Theology in the Raw - Being Joyful Outsiders in our Turbulent Cultural Moment: Patrick Miller

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Patrick Miller is a teaching Pastor and Director of Digital Relationships at the Crossing Church in Columbia, MO. He has a master’s degree from Covenant Theological Seminary and he cohosts two podcasts: Ten Minute Bible Talks and Truth over Tribe, with Keith Simon. He and Keith are the authors of two great books: Truth Over Tribe, and their most recent book, Joyful Outsiders: Six Ways to Live Like Jesus in a Disorienting Culture. Register for the Exiles in Babylon conference (Minneapolis, April 3-5, 2025) at theologyintheraw.com -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in Iran. My guest today is my good friend, Patrick Miller, who is a teaching pastor and director of digital relationships at the Crossing Church in Columbia, Missouri. He's got a master's degree from Covenant Theological Seminary. He co-hosts two podcasts, the 10 Minute Bible Talks and Truth Over Tribe with Keith Simon. He and Keith are also the authors of two great books, Truth Over Tribe and their most recent book, Joyful Outsiders, which is really, really a fantastic book. I had the authors of two great books, Truth Over Tribe and their most recent book, Joyful Outsiders, which is really, really a fantastic book. I had the privilege of reading a pre-release copy and offer an endorsement of it. Would encourage you to check it out. This conversation

is wide ranging in terms of our cultural moment and the concept of meta modernism, which we unpack in this episode. So I think you will really enjoy this episode. Patrick is one of my favorite cultural critics who understands different cultural movements happening in our society. And is, this has an uncanny ability to integrate understanding our cultural moment into his life and calling as a pastor. Exiles in Babylon, the conference is coming up right around the corner, April 3rd to 5th. If you want to attend a conference registered now, we are starting to really fill up. Theologyinroad.com, all the information that is there is going to be a fantastic conference. I cannot wait. All right. Patrick Miller, how are you doing this morning?

Actually, it's not this morning anymore. It's afternoon. It's afternoon for me, but is it for you? It just turned afternoons. Yeah, it's 12.03 my time. Perfect. All I know is it's great to be talking to you. We always have fun.

And we get in trouble sometimes. Why don't we start? You know, we talk a lot offline and probably the one thing I appreciate most about you, among many things, Patrick, I love how you're able to think through our cultural moment when it comes to the intersection of polarized politics, polarization within evangelicalism, left, right, these binaries that seem to keep getting more and more binary. I think you're just one of my favorite kind of like cultural critics, if we can use that term because I feel like you just, you see things so clearly and differently than these just people that is thinking these binary categories. So let's

just start with a really big, just 30,000 foot question. You can take it wherever you want. Tell us about our cultural moment. It is now, we are 11 days after the new president has taken over Babylon. We can start there or wherever you wanna go. How are you viewing the start of 2025? Okay, can I just billboard a big idea and then we can come back to it if we want to, but it's gonna be way more philosophical sounding

than I want it to be. So don't like pause the podcast and move on. I think right now we are living through the moment where our culture finally leaves postmodernism behind. Really? I think postmodernity, the door is closing. And I think the way in which we're seeing that, and we can talk about what I think comes after postmodernity

and I don't have a crystal ball, so I could be totally wrong, but I do feel rather confident about that statement. I think that we've lived through kind of the downward spiral of post-modernism, starting in the 90s all the way up to the present, leading to this very, the last 10 years have been so cynical, so deconstructive, to gain a wide audience. Here, can I just do some, I've got it right here, I'm going to read this to you.

I'm just going to talk about some books. This is not a critique, by the way, of any of these books, nor am I saying that they're the same. They vary tremendously in outlook. They vary tremendously in quality. So don't send emails to Preston or me saying, you said these are the same. I'm just acknowledging that this cynical deconstructive mood has characterized our last 10 years. So I'm going to read some books. These come from the left and the right. The Roy's Report starts in 2018, Jesus and John Wayne, 2020. These are all books that are very critical and deconstructive. And by the way, evangelicalism deserves to be critiqued and in some ways deconstructed. So again, don't hear what I'm not saying.

I just want to name it. When Narcissism Comes to the Church, 2020, Church of Cowards, that's Matt Walsh, 2020, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, the podcast, 2021, Fault Lines, that's Vaati Bakkam critiquing the left and leftism inside of the church, right? That's 2021. Great Sex Rescue, 2021 critiquing, you know, evangelical culture around sex and sexuality, something you talk a lot about. The Boniface Option by a guy named Andrew Iskir, who's really deconstructing what he sees as like left-leaning evangelicalism, Losing Our Religion by Russell Moore, 2023, Shepherds for Sale by Meg Bosch, I'm again critiquing left inside the church

and Invisible Jesus, Scott McKnight. Now, again, I'm not saying anything about this, but isn't it remarkable? Can you name a single book in the last 10 years that had anything maybe positive or constructive to say about evangelicalism or the church that got more airtime than any one of those books? Can you think of one? I mean, no, I can't. Not that there isn't one, but I, yeah. There might be one. And all of those are both, yeah, left and right. The right critiquing the left, left

critiquing the right. Yeah, that's why I included them. I'm trying to make a point. Like, it's not like one side or the other. Like it's a mood. I want to go back really quick before we get to this. When you said postmodernism is dying out real quick, for those who may not be, I think most people know the word. They probably have an idea of what it means, but can you define like modernity, postmodernity time periods and then, yeah, what's the next thing we're moving into? Okay. So let's start here. Go back to the pre-enlightenment, like traditional era.

Everybody has a traditional worldview, at least in the West. You have Christendom, people have pretty much shared beliefs about how the world should be run. And everybody kind of lives in this organized cosmos, right? Like you're born into your family where you're at. You don't move up, you don't move down. You're right where God puts you. And then the enlightenment comes along and says,

actually, like with people like Martin Luther and others, humans don't need priests to access God. They have human reason to be able to think for themselves. And all of a sudden, they're beginning to question all of these traditional beliefs that we historically held. And so it's this very, you know, I think therefore I am, like you start with the self, I know that I'm real, and then I work out from there. And it's very critical and deconstructive of the traditional reality that comes after that. And again, this is terrible philosophy and history, and anybody who

knows it's going to like laugh at me for this, but we're doing it quick. You kind of move from that over centuries into the modern era, which is again, very cynical about that traditional past reality. And they're trying to say, hey, there's maybe some sort of ultimate reality out there, and if we use science and reason, we can build to it. This is like Superman, right? America and justice in the American way. That's what it is. The funny thing that happens there is it goes that way, right? We have the Soviet Union, there are enemies, they're godless, right? And you live in this modern moment of if we can just get our minds around the right way of thinking and be scientific and reasonable, then we'll build this city on a hill.

Ronald Reagan, think about him. And that's very much our narrative. And then all of a sudden, again, post-modernity, the philosophers are back in the 60s and 70s, but it starts entering into our culture in the 90s. And people start realizing like, well, wait a second, maybe this modern worldview, this kind of grand narrative we have, like what if it's just like that traditional worldview?

