgotten that until I went back and started reading through the journals and I was a little bit shocked. It's not that I journaled all the time. And I do think there's a factor of I would journal when I felt like I really needed my relationship with God needed a kick in the pants,

like I really needed to like buckle down. And then if maybe if things were going better, I just didn't journal. Maybe that's another explanation. But it was a lot of my private experience, I think was, was kind of defined by that level of shame and frustration. And I, again, I don't, tell me what you, I don't wanna imply that the main teaching from Crew

or our church, the church that we grew up in was really super legalistic. I don't think, they were not super legalistic. There was not a constant emphasis on following certain rules. The emphasis was on having like a personal relationship with God. But there are factors associated with going about that relationship

that the way that I internalized that was that I was failing at it, that I didn't have what, like the people who it was really working for had. That I was very hard on myself. Well, I would say that we were on a spectrum. So I would say that compared to just the general population, we were legalistic without a doubt. Oh yeah.

Because we did have a bunch of rules that were sort of interpretations of the Bible and applied to our specific situation and our specific culture that kind of led to things like not kissing your girlfriend until you're engaged to be married. But I do think that most of this is just the way that different personalities interact with it.

Yeah. Yeah, for me, I was having all those intellectual thoughts and doubts and that's a lot of the stuff that I would be like writing about and thinking about. But when it came to, and of course I felt like, oh, I'm prideful and I'm lustful and all the, you know, the ways that I thought I was sinful. But I think I kind of gave myself more of a break

than you did just because that's my personality. I don't think I was hard on myself that I sinned. I was hard on myself that I didn't have a quality of relationship with God where I was motivated to connect with him, to pray, to do like the spiritual disciplines of like study the Bible and pray. And the things that I felt like were a true test

of intimacy with God, like the human's role in that, I felt like I was trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I was trying to conjure something that I didn't, that came naturally to people who had like a true connection to God. I also think you were perceiving that that was happening with people

and I think that everybody has their own struggle. Sure. I don't think it was like. But it's interesting that, and I think we had to have talked about it, but I kept going back to it so much in my journal that like it's just something that I couldn't shake because of, and I'm starting to understand myself now

in a way that I never have. And so I can see things that I've learned about myself now in terms of like an unhealthy view of being a perfectionist, being a one on the Enneagram, if you're into that. I do think it was me being disappointed in myself more than people telling me that God was disappointed in me. And then when I graduated, Christine and I got married, there was another level of pressure

because then the teaching was I was to assume the role of the spiritual leader is what it was called. It's like initiate prayer with your family and like make decisions and make sure you're doing as a family what God has for you. And that was difficult for me. And that was difficult for me. And then after a couple of years, we joined staff. And just to clarify, that was very much the,

this definitely isn't necessarily the sort of the standpoint of a lot of even Christian churches at this point, but very much the sort of the branch that we were in, you've got egalitarianism and you've got complementarianism. And so we were complementarian, meaning that women and men have specific roles, right? And so in the household,

the man is supposed to be the spiritual leader. He's the one that kind of everything falls onto to make sure that his family is following God. That was our interpretation of some New Testament passages. When we joined staff of crew, now my spiritual identity was also my professional identity. And I was fully committed to God, but also now financially completely dependent

on all these people who believed in what I believed in, and they believed in the work that we were doing when we raised financial support. So I put even more pressure on myself because I had these people investing in our work, and I was a professional Christian at this point. Shouldn't I be good at it?

Should I start to have a little bit of a Scottish accent? Yeah, you should. You know? But I had this nagging sense of being hollow that I just, it was always there, couldn't quite shake it. And around this time, that's when Rhett started talking about the age of the earth and the validity of evolution. We started talking about those things.

When you started talking about them with me, I was, you know, I didn't have, I don't have doubts and I don't sit around as I'm falling asleep or in my spare time, just like having logic battles in my mind. It's just not, you know, I have the battles I was having was I'm not doing this good enough, you know? I just devoted all of my energy there.

But whenever you would bring something up, first of all, I knew like, well, I'm not gonna panic. You know, you made the joke of like, Jesse would start crying because it was perceived as such a threat. And I totally get that. It was, I was like, I remember having an internal dialogue of okay, just don't panic, be cool about this.

Just be a sounding board for what Rhett wants to talk about because I'm not gonna fall for the trap of like, well, you can't go there because it might lead to something. It's like, so I mean, I started listening and when you read Francis Collins, The Language of God in 2006, I also read that. And I was like, yeah, it's like, I'm convinced in the validity of evolution.

And I remember an unintended consequence of reading that book was I just had this sense and we discussed it that there was an island with God on it and it was shrinking as science discovered more and more and it would ultimately lead to a place where whoop, the waters of science would cover the top of the island and there would be no more God. That's actually what we were taught in terms of this.

If you start looking into evolution, it's a slippery slope, that's what they would say. And I will say, ironically, we're not doing Francis Collins any favors. No. Between my story and your story, I hate, you know, I'm not trying to give us that much credit like this is,

so many people are gonna listen to this, but a lot of people like Ken Ham, you know, and like the head of Answers in Genesis are gonna be like, I told you, and he's got an Australian accent, but he's gonna say, I told you, you can't believe in evolution. Look what happened.

