Theology in the Raw - 840: Prayer in the Night: Tish Harrison Warren

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

Tish Harrison Warren is the real deal. Super raw, super wise, down to earth, yet can hang in the loftiest ivory towers. Tish is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She is the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life, which was Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year, and the forthcoming Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep (IVP, 2021). These two books form the backbone of our conversation, and toward the end of the podcast we get super raw and real about the problem of evil and stuff. Tish has worked in ministry settings for over a decade as a campus minister with InterVarsity Graduate and Faculty Ministries, as an associate rector, with addicts and those in poverty through various churches and non-profit organizations, and, most recently, as the writer-in-residence at Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a monthly columnist with Christianity Today, and her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Religion News Service, Christianity Today, Comment Magazine, The Point Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a founding member of The Pelican Project and a Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum. She lives with her husband and three children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Read more about Tish on her website: https://tishharrisonwarren.com Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My name is Preston Sprinkle. I'm the host for today's show. And on today's show, my guest is Tish Harrison Warren. Tish Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She's the author of an incredible book, Liturgy of the Ordinary, Sacred Practices in Everyday Life life, which as we talked about in the podcast, um, it won the Christianity today's book award for 2018, which is a huge accomplishment. I mean,

there's a lot of books that are up for, you know, winning that award and, and, uh, Tisha's book won it in 2018. She also is the author of the forthcoming book. Um,

depending on when I released this, it might actually have, uh, it might actually have already, it might already be out. It's called Prayer in the Night for Those Who Work, Watch, or Weep by InterVarsity Press. Both of the books are by IVP.

So Tish is, she's a fascinating individual, super thoughtful, super down to earth. And I just, every time she speaks, she just oozes wisdom and humor. That's what I like. She's a very well-rounded person, as you'll see. In this conversation, our talk is, it's kind of, it's centered on her two books, but her two books have such interesting themes that we'll get into. And so we go on some tangents and we kind of unpack some things related to those themes. We end the podcast. I really

encourage you to listen all the way to the end, or if you're on YouTube, watch all the way to the end. Because towards the end, we talk about theodicy, the problem of evil. And her second book, Prayer in the Night, deals with that. And it flows out of her own personal journey. And I think the last... Honestly, I feel like the last 10 or 15 minutes of our conversation was probably the most raw and real and meaningful. The whole thing was meaningful. But I mean, we started opening up lots of cans of worms. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm sure you will. Also, if you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. This is a listener or

watcher viewer supported show. And you can find more info in the show notes. It's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. And you can support the show for as little as five bucks a month to get access to lots of premium content in return and also get access to the Theology in the Raw community where we have lots of discussions and Q&As and giveaways and lots of fun stuff. So head over there if you want to support the show. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this conversation

with Tish Harrison Warren. Hey, Tish. Welcome back to Theology in a Raw. Prayer in the Night is your new book. Depending on when this podcast is released, it might be available for pre-sale or for actual sale. It comes out January 26th, you said? Yeah, that's right. January 26th is the release date. So you can pre-order it now. I think today is what, the 5th?

Today is the 5th. Today is the 5th, yeah. 12th day of Christmas. So it's – which is why the Christmas tree is still up. We keep it up until the 7th. But so that's what – that's exactly three weeks. It comes out in exactly three weeks from today. So you can pre-order it or order it depending on whether or not it's when people listen to this podcast.

Your previous book, your first book, Liturgy of the Ordinary Sacred Practices in Everyday Life, won the Christianity Today 2018 Book of the Year Award. That's a big deal. Did you expect that? I mean, of course, you're going to say no, but I would. I don't know. I'll let you answer the question. Did you expect to win the book of the year award that's that's incredible so liturgy of the ordinary is done um far more than i could have

ever expected but i mean um it it got it got far more accolades than i was expecting for my readers it's it it is my first book should i, it is my first book. Should I say it was my first book or it is, I mean, I have a second book now, but it's my first book. And, um, so, you know, I was relatively unknown author. I was still new. I mean, I was, I wrote, I freelanced and wrote for various things, but, um, no one expected, no one. I mean, the publisher, me, my husband, my mother, no one expected it to do what it did. And so, um, yeah, so, uh, no is the answer. I didn't expect that. I wanted you to say, yeah, of course. I mean, if I didn't get, what am I doing?

Yeah. So no, with your first book, you, I mean, I was just, so everything's so new. It's like, you go through a honeymoon period as a writer. It's just this exciting new, everything's new. And, um, you know, then just like a honeymoon period and a marriage, you go like, like that wears off and you have to figure out how to do this you know as a when the when the novelty of it wears off um so yeah I know it makes it actually hard to do a second book um because uh you know my temptation is to go out on top. And I just talked to Esau McCauley, um, is a good friend of mine and his book just won Christianity, the book of the year,

uh, book of the year this year, his book reading well. Congrats Esau. I had him on the podcast right when he released the book. Oh yeah. Well, so we're, we're like, um, really, really close friends. He's one of my best friends. We talk on the phone a lot. And I was like, welcome to the club, man. Like your very first book won lots of awards and this sold well. Like it's not easy. And he's like, I know. He's like, I used to complain to me about this and I didn't understand and now that I'm here I'm like man I just like what like you just your second book you know there's like no way it's a sophomore album now so yeah what was it about your book that what's the itch that it scratched from your perspective as you look back on that like why did it I have asked that too I think it's you know astoundingly good writing I'm just kidding heavenly prose um I mean I don't know like I do I do hope that I'm a good writer and the other books will also resonate with people. Um, I, so I don't know. I mean, I really don't, but I, I think, um, man, I don't know. Why do these things happen? Like,

