Theology in the Raw - 740: #740 - What Is Jackass Theology?

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

On episode #740 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Mark and Ryan from Jackass Theology. Mark has been serving in pastoral roles for over 15 years. After a decade in various teaching and administrative roles at Eternity Bible College, Mark now works with Ryan as the Associate Pastor of Creekside Church in Rocklin, California. Ryan MacDiarmid is currently the Lead Pastor of a church in Sacramento, California. He has served vocational ministry for over 15 years, working at small churches, large churches, and everything in between. Follow Jackass Theology on Twitter: @jackasstheology Follow Jackass Theology on Instagram: @jackasstheology Check out their website and podcast: http://jackasstheology.com 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, friends. Welcome to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Today on the show, I have a couple jackasses on the show to interview. And yeah, so it's gonna be one of those episodes. And if you have kids listening, I should have told you this ahead of time before I said the word jackass. But the word jackass actually appears quite a bit in this upcoming show because the two pastors, the two evangelical conservative pastors I have on the show started a blog a few weeks ago called Jackass Theology, where they are addressing what they see as a concern in evangelicalism with people being, well, jackasses.

with people being, well, jackasses. And we talk about the role of using questionable language in Christian dialogue. So if you're already writing that angry email to me or to them, then at least listen to the first, I don't know, 15 minutes of the episode. You can see, no, actually listen to the first, I don't know, 15 minutes of the episode. You can see now actually listen to the first 30 minutes of the episode and you can see, uh, why they, uh, named their blog as Jackass Theology. So, uh, I hope you enjoy the show. I think you will.

These are two wonderful, godly guys, um, uh, Ryan and, uh, Mark. They are both pastors at a church in Sacramento, California. Mark Buveen, one of the pastors who's on the show, we've been good friends for, gosh, over a decade at least. Yeah, I think it's been over a decade. And we taught at Eternity Bible College together. Mark Buveen has been a co-writer with Francis Chan on several of his books. Multiply was written by, no, I mean, sorry, co-written by, it was actually co-written by, co-written by Mark Buving. Mark Buving has, he actually informally edited, like just out of his own goodwill, several of my books, including Fight,

Charis. He was deeply involved with Erasing Hell. And my other book that nobody's read, Apollon Judaism Revisited. It's an academic book. He read through that whole thing. And he is just a fantastic writer, great thinker, wonderful guy. I just got to know Ryan on this, Ryan McDiarmid on this podcast here. I've known about him just through Mark for a while now. But anyway, I think you're going to love this episode. We talk about all kinds of stuff related to being a jackass and not being a jackass. Anyway, if you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. If theology in the raw has ministered to you, has helped you, has challenged you, has made you just angry and you're like, oh, I want to give

this guy some support because he made me so angry and it made me love Jesus more than so be it. You can go to patreon.com forward slash theology raw, support the show for as little as five bucks a month and for as much as $5 a month. And for as much as $10 million a month, if that's your thing, you can do that too. And in return, you get premium content, access to premium content like Patreon-only podcasts every month and Patreon-only blogs every month and Patreon-only conversations that I have with my supporters every month. So

that's patreon.com forward slash the Elgin to raw. If you don't want to support the show, that's cool too. It's a free podcast and that's just how podcasts go. We have tons of free content too. So if you can't afford five bucks a month, then keep listening for free. Without further ado, let's get to know these two pastoral jackasses, Ryan and Mark. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today my good friend Mark Geving and his pastor, Ryan. I'm chuckling because Ryan, from what I know, is not like your typical pastor, if I can say it like that, your typical pastor, if I can say it like that, because both Ryan and Mark started a,

what am I going to call it? A movement, a ministry called Jackass Theology. And so, hey, welcome to the show, guys. Preston, are you allowed to cuss on your show? That sounded a little offensive right off the start. Thank you for asking that question. I actually am allowed to do whatever I want. I actually choose, I do, but I choose not to cuss. And because we're actually talking about donkeys and not. Right, exactly. Then we're totally fine. And I, you know, I do kind of like, you know, if cuss words are like, you know, kind of like the baseball analogy of sex, like first base, second base, third base.

You know, I think jackass might be like, you know, like a long single, maybe a, you know, a double maybe, but it's not a triple or a home run. So I don't hit triples or home runs in terms of swearing on my show, but I'll get to second base. That's about as far as I'll go. I just, you know, I know a lot of parents that listen to this, and sometimes they listen to it while they're doing housework or whatever, and their kids are around. And I just, when I have guests on the show,

they can swear as much as they want. I choose not to go further than second base in terms of swearing. That's great. Just so that it doesn't limit my, you know, audience. So you guys can cuss away. We're definitely, we're just definitely talking about braying animals. So let's just leave it at that. So let's start there. Um, how is it the two pastors of a, if I can say an evangelical, maybe even conservative church, can start a blog called Jackass Theology? What was the, what were you thinking?

