Theology in the Raw - 849: How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems our Pain: Kurt Willems

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

Kurt is the author of the brand new book: Echoing Hope: How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain (https://www.amazon.com/Echoing-Hope-Humanity-Jesus-Redeems/dp/0593193504/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=kurt+willems&qid=1613502655&sr=8-1) And his forms the bulk of our discussion. Do we believe Jesus was really human? Do we overemphasize his deity and therefore lose out on embracing the beauty of his humanity? When did Jesus realize he was God? Do his miracles prove his divinity or show that he was empowered by the Spirit?  Kurt Willems is a pastor, writer, and spiritual director. After several years in student and adult church ministry in Central California, he partnered with the Brethren in Christ to plant a Christian community in Seattle called Pangea Church. Kurt maintains a resource website, which hosts articles and podcasts, called Theology Curator (formerly called, The Paulcast). He is passionate about taking dense ideas and communicating them in ways that are empowering for people in all walks of life. He holds a master of divinity degree from Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary and a master's degree in comparative religion from the University of Washington (where he focused on the historical Paul within Judaism and the Roman Empire). Kurt also completed a two-year training program to become a spiritual director called, Stewards of the Mystery. His wife, Lauren, is a special education teacher. They have two amazing, young daughters.  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. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. Support the show for as little as $5 a month. If this show has blessed you or even cursed you, or if it has just simply provoked you to think differently, freshly, more biblically about Jesus, God, and the world, and the Holy Spirit, I guess we should be Trinitarian, then please consider supporting the show at patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. My guest today is, and we talked about this at the beginning of the podcast, is a friend of mine whom I've never met in person. Isn't that so 2021? Like I've known

of Kurt Willems for almost 10 years, maybe eight plus years. We've been corresponding through email. We've talked on the phone. We've read each other's blogs and promoted each other's stuff. And he's just a very, one of those guys you meet and you're, you just kind of finish each other's sentences. I love his heart. Just to get to, yeah, just so you get to know a little bit about him. He's a pastor, writer, spiritual director. He spent several years in student and adult ministry in Central California. So that's another commonality we have. I grew up in Fresno, California. Kurt grew up in Dinuba, which probably three of you have heard of Dinuba, but Dinuba, maybe five of you have heard of Fresno. Dinuba is just a little country town, maybe a half hour

away from Fresno. I grew up, I mean, playing baseball in Dinuba. So really interesting that our paths have crossed again here more recently. He is, well, he has a Master of Divinity from Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary and a Master's Degree comparative religion from the University of Washington. He also runs a podcast called Theology Curator, used to be called The Paulcast. And also, I came across him, I think originally when he was blogging at Pangea, his Pangea blog, which he's rolled that into another blog. I forgot the name of it. He talks about it on the podcast. Married, he's married. He's got two daughters and he has planted a church. I mean, seven years ago, he planted a church in Seattle. So he's a pastor in the Seattle area. And we just had a great time talking about his recent book. Well, recent book, his first book and recent book

that's coming out. I believe if, if my schedule is accurate, then it comes out tomorrow, March 16th, it comes out. Um, it's called echoing hope, how the humanity of Jesus redeems our pain. And, um, we, we dig into the humanity of Christ. I do think that as we both talk about on the podcast, that I think Christians can tend to overemphasize the deity of Christ at the expense of Christ's full humanity. And we talk about that at great length. We even border on the line of heresy. border on the line of heresy. So if that bothers you, then maybe this isn't the podcast for you. But what does it mean that Jesus was fully human? Not at the expense of his divinity, but we also can't embrace the divinity of Jesus at the expense of his humanity. We must embrace both 100%, 100% divinity and humanity. So please welcome to the show for the first time, my friend from a distance, the one and only Kurt Willings. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in a Raw. I am here with my friend, Kurt Willems. Kurt and I, we've never, this is such the world we live in, man. We've never met in person, and yet we've known about each other, in some ways known each other,

and yet we've known about each other, in some ways known each other, gosh, since 2012, I think we first started email exchanging. We've written blogs kind of back and forth. We've talked on the phone and I feel like it's weird. Like I feel like, oh yeah, me and Kurt go way back and we've never hung out in person. So this is crazy. But anyway, it's so good to have you on the podcast. Yeah, it's super crazy. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast. Yeah. Why don't we start with just for people that don't know who you are, give us a snapshot of your journey, your life in ministry, in the faith and however long or short you want to take. And then I want to talk about your new book, Echoing Hope.

Yeah, no. Hey, thanks for having me, man. This is a, it's a good excuse to have an extended conversation, right? Like I just enjoy that part of it. So yeah, I, man, where do I start? Well, I'll just give you the big picture of my story and it'll lead to how I ended up being a book guy who wrote one. Yeah. So, so I grew up in central California and grew up in a conservative environment for sure. Traditional evangelical Christianity. People hear California and they often think, oh, he grew up in this like liberal. But the truth is, if you go to central California, you're in like a bit of a Bible Belt, to be honest. And so a lot of farming there, actually most of the world's fruit, I'm pretty sure is produced there. And so a lot of farming there, actually most of the world's fruit, I'm pretty sure is produced there.