why, why does some books land? I think, I think there's a few, there was some cultural stuff happening um i think well it's widely applicable like everybody yeah um it's not a book about that applies to one demographic like every everyone wakes up everyone gets stuck in traffic everyone um goes to sleep at night and eats leftovers and so um it was something that a really wide audience i mean really and i've heard from like urban 20 year old hipsters and um an irish amish colony like they all like everyone has read it like people and now it's in six languages and so i think um it's there's something like human about it um i also think you know it's funny because it came out in 2000 december 2016 four years ago now and um and it was right after donald trump elected. And so I had the sense of like, well, no one's going to buy my book. Nobody cares now.

It feels like half the world feels like the world is ending, and 54% of America feels like the world is ending, and the other percent that voted for Trump are mad at those 54% or feel like the world is just beginning. So no, this little book is going to get lost and all that. But I actually think that when things feel like they're going so off the rails globally, like the sense of like, what does faithfulness look like in the molecular level, which is what the book is about. Like, how do I actually meet Jesus? Not just in these sort of like the global catastrophes that are playing out, but in my

actual day became newly important to people, like people needing to sort of, um, know how to seek God in their daily life. And I also just think books in general, this is not just my book, and I hope I'm not tooting my own horn here, but I think I can say as authors, the best books are books that show, not just tell. So my book is like, my book is,

since the books come out, a lot of people have asked me to speak on it. And I do that, but it's actually sort of a terrible book to speak on in the sense that many Christian books are an argument, and the book is making an argument. But it would be difficult to say what argument my book is making. There's certainly themes, like that daily life is a place to encounter God. The theme of formation is huge. The theme of liturgy is huge, obviously.

But there's not a linear argument. It's an exploration of one day of my life. Like the book is about one begins in the morning and ends with me drifting to sleep. It's about one day. And so I think, um, something about showing people exploring ideas instead of, and I'm not against linear argument at all, but I do think people are drawn to the, the difference between a podcast and a book is that um there is something about a book that that can be much more sort of poetic um symbolic um a long a long exploration together that then empowers people to, to continue doing that in their daily life, um, which would be different than a talk, right. Or a podcast or maybe, maybe not a podcast,

but I don't know. So I'm saying like a linear presentation. Um, so that's part of it. I mean, the other thing that I can't explain is that the idea of liturgy has become more important to folks. I think my book was part of that, but it was also it's write the book and the book comes out, there's over a year. So there's a it's a long period. And when I did that, it was with it didn't have the exact same title, but it was similar. It had the word liturgy in it. And they said, we like the book idea, but you can't use the word liturgy in your title because evangelicals won't buy it. And I said, OK, OK. So like a year later, when it was time to turn the book, I pitched them like 14 different title ideas, all without the word liturgy in it.

And then they came back to me with a title that was almost identical to my original title. And I was like, but you said I couldn't have that. And they were like, well, we talked to the marketing team, and they're like younger and hipper than the editorial team. And they said that evangelicals like liturgy now. And so I was like, well, that works well for me. And so there was something that happened in that time of evangelicals getting more interested in the broader lowercase c Catholic tradition, like the long history and tradition of the church. That I think is still continuing, but that my book could be part of.

So I don't know. I mean, this is complete speculation on my part. If somebody has like the formula that made the book a success, please let me know so that I can do it again. Yeah. I mean, I've been writing for almost 10 years now and it's, that's the one thing that whenever I'm around somebody in the industry who's behind the scenes, you know, a publicist, a publisher, agent, whatever, I'm like, what makes a book take off? And everybody says the same thing. Some books you can kind of predict, but most of the time the book you think is going to take off doesn't.

The ones that you don't think are going to go anywhere absolutely explode. The Shack was one that i think barely made it in past the publishers whatever like why did the shack take off and people are still wondering maybe why um otherwise um the eldritch uh wild at heart i heard was and if you don't know the i mean i mean people will criticize the book and i'm not like for or against it but i i it took off but they said that was word of mouth like it sold hardly anything the first year i heard but just everybody that bought it told two people about it it just slowly slowly and then it became i don't know how many hundreds of thousands copies it sold but yeah there's no

formula real i mean of course there's so esau's book that one's a little it's like oh of course i mean here right smack dab in the midst of all these racial tensions and conversations and to get a real sane wise voice like esau to speak at the exact right moment yeah so that one's you know a little more i don't say predictable but um yeah some of you know i love i love i was gonna say the title is so ba liturgy of the ordinary that's such a great title why do you think it is that younger people are now that we'll say in the last five or six years becoming more attracted to lowercase c catholic traditions and liturgy and so on do you have any thoughts on on that like why there's this kind of resurgence of the ancient yeah i really do um so um i think there's

good things that are motivating this and slightly less good. So I don't want to make it like this is an, you know, an adulterated revival in the church or something, but I will start with the good. Like, I think some of it is that as I think for a long time in evangelicalism, I'm going to speak to sort of white evangelicalism specifically, like your typical kind of stereotypical evangelical church, but, um, there's been a lot of it that, um, is, um, a little, um, parasitical is too much of a of a negative word but but um but some less negative word than parasitical that's reliant on a whole on a host culture um so it's gotten a lot of its forms from things like ceo like a like a right? Like a megachurch is like generally like