If you do it, if you believe in it, and it's all Francis Collins' fault. Well, I'm very grateful. But I think it, because that wasn't his point in the book, the shrinking island thing, but it's something that we discussed in that, because we just started asking these questions of like, well, if Adam and Eve never existed,

doesn't Paul say in the Bible that the whole point of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection was to undo Adam's original sin? And then, but so, and then I'm like, oh yeah, I don't wanna get, you know, I'm just like, I'm a professional Christian. I don't, you know, I'm panicking inside. So I'm like, I don't wanna get, you know, I'm a professional Christian. I don't, you know, I'm panicking inside. So I'm like, there are answers, you can find them.

Anything you wanna believe, you can find something. Right, because as I said. And I started to find those things. Because as I said, because I was very resistant. I don't wanna give short shrift to this, if that's the correct word. I know there are lots of Christians who accept evolution as it's taught, as it's understood by scientists

and still believe in Adam and Eve. And there's a way that they reconcile that. I'm very familiar, you don't have to tweet those books at me, I'm very familiar with that argument. I just think there's other issues going on. But so yeah, you can accept both of those things. And I took comfort in that because I'm sitting here on staff, man.

I can't, you know, it's like, what am I gonna do? Just like become homeless? It was too much at stake. So I kept the most threatening questions at bay until after we left staff. And so in 2008, up until 2011, I mean, we were starting our career as YouTubers. And then that timeframe

where we were developing this new career, I was also developing a growing spiritual disillusionment. And there were two parallel paths for me. One was the intellectual path. And then the other parallel path was the experiential. What was happening to me in my heart and in my circumstance. So I'll talk about both of those. First, I mean, intellectually, the discussions that we had,

they continued, I think they accelerated. It was the next thing, and again, you can kind of superimpose Rhett's talk on top of mine whenever he mentions like dismantling his view, it was also my view of the Old Testament. he mentions like dismantling his view, it was also my view of the Old Testament. The early stuff in the Old Testament, it can't be literal, becoming convinced of that. And then continuing to read in the Old Testament,

it's like the Old Testament God mandated a lot of actions that troubled me. I just, it was like, you worship a guy that, I mean, there's some, I mean, I'm not even talking about head scratchers. I'm talking about like, oh my gosh, this is frightening. So our view of the Bible started to dismantle. We were having lots of conversations about it.

I wasn't chomping at the bit to go home and report all of these conversations because I wasn't chomping at the bit to go home and report all of these conversations because I didn't know, I thought it was a thought exercise. You know, I didn't know where it was gonna lead and I didn't wanna, I was like, man, I wanna process this with Christy, but I don't wanna scare her. So I talked to her about,

for every eight times we talked, I might talk to her about it once just because it was, a lot of other shit going on in our lives. I don't wanna add that into the equation. But then the experiential parallel path was, ever since graduating from college and leaving Campus Crusade as a student, like I got, we, Chris and I got involved in a church, different church than you.

And it was a small church, they had an immediate need for someone to help lead the music. And because I'd done that at Campus Crusade, they asked me to do it and I knew I could do it, but I was reluctant and increasingly more over time, but it was the right thing to do. I was like, I can really,

this is how I can contribute at my church, leading the praise and worship music. So I was like the music contribute at my church, leading the praise and worship music. So I was like the music leader at my church up until moving to Los Angeles. But there were a lot of places that I was, I guess I was having an internal existential crisis, but I remember it being very palpable every Sunday morning because I would get on stage and I would pray

and I would lead the music and I would say some things to help contextualize the songs that we were singing so that people in the audience could like really connect with God. Yet I found it virtually impossible for me to be able to connect with God in that way, through music on a Sunday morning. And I remember I would try harder and harder.

I would like clamp my eyes shut and really concentrate on the words that I was singing that were moving people emotionally and spiritually out there. But for me, it proved, it was like there was a brick wall there. I just couldn't, I couldn't get there. And that was really frustrating.

And I think there's a lot of, you know, yeah, there were practical aspects of that. And it's like, you know, I am a performer, you're on stage, you know people are watching, even if the goal is to not be seen and kind of step out of the way, so to speak, that's probably still a factor. And then when I start thinking about it,

it's like, I don't know, it's just, I remember after church every Sunday, I would tell Christy, I'm just, I'm not who they think I am. They think I'm clamping my eyes shut because I'm having think I am. They think I'm clamping my eyes shut because I'm having such a meaningful experience, but I'm clamping my eyes shut because I can't find anything. And I would talk to a few people about it.

Like I would mention something and it was, you know, it was, it's just, it's a hairy kind of thing to get into. So it's, and that really started to come to a head like the six months leading up to us moving to LA. I felt, I just, I started saying things like, I just feel phony. And the conversations we were having, again, in parallel, were, I mean, it was the one-two punch of,

I'm not experiencing an intimacy with God, and then I'm starting to question the foundations of everything that this is built on. So those two paths fed each other for me. Well, there was, just to add a little color to this, speaking of our conversations, we also had another kind of conversation and we had it pretty often.