And what if it's just a play for power too? And have you ever noticed that like those modern narratives, like they're all around like white men in particular? And you get this new mood of like cynicism and irony And have you ever noticed that those modern narratives, they're all around white men in particular? And you get this new mood of cynicism and irony where we're trying to show, I'm not naive to the false reality that came before. I love my friend Paul Anleitner talks about this.

He says, compare The Cosby Show to Seinfeld. Then you get modernity and postmodernity. The Cosby Show is black family, right? But they believe in meritocracy. And if you work hard and you do school and you're the best that you can be, then you'll be wealthy and have a good life, right? And then Seinfeld comes along.

And the only rule in Seinfeld is no one learns any lessons and no one hugs at the end. And it's very postmodern in the sense it's literally about these characters who are making a show about nothing on a show about nothing. And it ends with all of them in jail because they're bad people. Like that's Seinfeld.

And so that's this very like postmodern, cynical, and it keeps growing and developing over time. We get into more identity politics in the 2000s and the 2010s, but it's that same deconstructive mood. That same like, hey, I don't want to be naive. I see how the world works. I see all the power plays that people are doing. And I want to get past it.

And so I think the last 10 years are the conclusion of this very deconstructive cultural mood that we've been in. And we see, I mean, I use evangelicalism as an example. We're just catching the wind of our culture. Evangelicalism is always behind culture in general anyways. And that's what we've seen. At the end of this postmodern era is everybody, everywhere is deconstructing and

showing how the other sides got their narrative, they're trying to take power, et cetera, et cetera. And I think what we're seeing in 2025 is this bizarre world shift where now all of a sudden, like, it's okay to be kind of naive and enthusiastic and sincere. Like, think about like the Trump dance. The Trump dance. You know what I'm talking about? No. All right. and enthusiastic and sincere. Like think about like the Trump dance. Like the Trump dance.

You know what I'm talking about? No. All right. Well, it was like a modern, it was an international phenomenon. You had like sports superstars in Japan, in the US, doing like his weird little like arm T-Rex arm dance. You can go search it.

Right? And so it's like this ironic dance on the one hand, like you can't really tell people are making fun of Trump, but they're kind of into it. And it's like in this weird way, all of a sudden, like Donald Trump is being someone who can now be like ironically enjoyed and like almost celebrated as like this hero, like creating this new meta narrative of like this new pro-American reality. Like even Trump has this, this like modern,

post-modern thing going on, right? Like in the apprentice days, he's like the modernist, and ranty and vision of like this ruthless capitalist, right? And then he's like, he's like, he's like, he's Like in the apprentice days, he's like the modernist and ranty and vision of like this ruthless capitalist, right? And then when in his presidency, he becomes postmodern, both as like the critique,

as the object of postmodern critique, people are deconstructing him, but he himself is postmodern because his discourse is totally post truth, right? Like you don't know if anything he's saying is true or real. That's one way to put it, yeah. Right, and now all of a sudden, like it's something different because, you know, after his first inauguration, 500,000 people marched on the Capitol, right? You have the women's march,

you have all of this resistance. You have the New York Times, the, the even federal agencies, Milo, militarizing against Donald Trump. Where is that? It is gone. Like there is no energy. The, the New York Times actually wrote a piece recently saying that? It is gone. Like there is no energy. The New York Times actually wrote a piece recently saying that hyper politics is over. There's no more energy for this kind of deconstructive thing. You have Snoop Dogg in 2016 saying that if you performed at Donald Trump's inauguration, you're a racist. Like you're all on board for the racism.

And who's performing at his inauguration in 2024? Snoop Dogg. Really? You have the village people sending him cease and desist letters because the dude loves YMCA and he's playing it at all of his rallies. And who's playing at his inauguration? It's the village people. You have all these tech giants and moguls from Jeff Bezos to Mark Zuckerberg to Elon

Musk, who historically were supporters of the left and very critical of the Trump regime. And they're sitting behind him at the inauguration with their spouses Well the ones who have spouses Sometimes second spouses. Anyways, that's neither here nor there. There'd be a lot of spouses if we Right, so like we're seeing this like crazy end of this interest in deconstruction and it's like, okay He's here, he's here and he's got this crazy new vision. And like, it's almost like we've been left hungry

in the postmodern rebel for meaning and for purpose and for transcendence. And now, like, I don't know how long this like weird coalition of like, pagan techno mystical guys like Rogan who are into like UFO spirituality can hold together with like the populism of Trump. But like, there's something bigger going on than just like the culture's moving right in general, if that makes sense. And this says nothing, by the way, about like the religious Renaissance

we're going through right now. Like the amount of crazy things that are happening in religion are, I mean, it's nuts. I mean, last year, Bible sales went up by 22%. Really? 2020 was an all time low. So the last four years, there's been a massive uptick. Last year, no, last year alone, 22%. Here's the crazy thing. When you look at the stats, it's largely from people buying Bibles for the first time. In fact, there's this whole trend on TikTok of people posting themselves buying their first Bible, like people in their 20s,

which is like totally cringe, you know, five years ago, like, how could you be so naive? Like go out and buy a Bible and like post about it on social media. But now it's like weirdly kind of cool, you know? I mean, I could keep going. I mean, you've got all of these, there's just so much going on, these weird conversions. What's the, I want to get to the religious part. I think that's probably the most interesting, but what's causing the shift from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0? Do we need to hang everything? I mean, is he the center of gravity of this whole shift or is he the symptom? Is he like a byproduct of deeper shifts happening? And what's the cause of it? Why are we emerging out of postmodernism? I think that he appears to be the centerpoint,

but I don't think he is the center point. What I mean when I say it is, again, around this whole election, and I don't particularly like the term woke, but whether you want to call it the successor ideology, whatever terminology you want to use for that phenomenon, in the last six months, it has broken apart. A lot of the institutes and institutions that were built to move it forward have fallen apart. They don't exist anymore. They don't have funding.

Their leaders have been discredited. You've got that phenomenon going on. It seems to me like there's this... At least in America, two things happen. One, life always hits on the rocks of reality. There were some things going on in that movement that just didn't make sense to people. You know, for example, people don't want biological men in women's sports. That became a major touch point of rocks hitting on reality.

People weren't okay with that. But I think even more than that, progressivism, it fell under its own weight. It was so successful. It took over Hollywood. It took over journalism. It took over our biggest businesses. It took over the federal government. And the American spirit is a spirit of independence and rebellion. And now all of a sudden it's cool to be against the zeitgeist, the spirit of progressivism.

And so I'm trying to like paint all these, I'm like the religious thing I think is actually a part of the same picture, like Richard Dawkins has called himself a cultural Christian. You have very famous new atheists converting. You have the Joe Rogan interview with Wesley Huff that goes out to 25 million people. It's the largest gospel presentation in human history.

Where Joe Rogan, who by the way, used to make fun of Christians. Like, you guys believe in the Sky Fairy. Now all of a sudden, whoa, like, he's saying, wow, when he's talking, you know, Wesley, I was talking about like Papyrus and Joe, Joe's like, whoa, Papyrus, this is amazing. Do you think that interview was a major cultural moment? I think obviously in evangelical circles, it was.