an entertainment, um, uh, model or, uh, with a, with the CEO pastor, right? Um, um, so, so corporate models or, um, models of, um, like, uh, um, a Ted Talk with a band kind of. And some, I mean, I guess there's been some sort of like response to that, which is more kind of whatever. I was like on the edges of kind of the emergent church movement and that whole thing. But that still can just be like another subculture model. Like we're doing like an independent coffee house kind of vibe. Um, so, um, I think that works if people have like a general sense that church is like sort of worth their time or that it's a

place you might go to like figure out how to live better or um have you know three steps to a happy marriage or like whatever it whatever it is but as christian cool as like the last sad gasp of christian culture kind of fades as that's dying um i think um young people are either leaving the faith altogether um because it's not giving them they don't it's not there's no cash value for it in their life there's there's they don't, it's not, there's no cash value for it in their life. There's, there's, they don't, they don't need it. We don't, we no longer like need to go to church because that's what all your neighbors do. And that's the whatever American thing to do. And so, um, so those who stay, I think, no, we almost intuitively know that we need, um, deep, deep roots that we're just not going to be able to weather the storm of, of modernity and post-modernity. And, um,

I don't even know if post-modernity actually exists. I think, I think it's just modernity continued. So modernity with – I'm going to come back to that, but keep going. in contemporary America. Um, and, and the difficulties of that and the marginalization of that without being rooted in something very lasting and real, and that is, um, not a fad and that can support the weight of our souls. And that is, um, uh, some, a bigger room that we can walk in rather than something that we sort of only have to kind of gin up in ourselves. Um, and so I think there is a sense of, of going back to, um, the Christian tradition, um, both to, to root ourselves theologically, but also that these forms,

there's an understanding that they shape us. I think that's part of it. I think there's a draw to being formed by something older and more enduring than ourselves or our own assumptions or our own culture. Because liturgy by nature is cross-cultural. It comes from a different culture. I mean, we read things from the third century and John Chrysostom's prayer in our liturgy, like that is from a different culture. And then I also think there's beauty. I think we're drawn to beauty. I think that, um,

we're drawn to the aesthetics of worship in a way that, um, that there was a time where people thought, well, let's make worship look like just like the mall or just like, um, Starbucks and people that works unless people are like, well, then why the hell don't I just spend my Sunday morning on Starbucks or the mall? Right. And so I think there's something about sacredness and weirdness and ancientness that sort of um draws younger folks um but i also i think it's more than just aesthetics i really think that as things um as people suffer as you face suffering um the kind of evangelical like rah rah go j, go Jesus, like figure out, like come have deeper and deeper, like emotional experiences of faith, whatever that looks like, it just starts to, it doesn't

work anymore. And you have to go to things that can sustain your soul over a lifetime of faith. And the things that can sustain your soul over a lifetime of faith are things that have sustained other people's soul for their lifetimes of faith for thousands of years, right? So I think it's a desire for rootedness. I don't know, what do you think of that? No, it was a genuine question too.

Sometimes I throw – I don't think it's all good. I could get into sort of – I think there can be a little bit of a dark side to this, and I can get into that too. But that's the good – that's the positive draw, I think. Yeah. Well, I like what you said at the end, just that almost like – and I get nervous using categories. I don't want to broad brush churches, but for lack of better terms, the kind of seeker movement, you said the rah-rah, you know,

but like that real kind of high energy and less on the maybe depth and rootedness and meaningfulness like that. This is an inexact analogy, but like eating snicker bars for you know um for food you know it's like man it gives you energy it's it's super enjoyable life's amazing but after you know a few days couple weeks you know when you start some health problems start creeping in and you know late afternoon crashes and you start seeing this is this doesn't have the this is this tastes way better than a salad but there's something about a salad that's gonna sustain me more through the storms and and in a similar way these more more thinner um um brands of church the church experience again that can work for a time but um after a while it's just it's it's not when you

lose a child to cancer when when you know your your wife leaves you you find out that your spouse is gay after 30 years of you know that people go through um or if you're one of the 20 percent of women in particular have been sexually abused and have never had a context to work through it like an awesome worship set isn't gonna heal that trauma you know i don't want to diminish the spirit's work in whatever form but yeah i do anyway i just want to agree i do think that there is a more a stronger movement especially among a younger generation for more meaningfulness and they they have hard questions that they're asking and and i think they want more authentic humble wise wise guidance um i know my my my kids are my kids and people say well you're you know you can't compare your kids other people are my kids they can't even go to

like a youth group they've tried so many and they're like, I don't like, can we talk about something deep and meaningful? And I've got hard questions and I don't need a cool youth pastor to be my friend. I need a leader to disciple me, you know, in really hard questions, you know, that my dad can't answer, you know, and like, so they're just like, they, they see right through it. They, they have such a hard time with that. But I think that's, I don't know, I think that's actually more common than people realize. Is that like Texas Baptist is a deal. That's a culture. Um, I was not in like a, it's difficult for me to explain my upbringing to people who weren't in it because my parents were not at all fundamentalists. Like we, they drank alcohol. I was around cussing. They, at one one point in college my mom told me I need to