Do you remember we would be sitting in that office in Lillington or even our office in Fuquay and we would be like, man, you know, I just feel like we really haven't been focusing on the Lord and like a lot of things are happening and like I just feel like we need to just recognize Yeah. How we got where we're at and seek the Lord's guidance

and like me and you would just sit there and pray together. Yeah, we would and the first part of the prayer was- It's always like, Lord, man, we suck. Yeah, it's like you've given us so much, you're giving us our heart's desire. We have this career- There's a lot of guilt. There was a lot of guilt, there was a lot of shame.

But the reason I'm adding that is because I'm just remembering in the midst of the, again, as I hope I made clear, but in the midst of the doubt, there was, for both of us, I know you're talking about how you were struggling with the connection, but it was still paramount, it was still central, and it was still kind of what everything was based on.

And when we felt like we were sort of moving forward and without giving God the credit, without consulting him, we felt bad. And we would like check in on each other and then pray. For like at least 30 minutes, we would just pray. Yeah. And when you feel, I mean, like praying with somebody was such an intimate thing.

It was like, the reason why we didn't do it was because it was like, yeah, it was like this intimate thing that like, it was so super vulnerable. We were both naked. No, but it was like, I mean, it was like, you know, we weren't gonna cry together or something like that. But it was, again, it was so important

that we were willing to do that. I mean, I remember when I was dating Christy, like we wouldn't pray together. Ironically, like when you get married, it's like now you're the spiritual leader. But we talked about how- We were told not to pray with each other. Don't pray together because that's more intimate

than like, I don't know, a sexual act. Well, because we heard stories about boyfriends and girlfriends praying together and then making out right after because they were so connected. Yeah, those prayer kisses, that prayer tongue. That speaking in tongues right there. Oh, I knew I'd find that joke.

I'd find it. So I just felt, I felt fed up with this phony feeling every week. And I felt like it was on me, but I started to question if it was worth it. And I started to think, it looks like we're gonna move to LA at least for six months and if it doesn't happen,

I'm just gonna have to step down. I just can't, this is not authentic. This is not good for anybody. I didn't, I wasn't saying I was gonna leave the church, but I was gonna, but that would have been like maybe the next step. And I meant that specific church. It wasn't, I didn't know what I believed,

but it was just like, I mean, we were just having constant conversations and then we moved to LA and I was so relieved because it spared me all of these awkward and painful conversations that I felt like I was about to have to have with like my pastor who was like a really good friend. And you know, again, throughout all of this,

I'm not trying to implicate anybody because I bet anybody listening, I just think about this like, man, I wish you would have said something. It's like, I know it would have been probably a gracious response, but I know it would have been, but it's like, I didn't wanna get into it. And so it was, and tell my family that I wasn't going

to church or I wasn't serving in the church the way that I was anymore. Like things are different, you know, so you just don't wanna get into it. So Ellen- Because you become a, I don't wanna keep cutting you off, but when you express doubt in the midst of church,

a lot of times people say, hey listen, if you've got doubts, that's part of the experience and talk to people about them and we did, we talked to a lot of people, but it's still, the fact remains that when you raise the kinds of questions that we were having, you do become a difficult and complicated person for a church body. And a lot of times those people,

especially if they're not satisfied with the answers they're getting, they kind of get pushed out because the flock I gotta worry about, this little crazy sheep that's asking all these weird questions, it's taking a lot of time. Right.

So I understand logistically why that happens, but I think you were a little bit scared of becoming someone's project. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, which is very much my experience. Yeah, I had one friend besides you that I confided in who didn't go to that church anymore because he was going somewhere else,

but I had some resources. And of course, Christy, but moving to LA was like a big relief because I could sidestep the whole thing. And just like you said, we both got involved in church out there and I was like, I bet it's different out here. But we went to what's still like an evangelical church because that was our point of reference.

And I was like, I'm not gonna make the mistake of like, I ain't gonna be on stage or anything like that. I'm just gonna receive. Well, they had like professional musicians on stage. Yeah, I could have made it. LA church is a different deal. It's like, I don't know. I mean, you're great,

but I don't know if you would have made the cut, just to be honest. I wouldn't have made the cut. And the guy had an accent too, he's British. Yeah. And just like you, Much cooler than you. I was hopeful that it would be like a time where I could remove the pressure, but I could experience,

and then I could experience God. But I was very skeptical by this point because of that parallel path. I no longer believed in the Bible as the inerrant word of God. Again, you presented a lot of these resources. It's not like, I don't wanna say, I don't wanna go through all of that.

Yeah. I was, I think a retrospect, I was slowly crossing the boundary from belief to disbelief, just like you get, it's a very permeable place and it's not just, for me it wasn't just like this one thing happened, but I just started to realize one day I had, I must have overnight experienced some subtle shift

that I was just ever so slightly on the other side of a boundary and I was looking so slightly on the other side of a boundary and I was looking at it from the other side. And my growing list of problems with the Bible and evangelicalism, all of a sudden, like all of those problems that popped up over my whole life to this point, they had much simpler explanations

when I was looking at it from the outside. And again, I was like teetering, but like the teaching of hell, you know, I just wasn't, I was letting go of that. You know, I just wasn't, I was letting go of that. Plus, the discrimination of the LBGTQ plus communities within the church, that had troubled me for years, and you, I know that. And all of a sudden, you're like, hold on.