But even, I mean, think about the cultural influence that Rogan has. I mean, his interview with Donald Trump was, I would say, one of the most significant, one of several, but one of the more significant reasons why Trump probably even got elected. Yeah. A three hour down to earth conversation where people can see his humanity, not just sound bites. And I think there were some people that were mildly critical of Trump on the fence that were probably pushed to voting for him after listening to that. I mean, a hundred million people viewed that at least, I think. Viewed that.

Oh yeah. No, I mean, a lot of people are saying Barron Trump basically helped Trump win the election because he saw that this was going to be a podcast election. But I actually think there's something deeper than that. I think that the American people, again, this is the post-modernity part. I think we are tired of cynicism. I think we're getting tired of not being able to have meaning. There's this great movie, it won the Oscar, I think in 2022, 2021, everything everywhere all at once.

I don't know if you watched it. Did you see it? Wild, wild, yeah. Okay, so think about this movie. I don't know if I liked it or didn't. I can't even, my emotions were all over the map on that one. It was- It's so good.

Go watch it. I mean, there's some nasty stuff there. Maybe don't go watch it, but anyways, maybe go watch it because it will help you understand. So here's what happens. I'm just going to slightly ruin it. I don't think it ruins the whole thing. It's been out for enough time.

People, yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is your fault if you haven't watched it. But here's what happens. It's a story of this family and it's really about the dynamic between a mother and her daughter. Her daughter who kind of represents the new very postmodern era. I mean, she's a queer person. She's a second generation immigrant and she's very, she's got this very jaded, cynical attitude,

right? Like she is just down the pipe post-modernity. And as a result of things that happen, she begins to realize that there's just a million billion realities out there. And as a result of there being so many different realities out there, life has no meaning. Like, it loses its purpose because it's all just random. It's just random which reality you wake up in. Like you're this you and this universe, but you're a different you and a different universe

and nothing really matters, right? And so she decides she's going to absorb herself and the whole universe into the everything bagel of nothingness. Like that's, right? That's a great way of describing a movie that's like, I don't know what's going on. Right, so, but like, that's the point.

It's like, where does deconstruction lead you? Everything is meaningless. Everything is a play for power. Everything is kind of random. You end up in this place of, CS Lewis said, if you just keep seeing through everything, you see nothing at all. And that's where she lands,

because she's basically seen every possible reality of herself. She's the only one who's done this. And she's like, oh, so it's all meaningless. Then her mom comes through, and her mom has the exact same experience of seeing everything, right? And she also has this moment like, oh my gosh, you're right, there is no meaning, there is no purpose, let's go into the everything bagel of nothingness, right? But then she sees her daughter and

she chooses against reason to say there is meaning and there is purpose and it's my relationship with you, my daughter. That's what I'm talking about when I say there's a cultural shift happening. It's this moment of saying, we're aware, yeah, everything's meaningless, everything's a play for power, everything can be deconstructed, but so what? I'm going to have a meaning and I'm going to have a purpose anyway, but so what? Like I'm gonna make something of it. So are you saying that movie kind of represents the collapse of post-modernity, showing the inevitable nihilism of it

and opening the door to something beyond post-modernity? What could be more nihilistic than re-electing a thrice divorced, post-post-post-post-modern, incredibly cynical dude that everybody seemed to dislike four years ago and saying, you know what though, we're just going to believe in him. We're just going to believe that there's some sort of purpose here. And the reason why it feels like a rightward shift is because the thing that was energizing the progressive left for all these years was this very postmodern, cynical deconstructive energy was in the right too,

but it was really energizing the left. And so once that energy dissolves, what's left, well, it's all the stuff on the right. And so it feels like a rightward shift, but the reality is we're not moving right. We're moving up. We're moving out of post-modernity into something else. And so for the time, yeah, this feels like we're moving right, but like it's all going to break apart. You really think Elon Musk and Donald Trump, this little coalition is going to stick together like the tetanus crowd and the populace?

Like I don't think so. Like I think five years from now, this is all going to seem like this weird reality. But I do think that we're moving beyond the desire to deconstruct. That's why hyperpolitics are ending. I think the New York Times got it right. So it's not a shift, a rightward shift as much as it's a collapse of the progressive left, what some people would call the failure of quote unquote wokeism. I don't love the term either, but or even would you even say like how, I mean, even things like the debates around the LA fires and how the progressive policies

in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York, maybe even Chicago. I don't know enough about that. Yeah, San Francisco is a great illustration. People are like, yeah, these progressive policies are not working. I don't want homeless people camping out in my front yard. I don't like to step over dog crap everywhere I walk around, or human crap actually, in the city of San Francisco. Yeah, I was in San Francisco and I saw people in the street in a nice part of the city shooting up drugs.

One dude was free-basing. It was wild, right? And other people see this, right? So I think you're right. I I wanna like move it one layer deeper than just saying progressivism and say, I really think it's post-modernism. I think it's the deconstructive mentality. Okay, which is the engine behind progressivism, right?

Yes, and it's the engine, and why I started with these like evangelical books to say like, this is the air. And like, if you put your sail up in this air, you could catch the wind, sell a ton of books. I'm not saying that's a motivation of these people, by the way. Yeah, yeah.

That's why we talked about it, because that was the air that we were breathing in. We were in this like post-modern miasma. And like, now we're all choking and we're ready for purpose. And it's a bizarre world that the person who comes along for a lot of apparently young men and a huge portion of our population that voted for him is Donald Trump.

Like, he's out there saying, I have meaning and it's this new kind of pro-American world order. I don't personally have a lot of interest in that. I'm just identifying, whoa, people are so desperate for meaning. They're willing to do it in the cringiest ways. That's the key part too is these things that five years ago would seem really naive and we would have been cynical of, we're like, so what? My friend Paul to go with, like my fault, my, my friend, Pauli, on liner, he should have on the show. I've told you about him.

He's fantastic. Yeah. I've seen him before. He's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. He's good. Gosh.

He's so good. Like he talks about these, like we're embracing the cringe. Like he talks about the resurgence of Creed as an example of that. That's fascinating. You sent me that and I watched this is is Creed's biggest selling year or something. When they were like the, you know, everybody mock Creed. They were huge, what? Late 90s, early 2000s, then all of a sudden for two decades,

they were kind of the mockery and now they're making a resurgence. Yeah. Yeah. They had their biggest fiscal year in 2024. Yeah. Are they even producing albums anymore? No, I don't think so. I think it's old to work.

But that's an example of what Paul would say. And you should go check out Paul's stuff if you're listening to this. He's got a podcast called Deep Talks, a YouTube channel called Deep Talks. But what Paul would say is he'd say, look, when they came out, initially there was a part of the world that was still in this in this modernist era that was kind of all for their like sincerity. But the postmodern world very quickly rejected is like this kind of like syrupy corporate, but rock thing that was going on and like corporate, but rock, that's Paul's phrase. He calls it corporate, but rock. I love it. I'm not sure what kind of image I'm supposed to have. Yeah. Anyways, but like, and now all of a sudden you've got

these, uh, you know, teams in the ML MLB who are listening to it as they're warming up for the game. It's become incredibly popular amongst Gen Z. Again, it's like they know that it's cringey. They know, like, can you take me higher? That's so weird. I love that song. That song is so good. Dude, it's so cringe.