I had to pack fruit at various points in my teenage years. So I know, I know the small town environment. And real quick, what was the specific town? Because I, yeah, I grew up in Fresno. You, I forget the. Dinuba is where I grew up. This little small town, which is right there between Fresno and Visalia, basically. Yeah. And so I grew up in a Mennonite brethren church that probably felt more Baptist than Anabaptist,

if people know those categories. And that's fine. I actually, you know, some people have traditional-ish upbringings and have negative things about that. And to be really honest, I'm fortunate in that my story doesn't include, you know, these deep wounds from my childhood that had to do with church. Actually, the church was a safe space, a saving space, a gracious space. And so that's kind of where I got my feet wet with Jesus. But the other part of my childhood is this, and this is throughout the book, is that I suffered a lot of physical violence at home. My parents split when I was a toddler. And I lived with my mom full time.

Eventually, a man came into our lives that was an alcoholic and was violent. And from the age about five to 11 was just on and off again, abuse, whether it was verbal or physical towards my mom more, but towards me often. And so you can imagine as a kid, I'm growing up in a church environment. My mom, who I dearly love to this day, I don't want anyone to think she's like the enemy of my story. She's actually not. But my mom and the situation we had during those years, very like just painful and dark when this man was around. And so I had this like dual experience of life. And so the church was really where people knew superficially my life was hard. Like we were on welfare and food stamps. So that was enough for people to say, hey, things are hard at home. And so I got hand-me-downs from a family where, by the way,

the hand-me-downs I got was we were best men in each other's wedding, you know, like the way the story rolls forward. I had folks who took a special interest in me that did this because they believed in me and they believed in the way of Jesus. And so I had this really hard upbringing. There was a climactic event of abuse that went down when I was in fifth grade. And that led to him being out of our lives. But really, I had to unpack what that meant for myself. So into my teenage years, I still live this sort of dual existence, not abuse at home, as much as having this sort of rebellious side to me trying to figure out, am I this edgy? You know, I was into skateboarding. So some of the culture of the 90s, you can imagine that comes with that. Or am I this follower of Jesus that people see at youth group? And that negotiation in light of my past went on until I was a junior, right before I was a junior in high school,

actually the end of my sophomore year of high school, went on a mission trip and had this powerful experience with Jesus, opened up the book of James and the Holy Spirit just convicted me like, dude, if you want to follow me, you also have to live in a way that lines up with what it means to be a follower. And it wasn't condemning, it was gracious, it was beautiful. And Jesus just started working in my life through other people I saw actually following Jesus and being inspired by them. And by that summer, I had such a turnaround in those months that my youth pastor sent me to summer camp with little kids. And I was a counselor at camp. I mean, I don't know why he did this, but he believed that somehow God was using me in these

months. And a couple of weeks later, after having that first sort of ministry experience, I had a powerful experience at that camp as a high schooler and felt God call me into ministry, had what I now describe as charismatic experiences, not knowing they were charismatic experiences at the time, charismatic experiences, not knowing they were charismatic experiences at the time, visions of myself speaking to groups and this sense of power and God's love just sort of shaping me in that specific moment for a trajectory that would take me a totally different way. Through that last couple of years of high school, I magically became the spiritual leader on our private Christian school campus. It was bizarre.

I mean, really bizarre. I had moments where I got to share parts of my story with the whole campus community, and that just broke open all kinds of things. And by college, I was doing internship ministry, eventually was a director on staff during the last part of my college years at that first church, went on to be a youth pastor at another church in town, and eventually found myself in a different church where I was hired on to do multi-site campus ministry. And during those years, I was living in a town called Visalia doing ministry there. It was a great couple of years, I was living in a town called Visalia, doing ministry there. It was a great couple of years. But what we realized as all of these plans for launching the second campus of this church,

we had a venue, we had a team, we had all that stuff. We realized that where the church was at experientially, we might use words like DNA or whatever kind of language that's not in the Bible, but we use to describe these shifts that you experience culturally. There's a big DNA shift happening and there was backlash because of it. Kind of the missional shift was happening. And as a result, we sat down with, you know, my lead pastor exec and me, and we realized the plan is good, the timing's bad. And so I was like, what does that mean? We just spent a year planning this thing. You hired me basically to do this. And what does that look like? Well, I happened to be going on a spiritual

retreat with a bunch of church planty types that had been invited to that weekend. And we decided, let's just discern and pray. And on that retreat, it became clear to me that what I'd been preparing for a church campus, those skills would translate into church planting, but with a different kind of posture. And I wouldn't be transplanting someone else's vision, but letting God give me a different vision. And so all of that led to finishing seminary, ending up in Seattle, Washington, of all places. And we've been here for seven and a half years. My daughter will be eight in about two months. And she was three months old when we got here. So man, it's been a wild journey. And during those years, I started blogging and that seemed to do pretty well. So I got some cool opportunities along the way and had a bunch of almost books that I'm so grateful to God did not come to fruition. And finally, in the last couple of years, God really laid on my heart the humanity of Jesus and how we can lean into his humanity to experience our own formation.

And eventually that translated into a book that is going out into the world. And it's still surreal because I haven't even held a copy. So it's like, is this real? I don't think it is. held a copy. So it's like, is this real? I don't think it is, but I'm very, very grateful to the Lord and to people who have supported me in that process. So that's a super big version. Of course, in the process, we started a kind of a, I don't know what labels to put on our church. It's not typical and I'll just leave it at that, but it's rooted in the Anabaptist tradition. We were sent by the brethren in Christ and they've supported us. And it's been an up and down, challenging, forming, good journey.

