Theology in the Raw - 699: #699 - A Conversation with Austin Fischer

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

On episode #697 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Austin Fischer. Austin is the Teaching Pastor at Vista Community Church. His first book –Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed- was published in January 2014. He writes and speaks and you can follow him on Twitter @austintfischer. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, welcome to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I got an awesome conversation coming up that you're going to enjoy. But first, I want to tell you about a few events coming up. November 6th, I'll be in Houston, Texas for a One Day Leaders Forum. November 12th, Denver, Colorado for a One Day Leaders Forum. And November 28th in Detroit, that one's really filling up fast too. So if you want to make the One Day Leaders forum in detroit you gotta sign up soon and i also this one isn't listed i don't think i don't think it's listed yet but it's probably gonna happen uh in holland michigan holland michigan just outside of grand rapids i mean you know where you are holland michigan uh either november 29th or the 30th, just after the Detroit forum there, it's most likely I'm going to be in Holland,

Michigan. I think we are dotting our I's and crossing our T's on that event. Uh, you can check out more events at PrestonSpringgold.com or go to center for faith, uh, center for faith.com and check out my speaking schedule there. If you want to support this show,

you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. If you haven't noticed, I've been releasing more, more, more, um, premium content. Is that what we call it these days? Premium content where you have to, uh, you have to financially support the show to get access to premium content. And I'm trying, I'm trying really hard to make it worth your while. So you're not just throwing money my way and not getting anything back. So if you want to support the show, five bucks a month gives you access to at least one Patreon-only podcast a month. But sometimes, as I did a few weeks ago, I released a special, an extra podcast episode for those supporting the show at five bucks a month. It also gives you, uh, just access to ask questions, to dialogue with me on my Patreon page and extra other goodies that we send your way.

So five bucks a month, 10 bucks a month gives you, uh, a Patreon only podcast and a Patreon only blog. 25 bucks a month gives you two Patreon only podcasts and a blog. And, um, you can count your crowns in heaven, I guess, for supporting Patreon,

for supporting Theology in the Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. Okay. My guest is Austin Fisher. I've been wanting to talk to this guy for a while. I don't, I've never met Austin in person, still haven't, except I guess through this interview, but from a distance, I've been a huge fan of his just through seeing him on social media, seeing the books that he's written. He wrote a book a while back called Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed. And then he just came out with a book called Faith in the Shadows, Finding Christ in the Midst of Doubt. Okay. So Austin, he's a pastor of a large church in Texas, very thoughtful guy. And I love the fact that he is one of these

thinkers, one of these pastors, one of these writers who isn't afraid to look at what I call the underbelly of Christianity, kind of the hard things about the Christian faith. He's not afraid to wrestle with tough questions. He's not afraid to change his mind. And I love that. I love people that admit that they didn't have it all figured out at 17, that as they read and study and grow and grow and study and read, see what I did there? Well, what's that called? An inversion or no, I forget. Anyway, I love it when people do that and they're not afraid to change their mind. And so we had a great conversation and honestly, he's just a cool dude. Like I wanted to jump through the screen and just hang out with him. Like he was just a cool, that's kind of weird, but he's just like really awesome dude. Just down to earth. One

of those guys that you feel like you can just share your life with, share your, share aspects of your life with. All right. I'm just gonna dig myself out of this hole. Welcome to the conversation with Austin Fisher. Hey, welcome to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am here with Austin Fisher. Austin is a pastor, not in Austin, Texas, but you're down in Texas somewhere. Temple, is that right? It's close to Austin.

About an hour north of Austin, yeah. Is that weird having a name Austin and you're close to Austin? Does that ever get you into problems or no? No, it'll just, you know, like when you meet people for the first time, you get a lot of really lame jokes made about it. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like Christians that are named Christian. I have no offense if your name's Christian out there, but it's like, man, that's you. You're branded really well.

Yeah, well, it's just like, yeah, it's true about me. Hey, Austin, why don't you kick us off? Just tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe your Christian journey. And man, I would love to jump into the content of your newest book and then also talk about your previous book, your first book about being no longer reformed. And then we'll just go from there. How's that? Sounds great, man. So I grew up in a, we started going to church probably when I was around 12 or 13. It was one of those things where I think the parents realized that they needed some help with the kids and the church was a good source

of help for the kids. And so we went. But I always, for the first bit growing up, I thought you only took your faith seriously if you didn't have any other options. And I kind of liked what I had going on. And so I didn't want Jesus to come mess up what I had going on. And so it took me finding somebody who took his faith very seriously, but was somebody who loved life, man, was out in the world and was brave and courageous and enjoyed life. And he still took his faith seriously. And when I realized that I could do that and that ideally that's what Jesus was inviting me to do wasn't to retreat from the world but to jump headfirst into the world properly grounded in a community that I went oh man this Christianity thing could be for me because I don't I don't follow Jesus because I don't have any better options I follow Jesus

because following Jesus is the best thing that I could do with this one very brief life I've been given. And so that was kind of a process in high school coming to that for me. That guy who kind of mentored me and discipled me and really converted me, he also was the one who introduced me to Calvinism. John Piper was still, yeah, I've still read more John Piper books than probably anybody else. I grew up on it. I loved it. And it, for me, was a transition into a more robust, intellectual, passionate faith. So I went to college thinking I'd either be a lawyer or something that would make me some money and kind of stumbled into some philosophy classes and realized that I really enjoyed them. And so for me, the kind of transition into being a pastor wasn't a big moment. It was just a series of little events where when I kind of followed the overlap of things I enjoyed and things that I was good at and things that I thought could help bless the world in some sense, those things kept overlapping in the direction of being a pastor.