have more boyfriends and drink more so like it was not and she was sort of kidding but I was a very serious very serious about my faith kid and she like was genuinely worried about me. I think that it was, I was taking this, I was taking Christianity like a little too far. Um, so I, um, so yeah, I like, I didn't kiss dating goodbye ever. Um, that wouldn't have been something that my parent, my parents would have been very confused if a boy asked them to court me they'd be like what the hell is wrong with that kid so um my dad would just be like just ask her to the movies if you want I don't I don't know what you're asking me son um so um but that said I was around it was like a conservative Baptist church right like God and country and that sort of thing. So it was kind of around, I was around that. Um, but I grew up in Austin also. So I was around that, but I was also

around, I mean, I also, you know, have memories of like walking on the drag and buying poetry from hippies and, um, like, uh, my friends smoking pot and that. So, um, I was in, but I, um, had a sort I mean, it was, it was very significant to me. And, um, I had a really visceral, profound experience of, of God's presence. Um, this would be too long of a story to tell, but, but, um, my faith, so my faith was very real to me as a kid, but I was in this sort of like – my school was pretty conservative Christian school, but my peer group and life was sort of – I was really into theater. So I was actually – I was in the movie Dazed and Confused when I was a kid. I've never said that on a podcast. Wait, you were in Dazed and Confused when I was a kid. I've never said that on a podcast. Wait, you were in Days and Confused? This is actually the first time I've ever said this publicly.

That's funny. My respect for you just doubled. All right, all right, all right. Yeah, I was in it. I was a freshman girl in that movie. Wait, like an extra? Or did you have any speaking parts or no i didn't have a speaking part i didn't have a speaking part i was i was an extra in the scene where the last day of

school when everyone runs out and they they have paddles they're coming after the lead characters with paddles um or maybe it's the first day of school. I don't remember. And, uh, I was in bell bottoms and ran out of the school like a hundred times. I mean, like it was a, they had a, it was a small cast cause it was a low budget movie. And so they just filmed the same groups from all different angles. So it took like nine hours to do the scene. We just did it over and over again, but I, yeah. And so they'd call cut and then you know like everybody would smoke everything during the break right and so but i didn't like i was i was in different i was in conflicting cross currents of culture like there was i right and it makes

total sense yeah you're you're in a progressive environment you yourself aren't fundamentalist but you're in also a conservative church context and you had a family that's very broadly i mean modern like sanely evangelical for lack of better terms um when did the anglican thing happen yeah much later so i actually went in college started going to a pca church and, um, kind of became reformed. Like I didn't have that. I didn't know what that would have in high school. I wouldn't have known what that term meant, but, um, but, but was exposed to sort of like doctrines of grace and, um, mostly the, mostly grace that I grew up. I knew Jesus, but I had no concept of grace and of myself as a sinner. I was a really good kid, like an obedient kid. So the notion of myself as a sinner was more theoretical than real. like screwing up and seeing my own selfishness in a lot of ways. I ended up going to the Presbyterian church in, in the PCA and was, um, in the PCA for like 12 years, something like that.

And, um, and then really it was after seminary, sort of accidentally, I ended up becoming Anglican. We didn't mean to. We were back in Austin, where I was from, just for kind of like a gap year between seminary and when my husband was applying for PhD programs. And so we just knew we had to find a church quickly because we were there a short time. And so we, um, couldn't find a PCA church for various reasons. Um, and so there was this little Episcopal church that was, um, just like a very small, sweet, evangelical Episcopal church. And we started going saying like, this is going to be a summer fleeing for

us. We're only going we were, I mean, we were there for a year, but we were like, this is we're not staying, we're not going to become Anglican, or this is just like, a new experience. But anyway, I write about this in the book. But every week that I went, I, I wept, I just cried through the service because it was so needed it was like water to my it was actually what I told my husband in the car every week was like it's like chamomile tea like it just felt like so comforting and nourishing and like if you've ever had like strep throat and drank like chamomile tea it's just this like needed thing. And I felt like, um, we had been in, when we, we lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts before this, right between literally right between Harvard and MIT, we went to a brilliant church, but the Presbyterian church can be so, so heady and doctrinal. I tend to be heady and

doctrinal. My husband has a PhD now and we were in seminary. So we were, we were just soaking up like the very, very best ideas of, of the faith. We were soaking up doctrine. We were reading all the time. We were learning Greek and Hebrew. And all of that was great, especially because both of us were from a little bit of like anti-intellectual Christian backgrounds. And so being like unsatisfied with that, it was like very healing to find this like theological ferment happening. But it got after years of that and being married to each other, we, um, first of all, I had a faith that kind of only used our brains, um, and was really

disconnected from our bodies and that sort of thing. But also we, I, I just had no notion of formation. And so we were like, knew our stuff, like we were like, theologically informed, and fighting like cats and dogs with each other in our marriage, like what it did not, it wasn't like resulting in sanctification, humility, kindness, like that wasn't, that was not happening. And so we, so the, so, uh, the rootedness that I talked about and the use of my body and, um, being just like, I was really exhausted at the time. And so being able to sort of just throw myself in the liturgy and not have to get to a certain like cognitive place or of, of depth of belief or emotional place was incredibly liberating for me. Um, so really the, I like formation coming in my life was so transformative

and the liturgy itself, we just completely fell in love with. It was, um, we just, we just totally fell in love. So at the end of that, we actually moved to Nashville for my husband to go to Vanderbilt and we tried to go back and we just couldn't do it. We just, we couldn't like, we, we couldn't do it. So we ended up just Anglican and then eventually got ordained and I'm an Anglican priest. And so is he. So he is too. Yeah. Two.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, same church? Double preachers kids. So pray for them. Like.