Let's start with the name. Tell us why you chose that name and what the blog's all about. So I think the, it's funny because I had a lot stronger words that I would have wanted to use. So jackass feels like a compromise. But so, you know, I was listening to a podcast. I mean, this has been some sort of evolution of an idea, but I don't know. Maybe it was 18 months ago. I was listening to a podcast and I heard this guy talking about,

he was talking about complementarian theology on it, and he was talking to the people who were interviewing him were egalitarian. And as I was just listening to him describe his position, it started out as describing a position, but then it sort of just changed to like, I don't know, the man, the way he was talking was just, it was like just demeaning and like, it was just belittling, you know? And he was really arrogant and, and he wasn't really listening at all to what the egalitarians were saying. It was sort of like, well, you have an inferior view of scripture. And, you know, and I just, I thought in my mind, this guy's a total, you know, other, lots of other words. He's a total donkey. Yeah. And, um, and so I was actually listening to him with my wife who was like kind of appalled by just the, the demeanor

and the way he was carrying himself. And so we just talked, we were like talking about it afterwards going, man, it's just so sad because I mean, you know, I would consider myself complementarian, but for a long time I would just, I don't know, it's just so sad to me the way that like treating people can be kind of thrown out when you're talking theology. So that was sort of the start of it, but then it kind of evolved as Mark and I would talk more and more about it. And we just started to see like, dude, this is everywhere, like everywhere in our churches,

the way that people handle us, the way that we handle other people. And it isn't just a problem with them. Like we started to then reflect and see it in us, you know? Um, so it started, I think that's how it usually starts, honestly, is you, you, everyone can everyone can go dude that guy's being a jackass and you like totally recognize it um and then but then as you kind of think about it you start to go well i've sort of been a jackass in different ways you know so it that's kind of how that's kind of how it it's sort of evolved you know i mean it sounds like you're not really trying to be edgy you're actually that is as we can say culturally, the actual most precise word that is used to describe the kind of theological posture

that you're trying to confront. Would that be accurate? Because I know, I mean, we all have edgy tendencies, at least us three have edgy tendencies, but I think we also have, if I can say, I think pastoral wisdom. Like, we don't want to be edgy just for edgy's sake. Because I can imagine that's going to be the critique, like, oh, they're just trying to, but I'm like, I don't know. Like it's,

I don't know if they are trying to be edgy. Like it sounds like you're actually saying this is the most appropriate kind of term to describe or yeah. Let me let you guys talk. Like to put it this way, we, um, we were preaching through the gospels, uh, all last year and Jesus is just so, um, hard on the Pharisees, so opposed to them. And we're realizing, you know, who are the Pharisees most like in terms of our present day? It seems to be they're the people that are theologically astute. They're all about keeping in line with everything. And we just were feeling like, man, we're so much like the Pharisees. And so we're trying to call our church to, hey, honestly, like we need to hear Jesus' warnings to the Pharisees. And so we're trying to call our church to, Hey, uh, honestly, like we need

to hear Jesus warnings to the Pharisees. And what we found is, um, that, that kind of like sticks with a few people, but for most people being called a Pharisee, wasn't that big of a wake up call. It was like, eh, but when you say the word jackass and use it kind of synonymous with Pharisee, um, we found it, it kind of sinks down a little bit more and people tend to respond to it a little bit more, uh, in a lively way, which is so much better than just the apathetic response. I mean, it's really about like, yeah, we're not trying to be provocative, but we are trying to get people's attention.

And I think that's, I think, you know, words lose their meaning over time. So you can call somebody a Pharisee. But honestly, I feel like part of it is the disillusioned people who are – this was another whole level to this whole thing. It kind of began with some of that listening to the podcast. But like then as we talked to people who had left the church, the big C church, and were sort of disillusioned with faith, a lot of them were around church wounds or the way that people had like treated them or the way that they didn't hold conservative views, primarily like politically, honestly, which is sad. It was more politics conservative than it was even biblically conservative. And, and the people just felt like they were treated poorly. And then when you could name it by saying, yeah, they're, they're being jackasses.

We're all jackasses. It's like a little cathartic to people who've been maybe wounded by, by, by things, you know um and i i feel like for me uh it's a little cathartic when you know someone's over complaining about some little thing i can say to myself like it's all right they're a jackass you're a jackass yeah that's why we need Jesus. Pastor Ryan. Well, going back to the, you know, there's a difference between being edgy and being necessarily jarring. Like, you know, even when the prophets use strong language, which they did.

My goodness. Exactly. Terms that they used. I mean, Ch, Shagel. Oh, don't tell me about Shagel, Preston. Yeah, from the English word shag. But it actually, it's not,

but it means the same. It's the F word. Oh, that's funny. That word is used several times among the prophets, and it was edited out by rabbinic translators so that Shagel is now not in our most recent manuscripts, but it's in older manuscripts.

It's fascinating. That's fascinating. It's such a strong words that the medieval rabbis said this is too strong. But the prophets used the word because he wanted people to, I mean, it's why he used Ezekiel 16, some of these really gnarly sexual images. Like, did you have to be that graphic? Like he's talking about like bodily fluids during orgasm.

And like, that's just what the Bible says. Like, I don't know if I want my kids to read Ezekiel 16 yet, you know? And even that's been dimmed down by translations. But it raises the question, why did the original inspired prophets use such graphic language? It's like, well, look at the context. Look what they're trying to do. People's sin became so complacent in their sin that they needed stronger rhetoric. And Ezekiel's not just trying to be edgy, but he is trying to be jarring.

And I think it sounds like that's what you guys are kind of shooting at. Well, and a lot of times I feel like it's almost like we're trying to be more biblical than the bible or something or more more moral than the bible um and so it's it's like our job to kind of soften the blow and maybe we could just let god decide what when jarring language is needed you know yeah and i kind of think like jackass is probably fairly similar to jesus calling the pharisees a brood of vipers and John the Baptist saying it too. It's not. I mean, it's just, yeah.