And so I kind of just I never made an intentional decision. It's like I woke up one day three years later and realized that that big decision had been made all along the way through a thousand little bitty decisions. And that's what a call has always felt like to me. Not a big moment, but it's made in these little bitty moments all along the way. So after college, what happened after college? Did you go and get a ministry job right after? I went to seminary at Baylor after college. after? I went to seminary at Baylor after college. And that was kind of the first book was about a lot of that transition out of Calvinism, which for me, Calvinism was synonymous with robust Christian faith. It's all I'd really known of robust Christian faith. And so it didn't feel

like I was transitioning out of Calvinism. It felt like I was maybe leaving Christianity, honestly, is what it felt like. And so that was a pretty difficult period. And again, like this is, we were talking before the interview about this. Like I have all the love in the world for my reformed friends. I pastored with another guy who's reformed. But I got to the place where I wasn't going to be able to hang on honestly to Christian faith if it had to look like that for me. And I understand that it's not that way for everybody, but that was my story. So would you say look like that? What was it about the reform version of Christianity that caused so much problems in your faith walk? So super cliff notes version would be,

for me, I felt like if I were to be an intellectually honest Calvinist, that would mean I had to sign off on specifically something like double predestination. And again, man, that could be a debate all in and of itself. I know some people don't feel they have to go there, but I felt like I had to, following what I considered to be the best of Calvinist thought channeled through Edwards and Piper, et cetera. And that for me was just a step a little too far, man. For me, it undermined too many essential things about Christian faith. And that was the point at which I realized I couldn't keep going down the Calvinist road and had to look for some alternatives.

For our audience, what do you mean by double predestination? Yeah, so briefly, the idea that God has unconditionally elected some people unto salvation and some unto damnation. We get in the weeds there about whether or not God ordained the fall and the order at which God ordained these sins that he would then send people to hell for. But that'd be the cliff notes version. Now, so I, we, we talked earlier about, you know, I consider myself and I so despise labels.

It's hard for me to get it out of my mouth, but my thinking has been, would be somewhat reformed with a lot of footnotes and fine print. But honestly, the election – I haven't really thought through election in probably 15 years. Like I don't even know. I mean I could be an open theist for all I know. Really, like that – and it's that that conversation is really interesting to a lot of people just hasn't been for me in a long time but as i go way back and when i was wrestling with it couldn't you say that god elects some people

to salvation and then just leaves like passively just doesn't elect it's not like he's actively sending the other people there he's just simply letting them have whatever freedom they want to have and run away from God. Absolutely. And that is the way that the most articulate Calvinists have explained it throughout history. My hangup was always that the passive explanation for me was a little misleading, because it's not that humanity has fallen and then God chooses in His grace to save some and not save others. It's that God—I don't know how you can get away from God desiring and ordaining the fall. So you've got God sending people to hell for sins God ordained people commit for His glory. And that, for me, was the hang-up.

Okay. So where would you put yourself right now on the map? I mean— Oh, yeah. So where would you put yourself right now on the map? I mean – Oh, yeah. So I think with a lot of people who, let's say, transition out of a more conservative form of Calvinism, because there are all sorts of different forms. Mine was more conservative. It sent me on a trajectory towards open theism.

Greg Boyd, a lot of those people are very influential for me, but actually I kind of, I'd say over the last five years, kind of course, I think course corrected, but that'd be my interpretation away from that, um, due to the work of people like David Bentley Hart, who made me reconsider if I hadn't properly understood, um, what I think you would just call classical Christian theism. Um, and so, you know, all the kind of classical Greek attributes about God's impassibility, omniscience properly understood, I think is probably the best way to think about it. So I haven't gone the open theist route, even though I thought I probably would. And it ended up landing what I would just call kind of classical Christian theism that kind of was the consensus of the early church for the first five, 350 years. You know, I still haven't read Boyd's book. And this, you're probably like the fifth person who I've talked to on the podcast in the last six months

that boyd you know god of the possible right he's come up and they're like oh dude you need to read up like i i love boyd stuff man and he's super compelling so i oh he's great what i love about greg is he's so honest right greg will not a corner. If he thinks his beliefs lead him to a certain place, then he's going to go there. He's going to go there, yeah. Yeah, and that's even like John Piper. I really disagree with Piper, but one of the things I've always appreciated about Piper is he's very, very honest. And if he thinks his beliefs move him to a certain place, he'll land there. And I appreciate that.

Is there other things within the Reformed, maybe tradition or culture or theology that caused problems? So the double predestination piece, which if I understand the discussion correctly, I mean, Calvin himself was clearly double predestination, right? Like he spoke freely, I think. Yeah, I remember reading statements in the institutes. It's like God elects some to salvation, others to damnation. And he didn't like balk at that at all no and again that's why i think calvin was a much certainly a much more careful and systematic thinker than luther you know luther was kind of and luther just was okay with more paradox and that's fine but but calvin was very mathematical in the way he did

theology so yeah calvin i think realized that his thought demanded that you end up affirming double predestination and to his credit he did it he was consistent well i think luther drank too much well calvin drank a lot too but they all did back in the day baby oh my gosh but when i when i read luther i'm like dude you were so you were at least buzzing right now because some of the stuff you say is so outrageous man oh luther that what, like, Luther can be such a frustrating read sometimes, but he is such a fun, like, life. Yeah. You know what I mean?

He's just fun. He's fun to read. I think he would have lit up Twitter. I think he would have had a lot of followers and death threats. Oh, bro, absolutely. People would be blocking him. Yes. He would have crushed Twitter.

Oh, man. Okay, so you wrote a book. Your first book is, if I can remember correctly, I don't have it in front of me, Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed. Yeah. Is that right? And is that kind of in response to that? Was it Kevin DeYoung? Yeah, I think it was actually Colin Hansen wrote a piece for Christianity Today. It would have been in the late 90s called Young, Restless, and Reformed. Oh, okay. And it kind of just mapped the rise of the new Calvinism that was really popularized by people like Sproul, Piper, Driscoll, Chandler, some of those guys.