But they're like, give me a, okay, let me give you one other example. Go listen to Jars of Clay, their song Flood. Go watch the music video, actually. So it's a song about being taken up from the mud and the mire. And life is hard, and it's painful, but they're asking God to pull me out.

If you watch the music video, it's like the colors are very muted. It's muddy. It's muddled. It's brown. It's green. There's rain. It's muddled. It's brown. It's green. There's rain. It's depressing.

People are in this weird cave, having to watch this green face on a screen. It's very postmodern. It was speaking to its moments in a very good way. Then go, I want you to listen to a different song. This is a recent popular song. And here's the crazy thing. It's also about being stuck in the mud. It's also about being stuck in the mud.

It's also about being stuck in the mire, right? It's called Up! by Forrest Frank. And this song is a banger. It's exuberant. It's colorful. It's hopeful, right? The topically, they are almost identically the same, but the way in which they go about it,

like what Forrest Frank is doing in this video, if you'd put that out in 1999, it would have been so cringy. It's like, dude, this is like way too exuberant, way too ebullient. Like, like just what, what are you doing, man? Like this is cringy stuff, you know? But now this guy, he's Gen Z, he's blowing up. I mean, everybody's listening to Forrest Frank.

He's singing about God, taking him up, right? And he says in the song, he has this lyric, he goes, he says, everyone's going to look at me like I'm crazy, but I don't care because I was stuck in the mud and God brought me up. Wow. Wait, is he Christian? He's Christian, yeah. Okay.

This is a Christian song. It's about God taking, it's like Psalm 46, what is it? You know, you pulled me up out of the mud in the mire. That's what he's talking about. Again, like's like Psalm 46, what is it? You know, you pulled me up out of the mud in the mire. Like that's what he's talking about. Again, like, but catch what he did. He's like, dude, I know this is cringey. I know that like trying to have meaning in this very deconstructed, meaningless world

is kind of like stupid according to everyone, but so what? He literally says, but so what? I'm gonna do it anyway. And that's what the mom says in everything, everywhere all at once. Yeah, I know there's no meaning. I know there's no purpose, but so what? You're my daughter and I'm just gonna do it anyway." That's what the mom says in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Yeah, I know there's no meaning. I know there's no purpose, but so what?

You're my daughter and I'm just going to choose to love you and make this be my meaning anyways. This episode is brought to you by Jitasa, an organization that offers bookkeeping and accounting services exclusively for churches and nonprofits. The name Jatassa simply means the spirit of serving others. And with over a decade of experience in clients across the US, Jatassa helps nonprofits and churches of all sizes

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Jatassa's accountants will help your nonprofit or church regain control over your finances, reach your goals and plan for growth. And I love the key values of Jatassa, graciousness, conscientiousness, thoughtful integrity, and a commitment to community impact. And these, of course, align with the values of theology in the raw as well. Also, Jitasa, for what it's worth, is theology in the raw's first local sponsor. Jitasa is based in Boise. I know, which I'm super stoked about this,

but their services extend all across the country. So you don't need to be based in Boise to take advantage of Jitasa. So if you head over to Jitasa, just tell one of their team members that Preston at theology in the raw sent you that's Jitasa group.com or just click on the link in the show notes. Jitasa. If we're moving beyond post-modernity, what is the thing we're moving into? Is there a word for it yet? Or not that there probably will be once it gets underway or whatever, but. Yeah, I mean, so I've been reading, oh, so many books. My friends are making fun of me now about metamodernism, which again, Paul, metamodernism.

That's what Paul's going to come on and talk about. Yeah, Paul's the guy to listen to. He shouldn't listen to me. I'm just finding people like him who are interpreters of the meta-modern tradition, you might say, really helpful for myself as a cultural commentator and as a pastor who's trying to understand how to contextualize the gospel. I come into his work and in the work of all these other authors, most of whom aren't Christians, I find it very, very helpful. And what they all share in common is that post-modernity left us hungry and devoid of

essentially what our souls need to thrive. And now, we're not going back to modernism. It's not that our culture is going back to grand narratives. It's that our culture is saying, yeah, we know. Like, with the Wink and the and all, yeah, we know it's all kind of pointless. We know it all can be deconstructed, but I don't care. I want transcendence anyways. This is why Joe Rogan can have a guy on his podcast and he can talk about his legs getting healed miraculously. And Joe Rogan's not like, you idiot, I'm a

materialist. Joe Rogan says, wow. Because Joe Rogan takes mushrooms, right? So he's experienced the transcendental. Well, seriously, isn't this wild? Evangelism 20 years ago, you had to be in more of a materialist mode, right? Like I have to prove the existence of God against these new atheists or whatever. Our culture is open to enchantment. Our culture is open to spiritual realism. If you want to win people to Jesus, don't be afraid to talk about miracles and the demonic and spiritual reality. You're like, yeah, dude, I've lived on social media. I know we don't know everything. I know there's all these alternate realities. You don't sound crazy to me. Tell me your

story. And if it's compelling, okay, maybe there is something to this whole Jesus thing. And it's like, what produces the most beauty and good in the world, not which can you prove without a shadow of a doubt, logically or analytically. It's what is the most beautiful and compelling way to live, right? No, dude, I think you just hit on something so key.

Again, this is like the metamodern impulses. I have an internal life that I want to be protected from postmodern deconstruction, right? Because remember, like everything gets deconstructed. And so if you're gonna go off and you're gonna deconstruct things like love or my vision of goodness or my vision of beauty, right? I actually wanna protect that

because those things are meaningful to me. Like those things are valuable to me. And so I'm no longer interested in your deconstructive narrative. I'm interested in a narrative that can tell me why is it that I value love? Because you can't find the love atom out there, right? It doesn't exist.

Why is it that I value justice or that I see justice the way I see it differently than that person sees it? Why is that I value goodness? I need a different narrative, right? And again, it's like, I'm conscious of the fact that every narrative can be deconstructed. Like, I'm not stupid, I'm not naive, I realize that.

But these are real experiences. And so can you give me a narrative that makes sense on my experience and allows me to protect what I see as being valuable here? Like, this is a very different kind of apologetic than even what we had five years ago. Like, I think apologetics five years ago was very much a kind of an apologetics of, hey, we

know that Christianity has been a colonial force or we know that Christianity has been this force for evil, but let me show you maybe the good and beautiful things that Christianity has done or the way in which it's informed some of our good and beautiful values. It's like very like it's responding to the cynicism in a sense, which is good. You have to respond to people's aspirations and objections. I think the objections are rapidly changing. I mean, again, we just have to make sense. Like our culture has changed so much in the last six months.