I mean, the funny thing is that even the fact that we're still talking about the language is just, I think, a sign of like the subculture that we're all a part of, which is kind of ridiculous that we get more focused on the language we use than we even do like the way we treat human beings because you know i think that's that's why the whole blog exists you know well it's even ironic that in you know there's a couple swearing verses right like ephesians 4 don't let any unwholesome or rotten thing come out of your mouth but then he says but that which is you know for the building up of the body meaning if it comes down to who's using, who's violating Ephesians, I think it's Ephesians four or is it Ephesians five? I don't know. I think it's four. I was a Pauline scholar, so I didn't, I don't know anything about Ephesians. Right. Oh, nice.

Little academic joke. Wow. Coming from a, coming from a former master's guy. That's, I believe Paul wrote all 13 letters ago so just so i don't get the emails um but that was a joke like when we're you know anyway we're getting off to so so it's interesting though that the people that you are maybe addressing calling out and confronting are actually you know and you're using the term jackass people could say whoa you shouldn't use that you're you know, and you're using the term jackass, people could say, whoa, you shouldn't use that. You're violating the obedience of the Lord.

And you're like, actually, they're the ones violating the unwholesome language coming out of their mouth that is not building up the body. They're the ones that are actually in, yeah, I don't know. I don't want to say what he said, she said. But, I mean, it's ironic that. He's talking about slander and tearing people down. And that's so much of it Where I resonate with it personally

I mean we've got on our blog We've got all this different types of jackass There's the conservative jackass And the enlightened jackass And the silent jackass and the political jackass Oh yeah yeah yeah So you can kind of find your personality type if you want to It's your Enneagram of jackasses

Yeah exactly we'll get there But where I resonate with it is I felt this pull type if you want to, but it's your Enneagram. Yeah, exactly. We'll get there. But, but, but where I resonate with it is I felt this pull and a lot of it has to do with my theological training, but this pull to be so theologically precise and to insist on that precision and I don't know, sameness of message with other people that I'm interacting with. And it's like that call to make sure that everybody is in these precise theological categories that are comfortable to me, that trumps the commands to love, the commands to unity, all those kinds of things. And so it's like in the name of truth, you know,

you'll say things like, hey, we need to be loving with people. And the response back quickly often is you can't have love without truth. And I think what we typically mean by that is just, we need to have truth. You can't have love without division, or you can't have love without division. Yeah, you can't have a conversation. And that's why I love so much of what you've been doing for the last several years, Preston, is just engaging in difficult things, being at a point where we can disagree with each other, but there's still this loving dialogue and this concession of value and where another person's coming from. Yeah, exactly.

It's so much of what we're trying to get across. I think another conviction is that the gospel should feel a certain way. It's not just a set of words. It should actually like feel like something. And I feel like Galatians gives us like what those feeling words, you know, like the works of the flesh are evident. They look like divisions and jealousy and rivalries and contention. I know we love to focus on the orgies and the, you know, sorcery parts of that text, but like the flesh really is divisive and it feels contentious. And sometimes, honestly, in church culture, it can feel contentious and

just like people are just argumentative with each other. And then yet the fruit of the spirit, like if the spirit is in us leading us, then we're going to have this feeling of love and joy and peace. And and if you just sit and reflect on like the cultures that we're part of, it just doesn't feel that way to me. And I think a lot of that is because we've traded intellectual knowledge and trying to split hairs on truth for just loving human beings. And loving human beings has so much more about the way you are with them than it is about what you're saying specifically. like specifically, like my kids can tell when I'm like just pissed at them or when I'm like sitting there listening to them and I don't have to say any words, you know, like it's just, it's like a posture speaks way louder. And I feel like that's what the spirit should lead us in, you know? I've often said, you know, what we believe is sometimes less important is how we believe it. Yeah. And that's, I don't, I don't, sometimes I don't like the dichotomy. It's like, well, of course what we believe is important, but you can believe all the right things. And that's, I don't, I don't, sometimes I don't like the dichotomy. It's like, well, of course what we believe is important, but like you can believe all

the right things. And if you are being a total jackass, I mean, you're not going to, your, your beliefs are not going to be missionally effective at all, which is like, it's kind of what our beliefs are to be embodied and poured out into the world. And if you're pouring out nothing but, you know, being a jerk, you know, then, then your beliefs are, you know, they're great for you. Good job. You know, but like, they're not, they're not, they're, they're missionally, um, you know, then, then your beliefs are, you know, they're great for you. Good job, you know, but like, they're not, they're not, they're, they're missionally, um, you know,

neutered if you will. Right. Well, and, and they're like, I would say it's that it's like the mission is compromised. And you see that with John 17, like we'll, like, we'll be known for our love, you know, and our unity, like the father. And so there's that side of it. The mission is compromised, but honestly, I think the quality of life is compromised. I think that's what we're living in is like, we're sitting here going like, we're so like when, when my kids are arguing over who gets the most ice cream, like this is a real fight last night. They're all concerned about who's taking more ice cream and who's in the right and who's in the wrong, their quality of life, my quality of life sucks because of it. And because they're so focused on each other,

they can't just enjoy the ice cream that they're trying to have. And I can't enjoy my evening because I'm just breaking up fights. And it's like, dude, this is so stupid. Like if we could just chill out about the ice cream a little bit, then we could all like enjoy what we have, you know. And I just feel like that's part of it, too. So it's it's the mission is compromised. And quite honestly, I kind of I get a little bit tired of living in the evangelical world because I think my quality of life is almost compromised by being a part of it, you know.