It's like, I on, it's like, I can accept everybody, you know? And then we were discussing Jesus. And as you said in your story, it was like, again, I don't wanna get into the arguments that like started to sway us to believe that there was, he probably didn't raise from the dead, but it's always just this probably or, you just can't know.

And I started to feel it was more likely that he didn't actually raise from the dead. And I just found myself believing that as the cumulative conclusion of all the reading that I had also been doing and the conversations we've been having for years by this point. So my entire belief system was very tenuous. And I realized, I know about myself,

like you got the two words, belief and system. And I know enough about myself to know that I thought a lot about the belief, but I cared a lot about the system. You know, as a perfectionist, I took a lot of comfort in knowing that there was, if I'm just signed up for all of this, like I know I'm safe eternally.

I know that as I just have, I trust that like if I don't know everything that I should believe or everything I should be doing, at least I will, it's all there and I'll get to it. And it felt very secure for me. Someone who I think really valued that, really needed to know that I was doing it right and that I was safe.

But I think by this point in my life, the beliefs, the questions associated with the beliefs, I was so uncomfortable with the basis of those and now the practical outcome of those that it overcame my interest in keeping a system. I remember we would hang out with some friends and we would discuss some of this stuff, what we were going through.

And there was one guy who was, great guy, he's Christian, who said, I actually don't wanna hear what you're talking about because I don't want to lose what I have. And I think you'd probably convince me. And this is working for me and my family. So I love you guys, but I just, I got to bow out of this conversation, you know?

And I got that. I understood it. I wasn't, I don't think I was hurt by that, but I couldn't, and because I was that way for a long time as we were talking about it, but I couldn't live like that anymore. I felt like I just, I had to face the facts or the compelling arguments

that I had never been willing to look at because of what I needed I was getting from my faith. But again, all those things started to shift. You start to think about the billions of people who've sought God for revelation and they've gotten nothing or they've received profound revelation that is in direct contradiction to the profound revelation that somebody else has gotten.

You know, I just found myself starting to believe to the profound revelation that somebody else has gotten. I just found myself starting to believe that, just like you said that, humans have a way of trying to, we gotta make sense of things. And so this is just, I just found it most reasonable to believe that the Bible represented humans trying their best to explain God.

And it was one of many well-developed explanations across many religions, and they were all accompanied by sincere experiences to validate them. So, church, to say the least, church became a place of frustration, not comfort for me. Why was I working so hard to make Christianity work for me if it wasn't even true?

And I think it's because the alternative was so scary. I mean, it was all I knew. It was, you know, you gave the analogy of like the ship and then jumping into this water. And it's like, you even look over the side of the ship and you're like, man, it's like, everything I've taught is that it's real ugly down there. But at a certain point, you kind of find

that you're in midair falling into it anyway. I mean, it's that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can lead, you can't make someone fall in love with you. You can't, if you find yourself falling out of love with somebody. Bonnie Raitt said that. Yeah. I must have replaced the Bible with Bonnie Raitt.

Well, yeah, I completely relate with and agree to everything that you're saying. And I think that I thought a little bit more about that, the boat analogy. And the fact is, is that, and I think this is one of the reasons that, our friend was like, hey, don't rock my boat. Mm-hmm.

Is because it is a boat, the boat's not fake, right? You know what I'm saying? It's like, it is a system, it is beneficial, it has helped millions of people, it's helping millions of people right now. It has stood the test of time, so have other religions, but yeah, if it, because people are like, hold on, was it, if it wasn't real,

well, what about your life change and your growth? Well, no, there was real life change. There was real growth. There was real community. There was, all these experiences were real in a sense. We're just saying that we think that they were All these experiences were real in a sense. We're just saying that we think that they were most likely happening in our minds and in everyone else's minds,

which are incredibly powerful things. It doesn't mean that the change isn't real. Some people that I know when I tell them my story will be like, but listen, I know it's real because of what Jesus did in my life. Let me tell you my testimony. I'm not denying that your life hasn't changed. And that's what I'm saying.

There's sincere experiences to validate all kinds of things. Every belief system. Yeah. And so I just get, you know, I respect it, but I just can't, that's not compelling me, this horse to drink that water at this point. Another way to say it, it doesn't make it true.

It doesn't make it true. It might make it true or feel true to you, but it doesn't necessarily make it universally true just because you had an experience. So at this point, I mean, again, we must have been discussing this because you used the term like you conducted an experiment and I definitely remember using that term at the time.

I think it was a way to say, hey, I'm just gonna ease, I'm gonna ease into believing differently and see what happens. It's not, you know, it can just be private. I wrote in my journal, November 5th, 2013, again, this was addressed to God, but it's the last journal entry that I've written. Whoa, really?