And two, intellectual. That's, that's pretty rare. Yeah. So you guys are. I mean, he's more professional than me, but yeah. I want to transition to Prayer in the Night because we started 35 minutes ago.

I was trying to jump. My goal was to start with your newest book and work our way backwards. That's gone, but let's jump in now. It was really important to me yeah that you know i i feel like ivp wants me to prioritize telling you i was in dazed and confused when i was 14 over my newest book that i want people to read i am still i mean more impressed with your cameo in dazed and confused than you're writing did you did you actually meet matthew mcconaughey

no i never met him never met him no but then he was around him what's that i've been around him because i'm from austin and he's from austin so i've been in restaurants where he was like next to me and he his kid went to school with my nephew so i've like sat by him in um school assemblies and stuff but i i don't i i haven't met matthew mcconaughey i i mean i don't yeah i don't follow hollywood stars too much well too much my kids would say probably not at all but he's one that i've started i've listened to a few podcasts that he's been on and maybe just the characters that he usually portrays he seems like a different kind of holly he just seems a little more real i don't know if that's true or not but uh i don't know i'm a fan very texan very texan super texan yeah yeah the accents very austin prayer in the night for those who work or watch or weep give us the l i want you to do a couple minute overview of what this book is all about and i'm sure that'll take us several different

directions yeah so this book my second book um, came out of a few experiences in my life coming together. One was the year 2017 was just difficult for me. We moved across the country from Austin to Pittsburgh in January. And a week later, my father passed away suddenly back in Texas. And then I found out the day after his funeral. So I had a plane ticket booked to go back home for his birthday. And I used it for his funeral. And I spoke at his funeral the day after I found out I was pregnant. Um, and which was joyful for us. We had wanted a third child and, uh, and three weeks later I miscarried. And then

surprisingly, like a complete fluke got, was pregnant again. And, um, that was a long, hard, um, pregnancy and I had to be on bedrest for part of it. And, um, and then that July second trimester, we lost our son. Um, so it was like six months of just a really rough year. Um, not there's a, I've said this several times, but there's a whole sort of genre of like Christian response to truly catastrophic tragedy. In some sense, I mean, this was very painful, but it was also this kind of a normal pain in the sense that a lot of us lose parents, all of us, if we live long enough, we'll lose our parents. A lot of us move. A lot of us have miscarriages. It's one in four pregnancies and miscarriage. So this is not a book about, um, this really hard thing I went through. It's not really

actually about that at all. It's about when I went through that, a few things happened. Number one, I sort of felt like I didn't know how to pray anymore. I, um, felt like there was so many questions and I was so tired and I didn't know how to trust God. Um, and questions of sort of how do you, well, the way I say it in the book is if we cannot trust God to keep bad things from happening to us, which we cannot, um, the, how do we trust God at all? And I didn't know the answer. I didn't, I started the book, not knowing how to answer that question. Um, and that was a theological question, but it was a very practical question too, of, of, if I, if I, how do I continue in this faith in Jesus when I don't know how to, when I, I can't be reliant on my own energy or my own ardent faith, which was because I was full of doubt. And I didn't know how to talk to God. In the middle of that also,

night became really hard for me. I could sort of keep going during the day, but, um, but, um, I would have anxiety at night or the stillness of night was really overwhelming to me. And so I would fill it up with Netflix, a lot of Netflix, a lot of Twitter, a lot of reading political articles. Um, this was 2017. So a lot was happening in our world at the time. Um, and I would just, I, I, night became this sort of, um, difficult, fearful thing for me that, um, and so, um, for me that like all of that sort of hinged on the notion of vulnerability, like why does God allow us to remain vulnerable, to be vulnerable? Night is a really vulnerable time. Um, and so I, um, started, I, I like really through a counselor, um, came back

to the practice of Compline, which is, um, an Anglican office of prayer at night. It's the final prayers of the night. A prayer office is like a prayer service that we do. And so I started doing Compline. I started praying Compline. And so the book isn't about Compline per se. In other words, it's not like, you should pray Compline. Here's why.

Here's what Compline is. You should pray Compline. Here's why. Here's what Compline is. But it takes one prayer out of Compline that it's, I'll just say it, is to keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night and give your angels charge over those who sleep. And so each chapter in the book is a meditation on each phrase of that prayer. And I use the prayer as a way to enter into questions about theodicy, like why, how can God be all good and all powerful and bad things like regularly happen in the world, but also about vulnerability. How, why does God allow us to continue to be vulnerable? How do we meet God in our vulnerability? How do we deal with living in a world where we are so prone to harm and wounding? And so the book is wrestling with that and in the context of darkness and light. Where do we see God's light in the darkness? Where does God meet light in the darkness where does God need us in the darkness and then