So I'm curious how how this is going over with your church. I mean, with a thing like Jackass Theology and you're at a Christian church and I don't, I don't love these labels, but I, from what I know about the church, it would be a, you know, moderate to conservative church. I'm sure there's a spectrum of people there, but I would imagine that there's people at your church that, um, were not okay or are not okay about this kind of title, let alone maybe the kinds of things you're harping on. Would that be a true or accurate assumption? Or how's that going at your church? Do you have some experience with ungracious Christians or something, Preston?

It sounds like there's some baggage. Not yet, but I've heard some other people do. Okay, yeah. We've heard similar stories. But yeah, what would you say, what would you say it's been, Ryan? I would say, I would say it's been remarkably well received as a whole. I would say, in fact, you know, it was actually, we kind of tested using that word in church when we were talking about, last fall, we were talking about homosexuality and the issues that, you know, kind of like what how the church has been in matters of like dealing with people who are struggling or whatever.

And and what we one of the things we said was we're going to say like that we want to, we want to be able to know what the Bible says about these things. But what we care about is that we're not jackasses in the process of it. And, and you know, I used it, it was the first time I had like talked about it on a Sunday and I got so much positive feedback from that. Like people were like, dude, I'm a total jackass. You know, they were like actually confessing that that they've used the word of God as a weapon more than they've used it as something that has shaped them in this particular category. And so as people responded to that, we thought, well, maybe it's not going to be as offensive to people as we thought. And so I would say as we've launched the blog and as we've talked about it at the church, I would say overwhelmingly that the response has been positive. I think people feel freed by it. I think a lot of people know that like when they're with their wife and kids or, well, mostly their wife or their safe friends that they use a little stronger language, you know, to describe things.

And so it's part like it's part freeing to say like, oh, the pastor is just talking like I talk. Actually not. You know, I usually talk worse or something, you know, to describe things. And so it's part like, it's part freeing to say like, oh, the pastor's just talking like I talk. Um, actually not, you know, I usually talk worse or something, you know? And I think there's another part that feels frank to people, but we have had, um, we have had, that's not to say it doesn't have its hiccups. Uh, but even the people who have like wanted to talk to us about it have been really like receptive to conversation. You know, they, they, they'll cite the Ephesians passage that you talked about. They'll talk about not using unwholesome language, things like that. But, but I think as we sit down and people who we can actually have face to face with, they realize that like a lot of the assumptions we have are cultural Christian

assumptions of what is proper and what is not, not so much. Um, it's not like it's necessarily like we're fighting against what God's doing here. You know, I think people see that, you know, I, I, I do even, we definitely have had a few people that were, uh, you know, if my kid talked like this, um, they'd be in trouble. And I, we, so we totally get that, but it's honestly, it's opened up great, um, conversations for us with the people that have come to us. So there may be a contingency that's kind of holding back or whatever. But I feel like we have a great relationship. Our church isn't that massive or anything.

So we've been able to talk to several people about it and even bringing in some of those Ephesians passages about what he's actually talking about with unwholesome speech and all that. And I feel like we're in a better spot of understanding. I feel like on the blog and in our church, we're in a much better place for having broached some of these topics and had some of the conversations than we would be if we had just been in fear. Um, like we had talks with the elders and stuff before launching it, um, to say like, Hey, cause this is something we can do? Like not as official pastors of this church, but just on our own, but it has an impact. And there was some nervousness, right? It was, we talked about it of like,

ah, why do we want to like be provocative? Let's just like let those issues lie. But I am so thankful that we have been able to do it because it's, the conversations are great. And if we're supposed to be discipling people and shaping hearts and challenging people's scripture, like the low, we can't go with the lowest common denominator of what's going to keep someone for being offended. Um, there's gotta be a bigger thing we're shooting for. Yeah. What's your,

what's your age socioeconomic demographic of your church? I mean, is it largely Gen X millennial or is it a big broad range or? No, it's, uh, it's actually not. I mean, it's, so we're like a overly, I mean, we're like a suburban context for sure. Um, and what's unique about our church is that it was, um, it was, there's only been two pastors. Uh, and so the pastor before me was a boomer. And so the church was largely boomers when I became the lead pastor. And so there's been young, a lot of younger families that have come in, but it gives us a pretty wide age range, you know? So where I would say we are, we like fall right into the category of whatever they told us in seminary or whatever I was told in seminary where it's like 10 years up from my age and 10

years down. So, um, that puts, you know, the general congregation falls between probably 30 and 55, you know? Um, and then there's, you know, there's, uh, we, we certainly don't have as many like 18 to thirties as we would love to have, you know, as part of the church, but, um, yeah, but even, but even, even the older, sorry, go ahead, Preston. Uh, but just real quick, how many people are at the church? Just so I can get a, we'll have like 400 people on a Sunday, basically. Yeah. 400 of those. Yeah. And even, even, even some of the older folks in the church

have been like our biggest advocates with this and just saying like, I need to hear this. This is a message that's, um, you know, like, and even saying it the way we're saying it, you know, I mean, I kind of feel bad. These poor saints have been sitting in the church faithfully their entire lives. And then all of a sudden here comes this youngish pastor saying the word jackass 20 times. But here's the crazy part. Totally. This is so crazy to me, though. I was at a funeral last week for a guy in our church who, well, he must have been like 82 when he passed away. And there's a lot of people from our church who were friends with him or in a small group at the time.