Yeah, good. Well, your book, so it's Echoing Hope, How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain, comes out exactly, what's today? One month from today, March 16th. That's what Amazon shows. Oh, yeah. I didn't realize it's the 16th, yeah. Who's the publisher? Is it Baker? No, this is Waterbrook. He's part of the Random House.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, you've got a foreword from Scott McKnight, an afterword from Brian Zahn. I'm going to skim down. Shane Claiborne endorsed it. Sarah Bessie. Um, uh, I don't know why I chuckled there. Um, uh, Walter Brueggemann, if you guys don't know Walter Brueggemann, um, he's a well, I mean, right. Renowned old Testament scholar, Jonathan Martin, who's kind of a, he's got a big platform. I mean,

these are some big names that are endorsing it. So well, well done that, you know, I don't know people like it's, um, uh, when, when you write a book and especially if you're a new or mid-level author, it's hard, man, to get somebody with a plot because they, they get, it's hard to get somebody to endorse it because they get asked 10 times a day. I mean, totally. I mean, I've got a pretty small platform and I get asked all the time. I can imagine like Beth Moore or Scott McKnight or some of these guys that's like, they probably get hit literally. I mean, probably several times a day, get asked to do this, do that, endorse this,

forward that. So all that to say, um, the fact that they did endorse your book that speaks volumes, man, it really does. Oh man. I honestly, I was blown away. You know, some people that I had good relationships with were just like, dude, pandemic plus season can't do it. And I totally get that. And it was fine. But, uh, many people were able to, or, or, you know, Brian Zond, I hit him up kind of late, to be honest, for this afterward idea. We're like, hey, it'd be cool to have like a pastoral word after this from someone other than me. Right. And so we were wrestling with who could do it on such a short notice. And so I was like, hey, Brian, you don't have time to do this. I know. But can you do it? And he goes, yeah, no, I definitely don't have time to do this, but for you, sure. And he just kind of cranked one out for me. And I mean, the support,

and it's been cool, man. I mean, I've developed a friendship with someone I never would have thought I would have, Ben Higgins, who was the star of The Bachelor five years ago. You know, he was the main guy for the TV show, The Bachelor. Happens to be a follower of Jesus and was writing a book about when I was. And dude, we've become buddies. He came to Seattle like a week before the pandemic shut down for this whole like Bachelor, The Bachelor Live, you know, which was this like show taking The Bachelor concept on the road. And he's hosting it. And dude, we got like backstage

hanging out he gave us the hollywood experience showed us his bus and he's like yeah i had to log out i had to log john legend out of out of netflix so i could sign on to netflix in my hollywood bus that i'm taking around the country you know know, it's just like, what? And he's like the most down to earth dude ever. So he, he's another kind of like, wow, like you're, what a gift, you know? But then of course, like most of these folks are in the pastoral authorship lane, a couple theologians and, uh, I'm, I'm overwhelmed. I'm through, it still doesn't seem real to be real, really honest. Give us the, give us the elevator pitch on the book. Like what's your, I'm, I'm overwhelmed. I'm through. It still doesn't seem real to be real, really honest. Give us the, give us the elevator pitch on the book. Like what's your, I mean, the subtitle,

you know, how the humanity of Jesus redeemed our pain. So you can kind of get the gist of where I think you're going to go, but yeah. Can you give us a two, three minute overview of what the book's all about? Yeah. Yeah, totally. And maybe I can start by saying what the book was going to be about and then how it like became this, because I think that's relevant for framing my journey for people. For a long time, I've been fascinated by the humanity of Jesus. N.T. Wright's been a huge influence in my theological formation. He has often emphasized, along with Scott McKnight and a lot of others that I've come to admire, emphasize like when you see Jesus, you see the prototypical image bearer. Like if we want to grow as followers of Jesus, it's not a call to deny our humanity. It's actually a call to become more human, to actually lean into our humanity,

the garden-shaped humanity that was intended, you know, in the first place. And so when I was thinking about this, if Jesus is that model for what it looks like to live and experience the world as fully human, without discounting the divinity stuff, and I'm very explicit, I'm a Trinitarian, all of that stuff. I have a whole chapter where I break down why I want to focus on his humanity. Then I started to really get fired up about, okay, there's a lot we can learn just by looking at Jesus through the lens of his human life and ministry and teachings. And so my first version of this book was actually going to be called something like Human Like Jesus, which is actually now it's the title of chapter three. So that feels still in there.

But I got in the room with some really cool publishers. And the feedback I got was, this is like, if you can get someone to start the book, it's awesome. Because this is something that's relatable, like becoming human like Jesus. It's a little counterintuitive because people don't always think that way, but it's also life-giving. But where's the real felt-kneed hook? Where's the raw connection to his humanity? Why does it matter really for the single mom or the dad with identity issues or the student? And so what it ended up doing was just taking me back to the drawing board and I sat with it for a long time. And then one day out of the blue, it just hit me.

How have I experienced the humanity of Jesus? Well, it's been through all my junk. It's been through my pain. It's been through my suffering. And that's common to every human. There's no human that experiences a life free of pain and suffering. And so that's what Jesus stepped into. The Bible makes it utterly clear before his crucifixion. I mean, he's dealing with painful things all the time. And yet he's showing people how to step into pain in a whole different kind of way than the world would offer us as it is.