finally sort of the the whole culmination of the book is in the love of God like where is the love of God in the dark and how do we continue to pray to a God that we hope and need to love us when things are dark and we're not sure and we're full of doubt. So that's what the book is about. So it's about my own struggle with where God is in the midst of loss and woundedness and fear of the future? And how do we keep praying when faith feels hard and distant? And when we can't settle for sort of trite answers, how do we continue in the faith? So yeah, I mean, I guess it kind of gets back to this idea of rootedness that sort of has kept coming up in this podcast. Yeah. What, what is your past? First of all, that's beautiful. And I love that it's rooted in your own story. I mean, very much like your first book. It's, it's, it's embodied. It's embodied, not that, not to promote my own book

embodied, but it's, it's, it's not whatied. But it's embodied theology. It's lived theology. It's not just speaking from a distance. And I think that's what makes it so powerful, like your first book. What is your pastoral response to theodicy? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, somebody comes to you, huge tragedy. Where is God in this? How do you, and you and I both know the theological options here, whatever, but like pastorally, how do you respond? you know i i i started this book i've told this story other places so but if i i didn't sit down

to write this book i tried to write another book about theology and every time i tried to write that book this is the question that i couldn't get around and so it was like once this idea came to me to write about night and complin in this book, it was like, it was like this cat that just kept coming back to my house. I couldn't get rid of it. And so, um, I felt like I just had to write this book. Every other question that I was asking was a distraction from the actual thing I was dealing with, which is how do you, I don't know if I trust God. Um, and, um, so to some extent, I mean, I had to write 70,000 words and then take, you know, edit it down to 50,000. Don't worry, the book's not 70,000 words, but I had to write that many and then, and edit it over a year and a half before I could even really begin to answer that question. So

I wouldn't actually give someone who's hurting my book, but I do think this is my answer. This is the best I got right now, um, is this book. And I, in general, we'll say, um, so, you know, for real by the book, but in general in general like i think when people bring this question this is a real question like part of the part of the motivation for this book was um barna did a study of younger folks who um were non-believers that left had left the faith or were not part of a faith and their their number one or in the top reasons for them not believing in the Christian faith, it was, um, it's hard for them to buy that a good God could allow bad things to happen in the world. Um, and it was actually cited, it was one third of all

folks who responded said that was their reason for not believing. And that's higher percentage with Gen Z and millennials than they've ever seen before. So it seems like this is becoming more of a question, which is interesting, right? In a world where we have, you know, more vaccines and we're safer and we have, you know, anti-lock breaks, this has actually become more of a question, like a bigger question for younger folks. But I'll say, I think, so it's never an, it's never a purely intellectual question, So it's never a purely intellectual question, right? And I say this in the book is that we have – I think there are sophisticated philosophical answers to this, and those are very helpful, very helpful.

But they're incomplete. They're insufficient in and of themselves i would say right yeah because at the end of the day um what i say in the book is that um this is a cry for things to be made right i think at the end of the day it's our soul's longing that we don't just want answers. We want action from a God that sets things right, that brings justice, that heals diseases, that binds wounds. We want the restoration of the world. We want things to be made better. And I think that that longing is right to have. think that that longing is right to have. And I think that we, to the extent that we try to save God's reputation by giving pat answers or by saying it's not that bad or look at the bright side, we're actually extinguishing or trying to snuff out a longing for things to be made right in the world that is from God and that is right.

So I think that we have to be honest about the brokenness in the world and about how we need God to come and to set, to bind wounds, to mend what needs mending. So I'm saying I think it's more of almost a primordial cry for things to be made right that we all humans share, that this question comes out of. And I just want to affirm that, like, that is the right response to darkness. Like, that is a true response to the brokenness of the world. Now, I don't think it just ends there because I think God has responded to that cry. Not perfectly. I mean, I make, and that's not the right word, not with like an easy answer or a complete answer. I don't, I mean, God has responded perfectly because he is God.

But I mean, I don't think that there, I think at the end of the day, enduring the brokenness in the world, the problem of evil is, is it's that it's enduring, it's enduring a mystery. Um, and so I talk a lot in the book about enduring a mystery, um, that phrase and, and what that means and how we do that. And the reason I think it's about enduring a mystery as opposed to finding an answer is I don't think that this can be answered until God himself sets things right. I think that we're longing for a culmination of things that we will not fully be satisfied until we see God set things right. I mean, in some sense, the entire

Christian story, creation, fall, redemption, consummation, is an answer, if there is any answer, to the problem of evil. The story of Jesus is the answer. Now, that said, we have to sort of walk through that day by day. We're living out that story. And so I think, um, that in, even in our frustration with God, there's a hope, there's a longing that this isn't it. This isn't the, the evil, that darkness doesn't have the last word that there is something else. There's something to set things right. There's something to, you know, make things, um, the way we long for make as Bilbo Baggins said, I think like make all the sad things come untrue. And so, um, I think, um, the whole story is a response to that. Um, but, but that we won't be, um, satisfied, um, until like, here's what I'm saying. The whole story is response to this, but there's no chapter

and verse that you can give someone in scripture that tells people why their mother has cancer or why they, I don't know, like had a horrible childhood or why coronavirus exists, right? And so the church has known that. This is not a surprise to thousands of years of Christians. And they've let that chord in scripture go unresolved. It's this tension. It's this unresolved chord in music. And I'm saying, I think it is because only God himself can sound the note that will resolve that chord. And so we are still walking through creation, fall, redemption, consummation, right? Um, and so, so how do we endure that? How do we endure the longing? And, um, that's a lot of what my, my book is about. How do we, how do we, how do we continue in faith when, um, there's not like a pat little answer that's going to put a little bow on this. Like it's just, that's not happened. So, so then why, why stay in? Why don't we leave it? And that, yeah, so that's what my book's about.