And we're sitting there at this funeral. And it's like this reunion of all the old saints that have been a part of Creekside. And, and I had, I had three elderly women come up to me and say, thank you so much for doing this jackass theology series and launching the blog. Yes. And I'm like, okay, series and launching the blog. Yes. And I'm like, okay, I like, I like your, I want to have your heart when I'm older, you know, I want to like, be like that responsive and like open, you know? And so it's been, it's been shocking to me because I certainly thought those were like, no brainers, like people aren't going to get it, but they don't. It's all, dude, it's all about the heart, you know. It really is. So here's my question.

Let's just say your church, which has been shockingly, overwhelmingly receptive. Of course, there's a few people that are maybe like, I don't know about this. Maybe a few people are like, I'm out of here. But you're saying that that's the minority within a kind of middle-of-the-road, standard evangelical church, 35 to 50-year-olds. the road, standard evangelical church, you know, 35 to 50 year olds. So do you think that your church would be representative of evangelicalism as a whole? And that the real jackasses out there are really a loud minority? I mean, do you think the majority of evangelicals have it in them to not be a jackass and are longing to have a better, you know, tone to Christianity?

What does that word even mean, Preston? That's such a tough thing to say. But I think that like, I think there's definitely a group out there that's resonating with what we're saying. I don't doubt there's people in plenty of churches that are just really closed off to talking about, like, you know, we had that when we, Ryan was talking about homosexuality, like a little part of it was the theology and kind of where we stand in a more non-affirming place. But most of it was on our tone and how we ostracize and we keep people at arm's length,

that we single out one sin over another. And so we had a couple of people leave because they were upset at, you know, the fact that we overemphasized in their opinion, um, loving people. Um, but we had so many more people saying, this is exactly the message I need to hear. Um, and I, I feel like, you know, as we've kind of got the message out there on the blog and it's gone more broadly and stuff like we've just seen so much more, um, enthusiasm and reception from people. And it's, so some of it's people like us that are

kind of, um, coming from a more conservative place, but we've had a lot of people. Um, we were sitting right now, we're at a coffee shop and kind of working on some stuff with the blog. And we struck up a conversation with, um, with a couple of people in their like what sixties or something like that. And, uh, they're asking us about it and, uh, they're, they're atheists and, you know, pretty spiritual and stuff like that, But they were like, so like connected with the concept. And, um, and so like now they're, they're following along and like, it's, that's the kind of conversation partners we want to have is people that connect with, with the church has been jackasses. And why can't we just admit that?

Yeah. And I would go ahead. I was just to say, I just have to like, Go ahead. I was just to say, I just have to apologize to maybe 25% to 50% of my audience who are just rolling their eyes that when people are being sexually abused, millions of people are being trafficked every day. People are starving to death. There's war. There's war. There's famine. I mean, we live in a world where there's so much evil out there.

Just the very fact that even if it's a small minority of Christians might get hung up on. Oh, yeah. Totally. Just this very conversation might turn people off from Christianity, saying, look, if even part of this Christian faith is ignoring sex trafficking, but hung up on the word jackass, then I just can't. That's just such a... Exactly. So I just want to acknowledge that this is a reality in the church, that we have to have these conversations.

conversations. And I, yeah, I'm sorry that some of you, you know, have to endure the fact that we happen to spend 25 minutes even defending why this might not be of the devil. But the point of it is not, yeah. And that's, that's so good because the point of it is honestly, it's not just the use of the term. It's trying to call it something that's not just in the church, it's in all of us. And we get so entrenched in our camp and our echo chamber that we're not willing to just humanize the people on the other side and to have dialogue. I know, Preston, you turned me on to the book, The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, you know? So good. And that was big for me because it's just showing how it's not rational. You know, I think one unique thing in the church is we turn it into a measure of faithfulness to God, how much you stay within these boundaries that we preset. And words like jackass are an indicator of whether you're in or out of that group. But we all do it.

And it's, you know, Brian and I've said we've been conservative jackasses jackasses where we've been just like um this doctrine must be precise and that's all that matters but then you you learn and you grow and we've both been on this journey a little bit of like letting go of some things that we used to hold on to at you know with the level of certainty that we used to and then you kind of learn some things and then you become the enlightened jackass where you're like i learned this thing yesterday and today anyone who doesn't know this thing that I know is a total idiot. And that's just another form of being a jackass in, in sort of keeping the fences up. Um, and it's, it's ugly. A fourth year, a Bible college student, right? Oh my God. Or first in

my experience. But yeah, that's what you remember when we used to teach at the Bible college together, Preston, we would have that like, don't be a jerk talk, you know? Like, hey, you're learning so much. At the end of every fall semester, like you're going home to your churches and you're all going to be tempted to go walk up to your pastor and critique his sermon. Don't do that. And sure enough, nobody listened. And we get these emails over Christmas break.