And so what I do in the book essentially is there's four parts. And the first part really is just trying to get people to understand like we have a problem. The world was designed for shalom is one way people talk about this and relationships that are without alienation between God, others, creation, and even the self that God sees. And anytime there's friction in any of those relationships, the Bible seems to call this sin. And so we have experienced this disrupted shalom experience of life. have experienced this disrupted shalom experience of life. And if we want to like begin the process of healing and being formed back towards that initial vision, what would it look like to take Jesus absolutely serious as the guide and model for how to do that? And so the first part really wrestles with that. I wrestled with the problem of evil at the end of that section. I, I lean towards kind of an open future view. That might be my most controversial little section in the book, depending on who you are, there might be others, but, but like,

you know, and I, I'm kind of like, I don't know if this is right. This is where I'm at at the moment. I'm really trying to hold these things with open hands that are edgier. And, and I sincerely do that in my personal life. And then we step into part two, three, and four, which are really the birth of Jesus all the way, the last chapter is the resurrection of Jesus. And I take moments and episodes from Jesus's journey. And I try to ask the question, how can we find our identities empowered by God as we look at Jesus? And how can we step into challenges and frustrations and real pain and suffering as we move with Jesus? And so, yeah, I mean, there's kind of a manifesto on Jesus while I'm talking about the raw stuff

of life. That's basically what this book is. Wow. The humanity of Jesus that I'm, um, when I was in, uh, college, I almost said, but it wasn't Bible college, but it was a Christian college,

masters, masters college now called the masters university. Um, so really conservative place, but I had a professor there, uh, Doug Bookman. Okay.

Nobody's, there's probably three and a half people listening that will even recognize the name Doug Bookman, but Doug Bookman was a outside the box kind of thinker, very conservative. I mean, you can't teach her unless you're very conservative, but he had this thing and he, about the humanity of Jesus that I'm still a little shocked for how conservative of a place it was, how he kind of was able to teach what he did. Like he pushed the humanity of Jesus as far as it can go. to Dallas Theological Seminary to do a PhD in New Testament or Bible exposition. And he wanted to do his PhD dissertation on the humanity of Jesus. And they said, I think, don't quote me on this, but I think they said, yeah, this is kind of heresy. So no, you can't, whatever. But he's like, no, it's not like here. Jesus didn't read people's minds. He takes a strong view, I think, of the canonic view of Philippians 2-7, where

Jesus laid aside the independent right of his attributes. All the things that makes up God, all the attributes that makes up God, he set the independent use of that aside. Is that an accurate way of describing canonic? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I've done it, you know, if you just look at the language there in Philippians 2 and N.T. Wright has some great scholarly articles on this, it does seem it's really tricky language, but I think that's a pretty accurate way of reading that text. But then we have a, then we have a human Jesus that isn't just floating through life, you know, healing people and reading people's minds. And he even has a, this professor Doug Bookman has a cool explanation for when it says that Jesus knew what they were thinking, like the Pharisees and stuff. But he's like, put yourself in that situation. You don't need to be a mind reader to know what they were thinking when they're in the corner grumbling. in that situation. You don't need to be a mind reader to know what they were thinking when they're in the corner grumbling. And you know, it's like, it's not that he's just like scanning the room

and looking at all everybody's thoughts, you know, like, or even that several passages in Luke 5, I think Acts 11, which says like that he did miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit, meaning Jesus couldn't do miracles just independently. Like a spirit would come upon him to perform miracles. So it was very much just Trinitarian submission. And it sounds like I'm preaching to the choir here, but I mean, I think we have overly, I think we've overly divinized Jesus or,

or swallowed up his humanity and his deity, partly because we're in this day and age, we're defending the deity of Christ. That's kind of a main attack on Christianity, but let us not forget the first heresy was Gnosticism denying his humanity, right? I mean, that was the big, the first heresy that the early church faced. So, um, Oh man, dude, you're, you're nailing so much here. And you know, one of the things he said in, uh, one of my chapters, well, that chapter on his humanity, I specifically have a section where I talk about like, it's not possible to necessarily over deify Jesus because Jesus is God. Like we believe that, but what we often do, even if practically, even if we don't cognitively do

this, but practically and experientially, we underhumanize him. And that to me is the foundational problem that I think your professor was addressing. You're addressing so well. When we underhumanize him, we kind of can then practically speaking, over-idealize the human Jesus. You know, and certainly Jesus lived perfect. Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, did all of the things to overcome darkness that many of us are like, yeah, I don't know if I'm going to do that many miracles in my lifetime because I'm not that aligned with the Father like Jesus was or in sync with the Spirit like Jesus was. But when you look at Jesus, like there's so much we can gain

from watching him do what he does in the gospels. And one of the things that, uh, I, I mentioned in the book is like, we make him into an idol and I'm not even talking about worship per se, but like, you know, um, an untouchable, an untouchable model, like, well, he did that because he's God. I can't relate to that. Oh, yeah. And I talk about Dorothy Day saying like, don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed that easily. And I think we do that with Jesus.

We dismiss Jesus when we don't take the humanity side of it as seriously as we do the divinity side. And so that's the foundational theological premise. Of course, I'm writing to a popular audience, so you can track down tons of footnotes and end notes to try and be like, hey, I'm rooting this in something. But I can't say everything that there is to be said here. But yeah, that's basically my starting point for sure. Even the whole thing like how do we know Jesus is God? Well, he did miracles. It's like, well, biblically speaking, lots of people do miracles. Elisha does miracles. Does

that mean Elisha is God? You know, Moses did miracles. I mean, you know, like just because God is performing miracles through a human figure doesn't mean necessarily that he's doing that to vindicate his deity. I think in most passages, and there might be a couple of passages where he does say, point to his son of God identity. But even then in the Bible, son of God was a royal title, not necessarily a divine title. Like David is called a son of God and a Davidic kingship, they were called sons of God. And that's, that's, so I, and it's hard because when, when, when you start, when you start to maybe correct some of these popular pieces of evidence that we've used to justify his deity, it looks like you're trying to deny his deity. That's why this conversation get really, really touchy, you know? Um, but even like the, the, you've mentioned, you know, he,