It's almost mind boggling if you're paying attention to it. I mean, just the flip flops and swaps, the religious interests, all of these things are totally new. Like we haven't seen anything like this, at least in my lifetime. And I don't know what it means. It does seem to me that people want transcendence. They want meaning. They want purpose and they want to be protected from the deconstructors because they're exhausted

by them. How I'm still trying to figure out how is that related to Trump, not to bring it all back to Trump, but I mean, is it more? Yeah, just the lack of trust in his opposition? Is it his, at least he has a rhetoric of challenging elitism, corruption among, you know, in institutions and the government, I mean, massive distrust, right? In mainstream media, like people just don't believe mainstream media anymore. It's collapsing.

They don't trust the government. I think COVID did a number on people, with a lot of stuff coming out with all the censorship and the Fauci and all that stuff and lab leak. And no, it was. Actually, it was. There's so many things in the wake of that. I mean, there's so many layers here

that last four years especially have probably challenged people's assumptions and Trump maybe be tapping into that. Again, whether he's actually draining the swamp or as part of the swamp, we can debate that. It is interesting that the richest man in the world is- Yeah. Yeah, anyway.

Remember what I said? How long does the technocrat populist coalition hold together? I don't know. For that exact reason, right? Like there's some problems. Here would be my contention. I mean, there were a lot of factors that played into this election and no one's going to know exactly why it went the way it went.

A few observations. Remember what I said about the power of the miraculous and the power of creating aspirational meaning? The minute Trump survived that assassination attempt, I think that was the first. Well, the first major turning point was obviously the debate with Joe Biden and Joe Biden stepping out, which I don't think really

maps onto what I'm saying. The second one is that assassination attempt, right? And you have people, and I'm not agreeing with it, but you have people who make this almost transcendental meaning out of his survival, right? Well, he says that, right? Yeah, he does. He says, God saved me and I have a purpose now.

And I think, I don't know that I believe everything Trump says. Nothing makes more sense to me than Trump believing that he's God's chosen one. So I think he's- He actually believes, yeah. Yeah, he's not being dishonest in his evaluation of that. And I think if you watch his campaign after that, he was incredibly aspirational. He had a vision of where he wants to take America. Again, we're not in evaluating mode, but he was aspirational.

People were drawn to his aspiration. They were drawn to his ability to make meaning. This isn't to say that he didn't have critique. He was incredibly critical of Joe Biden, but compared to the 2020 election, all that Donald Trump seemed to be capable of doing was trying to deconstruct Joe Biden. That was what his focus was. Whereas in this election, he has a very, and it says something, I mean, his first day in office,

he signs all these executive orders, like that's aspirational. That's make meaning stuff. Let's live with a purpose stuff. Again, I think he believes it. Now compare that to Harris's campaign. All she could speak cogently on was him and deconstructing him.

That was the main message of her campaign is we can't have this guy back in here. And I think, again, people, I'm not saying everyone, by the way, like, I just need to be clear. Modernity, post-modernity, meta-modernity, these things all live alongside one another and depending on your region and area, I'm not saying like, there's no clean break.

One's on and new one's here, right? Like I'm saying, which one has the loudest voice, right? And I'm saying, I think we're on the downward swell of post-modernity, on the upward swell of something new. And I think Kamala was a quintessential post-modern politician in the sense that she was very deconstructive. She wrote, that was her message,

was one of deconstruction. You're saying we're at a turning point when people are not really energized by simply deconstructing. Yeah, she's deconstructing him, and she was very much so invested again in kind of the woke politics. And again, I think that there's an exhaustion around that amongst, I'm not saying everybody,

but I think amongst a lot of Americans, there's just exhaustion around it because it seems like there's no end to it, right? Once you tear down this wall, what's the next wall? What's the next wall? What's the next thing? Okay, I see where this game is going. It's coming for me and I'm tired of it.

That's what I'm trying to get at. That's why I think people are turning to religion. It's not just Christianity. Joe Rogan's not just Christianity. Like, I mean, Joe Rogan's not a Christian. Like, he's some sort of like neo-pagan UFO mysticist. Yeah. You know? But he's the biggest podcaster in the world. Biggest media personality in the world.

Like, that says something. And you have several that are in the same vein as Rogan. Lex Friedman is super popular. Lex Friedman might be my favorite podcast interviewer. I love his posture, the diversity of guests he has on, his curiosity, his honesty. He's like a scholarly, much more mature version of Joe Rogan. Rogan is acquired. I don't listen to Joe Rogan much. You know, I'll listen to him.

So I was like, this is an episode because I think he has a cultural touch point. So I feel somewhat of an obligation because some people are listening to understand what he's saying. I'm more interested in Joe Rogan as a cultural, what he says about our culture, you know, like what is he tapping into? Why is he so popular? Those kind of things. But other than like Theo von and other, you know, there's a lot of people in the same vein that are just kind of in this weird, honest middle sort of ground, you know. This resurgence in

curiosity about religion and Christianity in particular, let's go there. Talk to us about what's, I mean, the uptick in Bible sales. I did not know that. What else are signs that there is a maybe shocking renewed interest in Christianity? Yeah, I mean, there's lots of things. One example is in Gen Z. There's more religious interest now amongst Gen Z men than women. First time in history that's ever been the case. It's just an interesting factoid. There's also record-breaking numbers

of Gen Z converting to Greek orthodoxy. Like, what would be more cringy to the deconstructive mind than joining a religion characterized by patriarchy? That literally has a patriarch at the, yeah. It literally has a patriarch. There's no other word, like that's just the patriarch. And I'm not making fun of Greek orthodoxy. I'm just saying like, this is not what we came out of.

Yeah, yeah. Like what's going on? You've got massive conferences, like the Passion Conference that's just blowing up. I mean, it's been around for a long time, but it's gotten so big now, they have to have two separate Passion Conferences, and they both sell out.

I didn't know the, I knew it was still around, but so it's bigger than ever, the Passion? Yeah, they're selling at the Mercedes-Benz Dome in Atlanta two times in a row, two weeks in a row. God, who are the, what kind of, I don't wanna get too off the topic, but who are the speakers, that used to be like the John Piper,

I feel like he was big back then. So that's Louis Giglio's conference. And so they have- Who's speaking at it now? Who are the Christian leaders that are speaking into that? I don't know. Obviously, every single speaker. I know this last time.

I obviously have Louis Giglio, Jackie Hill Perry has spoken there frequently. Sadie Huff Robertson is another person who's come in there, Catherine Wolf. There's a number. There's kind of a circle of people, I think, that are there. Ben Stewart. I don't know who those people are.

Your Gen Z listeners do. Ben Stewart? Who's Ben Stewart? He's the pastor of Passion City in Washington, DC. He led a college ministry at Texas A&M that was absolutely ginormous for years. He's written a lot of books. His recent book was on like singleness and dating.

In a lot of ways, this is no offense to him, if you read his book, it's like a kind of reheated, updated version of a lot of stuff that was out about dating before, just kind of now for a newer audience. So I'm not trying to make any comments on the speakers there. I've actually heard really fantastic things about the conference for what it's worth. I think it's a great conference. And that might bother some people,

but I think it's awesome. But my point is, isn't that crazy? So you've got these crazy conferences. There's even a Catholic Passion Conference. It's not called Catholic Passion, but it's literally for Catholic kids, and it's passion. So you see this stuff happening. Gen Z is the only generation that's growing in its trust in pastors and religious leaders.