It's because we didn't use the word jackass. Yeah, all you needed to use. If you used jackass, it never would have happened. Oh, man. Oh, man. Where do you guys see, and I know you're probably going to say, well, I can't speak to that. But, I mean, when you look ahead to kind of evangelicalism,

and I know that word, but for lack of better terms evangelicalism in America in a post-Trump world, what does that look like? Are you hopeful? Are you discouraged? Yeah do you have any kind of pulse on where we're

going to be in 5-10 years as an evangelical church? Do you have a better term than evangelical because I'm nervous about that No, I get what we're going to be in five, 10 years as an, as an evangelical church. Do you have a better term than evangelical? Cause I'm nervous about that. No, no, no. I mean, I get what you're going for. Um, yeah, I, you know, that's a great question. I mean, I do think the rise of all this conversation that we're talking about has like Trump has brought some of all of this to the forefront. I think the vitriol, um, is like larger than we've seen in a long time. And therefore you get people responding really kind of like outrageously towards things, you know, and I think I think

quite honestly, when you ask the question, like, do we think that America as a whole resonates with this concept, I would say there are a lot of people who are so tired of the vitriol, you know, and I think that's, that's the part of it that I think resonates with the whole. And the question is like, will that go away when, you know, you know, the office changes or whatever? I don't, I don't think so. I think it'll take a new form because I don't think it was, I don't think it's just, even though that Trump and all of the, all that was leading up to the election and all of the post stuff and all – everything that's happened, even though it produces a lot of this vitriol, a lot of it is continued on by like Fox News and CNN and the media like loves to tribalize their markets.

They'll get a new face, but it'll be the same. Yeah, it'll get a new face, I think. But I hope, I do have hope, though, that if the church kind of sees this as like, look, we've been and participated and are part of the problem, and therefore we want our message to shift from one that is one of condemnation of sin to like the embrace of humans. Um, I feel like there's an, uh, like a huge amount of people that

want to see that be the primary message of the faith. And, and my hope is like, I think like all things, you know, like as these things come to light, the church does change and I think it does grow. There will be new issues, you know, that arise if we start to be more unified or we start to be more accepting of a diverse perspective. There will be a lot of like benefits to that, but then there will also be pitfalls. So I am hopeful that like when I hear people resonating with the message that people want, what has like grieved me so much like that, I am like hopeful for, but will humanity apart from like spending eternity with Jesus be free of, of contention? No, I don't think so. I think we're experiencing exactly

what Paul described and, you know, in, in the early church, it, it early church. It's just a different face. It is funny how much the polarization in politics in particular, which obviously is a huge determining factor on just culture as a whole, how that just shapes kind of even Christian rhetoric or Christians who are sick of the rhetoric. And here's my prediction. Here's my prediction. And I'm not really that into politics.

I've been trying to follow it more in the last couple of years, especially since the sexuality and gender conversation that I'm engulfed in is. It's tied to political stuff. It's just hard to get away from that. So I need to pay attention to that. But here's my prediction.

away from that so i need to pay attention to that but i here's my prediction if the democrats set forth a moderate more moderate candidate which they're not at least so far then i think there's hope if they simply mirror trump so trump is this bombastic like how did this guy even get an office and it seems like that has pushed the left to be farther in the left so now some of the candidates are setting forth that might actually win i'm like oh my gosh like that's just going to increase the polarization it's going to cause republicans to go farther to the right and the left's going to go farther to the left and it's just going to end up cannibalizing itself or society's going to crumble or there's going to be such a vocal middle ground that's going to say stop it like come on like no socialism isn't the answer we've

already done that and it caused you know the death of hundreds of millions of people um trumpism isn't the answer like that's just insane so like it can we can we get our heads back you know oh i long for the days of bill clinton you know yeah that's so funny or or like back, you know, oh, I long for the days of Bill Clinton, you know. Yeah, that's so funny to say. Or like, you know, George W. You know, people are looking back saying, oh, my gosh, like I thought that guy was Satan. I wouldn't give you anything to have George H.W. Bush in the audience. You know, I hear Democrats saying, oh, my gosh, I mean,

that's compared to what we have now. And same thing, like compared to, you know, some of the Democratic candidates that have set forth, it's like they're so far. I mean, I can't believe that an like an open socialist might have a good contender at the at the at the presidency. And Bernie Sanders and others. And it's like or even AOC's popularity and stuff. It's like, oh, my word. Like what in the how how are these possible candidates? And I'm sure that's how Democrat Democrats felt when Trump was up there.

And it's like, well, look, that it happened. So let's learn from that and not put these kind of extreme kind of far left, far right or just, you know, voices up there. So I don't I don't even know enough about politics to even validate that. I even know what I'm saying there. That's just my as I tried to pay attention to kind of the warp and woo for the back and forthness of it all. Do you have any thoughts on that? Are you guys paying attention to stuff?

We're so like up on all that stuff, it's not even funny. He's joking. I'm totally just being sarcastic. But yeah, I think like what I, what we see in our church at least is there is this discipling effect and it's people being in these areas

discipled by whatever news station they watch, whether it be Fox news or CNN or whatever. And, um, and they're just taught to be polarized. So there's not the great, so I, I totally agree. I'd love to see people that are more moderate coming into it, but I just feel like the, um, the, the feel in our churches of like, um, are we going to be defining ourselves by what's happening politically as a whole, or are we going to be defining ourselves by what's happening politically as a whole? Or are we going to be like a counter presence in the midst of the world? I like, just as you were talking, I don't know why I was thinking of this, but you had mentioned in a,

it was when you were actually interviewing Justin Lee or having that discussion with him. And you said your friend, I think it was Drew that was saying the church has been like this graveyard for the LGBT community. And I feel like where we're at right now is the church can either play along with all the games of everybody else and be all polarized on everything. Or we can stop feeling like a graveyard to LGBT or like honestly just even like moderate young people in our church. Like, I feel like a lot of the younger people are just so like grossed out by stuff that if we could be a place that actually feels like Jesus, um, rather than, rather than telling them like, Hey, here's where we line up.