yes, he was perfect, you know, he, yes, he was perfect, you know, but Hebrew says he learned obedience. Like he learned. I often wonder like in this, so here's a provocative question. We'd love to hear your thoughts. When did Jesus discover his deity? People say, oh, he always knew it. I'm like, okay, so wait, you're telling me he came out of the womb and he's like, Hey, how long do I got to put this straight on? You know, like, was he literally like a month old and knew he was divine or is that, and is that, is that a true human one month year old? And if the answer is no, okay. When he was a baby crying, you know, he didn't know it. Okay. Well, when did he discover he was divine? But even that language

sounds very heretical. It might be in a heretic by asking the question, when did he discover he was divine? But even that language sounds very heretical. Am I being a heretic by asking the question, when did he discover that he was divine? I don't think so because I think, and I'm not saying he's qualified. No, I think it's good. I think it's good. This question doesn't scare me at all. I think, well, first of all, I haven't done a lot of work around this recently. I know years ago ago I read some N.T. Wright has quite a bit, maybe it's in, um, Jesus and the victory of God. One of those really big books. He does this whole thing about Jesus's conscious awareness of his vocation and how that connects to his divinity.

He does some of that work in some of his denser books. But as I think about it, I don't know when that moment came, but I think it's clear that as his ministry is happening, he starts to self-identify as the embodiment of Israel's God, right? So could it have been that he had this lingering awareness already at 12 in the temple when he disobeys, you know, and hangs, which again, is that disobedience? Is that like sin? You know, we can ask all kinds of fun questions around this. Apparently you can do what your parents don't want you to do and not be sinning because your father in heaven wants you to do something. Right. So there's just some really interesting human elements here. But yeah,

so I don't know when Jesus became aware of it, but I certainly know that, you know, it challenges my narrative of where does sin begin in a sense, like, like do toddler, are toddlers sinning when they don't listen? I don't think that's sin. I think that's learning, obedient. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's growing into like a full on understanding of, you know, human purpose in the world, you know? And so, so when does sin begin? When are you like accountable and development's just a fascinating thing to even think about, you know?

So even the development of his awareness is, so I wish we had more access to Jesus as a young life. That's the bottom line, I think here. Well, the Gnostics fill in a lot of gaps. I don't know if you've read early Gnostic literature, first, second century, second, third century, they fill in a lot of those gaps that I think, again, overly divinitizing, divinizing his, his personhood. But, um, yeah, yeah. So the 12 year old, the temple scene in Luke, I mean, did you not know I'd be in my father's house? I, is that, you know, saying, so he calls God, my father, which was not unheard of, but that, that, that identity that, um, that, that does

typically come after his kind of ministry. Um, but we call, again, we call a Godfather. It doesn't mean we're divine, you know, um, and we do have in the old Testament, Israel viewed as like, like it's typically not. Yeah. I would have to go back and look. It's, it's, it's not that common to Israel or an old Testament Saint calls Godfather, but it's not unheard of, or even David, like he calls David my son. Yeah. So I think even the covenant in 2 Samuel 7, where the Davidic covenant's made, I think there's father-son language there. So even that, like, is he becoming aware of his divinity? Maybe. It could be. Or was he becoming more aware of his messianic vocation? Was it a both and? I don't know. And my purpose is not to find an answer,

but just to open up, just to challenge, I think, my own and other people's assumption about the character of Jesus that leans so heavy on the deity side that I think it sometimes can eradicate his, his humanity. Um, yeah. He was tempted in all forms that we are. So did he notice that a girl was super hot? Was Mary Magdalene like super hot? And he was like, Oh man, this girl's washing my feet. You know, like we picture Jesus like asexual. Right. But does that mean to be heterosexual and resist temptation to lust is resisting the temptation sin? We're going to say, well, hope not. Otherwise we're in big trouble. Well, then did Jesus not experience that as well? Um, I don't know. Yeah, no, man. That's, I mean, I think all of that's relevant and,

and, and I think the more we can ground Jesus in human experience without dismissing the Trinitarian aspect of that's so important. I think the more then we can start asking questions about what does it mean for me to be human, to be part of God's like restoration of creation as, as the family of Jesus. Um, what does it mean for me in this moment? As I look at Jesus, uh, when he's vulnerable, when he's, um, experiencing identity shaping, like, you know, the, the baptism of Jesus, maybe that's a moment where it's like, oh, this is clear to me now because God literally says, you are my son whom I love and whom I'm well, you know, so, so wherever this like clarity comes to Jesus, there is utter identity formation happening in Jesus that I think I want that sort of formation in my own soul. Like I want to experience the, the, the raw unfiltered, terrifyingly beautiful love of God, like Jesus did, you know?

And so, um, I think there's just so much, uh, even from the early parts of his ministry and moving forward that we can say, whoa, there's something here for me. That's good. Where would you, where would you put yourself on? And I don't know what labels you use here because I can't stand labels, but on the conservative, moderate, liberal spectrum, both, let's just say maybe politically, theologically, and sociologically. And I kind of resist wrapping those all up into one. You can be conservative theologically and very liberal or progressive socially. And that, as most of my black brothers and sisters remind me, like you can do both. But yeah, what would you, tell me about your theological journey and how you describe yourself now. Sure. So, you know, in my younger years, I was definitely formed in a fairly traditional, um, conservative environment, both politically

and theologically and, uh, sociologically because while I was white, um, and, and, you know, it's, uh, it's been a journey of, you know, a lot of the big word people use is deconstruction. I'm kind of, I think that word has a place, but I'm kind of like, let's talk about other things sometimes. But I do think it still has a place and I respect that word for what it means to people. And so I went through that in my early and mid 20s a lot. So I went through that in my early and mid 20s a lot. But my deconstruction theologically was always rooted in the Bible. And if I was misinterpreting scripture, so I always had sort of this very orthodox space for the Bible and for Jesus, but I was willing to ask hard questions.