Okay. Okay. In that book, you tell your story and why you left. Yeah. Yeah. A journey in and out of Calvinism. And to be fair, that's where Young Restless No Longer Reformed. It should have been Young Restless and No Longer Calvinist, but the title sounded too good to not

use reform. But there should be an asterisk there because there are certainly reformed people who aren't Calvinist. Really? Oh, just of the reformed tradition you're saying, which is most Protestants? I mean, yeah, Lutherans, you know, there are plenty of folks who would say they're reformed, but not Calvinist. Okay, cool. So you've been a pastor for how long now? A co-lead pastor at your church? Yeah, almost seven years now. So it's a pretty young church, about 13 years old, non-denominational, which comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths is we have a lot of room to just kind of experiment and go with it. We've really tried, and this is something I love about your work, is I really think you do, and it's such a unique and rare thing uh in our current kind of cultural climate but it's clear

that you have kind of moved beyond the progressive conservative continuum when it comes to how you think about things you know you don't ask hey what's the conservative position that i'm supposed to have on this or what's the progressive position you ask yourself is this faithful or is it unfaithful is it biblical or is it unbiblical? And if it's faithful then and it makes you look conservative on some issues, then so be it. And if it's faithful and it makes you look progressive, then so be it. You know what's so funny is I got that from John MacArthur early on.

Really? Oh, yeah. You could not have said anything more shocking to me. Well, no. When I first got saved – okay, I'll make this really short. Cause my audience wants to hear from you, not me. But, um, yeah, when I first got saved, I fell in love with studying the Bible, found a shoebox full of cassette tapes of old preachers back in the nineties and, you know, MacArthur, uh, Swindoll and, uh, Andy Stanley's dad.

Yeah. Whatever his name was. Charles, right? I think it's Charles. Of all those, you know, like I just fell in love with MacArthur. I just had this natural love for scripture. And MacArthur was crazy. He was wild. He was like, would push the conservative envelope in that little world that he was preaching in. And I was like, man, I want to be brave to go with the text lead. So I went to master's college and seminary and learned you go with the text leads. The text is where it's all at. And I started doing that and coming to different conclusions than some higher ups in that culture.

Like, oh, no, no, no, no. The text doesn't lead there. I'm like, no, it does. Look, I can show you where. And I learned that, yeah, sometimes people who promote that don't always follow it. But maybe there's things that I think I'm going to the text leads and I'm really out to lunch and stuff, whatever. But I fell in love with the courage of going with the text leads even if it leads you away from previously held views, even if it leads you away from where your boss or your family or your wife or whatever wants you to conclude about this. And so I, yeah, I can credit all my theology, my methodology,

the foundation of it to John MacArthur. Well, you heard it here, folks. Something you probably didn't know about Preston. I still, you know, I mean, I cringe at a lot of stuff he says, and I obviously disagree with some conclusions. But still, he's probably one of the only preachers I know that can preach for over an hour on nitty-gritty components of the text and make it exciting and interesting. And every other thing he says, I'm like i'm like oh no you need to read this

or study that but just it's just the idea of like going deep in the text and keeping people's interests there's few people who can do that you know but you know what you've just inspired me to go back and give john mccarthur another listen because it's been a long time for me so uh piper piper when i was really following mccArthur, which was like right after my conversion, then I started to back off a little bit. So I'm like, man, he's just known for what he's against was kind of the reputation. Like everything's anti this, anti that. We're not charismatic. We're not Armenian.

We're not like, well, what are we? And Piper came in. I got introduced to Piper, I would say three, four years into my Christian journey. And that was like really attractive to me because here's a guy who is kind of charismatic. He's not dispensational pre-mill. He has the same passion for scripture and whatever, but he's, what is he post-mill or whatever or not historic? I don't know what he is.

I don't care. But it's like, oh, here's a guy that's a little broader with the same focus on scripture and the gospel. And man, I fell in love with Piper for a good five plus years. You know, just, and even now when I hear him preach, I'm like, man, that guy, like, I just, yeah, I love his passion for God and scripture, but probably like you, I've departed from certain views he has and I wouldn't line up there anymore or whatever.

But I don't know. He's still like, yeah, I think he's a helpful voice in Christianity. At the same time, some of his stuff on women, like I want to, I want to, I don't know what I want to do. I just, because I used to be there i'm not there anymore on a lot of those questions but i think that's part of it is i think one of the things that you can look at to see how open you really are to move beyond conservative progressive kind of continuums and think in terms of faithful unfaithful is to ask yourself how many times in my life especially adulthood have i changed changed my mind about a core belief?

And for most people, the answer is never or once. But I think, you know, I've seen with you, let's just say with nonviolence, that was one where you, I think we're honest about what the text says. I would agree with you on that one. And I've had to have the same journey and you had to move away from where kind of the stream would have naturally taken you and i think that's indicative of an openness yeah to move beyond the progressive conservative game yeah totally well it's either that or you had you actually did have it all figured out at 19 yeah which which is maybe a couple prodigies out there but yeah maybe you so you maybe you. So you're – I see – I mean from Twitter I can tell you're an advocate of nonviolence. I'm not sure on the specifics.

It doesn't really – for me it's a broad kind of category. How does that work in Texas? Are you public with that? Well, so let's say I did a sermon series called The Politics of Jesus last April after Easter to get rid of the Easter crowds, you know, and so what we did when we came to, you know, Matthew five, 38 through 48 is I just tried to lay out best I could in a 30 minute sermon. The two kind of classic Christian options when it comes to just war and nonviolence. And, you know, my people, if they wanted to follow the breadcrumbs,

they knew where I was landing. But you put those voices out there in tension, and you give people some space to sort through it for themselves. And one of my elders has been really helpful for me, and I remember one time preaching a sermon where I came down pretty hard against young earth creationism, which we can pop into that. But he just said, hey, that was a really great sermon. But it was really unfair of you to expect everybody else to take this journey that took you

six years and 30 minutes in a sermon on a Sunday. You know, you got to be patient with people and you got to give them space to process it and not expect them to take a journey in this really microwave sense that you had years to go through. And so as a pastor in Texas, you know, who believes in nonviolence, that's kind of the route I've had to take is, A, you don't just, you don't insult people with it, you know, and it's easy to do that when you discover a new belief, you want to beat everybody over the head with it. But instead, you just lay out what you think the biblical case for it is. You admit that it's hard. And honestly, like I struggle calling myself nonviolent because it's never cost me anything. So how easy is it for me as this entitled citizen of, you know,