Well, actually that's not true. For a long time it was. This is what I meant to say. It was the last journal entry that I wrote addressed to God. Oh, okay. And this is not the beginning, this is a part in the middle. And I think I wrote this as kind of a record for myself too.

You can see in the way I wrote it, it was just like, I wanna know that this was the point, this is the date, the point in my life when I felt this way. And I'm glad I did, because I wouldn't have known it was November 5th, 2013. Here's what I wrote. Since moving out here, and that's to LA,

and combined with Rhett sharing his evolving perspective, I have slowly given up trying to be the Christian that I feel like I've been trying to be all these years. I've concluded that I'm not going to do the things I've always done, the right things, the spiritual disciplines, and expect different results, intimacy with God, or even more directly, I'm gonna give up feeling guilty for not being better

and doing better at Christianity. And this experiment has felt good, freeing for the most part, everything except feeling like I'm letting Christy and the kids down. At this point, I'm not sure if God exists. And you see my mindset at that time, it was, it seemed like I was just saying,

I'm gonna stop feeling so guilty for the things I'm not doing to try to be a good Christian, but, and so it sounds like I'm like, but I'm just gonna be a Christian, I'm gonna let go and let God. And I do think that's what a lot of people who may be hearing in my, that's maybe how they're responding to my story is that like, you know, we all go through

those times and the struggles you're having, it's kind of, that's common to every person who's like very serious about pursuing Jesus. But I think what was really happening was, yes, that was my true experience, even though I sincerely sought God my entire life, but it primed me to be open to dealing with what I felt were the intellectual things that I didn't list in this journal entry,

but I think that's what held the weight to make the decision. That's what eroded the foundation and it was very important to me. And like I said, it felt freeing. Like I didn't, I was surprised that I didn't experience a sense of extreme loss. I was afraid of what it would mean for, just like you said,

what it would mean for my marriage because I had believed that a Christian and a non-Christian can't stay married. Like do I, but I actually, I just couldn't live, I couldn't pretend anymore and so one of the things that I called into question was if that was true. Like I never would have done it if I thought it was still true that I was gonna leave the divorce.

I would have just, you put my head down and trudged on. But I actually believed that like, our marriage could still be vibrant. I had no clue how that would work though. I believed that I could still be a great father to my kids and that they would be okay. I felt like my kids will be better people. I could influence them in the best way possible by being as honest with them as possible

for appropriate to their ages versus trying to give them what I believed was a false sense of security in teaching something much less, because I wasn't gonna give them the fear version that I had gotten. So I felt okay about it. But I still went to church with Christy and the kids because I didn't wanna be that guy.

Like I had judged hard the guy who would not go to church with his family, like what a jackass is what I felt like. I was like, so I ain't gonna be that guy. Right. But it was so, it was so difficult. Because again, it was a place of frustration, not a place of comfort for me. And anything that was said,

I would always try to derive what it was based on. And like, I was like, man, this is all shifting sand that you're building all this on. That's how I would feel, I would get frustrated. I remember on Easter Sunday, we were all sitting in the minivan and I was just like, I don't think I can go in there. And Christy was crying and we ended up

taking the kids into the youth group and coming back to the minivan and just sitting there in the parking lot and just bawling our eyes out. Christy, she'd been, I think it was, she was still one year after her brain injury, which again, it was like an extreme low point for her. I was saying, I don't think I can go in there.

And she was saying, I don't think I can go in there. And she was saying, I don't think I can not go in there. And it, you know, we were grappling with how our beliefs were changing. And it was something that we were talking about much more than when I referenced it earlier, like one out of every eight times we would talk. No, that was something that we were talking about a lot now. I was not keeping it from Christy or the kids.

But she was in a place, like the most difficult thing was happening in her brain and in her body and suffering from post-concussion syndrome, which she still suffers from many years later, it was an extreme low point for her. And it was like, she was wrestling with it, but she couldn't do that.

It was much more at stake for her than there was for me at that point. So I would go to church with them and then I would just explain the things that I have trouble with become a part of our conversations that we'd have as a family because I was just like, I just want to, I want everybody to be able to start to think for themselves

and not have something shoved down their throat. I don't think anybody was doing that. So I felt okay with it in the church and in our conversations. But over time, I eventually stopped going to church and then my family ended up stopped going. It wasn't too long after that. But the thing that happened was,

it wasn't too long after that. But you know, the thing that happened was, the specific issue of the LGBTQ issues and how the church was a welcoming place and a loving place, but then when you really got down to it, they weren't accepted as couples. There was, you couldn't be married there. And that really ate away at me. And this was a long time coming

and we had been having many conversations for many years about this issue and wrestling with it ourselves. But as we made meaningful connections with people here, like I'll just give Stevie and Cassie as an example, like not just working together, but being friends and loving them and understanding how they love each other and how, and yeah, many other couples.

And I just could not, I couldn't sit in the seat knowing that they couldn't, you know, that they couldn't get married there. I just felt like it was a betrayal of my friends and then of what I believed, you know? So that was, and so then I didn't go back. And- And I'll add to this,

especially in a place like Los Angeles. I mean, it might, if you're, you know, there's plenty of evangelical churches where you would know just unequivocally, okay, this is not necessarily a gay friendly place. Even though they may be loving and say something like love the sinner, hate the sin, the old cliche. But especially in LA.