If you, you can either fall in or you can do something else. And so many of them are just choosing to do something else. And there's so many voices out there that are really appealing, I think, to the disillusioned crowd saying, like, look how much, like, look how ridiculous the church is. Look at all these stuff they care about. And so we're kind of trying to say, like, no, you're right. The church is full of jackasses. We're the biggest ones that we know of. And we're trying to confess that and try to say, like, hey, let's not let the jackassery

define us. Let's step back into what we should have been focusing on the whole time, which is Jesus. And that leads us, I think, back into politics and social life and everything too. But it's trying to recenter like, what was this whole thing supposed to be about anyways? And so far, we're having a lot of people resonate that and it, it feels good to us to be able to talk about it. And it's been a ton of fun. Yeah. Yeah. I see that too, man. I mean, again, you know, with the ministry that I run, we have a very kind of unique approach to the LGBTQ conversation. Yeah, for sure. I don't even think it's that unique if you just read the Bible, but I mean, it's unique in the way we've gone about it. And it's not going to resonate with the far left or far right. And I'm actually shocked at how many churches are reaching out to us. I'll go into some really conservative context sometimes. And it's like, you may have a

history of being conservative, but you're longing for something much more nuanced and not, you know, grace or truth, but saying, if we don't have grace, we don't have truth. And it's, you know, I'll say some things and I'm kind of nervous, like, wow, this might be pushing too hard. And I get more amens when I talk about grace toward the LGBT community in conservative context. And, you know, I used to spend a long time talking about why marriage is between a man and woman. And I do so passionately. And I say, man, this is clear in scripture and all this.

And people are like, yeah, okay. And then I started talking about loving LGBT people. And everybody then is like, amen, preach it, brother.

I'm like, wow, like this. Yeah. It's, um, so I think that there is a much larger hungry group of evangelicals who are kind of jaded by the history of the evangelical church being

unloving and ungracious. And I, so I don't know, I'm hopeful when I look forward. I think there is that. And I just think the polarizing voices are so loud and scary. And there is a lot of fear when, you know, people are scared of getting shouted down or whatever. And so they don't speak up as much, but I think it is a hungry, massive, silent, largely silent, more nuanced, balanced evangelical out there that is hungering for, I think, what you and I are talking about. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we hope so. So you launched a blog.

Your first blog was on Francis Chan. Let's get into that just maybe briefly. To summarize, what's Francis' latest controversy? And so I talked to him on the phone a couple days later, and I said, is this – I mean, you're always kind of stirring the pot. Is this anything different? He's like, oh, no, this really blew up in my face more than anything I've done, really. I was like, oh, wow, I didn't know it was that big of a deal. So, yeah, why don't you give us a little background on that, and what was your response?

So it was just as we were getting ready to launch the blog, which we did just like a few weeks ago. And the whole controversy came to my attention. And I'm like, you know, let's just like throw out a blog because it fits so well with our jackass concept. And so basically, Francis has always preached wherever, anywhere that anyone would let him preach. He's like, as long as I can say what I feel like God's called me to say, I'll say it. But that led him into some settings to preach where he was with someone named Todd White, who honestly I don't know. And some people have said, like, that's a problem for me to not know who he is. But honestly, I don't care too much.

He's associated with some of the prosperity stuff. Um, he's in a selfie with Benny Hinn, which I, I would love to know the full story of how like Francis was even, but I love that he was in a spot to like, be there to be like, Hey, let's take this selfie right now. You know what I'm saying? But, um, so, but it's like, it's the optics of it all that everyone's like, Oh, Francis must be endorsing these people, or at least he's being very foolish with it. And so we just jumped in to say, come on, you guys, this is ridiculous. Like, not long ago, Francis was being accused of preaching a poverty gospel. I don't remember if you remember that whole thing where Mark Driscoll got really at him. And then now it's like, well, Francis must be

capitulating. And there's some people we've been interacting with that just won't be pacified on that. Like until Francis comes out and says those are horrible human beings, they're not going to be happy. But we're just trying to say like, man, can you not like love a person? Can you not share a stage even if as long as you're doing what God's calling you to do? doing what God's calling you to do. Um, like I just, the shunning and the, uh, boundary keeping and everything is, um, is so, and so, and to accuse someone like Francis of, um, I don't know, of, of like collaborating with the prosperity gospel to me was just the most mind blowing part of it all. That's insane. I mean, yeah, this accusation of a poverty gospel and then now prosperity, like which one is it? Right. Exactly. Well mean, yeah, this accusation of a poverty gospel and then now a prosperity.

Like, which one is it? Right. Exactly. Well, and I think it addresses, like, one of the larger problems that we, as we, like, process the Jackass Theology stuff is that we love to, like, make caricatures of people. Like, we take one or a couple things and we turn them into, like, who they are. So now Francis was taking a picture with benny hinn so that's wrong and now we throw out like all the stuff he's preached in the past all of the things that he's done like he's god has used him as an instrument to move and stir my

heart in all these ways but he took a picture with benny hinn and it's this caricature that like in some ways like the scandal like can come and surge well beyond like the actual reality, which is God has used this man in lots of, you know, in so many different ways. And like, I mean, the same kind of thing we just talked, we just wrote a blog article this week about the preachers and sneakers thing. Preston, have you seen this Instagram thing, preachers and sneakers? Preachers and sneakers. Oh, my gosh. You have to look. Oh, wait, is that the Instagram thing, Preachers and Sneakers? Preachers and Sneakers. Oh my gosh. You have to look. Oh wait, is that the wait, wait, wait, wait. It's all the rage. It's all the rage

right this instant. It's hard right now. Yeah. Preachers and Sneakers is an Instagram account that was started a few weeks ago where basically they just take pictures of, like public pictures of celebrity pastors and look at their shoes. And then they look up the price of those shoes and put the price tag of the shoes next to them. It's hilarious, dude.