Really? Really? I thought that was the opposite. I thought they were distrusting. That's more what, millennials and Gen Xers? Well, no. So, we're talking about trajectories, right? On the whole, they might have low trust in pastors or for the most part, like kind of

neutral. Like, I don't really have any opinion because they're unchurched, right? But they have growing trust. Whereas if you look at millennials, Gen X, and even boomers, all of them have declining trust. Right. So again, you see the postmodern generations, Gen X and millennials in particular, there's a mood, there's an ethos in our generation. And then you see Gen Z and it's like this weird like,

no, we're just gonna trust these guys. Oh. And like historically it's not like young people are the ones who tend to trust religious authorities more. In fact, it tends to be older people. Yeah, okay. So again, it's just fascinating. Like you've got the Ohio State football team, right?

So you've got these like big media stories about these football teams. I don't know if you know the story. Like, so they, basically the whole locker room gets converted. Then they go on campus and they're leading revivals. They're like baptizing fellow students at the university. They end up going to the national championship against Notre Dame. So you've got these two Christian teams, seemingly going against each other. And then afterwards you've got ESPN, which again, has, again, last five years has been very antagonistic towards Christianity and very progressive in its outlook. Well, now you've got Scott Van Pelt and his co-host on there talking about the conversion

of this team and basically saying, hey, we think they won it because of that. Not because like God gave them the win because they followed him, right? He's like, look, these are two Christian teams. That's not what we're saying. They said, it's because following the gospel in the way of Jesus makes you more selfless. And when you have a culture of selflessness inside the locker room, you can win games because you're not playing for yourself. You're playing for your brothers and guys will stay on the team who could go in the portal and go to other places. I'm just like, these are, I can just keep coming with stories. I think I already mentioned Richard Dawkins came out and said he's a cultural Christian now.

Yeah, what does he mean by that? I heard what he said that, but he's still an atheist, right? Or what's the- Yeah. Yeah, so the story is, it's Easter last year, and for whatever reason, in the UK, they decided that they were going to celebrate Ramadan with like their decorations and lighting instead of Easter during that season. And he apparently is really offended by this. He says, it's basically like an aesthetic thing. He's like, look, I think we're a Christian nation. Like we have a Christian heritage and it's like, he's like, I love the hymns and I love the parish churches and I consider myself a cultural Christian and we will lose something if we didn't have that. Now, if you know, Richard Dawkins, like this is like, what the heck is going on? I've never heard him say anything

like that. Cause he despises, I mean, in the past, like very, not just like, I think it's untrue, but just seem to be very viscerally against Christianity. I mean, he says religion, Christianity, Islam, all of it, right? Like, this is the source of violence and evil in the world and we need to purge it, right? Now I'm a cultural Christian. You have, you know, all kinds I mean, you have other new atheists who have converted rather publicly in the last year. Russell Brand, would Russell Brand, I mean, his conversion. Someone like Russell Brand.

It's like, you can think of these stories of celebrities converting, that's nothing new. That happens like Bob Dylan or whatever else, Kanye or whatever, oh, this person became a Christian. It's the timeframe in which all this is happening in a very consolidated manner that is drawing, you know, our attention. You had like, Ianne Hercie Ali, very famous new atheist,

she converted, her husband, who's a very well-renowned historian, Nile Ferguson, he converted, like you've got these like weird conversion stories that are becoming very, very public. And then converted, like you've got these like weird conversion stories, they're becoming very, very public. And then this is like another crazy thing. In all these major news outlets, you have all these stories coming out now from people who aren't Christians, who are saying, okay, I'm not a Christian, but can I go to church anyways and get all the benefits? They're seeing the good, healthy byproduct of Christianity, the selflessness.

It's crazy. Like, they're seeing it, right? So, the Atlantic, like, this is the title of the article, the true cost of the church going bust. And this is an article saying that us not going to church isn't a good thing for our culture by a guy who's not a Christian and says, but gosh, maybe we should do this. You've got it in the New York Times Magazine, very similar. The Free Press had one by someone saying,

we took religion out of Christmas and now I regret it. Not a Christian. So I'm not trying to say, gosh, look at all this, everybody's converting. I don't know how sincere any of this is or if it's on the right trajectory. What I'm trying to get at is, we have a hunger for narrative, for meaning,

and for transcendence. And even people who don't believe are open to the idea of like play faking it to just try to get the benefits, right, it's the mom in everything, everywhere, all at once saying, I know it's all meaningless, but I choose to love you and make this my meaning anyways. That's not post-modernity, that's not deconstruction. That is something different entirely than what we've seen,

not different entirely. It's taking up some of the fruit of postmodernism, right? Because there's still like irony and there's still like an awareness of like, yeah, maybe it is all meaningless, but like it's going somewhere else than it's gone before. Where does Jordan Peterson fit in with all this? Because he's got to be- Well, he just came out and said that he believes in Jesus. Really? Jesus is God. Yeah. Yeah. Last few weeks ago, he's on a podcast and the guy's asking him these questions. He's like, what do you believe about the Bible?

And he says, or about Jesus. And he says, well, I believe what the Bible says that he's the film of the law and the prophets and the enemy's kind of like coming in. He's like, okay, yeah, that's not what I'm asking. Do you believe, he says, do you believe that Jesus is God? And Jordan Peterson pauses and like, you can almost see him working it out on his face. It gets a crazy little video. And he pauses and he goes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Resurrection? Cause I know that was always a big sticking point people that are-

Okay. I don't know what he says about the resurrection, but historically he's never said that Jesus is God. Like that was a big sticking point. He's like, he's not, I guess it's not just some more sort of like Jungian archetype. He went one step further. Again, I don't know where he is. I'm just looking at all these trend lines and saying, look, we're seeing Mark Sayers, a really great cultural commentator, said, woke is broke. He was the guy who did the cultural moment podcast, by the way, with John Mark Homer, which was kind of a touchstone for a lot of pastors and thinkers back in 2018, 2017.

And they were just basically articulating, how do we live in this deconstructive moment? Mark Sayers just a few weeks ago came up with a podcast and he goes, we have to do that again because that world is gone. He said, whatever that was, we're entering into something new. And he's saying this, he's in Australia. He's saying something's happening on a global level right now. He hasn't used the term metamodernity. And in one level, I'm not interested in what the terminology is.

What I am interested in saying is that what was once cringy and naive and credulous is now what people are longing for. With Jordan Peterson, I guess I'm not as interested, well, sounds bad, but his individual kind of journey. But it's actually the early stages of Jordan Peterson before he got so big and before he got, seems to be wrapped up in more right-wing kind of political stuff. But the fact that he would fill a room, people paying to hear a three-hour long, very philosophical, sophisticated lecture on the Bible. Most people there are not Christians. That always struck me, like in the late 2018, 19, 20, you know,

like I don't, how do you? In a time when pastors are having a hard time, getting beat, you know, come to church and, you know, stay awake for a half hour. Here's a guy being incredibly intellectual. I remember listening to his three-hour lecture on the flood. And two hours in, he says, it was hilarious. He's like, okay, that was all background. Now let's start. You know, he gave two hours of nothing but background before he even really started the thing. And several thousand people, mostly not Christian, or, you know, maybe seekers were on the edge of their thing. And several thousand people, mostly not Christian or maybe seekers were on the edge of their seat. And it's like, what is that him as a cultural figure saying about our culture, regardless of him as a person?