the greatest superpower the world has ever known to get all high and mighty and sanctimonious about how everyone should be nonviolent because I never have to be, you know? And so I just think we have to be careful with that. That's so good. Yeah. I was just talking to, do you know Evan Wickham? Do you know that name? Yeah. Yeah. I know Evan a little bit. We had the same conversation because he's, he's a fully nonviolent. Um, and in oddly enough, San Diego where he's pastoring is a progressive city, but it's also very militaristic and the Christian church, like, like many progressive cities tends to be much more conservative. And anyway, he's had to learn how to introduce this with more baby steps and realize, man, it's taken me years to marinate on this in the confines of my study,

you know, with no risk, no whatever, and then to come out the other side. Here's what I believe. But realize people are really good, good, thoughtful, Christ-centered people are all over the map on this. And a lot of it is probably the context they grew up in, but we all have that context and we're shaped in various ways. So that's a good word. That's a good pastoral word to be patient with.

Yeah, absolutely. What else? So you mentioned creationism. I'm tempted to go there. We'll go wherever you want, man. You're driving. I'm tempted to go there, but we'll go wherever you want, man. Okay.

So my only hesitation is I am of all the areas I've not studied. That's probably the, you know, like I just, yeah. So I grew up, obviously grew up hardcore young earth creationism to the point to where if you don't affirm a literal six day young earth, like then you're basically denying the authority of the Bible is they went hand in hand. And I would say where I'm at now is I, I would, I would be an older creationist. Well, that,

that would be, I've changed my assumptions because I never studied young earth creationism as the environment I grew up with. So it was my assumption. And it was really a couple of years ago when i'm like wait a minute 19 out of my top 20 christian thinkers that i respect we're all old earth creationists yeah why do i say well i haven't studied it but young earth is my default why don't i just flip that around my default should be old earth because that's kind of the christian evangelical thoughtful consensus why not just assume that and then until i study and change my view you know maybe maybe young

earth is right i don't know if if i got into it maybe i changed my view so that's kind of where i'm at now my kids were asking me well wait what so why why would we be young earth or old earth creationists and um i said well you know kind know, kind of what I just told you, that the people that have studied it, that are firmly committed to scripture, have actually waded through the science, the scientific debates, are old earth creationists. And there's a lot of people that I trust in that arena.

So my default, I'm not saying I'm going to take a bullet for it, I'm just saying my default is going to be that perspective. So anyway, so what are your, why would you call yourself an old earth creationist? Like, what is it about the debate that persuaded you? Yeah. So even within, so let's say you got young earth creationism, which is, you know, earth is about 6,000 years old. You got old earth creationism, which God created the world, but it's old. There's a mixture of like natural processes and God intervening directly at certain

points. And then some people would add a third category, which is theistic evolution, which God evolution to bring about life on earth. I think there's a lot of overlap with old earth creationism of theistic evolution, because I don't think we have any clue what it would mean for God to intervene in creation. Like, I don't even know if that's a good way to think about God's action in creation, because it implies that creation is this self-enclosed entity that God has to like interrupt in order to do something. You know, John Polkinghorne is a guy, he's a British guy who's written a lot about it. And he's just challenged the idea that we should even speak in terms of God intervening. God is intimately involved in creation so much so that God doesn't have to

intervene in the way we probably typically think of it. There are certain instances in the biblical narrative where intervention is clearly the right word, the Red Sea, the resurrection, you know, so on and so forth. But those would be kind of the big categories for me. So here's what's really tricky about this, right? You've got theologians and biblical scholars a lot of times trying to make conclusions about scientific evidence and they're just not trained to evaluate it. Sure. That's what I feel. That's why I don't want to speak to speak authoritatively. Totally. And so what I think you do is you get put in the spot where, you know, science tells us that the world and that the universe is very, very old. And it's not just one field of science. You know, physics tells us the world is very old. Astronomy tells us the world is very old, using what we know about the speed of light and stars, you know, appearing and then disappearing. So we can know how long it took their life to get here.

So we can know how many years ago it died. The geological record, DNA, and just knowing how long it would take this specific kind of structure of DNA to get here. So science across a number of fields tell us that the world is very old, much older than 6,000 years. And so we get put in this position where, again, none of us are trained to really evaluate any of those claims. And so we either have to trust the scientist or say, no, they're wrong and they don't know what they're talking about. There's some sort of scientific conspiracy to undermine faith. And so the question would be, why would we think all the scientists have this conspiracy to undermine Christian faith? And I think the only reason we would go there is we think Scripture would require us to believe in a young earth.

And so once you get rid of the idea that scripture requires us to believe in a young earth, then all of a sudden you're freed up to trust the scientist if the science is trustworthy. Now, do you think it's proven to be? And so that's what I have a chapter on science, and that's what it's really asking. I have no problem if some people want to argue that the earth is 6,000 years old. That's fine. But to argue that a Christian has to believe, or that you can only interpret scripture faithfully if you think it is, that's just a really bad argument that honestly, I think we will be held in judgment

for one day because we are creating a crisis of faith for a lot of people over science that they don't need to have. There are plenty of good reasons to have a crisis of faith for a lot of people over science that they don't need to have. There are plenty of good reasons to have a crisis of faith, right? Every time a child dies, it should be a crisis of faith. Evolution should not cause a crisis of faith. And we have set up an artificial one for a lot of people. I know a lot of people who are scientifically minded, who they say this was the issue that prevented them from being a Christian. who they say this was the issue that prevented them from being a Christian. They felt like it's like synonymous for people of a scientific background.