So I'm not a young earth creationist anymore. I hold to nonviolence now. I, you know, I have all of these things that I didn't grow up with that scripture convinced me my sociological, theological, and political climate as a child had shaped and happened to have been wrong. Um, and so, so now I would say theologically, I, um, if, if evangelical is a lowercase and, um, you know, and kind of very generous evangelicalism, I'm definitely in there. Um, that's my family. I don't, I don't know how I love or don't love the word just because of its cultural sociological connotation. But like that's who I am.

Like you can't just not be something like by declaration. I'm not that, but I'm still part of a denomination that's part of the evangelical association or whatever that thing is called. So, yeah, I mean I would say I'm'm very committed to the historic Orthodox faith of Christianity. But everything outside of the creeds, I think, and Orthodox understandings of the creeds, I think are up for conversation. And I want to be willing to have those conversations. You know, name the debate. I'll tell you where I'm at i guess i probably uh you know on on the free will versus calvinism already alluded to that i kind of like some of the more conservative

versions of open theism the greg boyd zone where god isn't actually limited in knowledge but god actually knows more because god knows every possible outcome and every possible future and allows us to make the choice, kind of the choose your own adventure vision of open theism, you know, on a lot of different things. I would probably be for a very conservative church, liberal, but if you think about the broad evangelical scholarship conversation, I would be, you know, just barely left of center, I think in that. And so, um, politically I I'm an Anabaptist, so I'm kind of like, screw the empire. But, but I think I politically, like if, if I were to vote in the last election and all of the candidates were available, not just two, I probably felt the burn a little

bit. I mean, that's fine. You know, give me, give me, give me Bernie who's pro or who's, um, who's pro-life. Give me a Bernie that's pro-life and you've got a platform I could support very easily. Um, you know, and then sociologically, I want to continue to learn and listen to black, indigenous and people of color, because as much as my life was full of pain and suffering and a hard upbringing, my hard upbringing wasn't caused by my race. It was actually easier to lift out of my upbringing because of my race. And I want to just honor that and name that. So yeah, that's kind of the zone I maybe would put myself in. What's it like doing ministry in Seattle?

Seattle is probably one of the harder places to do ministry. At least that's what I've heard. Kind of like Portland, some of these really progressive places. And especially the last two years, it's like it's just been, obviously, it's in the news a lot and a lot of riots and independent countries being established in the middle of downtown or whatever that was. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. You know, it's, it's definitely a challenging context in all kinds of ways. I mean, if you look at the history of our small faith community, of our small faith community, we call it Pangea Church. We had, as far as like, you know, a fairly traditional looking church. We had a season of that. There were sermons every week. We had small groups and we're just doing that thing. And we had quite a few more people during

those years. And there was something that happened when Donald Trump was elected president and the year that followed that the kind of people we've attracted a lot of were people who were, they want Jesus, but they're kind of on the fence about church. And maybe there's one last hope to try it. Basically, I would say 80% of those people over the year to year and a half following the election of Donald Trump faded out of our church community because they just could no longer find continuity between Christian people that they grew up believing, loved God and cared about the poor and all this stuff, who were supporting someone with that kind of a toxic rhetoric and sort of a stance politically. And for them, it meant if these people don't represent something I want to be a part of, I don't want to own that label either. I'm either going to A, become, you know, a couple of them joined a very liberal denomination, but for the most part, they de-churched and are post-Christian, I'd say a lot of them, like spiritual, but not religious,

that nun zone mentality that we have here. And that's not a judgment as much as honestly, something I mourn because it's not isolated to my community. This is something I'm hearing about all over the place. And so it is a hard, a hard space. Um, you know, the, the race stuff is, uh, definitely relevant. We're a fairly white church, part of town we're in just kind of the nature, a white leader who started it up. Like it's just kind of how it ended up. Um, and we had to call some things out prior to the pandemic and the uprisings and various, you know, creating new autonomous zones that you alluded to, right? Like we were actually having some real challenging and important conversations using books like LaTosha Morrison's Be the Bridge as a guide. And we're still having those conversations.

We have an affinity group where a bunch of us who are white come together and talk about our own struggles with racism and try and do practices to re-narrate the world through lenses bigger than our own. And so we're having to wrestle with a lot of that. But what we don't have, and I'll stop with this, what we don't have in progressive Seattle is during a pandemic, we don't have people fighting for our rights, so to speak, to be back in church. Everyone's like, no, let's do Zoom. It's safe. Let's wear our masks.