Yeah. I think Jordan Peterson, especially the early Peterson, the less politicized one. Again, this like, metamonernism thing I'm talking about, like it's been around since the 2000s. Like this is David Foster Wallace. This is like Wes Anderson films. Like I can pull out some cultural touch points and be like, oh wait, there is like some weird linkage between these things.

You know, like in, I won't get into music, it's too specific. And people are like, I don't know what that band is. But these things have existed. Jordan Peterson is a, in a lot of ways, this quintessential meta-modern thinker in the sense that he is saying, look, this flood story is not true.

I can deconstruct it for you. I can show you why it would be naive to believe in the reality of the story. And yet it is true and I choose to believe it's true. And this is the import of it for your life. It's a true myth, right? It and I choose to believe it's true. And this is the import of it for your life. It's a true myth, right? Yeah, it's a true myth. This is a whole like Jungian archetype thing, right? Like these

stories are archetypal for human psychology, right? And that's why I think he could fill up rooms because he didn't demand that people believe it's true. And yet he said it was true. He showed the truth and the beauty that this story told, and he's not even interested in the historicity. That might be the shift too. Proving it's historical or not isn't as important as saying there are tangible goods that this story is advocating for that are compelling that we should embrace, that we should live

this way, regardless of the historicity, but we should live this way because this is a good and healthy and life-giving way to live in the world. At least that's how I heard early Jordan Peterson talk. Yeah. I mean, again, like it kind of goes back to the mom and everything everywhere all at once. Everything is meaningless. None of it's real. It doesn't really matter. There's a bajillion bajillion different realities out there. And yet, so what? I choose to make meaning out of my relationship with my daughter and live like it matters, live like it's real. And that's the interesting moment I think we're in as Christians all of a sudden, is we're kind of back to this

place where we have all of these people who say, if only it were true, if only this fairy tale was a reality, how wonderful would that be? And there's a lot of people who are willing to say, I know it's a fairy tale, but I'm still going to just pretend like it's true, even though I don't believe it, right? It's another step forward from there to say, I want it to be true, I'm living like I wish it were true, and now I actually believe that it's true. And like, that's the juncture that I think, you know, in our evangelism, we have to start moving people across. Because I think we're going to increasingly be in a culture

that's fascinated in a very Petersonian way with the figure of Jesus and with these kind of stories of the Bible as kind of transcendental tales that make some sense of life. But because the postmodernist, again, this meta-modern thing isn't just leaving behind postmodernism, it's still bringing in that same, like, I don't want to be naive. I know it's not real. That's the next step.

It's like, no, but this is really real. I'm not going to go to the Greek Orthodox Church just because I like the aesthetics and it's kind of cringey and like this weird and this cool. Like, cause I think that's a lot of the Greek Orthodox thing. Like an aesthetic thing going on and like taking it step forward and be like, no, like I am Orthodox. I believe this theology and it's how I'm going to live my life. Like I just think that's where people are increasingly at. And I think that means that again, evangelicalism lags behind culture, generally speaking, like just in our cultural output. And so I think that means that, again, evangelicalism lags behind culture, generally speaking, like just in our cultural output. And so I think we're still going to see, probably for the next few years, a lot of these kind

of bestselling deconstructive books. I mean, again, like last year, like Meg Basham's book, Shepherds for Sale, great example. This thing's still selling super well, right? And it's very postmodern. It's I mean, aside from the fact that there's lots of falsehoods in it. So it's very post-share. She would despise her book being called postmodern, right? Oh, she would, but she can't see it.

I don't know. Did you read her book? What? Did you read it? Yeah, I read it. Yeah? How was it? It was entertaining.

If you read it as fiction, it's fun. Look, the reality is, I don't need to do the work here. People can go find blog posts that show that a lot of her quote unquote facts don't really actually measure up to reality. The whole thing has a very clear political agenda. That's very deconstructed. I've got my, I've got my narrative, that's the right narrative. I'm going to deconstruct your narrative and show you why your narrative is wrong and how

broken and whatever else it is. And like, no one who's doing the deconstructive thing tends to think of themselves as being postmodern. They tend to think of themselves as being like these very justice oriented people who are defending like the one right, true way. Like that's the irony of it all. Those books I listed, they're very different in quality,

very different in outlook. They are similar in their methodology. What I don't mean here is some of them are actually really serious historical works with scholarly stuff. I don't mean that part of the methodology. I mean that the orientation towards, I want to read this story and deconstruct the layers of power under it and show how

that power is corrosive and corrupt. I'm not even saying that that's false. That can be a very real thing, but that's the methodology. And I think that what we're going to see probably three, four years from now in the Christian world, and we're already seeing, by the way, is going to be the rise of what I like to call aspirational discipleship. Like John Mark Homer, he's the beginning of kind of the bell curve on this.

His book, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry comes out. It's not deconstructive. And he gains so much more notoriety after that comes out, which before that, he's doing these great books on biblical theology, right? Totally different thing. It's interesting, why is that the point when he starts taking off?

And I would argue it's because he's offering aspirational discipleship. He's saying, you want meaning and purpose and transcendence in your life. And I wanna help you aspire unto that vision. Just like Donald Trump, he's not like Donald Trump, but just like Donald Trump comes in and says, hey, I'm gonna give our country an aspiration.

And on my first day of office, I'm gonna get my practices country an aspiration. And on my first day of office, I'm going to get my practices into play and get going. Well, you can do the exact same thing in your own life, if you want to pursue a virtuous life, a life that's experiencing theosis, you know, unity with God, like union with God. That's what John Mark Homer is helping people go on a journey of through his writing. And I think that's part of why he's, you know, become such a sensation amongst young people, I mean, really people of every age, is he's speaking to our aspirations.

And again, like I think he maybe, whether or not he realized it, was aware of this shift that was coming down the line and started speaking to it ahead of most people, which wouldn't shock me. He's an incredibly sharp cultural thinker to begin with. In light of everything you talked about, how does this change or reshape you as a pastor? What would you say to other pastors or even just leaders, somebody on some kind of discipleship,

you know, they're a leader on some level, like how should we approach discipleship, evangelism, the church differently in light of these cultural shifts? Yeah, you know, I think we've already hit on a lot. I think when it comes to evangelism, Glenn Scrivener, a cultural apologist, great thinker, he watched that Joe Rogan, Wes Huff interview and afterwards he said that the three things that really awed Joe Rogan were miracles, humanity, and morality. In other words, telling Joe Rogan about miracles, about spiritual realism, that was winsome to him. That was a convincing argument for the faith.

Humanity, in other words, they had these conversations about the uniqueness of humanity. Why are we the way we are? Why is it that we experience love and reason and can taste and enjoy beauty? The Christian narrative can explain that. In other words, if that's your aspiration to enjoy those things, Christianity can make sense of it. Then he said morality. Why is it that we value justice and goodness?