It's almost like you must believe that the earth is flat to be a Christian. And they're like, I just can't go there. And once they realize that, oh, there's debates within Christianity about this, old earth, theistic evolution is perfectly compatible with the biblical story. And so that's one way to read the text. That's, that's legitimate. Once they came to that place, it's like,

Oh, they, they came sprinting into the kingdom. I don't have to check my head at the door. And I'm not saying, I'm just saying that that was their kind of way of processing this whole thing. So that to me,

that's, that's huge. And, you know, going back to the point you made about the biblical text doesn't demand a young earth theology. And I know there's going to be people listening that are going to absolutely disagree with that. And for me, it was, it really was teaching through, I used to teach Old Testament survey. memorial intention of Genesis 1 and 2, confronting other creation narratives,

promoting the supremacy and singularity of God as creator. He's not competing with other deities like Marduk or whatever. And really, once I really saturated myself in the actual point of the biblical text in Genesis 1 and 2, in its context, I was like, this isn't really about the age of the earth. And there's also poetic elements going on. There's mythologies that are kind of being drawn upon. And I think it was when I read John Walton's work on Genesis 1 and 2. John's a gateway drug, man. Oh, gosh. And I read that. I'm like, well, to me, that kind of settles it. It doesn't settle my knowledge of the science because I still don't really know that debate. But I'm like, It doesn't settle my knowledge of the science because I still don't really know that debate.

But I'm like, oh, the biblical text is perfectly compatible with either perspective. It's not even really talking about that. So yeah. That's one of the things I mentioned in the book about interpreting scripture. The key to good biblical interpretation is to read as the author intends, not to read as literally as possible. And that's such a simple distinction, but I think in more, conservative is probably even the wrong word, you know, more fundamentalist strands of evangelicalism. Reading the Bible well has become synonymous with reading it as literally as possible.

But there are places where reading it as literally as possible means you're not reading it faithfully. And the best of historic Christian biblical interpretation tells us that. Like Augustine, for example, right? He wrote, I think it was Augustine, a commentary called On a Literal Reading of Genesis 1. Oh, really? And you read it, though, and it's the furthest thing from literal you've ever seen in your entire life. And so one of the arguments Augustine makes is he says, look, when the science clearly teaches something, this is Augustine, when the science clearly teaches something that appears to contradict Scripture, then it's clear that we ought to go back to Scripture and reconsider whether or not we've been interpreting it faithfully.

That's Augustine. That's like in the fourth century, you know. That's crazy. That's what I hate is that for the first, even the medieval ages, like it was Christians who were on the cutting edge of science. cutting edge of science. They saw, no, we made all the greatest discoveries. And now we've alienated Christians from science because we think they have to choose between their faith and science and giving up the sciences. And that's a tragedy.

I think that's a result though, isn't it? Of our cultural context where in the last 150 years, you have had people use the science to say the Bible is not true and people losing their faith because they think the two are incompatible. So I think there's a cultural, wrongly, but I'm in a cultural moment, a cultural context where people have had, they have been scared of science because of the way it's been used. I totally agree. But I think we should fight for the science and do good science instead of running from

the science. Okay. What about conservative, maybe even fundamentalist Christians who do have a legitimate degree in science? I'm thinking of like Answers in Genesis or other, I don't even know much about that. But there are, I have met Christians who are true scientists, like they're actual, they have, I don't, they're true scientists on some level. And they would say, no, the science has not proven an old earth. No, they're ignoring this, this, this. And I know there's like my brother-in-law went on some rafting trip down to the Grand

Canyon where every year they have a bunch of old earth. You know what I'm talking about? They have a bunch of old earth, or sorry, young earth creationists who are scientists. They're pointing out, showing how ridiculous old earth, you know, theories are. And I mean, again, as a non-scientist, I'm just kind of, for me, it's kind of a majority rules kind of thing. And I'm not saying science in general, I'm saying, you know, evangelical Christians who do know the science, scientific discussion, overwhelmingly they're older. It's not, you know, um, but what would you say about that? I mean, do you just think, well, yeah, there are some out there that.

There are some. And so that's one of the it's a it's a footnote in the book. But I go through and look at the most recent polls that have been done on, you know, how many scientists believe that evolution is true and provides the best explanation for the variety of life on Earth as we have. And depending on the poll, I mean, you're going to find scientific support somewhere between 90 and 99%. And that number tends higher towards people who actually have a degree that would make them experts in it. So like a meteorologist could be considered a scientist, but his opinion on the edge of the earth probably isn't the most helpful. So people who are actually specialists in the field, that number gets toward 99%. And so I think there's a misconception that scientists are, you know, it's like 60, 40, 50, 50, and that's just not true. The scientists are overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that the earth is very old and evolution is probably the best explanation we have. And so what I would say is, again, if you want to make a scientific case for a young earth,

that's fine. But most of the people who I've encountered who are young earthers typically also demand a literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2. And for me, that's what gives the game away. They're already pre-committed to what the science has to say because of a literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2. In the few debates I've listened to, maybe two or three, the young earth defender, in my experience, they always do say old earth is incompatible with scripture. And sometimes they won't even acknowledge that. Sometimes they won't even acknowledge it, but then they'll come back and basically their argument is, well, I believe the Bible, you know, kind of thing. It's like, well, yeah, that's not what

the debate's about. That's what I'm waiting for. I'm waiting for the young earth creationist to acknowledge that Genesis one through two probably can't be read literally. Right. And there just aren't many of those. Yeah. That's interesting. All right. What else have you shifted your view on?

What are some other views where you're like, man, I used to believe this, and now I'm not so sure about that? Oh, gosh. I'm trying to think specifically as it pertains to the book. I mean, so one of the chapters obviously is about, a couple of them are about evil. Real quick. So this is the new book, Faith in the Shadows, Finding Christ in the Midst of Doubt.

I don't think we mentioned the title yet. And it just came out, right? I mean, as in like- It comes out a week from today. Oh, it's not even out yet. September 11th. Yeah, you got your hands on a special copy. Oh yeah, look at this.