Thank you for that. Anecdotally, I would affirm that Barna's study, I think that that, the question of the problem of evil, theodicy, whatever you want to call it, which is related to the doctrine of hell and suffering and evil in the world and everything. I think, yeah, I wish, I think there is a need for the church to have a better response to those questions, which isn't a pat answer. I love the way you're not giving an answer in a sense. Like here's the right, you know, it's, it's entering into the story. It's acknowledging the mystery. It's embracing God with some level of doubt and difficulty and, and, and not plastering over that. I mean, to be honest, to be vulnerable with you, I mean, you're a pastor, so maybe you can help me out here. I have a growing difficulty with two things in the Christian narrative. Number one are

the pervasive number of passages that seem to give promises of protection. God will not let your foot slip if you're faithful. I mean, the Psalms are filled with them. People are so, they love the Psalms. I have a hard time with so many Psalms, not just the imprecatory ones. Psalm 139, you know, dash my enemies' babies up against the rocks and crush their faces. You know, like that's problematic, as C.s lewis right out many others but but the problem but the promises of protection drive me crazy right like psalm 91 that's all about you know the pestilence will not come to your dwelling it's like well how do we say that how do we say that right now you can't i can't

all i can say as a theologian is, well, that's not really a promise. It's a cry. But sure, the word will will not come to you. It certainly sounds like I can't quote that without giving all kinds of caveats and explanations because people are like, well, it sure as hell came to my door. I don't know what to say. I have the same kind of struggle um and the only answer i can come up with is a doctrine that i don't think is the best representation of scripture and that's ultimate reconciliation and i'm going to get some emails for this because

well i'm an annihilationist i'm not an annihilationist i'm a interpreter of scripture who has recognized the pervasive evidence for annihilation in the Bible. You and I might be disagreeing on that, but even that doesn't satisfy. The only theological answer I think that actually satisfies my soul is that in the end, God truly will reconcile and redeem and bring beauty out of all the evil and chaos in the world, which any kind of doctrine of irreversible punishment doesn't do. I don't know what to do with the 15-year-old teenage girl in Saudi Arabia who happened to be born into a Muslim family who meets a missionary on the streets and rejects the gospel because she doesn't even know what that is and then gets hit by a truck. And I don't have a soul-satisfying answer that good will come out of that

unless in the end she will live forever with her creator i just but i don't see that taught as compelling in scripture as other doctrines of the in time so can you pastor me through my it's gonna get me in trouble Preston um so uh okay um I we only we only have like five more minutes because I have to go get my son but um but uh to be continued in like five minutes let me let me wade into this huge thing I mean I will say um here's what we can affirm. I think Jesus is a judge. He's a judge of hearts, and he judges evil. He judges evil in us. And we can affirm that and we can affirm that he wishes none to perish. Um,

and, um, I think, well, I'll just be honest. I mean, I think, um, if, so my concept of hell, like to some extent, actually, I'll say this, the only time I, I tend to not, I say this in the book, but I tend to not connect with God as a judge. That's a hard concept for me. And I'm much more like, kind of like the hippie Jesus, like, like the chill Jesus, like Austin Jesus. Yeah, totally. But, um, uh, but I encountered this really horrific, um, situation overseas where children were being, um, essentially held captive through the, um, adoption system. They were, um, folks that wanted to adopt them and they, they were taking more and more money from them, but never processing the papers to get these kids ready for adoption. And so they were just being, it was, they were using kids as bait. They were using kids to make money. And it was evil. It's awful. It's exploiting the weak and nothing was being done about money. And it was evil. It's awful. It's, it's exploiting the weak and nothing was being

done about it. And nothing has been done about it because, um, the authorities were being bribed. In that situation, I realized no one is coming for these children. There's nothing to do. And my only hope was that like God saw and God would come as a judge, like that God would judge and care for the weak. Now, so I think because I affirm kind of the creeds, like I have to believe, um, that there is, um, so that we, we can, um, distance ourselves to go. I mean, I guess I'm talking about something like hell, but when people hear, I'm like hesitant to use that word because people automatically think eternal conscious torment and a guy with like, you know, a pitchfork and fire,

which is not at all what I mean. I mean that it's possible for us to remove ourselves from the goodness of God, that God himself is heaven, communion with God, unity with God is heaven. And that that's not compulsory or, um, mandatory that God, uh, that we can, we can reject that and move away from that. And so we make our own hell. So we diminish ourselves, right, from moving away from the source of life. Now, that said, I think that if there's a door in hell, it's only locked from the inside, right? That there is a sense that anyone who longs for God and to know God, that that will not be thwarted, even if you're a 14-year-old Muslim girl, right? And so I think Jesus is the source of all salvation, period. But would I – so I'm absolutely fine with saying there is judgment.

I'm absolutely fine with saying we can cut ourselves off from the grace of God or we can reject the grace of God. We don't – it's not – God's a gentleman. He doesn't like force himself on us. And, but I, um, but I'm also, will, I will never say this individual is saved and this individual is damned. Like, this individual is saved and this individual is damned. Like, I just think that that's in the wild mystery of God. I will not say that. So what does it mean that Jesus makes all things new? Like, what does that mean? And that absolutely is our hope.