And in LA they wouldn't say that. They would never say that. But that's the belief. Well, what I'm getting at is in LA, the churches and the people leading the churches are smart enough to know that they cannot have an outwardly anti-LGBTQ stance because they wouldn't have anybody show up.

And there's plenty of LGBTQ people who go to these places on a regular basis and they don't even know that if you dig deep enough, if you put the pastor in a corner, if you backed him or her into a corner and said, do you believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman? They would say yes because they have a particular interpretation of the Bible that leads them

to that conclusion. Now there's plenty of churches that would say no, we're pro LGBTQ. But I'm just saying that that is a thing that you kind of run into in LA is like, all the outward signs are that this is a super loving and accepting place and it is a loving place. We're not talking about a bunch of bigoted people,

but when it gets down to it, the theology sort of leads them to a place that they're not completely accepting and affirming. And that's kind of the situation that you found yourself in. Yeah, and I think that, well, I know that also resonated with my family and was a major contributor to saying, you know what, let's just ease out, let's ease out of this,

or let's, well, let's step out. And that's what we did and we lived happily ever after. No, I mean, I guess some people are thinking, could we have found a more liberal LGBTQ affirming church? Yes. You know, I think you looked around and it was just- There is a church that when I go to church, I go to this church that is, yeah,

is an affirming church. But you don't really go. But don't really go. I'll go sometimes for like Christmas. I was like, I'm just not ready to go to church in general. And I may never be. I'm just not ready to enter back into a specific system of belief,

even if it's different and it aligns with like the practical applications of that belief system are exactly in line with how I wanna live my life. I just like, maybe I'm still just too close or have been in it so long that I just, I feel like I need more distance from it. I just can't. And there's a lot of like,

at least all the places that check those boxes, they're like very, what's the word, ecumenical. Right. And it's like, okay, that's like a high church thing. And it's like, I don't think I would thrive well under that system because as much as I love systems, I do think that as I'm beginning to learn about myself and as I read those journal entries to you

and like my internal dialogue, I think you're seeing as I am appreciating that like, I put a lot of pressure on myself and I don't interact in a healthy way at this point in my life with a robust belief system. Yeah. So, I mean, you ended up saying, you applied the label of like hopeful agnostic

to where you were right now. And I mean, if I were to put, if I were to label myself, I think I would say I'm an agnostic who wants to be hopeful. I think I have made a decision to be open. I do want that. I don't want to be, I just, you know, I don't wanna be an atheist.

So I'm hopeful that I can be hopeful. But I know that it kind of- Why don't you wanna be an atheist? Because I'm not convinced that God doesn't exist and I don't want to, you know, if God does exist, I wanna be open to that connection. You know, I'm, that's just not, it's not how I think, like to come down hard on something

and like, but I think that left to my own devices, from a practical standpoint, I would end up as like a practical atheist where it's like, you know what? I do feel like it's easiest for me to believe that when you die, it's just like Dana Carvey, my Wayne's World doppelganger. I'm replacing the Bible with Garth and Bonnie Raitt, it seems.

Right. I remember years ago when I was listening to WTF podcast, Dana Carvey was talking about how he believed that like, when you die, it's just like the experience you had before you were born, you remember that? So I'm like, yeah, that's actually comforting. And I actually, I find it easy to believe that for some reason.

It's not, you know, I'm not compelled to believe it, but it's just an easy place for my mind to rest. Well, and you don't have to believe it. I think the reason I'm not an atheist is because it just feels too definitive. Right. Agnostic is the label that literally means you don't know. And I hope I'm always, when it comes to these issues,

I hope I'm always, I don't want, I just don't, but I don't wanna become dogmatic about anything. Yeah, but I don't wanna become complacent either because I do think that it's easiest for me to believe that everybody believes whatever they wanna believe, like your innermost desires, maybe that's, it could be something primal like survival and security and it could, I mean, there's so many different things,

but like we have a way of finding what works for us. And I think that's instinctive. So just to put it bluntly, you believe what you wanna believe. You know, it's like, I find it easy to believe that. I find it easy to believe that because so many people have had so many earth shattering experiences

that are in complete contradiction that it's like, that probably means that God's not personal. You know, it's like, there's a lot, it makes more sense. Or maybe God is personal and that God is just great at relating very specifically to a lot of different people in a very personal way that makes sense to them. And you know what? I don't know. But you know what, I'm open to that. That would be a very loving.

Isn't God capable of doing that? Again, I'm not gonna sit here and try to invent a new belief system of like, this is what I believe specifically. I just want to do the work to stay open, but not to get, like you said, dogmatic. And I know that that takes work. It takes an investment of time and priority

for me to not just sit back and just kind of be, just go with the flow of like, I'm not looking, again, it's not looking for the next thing to latch onto and believe and start to follow, but it's being open to what, how God may exist and may want to connect with me. I think the main thing is I don't want to judge. I don't want to condemn.