Well, so by the time this podcast comes out, it'll probably be past September 11th. So yeah. So the book is officially out. Faith in the shadows, finding Christ in the midst of doubt. Yeah. What else do you talk about in that book that caused maybe issues of doubt for you? So for me, the best reason to not be a Christian is the problem of evil. Um, and, and again, even calling it the problem of evil for me is, is problematic because evil, when you really feel the weight of the world's just endless, pitiless, relentless suffering, evil becomes more than a problem for you. I mean, it causes a crisis of faith. And one of the things I say in the book is if evil doesn't cause a crisis of faith for you. I mean, it causes a crisis of faith. And one of the things I say in the book is, if evil doesn't cause a crisis of faith for you at some point, then you probably haven't really felt the weight of the world's suffering. And so there are a couple of chapters in the book

about evil. And it's not like I've cracked the code and I solved the problem of evil. That's not happening. But for me, I would have previously signed off to a belief where evil was necessary in the long run to display kind of the full range of God's glory. You know, so this is a you're going to hear kind of echoes of Piper and Edwards there. Yeah. You know, and that's a great explanation. And I actually argue in the book that you have to acknowledge that you can make a great biblical argument for that. The story of Joseph, you know, case in point, you could look at others. And there's a place for that within the history of Christian orthodoxy, that there is evil and suffering in the world because it allows the world to also know God's wrath and justice and love and all God's attributes. wrath and justice and love and all God's attributes. I ended up coming to a place where I don't think, I don't think it's the best idea to affirm that evil was necessary for God to display God's glory. For one, because,

because I think if evil is necessary for God to display God's glory, then you end up getting to a place where creation becomes necessary. Right. And you'd probably check with me here, but if God has to have evil to be the foil kind of to his goodness, then there has to be something other than God existing because God is light, love, and there is no darkness in God. And so if God has to display, let's say God's wrath in order to fully display himself, then there has to be something other than God for God to display God's wrath, because you're not going to have the Father displaying wrath against the Son or against

the Spirit or something like that. And so I think you get to this place where you end up having to affirm that creation was in some sense necessary, instead of an act of grace, freely given that God had no need for gratuitous overflowing of God's infinite delight and abundance. And so that was part of the shift away from Calvinism, but that was one for me where I would have used to affirm that evil was finally necessary. And now I don't think that you can coherently claim evil is necessary. That doesn't mean I can explain too well where it comes from.

But I don't know that we should be able to explain where it comes from. So you don't have, for lack of better terms, a solution to the problem of evil? Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I don't, I don't think you can do better than the freedom solution. I mean, long story short. So that would just be that what God most desired in creating a world was a world that had the possibility of love. Love requires freedom. Freedom requires the possibility that freedom will be abused. And so a world with love requires the possibility of evil. And that's on us, not God. And if you're thinking from a truly biblical perspective, the Bible is not interested, correct me if I'm wrong, in the origin of evil, but it

does acknowledge the problem of evil, and it very clearly says God will overcome evil whether you like the way he does it or not, but it doesn't really explore where it all came from, and did he create the devil, right? I mean, is that... I think a number of scholars, Greg Boyd is the one who does it,

they've noted that there is no problem of evil in the Bible in the way that we moderns does it. They've noted that there is no problem of evil in the Bible in the way that Lee moderns understand it. They don't sit around wondering why do bad things happen to good people? A, because it's more of a, why do good things happen to bad people? Because we're not just good people, we're also bad people. Wait, I thought you're not reformed anymore. That's a very reformed thing. Reformed people don't have a monopoly on total poverty. Okay, that's a misnomer. No, biblical writers don't sit around asking those questions, I think,

because for them the answer was so obvious it wasn't stated. I mean, and I kind of trace this out in the book. The biblical writers clearly work within this worldview where creation is fallen, and so suffering is to be expected because all of creation is under the curse of sin and death due to the rebellion of humans. And honestly, I mean, this is weird to modern folks, but the rebellion of angelic forces, the powers and principalities, like that's clearly how the biblical writers thought about the world. And so it was obvious to them why there was evil. I agree with you. I think, first of all, I did a little research on this, gosh, 10, 12 years ago. And I don't even remember the article, but I read an article that kind of went through, a really long article.

I think it was from a Christian philosopher going through all the solutions, proposed solutions to the problem of evil, and showed how each one has some good points, but none of them really solve it. Like, there's no real airtight case. And his conclusion was there just isn't any real solution to it and i and i gosh i wish i could remember that article but uh that that's kind of where i'm at i don't i don't i get a little nervous and people confidently assert here is how the best way to think through this in a real clean neat and tidy way. But I agree. I think it is. I think that it's one of, if not the greatest hurdles for so many people, whether they even say it's the problem of evil, but it's, yeah.

How can God be both good and allow some of the horrific, horrific stuff? For me, maybe this is going to take us in a different direction, but Christian universalism is attractive to me. I just wish it was more biblical, but it's attractive to me because I think it's, it's really the only thing that ultimately solves it. If in the end, all the suffering and sexual abuse and rape and genocides will be, if all the victims of all the horrific suffering that has gone on will

ultimately experience eternal bliss through the gracious free gift of salvation. To me, it's like, okay, that could give some sort of solution to it all. I just wish I had more biblical evidence. No,

so I've got a chapter i've got a chapter on hell and we would end up i think because i've read i know you're involved with rethinking hell and i love the work you guys do there um and so no i would end up i think landing in a really similar place where i would say um i i hope universalism is true. And I think you're just a real, this is the way a Texan would say it, a real turd of a person if you don't hope that universalism is true. But I don't think God's given me permission to believe universalism is true. I hope for it. Scripture tells us that God hopes for it in a number of different places, that God earnestly desires that everyone be saved. And so I hope everyone will be saved, but I just don't know that I have permission to believe everyone will be saved. There's this monk named, I think it was Christian

Gottlieb Barth, and he has this great quote. And he says, anyone who does not hope for universalism is an ox, but anyone who teaches it is an ass. And I think that, long story short, is where I would land. I hope God is a universalist, but he hasn't allowed me to be one. And so I would end up landing in a spot of annihilationism. Again, I hope hell's empty, but in the case that there are some of us who are stubborn enough to never yield to the love of God, which is a distinct possibility, I think annihilationism is the best option, almost as a sort of self-inflicted annihilationism, more than something God corporally enacts on people. I think existence is a gift we have on loan. And we spend a whole our entire existence um into eternity moving away from the source of life we'll just kind of snuff ourselves out one day is what i think and c.s

lewis kind of nods in that direction in the great divorce there are a lot of other people nt right says something very similar too right yeah nt right i wish you would i wish you would write more on this i mean he's so he's so turned off on the hell discussion. He asked about hell and he's like, you Americans – He's so bored by it. Yeah, you guys are always – I'm like, well, okay, fair enough. But the Bible does talk about it. What are your thoughts on it?