Let's do the right thing. Let's follow policy. Let's all get vaccinated. And then we'll come back together and figure out what Pangea is after a pandemic. And so that's what we do. I've never had one person say, why aren't we gathering? So, so it's, it's a different world for sure. That's, you know, the, I feel like every other podcast conversation I've had, it does kind of come back to, um, sorry, I feel sneeze coming on. You do you, man. That's the worst, man. Um, all right right i'll try to hold it in my eyes gonna start watering i'm gonna sneeze through my eyes um it does come back to a lot of these conversations

the i gotta choose my words here carefully the significance and i'm using that new neutrally um of the of donald trump and trumpism and whatever label you want to use you know and is i just i just literally had a conversation with uh pastor t thabiti uh just right before you and um he he said this is exactly what i've kind of my hunch has been that trump kind of unearthed a lot of things that were already there. They just needed to be brought to the light. But this kind of Trump, it's kind of unearthed a Trumpish view of evangelicalism you know like and again maybe that's not even the best phrase but like you know Donald Trump is

bold he's brash he makes comments that are you know racist or very much sound like it he's he's probably clinically narcissistic and I don't think that's too debated very full of pride and sexually immoral and and

terrible on twitter and but it's like you look at all those categories and it's like that's basically 90 of christians i know they're they're kind of sexually immoral they're terrible on facebook on twitter on social media they're filled with pride they're very narcissistic they don't apologize and they do something wrong. You know, it's like, well, that's just, it's like, he's kind of the embodiment of what evangelicalism has become in, in many circles. And what I just told a buddy of mine, who's kind of like every other pastor, it doesn't sound like you're dealing with it, but a lot of pastors I know, it's like, all of a sudden the church is really divided on all of these issues. And it's like, oh my gosh, like, are we going to split over Babylon's politics?

You know? And that's where it's at in a lot of places. And I said, part of the problem may have been, we have not been as leaders discipling Christians in these same categories before the rise of Donald Trump. So when Donald Trump comes up and people are like, he's my Messiah, not the Messiah, but it's kind of messianic, you know, in a lot of people's thinking. Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, well, that, if we had been doing discipleship before 2016, 2020, then people should have recognized that this is not an identity to surround yourself with. And look, I'm of the mindset, I think people vote for Trump for all kinds of different reasons. Totally. And I want to honor that too. Yeah. Yeah. Like I have family members who dislike him thoroughly, but presented with only two options are like, well, his economics are a little bit better and I'm pro pro-life. And this is the only version of pro-life I understand right now.

little bit better and I'm pro life. And this is the only version of pro life I understand right now. Right. So I, you know, some people are like, cut out the Trump voters in your life. And I'm like, you're asking me to cut out like half to two thirds of the people in my life. I'm not going to do that. But I am at the same time, we're going to call out Trumpism and say like, it is, it is damaging. Not just like, oh, people feel bad. They don't like, you know, people are soft. It's literally deconverting people from the church. And that should be an issue that even the Trump follower, Trump supporters should care about if they also care about the gospel message. And so that's where I want to have honest conversation with folks and saying, look, this ideology and rhetoric and this

ongoing Fox news recycling of information is literally deconverting younger millennials and younger. Yeah. Do you really want that for the church? Yeah. Could there be a better way forward? Can we have better conversations about this stuff? How do you know? And that, that, oh man. Well, it sounds, I mean, it sounds like your church is largely on the same page with some of that. So you don't have to deal with, uh, yeah. Yeah. But I, you know, every other church I ever worked in, I would have had to have dealt with it, you know? And so I'm fully empathetic to that. And someday I may again, find myself in a church where I don't have the politics stuff is sort of, you know, similar in its vein. And so I want to continue to be empathetic and have good conversation, but also to kind of point

out, like for some of us who are not big fans of Trump, but are evangelicals, it's not even about like I, because I have an allegiance to the political left. I really don't. But I care about human rights. And there are a few human rights that paired with bad rhetoric are just not being upheld. And especially right now, the issues around racism. I think it's just this should be a nonpartisan. What are we going to do to rectify these last 400 years and honestly, look at history as it is instead of our narrow version of it. And so, yeah, that's where I'm coming from. And I think a lot of people come from, and then of course, there's the polarities.

And I think those just aren't helpful for good conversation. But I don't subscribe to, oh, there's truth on both sides. So somewhere in the middle is where we can be. I'm not that. I'm just simply saying, let's nail down the real issues and be honest about them. And if black and brown folks are experiencing injustice, let's stop calling that political brainwashing or liberal snowflake-ism or whatever. Let's actually call that a gospel issue and say, I don't care that I'm a libertarian. I'm willing to give reparations if that's what it takes to rectify something broken to start afresh. Right. So yeah's things i think about yeah i just think that there is just um

the greatest one of the greatest needs in the church is is to cultivate places where we can have a conversation rather than a a yelling match on facebook or something and that's oh man you know because i i think there should be there should be diverse perspectives on all these issues, on race and politics and all this stuff. I would like you. The extreme right or left, the kind of QAnon and the Antifa, whatever you want to – whatever extreme categories you want to – both of those are just – they're the same thing with a different content. But, you know, both of those are just, they're the same thing with a different content, you know. But having, I think each side raises good questions. You know, on the right, I think there is a concern on the authoritarianism, the authoritarian left.

And I'm like, that's, yeah. When Biden has, well, like 50 executive orders, which compared to Trump's four or whatever, like that's a little concerning and big tech and censoring and free speech and all, you know, and then on the right, there's just, there's obviously so many issues, you know, like just the only time they talk about race seems to be, you know, disagreeing with critical race theory rather than like, well, how come the only time we hear you talk about race is like critiquing people that are trying to address the race issue. And then, yeah, it's a huge mess, but let's have, let's have the conversation. It's going to be heated. It's going to be messy, but it has to be around the table over bread and wine. Um, and I think Satan is, is the greatest winner when these issues are dividing the church.