I wanna be as loving as I can. Maybe that sounds trite. It does, but so what? I wanna be as loving as I can. And you know, I do feel like over the past few years, my capacity to love has grown. My capacity to love myself and others has expanded a lot more in the last few years.

And I take that as a good sign. I don't, I just don't think that God, if God exists or however God exists, I just can't believe that me being open and sincere and as loving as possible and as honest as possible is disqualifying me from receiving God's love. I just, I can't accept that. And so I have hope that that's true

because I cannot just decide to be or believe something that I don't. be or believe something that I don't. And I'm just- That's not gonna stop a lot of people on the internet from trying to convince you though. Yeah and I feel like because a lot, I feel like a lot of what I said could be boiled down to some neurosis, you know, it's like,

but the intellectual path, I mean, it's the two things, I think the one made me receptive to the other, and I just think it's gotta be, and that's truth. I just don't know how people will respond to what I just said though, when I'm like, I wanna be open, I don't know, I'm an agnostic, I just want to focus on love and then I'm like, but the reason I got here is because of what I was convinced

that was no longer true. Well, I could tell you how I would have reacted to it when I was a Christian and I would have been sad for you. And I think there's gonna be a lot of people who are sad for us. And there's a lot of people who are gonna feel sorry for us and they're gonna be like, I just, I can't, you know. I asked a close friend, so do you think I'm going to hell?

And he was like, I don't, no, I don't. I think what you had was real and it still is. And you're in a process. I don't, he didn't say, I think you'll come back. I think maybe it's forward and on the other side. But it's like, I appreciated that in one sense. I guess in the other sense, it's like, I don't feel like I'm gonna go back in a scent

to any of the, like the specific beliefs about the Bible. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So, I mean, that's where I'm at. And that's the conclusion of my story to this point, but it's obviously not the conclusion of my journey. And I'm immediately thinking about how people are responding to it.

And I'm just trying not to do that. Yeah, well. But I want to be a conversation to happen. Yeah, well, maybe we can help. Listen, I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to dictate how the conversation should go from here. But let me just say just a couple of thoughts that I have about

the conversation that will happen as a result of these stories kind of going out to the public. Most people, and I totally get why this is the case, are going to interact with our stories in whatever way makes sense according to their predetermined worldview. Right. So if you're a Christian, and you're not a Christian that has had a lot of doubts,

or you're just like 100% sure that you're right, you're most likely, you're gonna filter us through your theology, just like I was talking about at the beginning of my story. So you may conclude that, well, you guys were definitely never actual Christians. It was an intellectual thing that's specifically addressed in the Bible.

And God's gonna say he never knew you. And if that makes you, I understand why you have to believe that. I don't accept that, but I can't make you change your mind. And then there's a lot of other situations that people may find that, but you're gonna make it consistent with your predetermined belief.

The only thing I ask about, and I hope that this was clear and Link made it, I tried to make it clear and Link tried to make it clear that we are just kind of telling our story, trying to be as honest as possible about what transpired in our lives that kind of led us to this point. And I would love if the conversation would be,

tell us your story, right? Or, you know, you don't have to, like I said, I know people are gonna send a lot of arguments, probably especially to me because I'm the one that talked about all the, you know, the specific arguments about evolution or Old Testament archeology and that kind of thing. So people are gonna try to send resources and books. Have you read this article?

And I'm not saying don't do that. Some people won't be able to help yourself because I wouldn't have been able to help myself if I was in your shoes. But I would just hope that you would just actually try to consider our stories from the point of, hey, we're just humans trying to be honest, we're your online friends

trying to be honest and just consider the story on its face. Don't just immediately- Try to fix us. Try to fix us or try to make it fit into your system because I think that the world has got so much polarization right now. People are like, I'm right, you're wrong, that's it. And more than ever, and it's interesting,

we're so much better connected to one another than we've ever been, but we're also so divided. And it's this just horrible irony. That's kind of the nature of the information age. And I just don't want that kind of conversation to happen in our community where people are throwing rocks at each other and, you know, insulting one another and calling, you know, listen, there's gonna be people throwing rocks at each other and insulting one another.

Listen, there's gonna be people from both ends of the spectrum who are gonna get engaged in this conversation. Please see people's humanity, see our humanity, and don't just resort to just putting your feet into your trench and just holding your position. Consider somebody's viewpoint, you know? I also wonder if people's takeaway is,

you know, like, dang, Lincoln for one, for Rhett, you might be in a better place, you know? It's like, man, he really brought you down, you know? It's absolutely true that, you know, and that I wouldn't have been grappling with these issues. I don't, I probably wouldn't have been grappling with issues, I probably wouldn't have done it, you know, because as a hard time as I was having,

I still didn't want, you know, it was still ultimately so very safe for me and I really need that. But I'm very grateful that your personality is different than mine in that way, that it was my active choice at every turn to actively engage in the discussion. And I didn't, you know, we shared so much of our lives and our spiritual journey was so similar

that we had the exact same language and so many of the same experiences. We went on all the same church trips and we were partied all the same prayer groups. And you know, so whenever I really benefited and kind of a hack to the system in a lot of ways, I feel like, yes, I trusted you, but it was almost like trusting,

your response to it was very trustworthy as my own response because our journeys were so in lockstep. And then I, but I, there was pivotal points all along the way when I would have to pick up those books and read them. It wasn't just the Francis Collins one, because it started to get real. And it was like, I gotta read this stuff for myself.