So I had lunch with him a few years ago. Humble brag. Okay. No, but isn't that hard? I'm not – that sounds like I'm name dropping. No, I'm's good i'm kidding if you're passing through scotland and he has time he will totally go to lunch with anybody he's he's so down to earth anyway we were talking about annihilation and hell and he he even said i i

hate quoting him on the air here because i don't know the exact quote but he basically said like yeah i think if i studied it more and really thought through it i'd probably be on the annihilation side it was kind of where he, but you know, his, the few things he has said about it seemed to point in that direction. There is some sort of, he's definitely not an eternal conscious torment guy. He seems to talk about some ongoing existence where your humanity keeps fading away, but he's like,

yeah, the annihilation, I can, I can kind of go there, you know, it's a little bitty book he wrote called following Jesus. It's like, it's like six chapters long, probably 80 pages. And it's just a collection of sermons, but he's got a sermon in there where he very clearly lines out. And I quote it in the

book. I mean, he, again, if you just follow the breadcrumb trail, so maybe if into you, if you're listening, if you would follow your own breadcrumb trails, it clearly moves in the direction of like a self-inflicted annihilation. Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. Were the doors locked from the inside kind of thing? Yeah. C.S. Lewis's. Yeah. I mean, the doors, hell is not something that God creates for us, I think, so much as it's something we create for ourselves. And so the way I say it in the book is God will love all people forever, but some people may hate him for it. No, I really, that's the best sense I can make it. I think there's a chance some people may hate God for it.

Have you read a Robin Perry's essay in the four views of hell book? So I have not read that. I read his book though, the evangelical universalist, which is the pseudonym for he had, you know, kind of come out with his universalism. And it makes a great biblical case for it. It really does. I just think I can listen to all the evidence and go, man, I really hope that's right. But I just have never felt comfortable like proselytizing people into universalism. And that's C.S. Lewis has a line where he says, you know, it may be that all will be well and all manner of things will be well, but it's ill talking of such things is the way Lewis said it. Certainly if the Bible, if universalism is the true view, it's certainly not that clear.

Like I'm not saying there's not biblical arguments and statements. I mean, Romans 5, 18 is a big one for me. And even the book of Revelation, I mean, Perry makes a great case for Revelation for a kind of substrand. Yeah, you know, but it's like the over, I mean, I often tell people, it's the biblical clarity on annihilation that by definition rules out universalism. And it's ECT, it's eternal conscious torment that allows for it, really, because if people are forever alive in a conscious state, then you have to also make an argument that God will either prevent them from repenting or if they do repent, he will reject their repentance, which is, but neither of those sound very like logical, you know,

or he's made it to where it's impossible that they will repent or whatever, but either way, they're still alive forever and ever and ever. Whereas annihilation rules out any possibility of on the other side, accepting God or whatever. But if the clarity of annihilation wasn't there, then I think a good case for universalism can be made. Totally agree. Where are you?

Can I ask you? Well, let me... So I'm really confused now. You're a pastor in Texas. You believe in nonviolence and you're anilationist, and you're somewhat public about that. So do you have people at your church? I mean, does anybody show up on Sunday? How do you get away with being nontraditional on some issues?

This is one of those stereotypes about Texans, Preston. We're not just a bunch of backwoods conservatives. No, I'm kidding. No, man, what I really have found is that I don't think we give people enough credit for the amount of ambiguity and kind of in-depth discussion they really can tolerate so much as you're not pretentious and arrogant about the way you present it. I mean, we'd probably be considered like an evangelical megachurch. not pretentious and arrogant about the way you present it. I mean, we'd probably be considered like an evangelical megachurch. So every nasty stereotype you can think of about evangelical megachurch is that we, you know, Christian nationalism and all conservative and all wits, no depth, like all that. And that can be the case, but it doesn't have to be the case.

widths, no depth, like all that. And that can be the case, but it doesn't have to be the case. And if you as a pastor set a tone for, you know, we're going to talk about things in depth and we're going to be honest and we're going to be charitable with each other, then I just think you end up being pretty surprised at how much grace people give you back. And I haven't always done that well. So I'm 33 years old right now. When I started, people give you back. And I haven't always done that well. So I'm 33 years old right now. When I started, I was 26, right? So I went in guns blazing. You know, when you're young, you want to prove how smart and clever you are. And so I got into some trouble early on because I just, I wasn't being patient enough with people. And I was just also being arrogant, you know, and that's part of it. It comes across like you're prideful, but it's really that you're insecure and you want to look prideful. And so once I kind of

came to terms with that and was more patient with people and more honest about my own uncertainties about certain things and didn't get up there and pretend like I knew everything about everything, our people just really understood what we were trying to accomplish, man. And honestly, it's been way easier than you would expect when your people respect you and they can tell that you love them and that you're charitable and patient with them. That's good, man. How big is your church? How many people are at your church? I hate asking that question because I don't really care, but just you said mega church. Well, I mean, mega is, you know, I think Webster's defines it, you know, as 2,000 people on a Sunday. And so we're probably at around 2,500 on a Sunday.

Okay. Wow. Wow. And you're open with where you're at or whatever? Yeah. So almost every year we do a series called Skeptics Welcome, where I'll try to hit a few key issues, and then we always wrap it up with a Q&A. And questions about hell and eternal conscious torment, they come up every single year. And, you know, we just kind of lay out the options. And again, as long as you're not too

sanctimonious with it, you don't rub people's noses in the fact that, hey, you're paid to do this. And so, yeah, you should know some things they don't know. That doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it. You'll just be really surprised, man, at how receptive people are. A lot of people's problems isn't our content. It us being a jerk it's just been my experience that's so good man it makes sense on paper um have you read um jonathan height uh the righteous mind why good people disagree on politics and religion dude i literally finished that book last week are you serious yes last week it's everything you're talking about. It's people holding their beliefs.