It's crazy. It's insane. It just seems so blatant when the church is divided over who they voted for, which Babylonian leader they voted for. It's like, dude, we got to be better than that. This is a huge loss for the gospel, man. Oh, I couldn't agree more. Oh, I couldn't agree more. And I think my conviction is one of the most important steps in that direction is for all sides to agree. And I'm thinking of the white church because that's where the division really is. And that's where the challenges really are

around this kind of conversation. I'm not just counting the challenges of other communities, but ultimately that's what we're talking about in a lot of ways. I'm not just counting the challenges of other communities, but ultimately that's what we're talking about in a lot of ways. I think it really has to start with us saying, we're going to actually listen to black pastors who are naming injustices real. I mean, for goodness sake, listen to Tony Evans, Dr. Tony Evans on this stuff. You don't have to go even moderate theologically to get there. You just have to listen to people of color. What's he saying? I don't know. I don't know. I know of him and he's conservative. Oh yeah. I mean he, and I don't want to speak for

him, but I simply know that as I've watched him put out videos over the last year about the real need to address racism in the church and systemically. He brings pastoral wisdom that we should be listening to. And he is very conservative theologically. I mean, go get a Tony Evans Bible, you know, but he's not, you know, he's just one person that I bring up. There's many people of all kinds of different racial backgrounds than my own that are saying, this is real world stuff. This is hurting our communities of color. Please listen to us white evangelical American Christians. And too many of us are so honed into our individual sorts of things that we aren't willing to see the corporate things that are really important as well. Um, so, so for me, I think it starts by let's, let's be led by voices that are

both credible and not our, not our own race. Um, man, we've gotten on a very interesting tangent, uh, but, but, uh, you know, I wouldn't expect any less from our conversation. No, yeah. It's, you know, two white guys talking about this is all we were always at a disadvantage. But I think both of us are saying, yeah, the same thing. We just we need to be able to have better conversations about these issues. And, you know, as you know, my Mennonite listeners, they keep asking me, when are you going to just come to our side? You know, we talk about politics as an exile living in Babylon. And I think that is my biggest concern is, and I've said this on the podcast several times,

I would be almost as concerned with Trumpism with the kind of anti-Trump hysteria. Or the side on the left that would see the 74 million people that voted for Trump as all racist. Like, just put on your white hat, go lynch some, you know, it's like, hold on. That's just not like, now you're doing the same thing. You know, you're tired of conservatives broad brushing critical race theory. Well, you can't do the same. Just stop mirroring fundamentalism and see that there's complexity on, on both sides. Um, yeah, I don't know, man. It's, I'm, I'm part of me is glad I'm not a pastor during these times. Cause that, I don't know if I'd have the patience with some of the very anti-gospel types of thinking and behavior.

And when it comes to politics, it's like, gosh, when are we going to wean ourselves off of Babylonian partisan, not politics, but like partisanship, you know, tribalism, you know? Yeah. Oh man. It's, it's a huge need. We need to be able to be a people who are known for speaking out for people who are suffering and asking questions like what can our voice and actions lend help to when it comes to alleviating the most suffering possible? Why can't the church actually be that hospital voice instead of that ruler and imperial voice that we get so addicted to so quickly. So yeah, man, I pray, I lament, I do a lot of things with the Lord around these issues because I think the rhetoric and the challenges and the closed-mindedness on kinds of sides, dehumanize the formation of our

souls. And Jesus says, no, with the power of the spirit and my guidance, I can actually bring you into a space where you are becoming more human. Now, it'll take a resurrection to finally pull that all the way off. But between here and the resurrection, the spirit, the down payment wants to guide you into something of a formation journey where you can become more fully alive and awake to the move of God in our world. And so many of these issues are distractions from the beautiful possibilities that exist for our communities and our individual lives as well. Wow. That's good, man. Well, hey, we're coming up on an hour here. I've taken you right up to our cutoff time.

But dude, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And again, the book is Echoing Hope, How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain. At the recording of this podcast, it's coming out in a month, March 16th. But I think I will release this podcast right around the date. So if any of the things, well, I guess the last 20 minutes for a conversation isn't probably what your book's about, but humanity, Jesus, pain, suffering, even a bit of, especially people that have been through, I'm going to guess, I've not read it yet, but people whose painful journey has prevented roadblocks to their faith. I'm going to imagine your book would really help that kind of person. Would that be an accurate assumption?

Yeah. So there's basically two people I would consider in that zone. So one is like the person like me, who's actually dealt with trauma in their lives and are trying to figure out how do I follow Jesus in light of that. But I would also say that anyone who lives in a pain-filled world, this is a book for them too. So you may not have been abused as a child, but you have watched people die from cancer. You have lost relationships. You have felt the wrath of disease and all kinds of brokenness of your own. And so the only thing I didn't mention about the book is every chapter actually ends with a formation exercise that roots people in processing what they're walking through in the book. So there's literally 16 devotional pieces that are attached to the book as well that hopefully help accomplish some of that for them. So I'm excited. Hopefully. Yeah. Well, Kurt, thanks so much for being on Theology

and Raw. Many blessings to you. You still have the Pangea blog. Is that? Yeah. So I transitioned. So yeah, it exists, but I don't write there. All of my work is now at a site called theologycurator.com. And you can go there and you can get my newsletter. That's probably my biggest thing that I do is I send out a newsletter pretty regularly. And then my podcast used to be called The Paulcast because I only focused on Paul, but now it's Theology Curator with Kurt Willems

and it's a little bit broader in theme. And so, yeah, feel free to check that out. And I'm on the interwebs and all the other forums as well. Awesome, man. Thanks so much for being on the show, bro. Hey, thank you. Appreciate it, man. This is great. you