That'll transition to my, well, I'll let you respond to that because I think that people might say it's your fault. It is. No, I mean, no, I'm very conscious of that. I think that, I mean, interestingly, the other way around, I mean, like in any testimony that you give, that you hear somebody give in the church, it usually comes down to a person

who shared the gospel with them, right? Like it's, people share the message and for better or worse, it also works the other way. It's like, I'm a key figure in your anti-testimony. You know, it's just, it's a fact. It's- Anti-testimony. And I think that, yeah, people will be upset about that. People will be mad at me.

I don't doubt that. I'm letting you off the hook because again, I'm grateful for it and I'm fully responsible for it. Did it make the conversations that I had with Christy even more difficult? Yes, because I was presenting these beliefs that were a threat to her. They were genuine questions to me,

but they were also tied to you like whispering it in my ear. And so we had to work through that as well. It's like, well, is this something that you're grappling with or something that Rhett is grappling with? Ultimately, it's something that I'm grateful that legitimate questions are things that I actually wrestled with. I think I need, and that goes back to my intention

of working to be hopeful because I feel like it does take work for me to engage in those questions, the difficult questions in order to become more of who I actually wanna be. Yeah. That's not an easy thing to do. All the decisions were yours. Absolutely. All I did were yours. Absolutely. All I did was just present information

as I was processing it. And at no point was I trying to convince you of anything. And at no point was I trying to like, I was the only person you could talk to who would just like, you could just talk, I was confiding in you. Really talk, yeah. I was confiding in you. And I think that I did not want to, in my session here,

I didn't wanna retread the reasons that you gave, the arguments that were compelling for you. That was because you gave some of those and you gave resources, but I also didn't wanna do it because I didn't want to, I didn't wanna share a story that was, you know, whenever my beliefs started to pivot, I described those in like a timeline fashion,

but I intentionally didn't describe, what is it that made you believe that Jesus didn't raise from the dead? What is it that made you believe that you couldn't, that you saw Paul differently or, you know, all of the arguments, I didn't make them because I feel like as a listener, it's up to them, it's up to you to look into that if you want to.

But I also feel like I was giving you an out if like, hey, this is working for me like our friends said. That was like, if this is working for you, then I don't wanna be the one to screw it up for you like Rhett did for me. But I do invite you and I'll make a rec. I found this book called Why I Believed, Reflections of a Former Missionary

written by Kenneth W. Daniels. Feel like I'm on Reading Rainbow now. I mean, this is a freaking self published book. Ken published a book. It's very highly rated, but it's very specific. It was perfect for me because it was, Ken was like a Bible translator who like raised finances just like we did, but he's such a thorough thinker.

He's like, he's kind of like the two of us combined because- Yeah, this is the guy that I want to be. He talked- In terms of how well he researched on this. He talked in equal parts about his own experience of deconstruction and like he's quoting his own journal entries in here. So you really understand what's going on in his heart

as well as his mind. And so if you relate to the specifics of coming out of evangelicalism, especially if you were in the ministry or if you are in the ministry, and you wanna read something that has a more personal touch than that, this is a profound book for me.

So Ken, thank you for publishing this book. But again, if you don't wanna get into it, don't read it. Don't read it just so you can dismiss it. Don't read anything just to dismiss it. Don't even read it if that's what you're gonna do. But again, you gave resources last time and that's another one to add to the list this time.

And you know, I appreciate your story because I mean, my guess is that more people relate to your story than mine. I just, that's my, in my experience, when I talk about the things that happened with me, again, like I said, a lot of people just are like, you're crazy. Like, why do you think about these things?

Or at least, well, he lost me. Yeah, and- So it's like, that meant a lot to him, but like, I don't think it matters that much, really? And I think yours was very personal and it was about what you were kind of experiencing on a practical level, which I think more people will relate to.

I would just say again, as we, you know, begin to have a conversation, listen, the next podcast is not, we don't know what it's gonna be about, but we're gonna take a break from this subject matter. But like I said, I think that this stuff, this spiritual stuff is now a part of Ear Biscuits. You know, it will be something that we talk about,

whether we talk about our past. We want to answer more questions. I know that there's lots of questions that people have related to these stories. I can only imagine. So ask those questions. We'll try to be as clarifying as we can. And if you make us think about something in a different way,

we'll let you know. I mean, we want this to be a process. We want this to be a conversation. But we're gonna let those questions be generated and then we'll continue that conversation at another time. Yeah, so hashtag Ear Biscuits and also, again, I'll encourage you to share these episodes with people that you know it would resonate with or spark more conversations between you and your friends.

So share it. We'll speak at you next week, probably about something else. About something else. And then we'll see if we most likely will come back to it. Thank you.