Oh, yes. It's so good. It's probably the top five most important books I've read. I totally agree. It's in my top five of the most important, and especially this particular climate. Yes, yeah. It is a must read if you were a pastor.

It really is, man. I totally agree. But isn't that – I mean he basically really proves on a psychological level everything you're saying. That it's your posture, your tone, how you talk about things, how you humanize the other person that is going to allow – enable more space for them to actually consider your views. I mean that's just a piece of the book. But I mean – so you're saying you've seen that to be true in your views. I mean, that's just a piece of the book, but I mean, so you're saying that to be true in your context. Absolutely. I mean, what he does such a great job of is, and I can talk about Heitz book literally all day, just mapping out why are certain people

wired? I mean, genetically wired to be conservative and why are some genetically wired to be progressive? And then once you get yourself in their shoes, it begins to make sense. And you might still disagree with them, but you can't demonize them anymore. And that's the key is getting that place. And I think a lot of times it takes you having a conversion experience, which like you've had and I've had where I've gone from being, you know, I was very conservative and then I was on a trajectory towards being very progressive.

And then I think course corrected toward trying the best I can to move beyond even thinking in terms of progressive or conservative to get you to a place where you can understand that. And that's Andy Crouch. You know, he what's the book you wrote? Culture Making. Right. Well, he talks about different postures toward culture. And I think his real contribution to that whole discussion was saying, hey, all of the postures are good when they're gestures and not postures. Right. So there are times when being conservative is the right thing to do. There are ways we should be conservative, but then there are ways where we should also be progressive. And we can't just keep one posture all the time. We have to know when to be conservative, when to be progressive, how to do them and how to do them together. If we want to truly stay open to the spirit, moving into the future, and yet still grounded in the best of Christian orthodoxy.

Right. That's so good. We're going to wrap it up here in a second, but where are you at on the sexuality gender questions? Have you done much reading on that? You're my sensei when it comes to that. Good. I was hoping you'd be on the right side. Yeah. Pick up Preston's book, People to be loved. Oh man. So that's, that is a really hard one for me. And this is one where I think knowing, knowing what comes natural for you is really important. Okay.

So I grew up conservative, very conservative, moved away from that. So I was on a pretty typical trajectory toward progressivism which would typically mean you know i would end up being affirming of lgbtq etc um but but i've i've kind of i think again course corrected through your work through the work of people like stanley howell loss um to come to this place where i realized that I'm wired in some ways to want to be affirming. Yeah. But because of that, it's made me kind of go back and reevaluate it.

And, you know, I've landed in a place where, well, brief detour here. Okay. So I think when it comes to our beliefs, it's helpful to think of our beliefs as like a little Supreme court that exists inside all of our minds. Right. And so it's not like when I say I believe something, it means I'm a hundred percent certain this is right or that is right. It's more like, you know, you've got your Supreme court and some decisions are nine Oh, and then some decisions are seven, two, and then some decisions are six,

three, and then some are four, four with one judge still undecided. And so when it comes to that question for me, I have ended up landing with kind of the traditional interpretation of marriage and sexuality. I will admit that it is not as clear to me as some other things are. But at the end of the day, like we don't, we wouldn't perform a marriage for a homosexual couple at our church. We acknowledge that we could be wrong on that. You know, like I just, I admit there are good arguments to be made and we could be wrong. But at the end of the day, I,

I'm forced to make a decision on a really tough issue. And at this point, the progressive arguments have not been persuasive enough for me to walk away from the historic Christian teaching on that. And again, I've got really good progressive friends who disagree with me and I agree that, and we've had to literally deal with it. Um, and I could be wrong, man. I totally admit I could be wrong, but that's just where I've landed. Uh, have you faith at church? Is this a real pastorally pressing question for you in your context? Do you guys deal with this question on the ground or is it not, not so much? Yeah, we, we do. I mean, we have, you know, homosexual couples who absolutely attend or involved in our small groups and the whole nine.

The difficult issues come when like issues of membership come up and how you handle that. And and that's really hard. And I don't have any easy solutions. And I honestly just hate that it's become such a thing. But I get that it has to be a thing. And there are really good faithful homosexual couples who feel so alienated and left behind by the church. And that breaks my heart. And I know that for a lot of them, the fact that my church would be welcoming, but not affirming is probably what we would say. I know that it's not enough for some of them. And I know that they would still feel so excluded that they would be really hurt and feel like, you know, my church doesn't stand up for them in the ways they should. And I just say, I get it. And I really am sorry. And I wish God had made this one clearer. Like I really do. Because I realized there are real casualties to it.

Yeah, that's good, man. So again, the book, the most recent book is Faith in the Shadows, Finding Christ in the Midst of Doubt. I'm going to assume that if you're listening to this right now, the book is already released by, oh, IVP. Oh, cool. I love IVP. Where can people find yours? Do you have a website or just your church's webpage or people want to get a hold of your stuff?

Yeah, so there's purpletheology.com is the website. Purple means to be a nod, you know, to moving beyond the red and blue spectrum. There's also the austin fisher.com that just redirects to that at this point but yeah church's website uh obviously you can get it on amazon or intervarsity's website if you want to make sure amazon doesn't run the rest of the world out of the book selling businesses it's nice are you closer to our what are you on the east side of austin towards houston or the other side? Or where are you?

So I'm basically directly north. Hour north of Austin, in between Austin and Dallas. Oh, okay. Okay, cool. I'm going to be in Houston in November, but that's quite a ways away from you. No, I'm from East Texas originally, so only about an hour. So, you know, maybe I'll make a trip home and make a trip out of it. There we go.

We'll get some barbecue. You guys got any barbecue down there? Yeah, we got one or two barbecue places. Hey, thanks so much for being on the show. You've been listening to Theology in the Raw with Austin Fisher. Check out his stuff at purpletheology.com. Is that what it was? Purpletheology.com, yeah.

All right. Or Austin Fisher will get you to a webpage. So thanks for being on. We'll see you next time on Theology in the Raw. Thanks, Preston. Thank you.