Yeah, it's hilarious. And it's like a little bit outrageous, too. You're like, oh, my gosh, those shoes were $2,000. For real, Crossy, for real. I just thought they were sneakers, you know? So it's like caught on. I mean, it went from like zero to 17,000 followers in like one week. And then when we started writing the blog post, like it took me like two hours to write. And in writing it, it went from like 40,000 to like 60,000 followers.

And there, yeah. Now it's like over a hundred to like 60,000 followers. And they're, yeah. Now it's like over a hundred for sure. I don't know what. Anyway, so it's just blowing up. But the whole deal is, I mean, it's really funny and it is ironic and it does bring a lot of like questions of accountability of like the use of wealth, all of that. The guy seems cool. Yeah.

The guy seems cool about it. Um, but, but it does, what it does do is the same thing with – you see with the Francis thing is it caricaturizes like these people. Like so because Judah Smith is wearing expensive clothes, now everything about Judah Smith is like not valuable anymore. And people love that sort of like controversy. But it's like an ad hominem attack. You like – you're no longer talking about what actually has happened or what they're actually saying. You're just, you're like inferring all of these moral implications that devalue everything they've ever done. And here's the reality. This is the gut check that like, if we believe that every preacher pastor is a sinner,

um, and that they are doing things that are either publicly seen or, like, privately the things they're thinking about, that if you realize every pastor, every person is a sinner, then if you devalue them just because you, like, highlight one of their flaws or one of their vices, then you no longer have the preaching of the gospel anywhere. That would be true of Paul as well. So like the reality is like we got to just like stop characterizing people by these like singular things. And that's just what the media – that's what media does. It just blows one little thing out of proportion. Yeah.

So. And I'm a little bit – especially in the last year or so, I don't know. So I would be one to kind of latch on to that kind of thing. Oh, so are we. So are we. We are too. But at the same time, I'm fine with it as long as the people that are outraged are consistent. Sure.

So it's like, you know, like, is that if the people that are outraged are making a lot of money, are they buying expensive clothes? Are they spending their money in ways that are way too flashy? You know, are they taking. Totally. You know, are they driving cars that they don't really like? Are they actually living out the very thing that they're critiquing? And that's where, you know, I think the whole, you know, you know, everybody loves, you know, a sex scandal in the church. But it's like, all right, so let's look at how non-church people are doing.

Let's look at Hollywood. And, oh, yeah, they're really, you know, the moral, have a right to be the moral police with all the crap going on there. And, like, you know, I just, the church has been, is hypocritical. It's been hypocritical. It's been judgment, all this stuff. But it's like, so is non-church. Oh, totally. 100%. It's like,

well, wait a minute. Yes, we all need Jesus, and the church has done a bad job about making ourselves look righteous, but don't you dare play the moral high card. This came to light for me when Trump got elected and the day he got put in the office, and I was, you know, he's yeah, he's a moral train wreck.

Right. And then who do they have to protest the immorality of Trump? Madonna. Oh, yeah. Great. All right. Well done. Like, you know, and then and all the people are protesting or it's like, you know, you have, you know, I don't know if you follow. You know, the funniest thing is some people on the far left for like, you know, believe all women, believe all women. And then they,

then they get accused of a sex scandal. Like, Oh, except for that woman. Exactly. Come on. I mean, it's comical to see kind of the kind of,

yeah, just people trying to get the moral high ground when it's like, yeah, we're all in mass. So don't, don't, don't get on your moral high horse. We're all jackasses. We're all jackasses your moral high horse. Just say it, Preston.

We're all jackasses. We're all jackasses. That's all you got to say. That's exactly the problem. We're all jackasses. Yep. On that note, I better go, you guys. I got another thing to get to here. So your blog is?

If you just Google jackastheology.com. Yeah, just jackastheology.com. Yeah. That wasn't taken. Good. Yeah, just JackassTheology.com. Yeah. That wasn't taken. Good. Yeah, somehow there was some space there. JackassTheology.com, and you release articles. Is it primarily on just trying to establish a better tone on how to be Christian in 2018?

Yeah, we're trying to be – we're a little eclectic with what we do, you know, like the coming up this week, we're writing an article about Nestorius. So I think you'll enjoy that Preston. I don't know if anybody else will, but yeah, so we, you know, but just, just trying to, yeah, it's, it's about the tone. It's about the heart. And really we're trying to call people back to love, joy, peace, basic human dignity. Like that's, that's really what it's about. And it's just another way of saying like, love God, love people, you know, follow Jesus. Like that's what it is, but we're trying to say it in a way that's, um, just helping people connect to it a little more than the typical church terminology. Okay, cool. Well, yeah. Hey, I encourage my audience,

go check it out. If you can handle Lord Jackass theology, go check it out. Uh, Mark, what do you mean? Well, I'll probably say something to intro about who you guys are but uh yeah i i you guys are great writers thinkers and everything so um yeah i really encourage people to check it out so thanks for being on the podcast you guys let's do this again sometime sounds good thanks so much Thank you.