I mean, I think you're right that at the end, you know, I saw someone talking about like, basically, I don't believe in God because it was on Twitter because of this like horrible, you know, sad video of a woman with dementia. And I thought, well, we have dementia either way, God or no God, like there's horror in the world. What I have in Jesus is hope that the chaos and the destruction that is dementia, I don't mean people with dementia, I mean, dementia itself, dementia itself, the disease that that is, will be judged and will be subdued and will be put to death under the power of Jesus. So what does it mean that Jesus makes all things new? Does that open itself to a kind of annihilationism? I certainly think that it might, is being annihilated part of judgment? Like,

it could be that when we diminish ourselves by turning away from the grace of God, we get more and more and more diminished so that we no longer exist. The question is, though, more and more and more diminished um so that we no longer exist the question is though and it's a valid question is is there something truly eternal about the human soul that it it continues that it goes to greater and greater diminishment but never snuffs out because the possibility of redemption is always there um and just because the human soul is eternal. Now, all of that I have no idea. Like all of that is shrouded in mystery. And there's not scriptural, there's not like utter scriptural clarity.

So I didn't mean to judge the living and the dead. Um, because I think that's true. I mean, I, I affirmed that I affirmed that that's true. Right. Yeah. No, it's sorry to open up a huge can right now. You gotta go. It also makes all things new. Yeah. No, it's hard to open up a huge can right now. You got to go. It also makes all things new. Yeah. And I think what you're saying is that at the end of the day,

that's all the hope we got. And I think that's true. I mean, anything writing this book has made me come down on if Christ is not risen from the dead, we really, really ought to be pitied above all men. Like all my eggs are in that basket now. Like if that's not true, then really there is almost no point to doing anything other than making your life as comfortable as possible while you're here. anything other than making your life as comfortable as possible while you're here. Right? No, that's it. That's it. No, I, it just, just, I mean, I should have given this caveat when I talked about my, you know, some problems to have a scripture or the Christian narrative. I don't need, I'm very okay having problems with their

Christian narrative because I do believe that it is the best story that you can live. That doesn't mean I have to understand or even like every aspect of the story of all the alternatives. It is by far the best story. My trust is in a God of grace, a God of judgment, that he's going to work it out perfectly. And I 100% trust that. Whether or not I understand the particulars, that's another issue. And there's some particulars

that seem to be revealed in scripture. I'm like, I don't feel, I don't resonate with that. But what's my other option? The problem of evil isn't a uniquely Christian problem. It's a human problem. So I'm fine having disruption within the story that I don't quite resonate with as much as other aspects of the story.

It is the, it is the best story that we can live in my humble opinion. And I also think, but there has to be room, what you're talking about. And my book goes into this is lament. I mean, we, if you're going to be a Christian, like, yeah, we just have to learn lament and lament is not just I mean, we, if you're going to be a Christian, like, yeah, we just have to learn lament and lament is, um, not just like I'm sad, although that's part of it. It's holding God to God's own promises. It's saying like, where are you? How long? Oh Lord. And I think we can come to God with really sharp words and be like, this doesn't make sense. Where are you? What are you doing? And,

um, I think scripture is, is really raw about, um, about struggles and doubts and darkness is my only friend, right? And Psalm 88. Like what an intense way to end. And that's part of it, right? And so I think that the kind of stuff you're talking to about like struggling with God's own promises, so much of the Christian life is looking at the promises of God, looking at the reality of our life and saying, how can this be true? Because you promised this, because you promised Psalm 91,

like how can coronavirus be true? How can this be true? And that's lament, that's saying, God, I am holding you to your own promises. And I think that we, one of the ways we endure the mystery of theodicy is by leaving room for grief around that and leaving room for lament around that. We don't stop there and then go on in the book, but that's part of it. And if we miss that step, then I think we're going to inevitably have a thinner, like a less honest faith. Like it's going to be just like, we were going to result in sort of saccharine answers because we can't wrestle with the real things that you're bringing up that, that, that scripture brings up. Like, I think your average Christian church service in America, we're taught to be less honest with God than the scriptures themselves are. Um,

than the scriptures themselves are. Um, so, and the, the very most common Psalm, more common than the Psalm 91 promises of, of things working out is lament. It's the most, it's 40% of all Psalms lament. And so our, I think that posture of response, what you're taught, what you are feeling and talking about is lament. I think that is absolutely a Christian practice and you're not going to, I'm not saying you particular, but we are not going to be able to endure in this faith, in our faith, if we don't take it up and learn it. Tish, that's a great way to wrap up what I think is a super interesting conversation. Tish, you have a website, tishharrisonwarren.com. Two books, which I've already talked about, and it's in the show notes. So you got to run.

Your kids are probably pounding at the door. Yeah, my son. Thanks so much for being on the show again. I really appreciate your work, your ministry, and I wish there were a hundred more Tish Harrison Warrens out there, but well, we have one. I feel like we're good friends. I wish we lived closer.

I know, right? Yeah. Well, let's, yeah, I'll have you on again when you write another book. Before, before. No, I'm not going to wait until you write a book. I'll see you in eight years. All right. Take care. or before before no I'm not gonna wait till you write a book I haven't seen eight years alright take care you