Can we have a justice and goodness that can't be deconstructed? The answer is yes, if it's rooted in the character of God. And so, like, I think that's where we get into evangelism. I think with discipleship, it's what I already said. It's aspirational discipleship. Like, I think that's what we actually have to begin to work towards. I think in preaching, a lot of Gen X and millennial preachers, of which I would consider myself one, I think we have to unlearn a lot of habits that were good habits in the postmodern moment. I was thinking about this and a few things came to mind.

First of all, was writing and teaching for the cynic. Every pastor preaches to someone. You have someone in your head that you're talking to. I think a lot of pastors, when they're writing, when they're preaching, they're thinking about the cynic, right? That's who they're... Like, they're afraid everybody's Tyler Durden from Fight Club. Like, if anybody remembers that movie, like, you know, it's the Brad Pitt character. And he's like, you know, you work in this office and nothing matters. You know, just, he's kind of this, you know, deep cynical person. I think another thing we do is we deflect cynicism by expressing cynicism. It's like One way we do that is that we critique the Christians who are doing it wrong.

You won't be cynical about me if I show you that I'm cynical about those Westboro people. That's how I protect myself from your cynicism. I think another one is that we tend to show hypersensitivity to deconstructive narratives in the church. We're either hypersensitive to the deconstructive narratives at the left or the right. I think both of those can be present. I already mentioned a lot of those books. I think the heavy use of irony in our humor, which is really hard. That's my humor. My humor is pure irony. It's been really hard for me to try in my teaching, like, can I

tamp down the irony? I think another one is avoiding like bodily, like our generations, like we tend to avoid like sincere bodily and verbal expression. Like at least at my church, right? Like we didn't want to be a weird church. Like we were not like a very bodily expressive church. Like you're not going to come in with like people raising their hands. I'm like, no, that's not every church. There's plenty of churches where that happens. They're kind of like, seemed like weird churches to me. And I would have never become a Christian in a church like that. I'm like, you guys are all weirdos. But like, I'm thinking about Forrest Franke. There's kind of this sense of like, dude, I know I

look crazy, but so what? If it's real, act like it's real. Like, I know it's cringy, but like, I'm kind of, like, this is like a very different way of thinking. And so like, I think these are all practical applications that people can bring to bear and like they're teaching their ministry settings, worship, I mean, I already mentioned the expressive thing. Like I think that's a huge component of it. But the light motif is sincerity, enthusiasm,

and aspiration. That doesn't mean happy clappy. You can be sincere and enthusiastic and aspirational even through the hard things in life. But it is leaving behind the deconstruction. What about in your preaching and even teaching in one-on-one discipleship, is there more of a need or say a craving for more depth, more meaning, long-form sermons even, or long form sermons even or yeah, less fluff, more meaning.

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's, I'm actually not entirely sure. And like, there's part of me that thinks that some of that stuff is very regional, you know, like if you're in a college town like us, you're gonna have a certain kind of intellectual inflection you might not have somewhere else. You know, or like John Mark Homer is a good example, like he's preaching in Portland and he kind of has like, much like Keller did, like this

kind of worldly, like I can bring in all the thinkers from all, you know, secular culture and weave them into this kind of Christian wisdom. Like, so I do think some of that is a little bit context, regional specific. Like I can't imagine doing that in maybe a suburban environment where you've got all these business people who maybe aren't quite as interested in the intellectual. I'm not saying business people are all like that. There's plenty who aren't.

But I don't know. Maybe there is. I mean, like I said, being aspirational is good. Being enthusiastic is good. I think challenge, the idea of virtue, I think is something that's going to become really prevalent. We're gonna hear more about

as people wanting to live with virtue. Maybe there's something, I don't know. What do you think? Well, I'm trying hard not to be biased. Like I don't wanna assume everybody thinks like I do. So just because I want a super in-depth, meaningful sermon means that everybody else is. But I just, I think it honestly was the early rise

of Jordan Peterson. That got me thinking, like, wait, this guy's able to fill massive rooms that pay money to hear three hours on the Flood, you know? And I do think that there has been a fear, reluctance on the part of pastors from going deep. Again, not unclear deep, not boring deep, but like going deep in a meaningful way that is clear and engaging. I mean, you're even go way back to my past. Like, you know, John MacArthur could hold people on the edge of their seat in an hour and 15 minute long sermon about one verse and he goes into the five different views and, you know, whatever, you know, regardless of his conclusions or whatever, like he cultivated this culture of people, they're like, they want to go deep into certain things.

And I often think like, you know, Christian publishers often are really scared to publish any book that goes over 300 pages, is it gonna be short, illustrations, whatever. But then I look at the New York Times bestselling list and they're like, the body keeps the score and there's 500 page hardback books on psychology, it's Jonathan Haidt, it's stuff that's like, these are pretty beefy books that I would,

if I turned into a book like that, it'd be just rejected by a Christian. They say, yeah, cut this in half, make it simpler. I'm like, but I don't know. Like it seems like the wider world is craving more depth and meaning and isn't afraid to go deep. And also the rise of long form podcasts, the most popular voice in our culture, you know, has three to four hour long conversation. Now some of those can get weird and wonky and X-rated, you know. But just like, so you can hour long conversation. Now, some of those can get weird, wonky, and x-rated, you know. Yeah.

But just like- It needs a comedian so he can make you laugh. Yeah. Or, you know, I look at like my most popular blogs are ones that are like three, four thousand words. When I was told at the beginning stages of blog, don't go over 800 words, you know, sound bites, podcast, 25 minutes. It's like, you know-

Oh, yeah. It's like, well, I don't know. Like these early rules of simplicity, don't go too deep, it'll turn people off. I don't know. I just, I hope. There is more of an actual longing for depth. I think you're right.

I think it depends on each church and region and everything. I think people are different. I mean, although I will say, like, I for sure had a similar experience. The most widely read article that I wrote last year was by far the longest, you know, like 2,500 words, which in the world of blog post is might as well be a book. Like, yeah. One of my most downloaded episodes of 2024 was my two and a half hour episode on the use of Keffale in Greek literature. I was like, I almost didn't release it. I'm like, okay, nobody's going to listen to this. This is crazy.

They did. It's like one of the most popular, yeah. People talk about it all. And I'm talking like stay at home moms and not just like a bunch of theologians alike. It's like people that, and maybe that people were into that topic and stuff. But I just- Well, yeah. The more I think about it, and I'm going to keep going back to this post-modern idea, but like an old adage, this is both in, I mean, this is kind of weird, like cyberpunk literature and postmodern literature.

Cyberpunk literature, butt rock. You never read a cyberpunk? You never read any William Gibson? Is this phrase, I think William Gibson came up that he's like the progenitor of cyberpunk novels. But cyberpunk is a very postmodern genre in general. I'm not telling you to read his stuff. It's kind of graphic and gross.

But is this phrase, style over substance. And I think a lot of people might register, you've maybe heard that before. But in the cyberpunk world, that was how you were supposed to live. It wasn't about having a deep soul or any deep meaning. It was about how you looked and how you appeared and how cool you were. It was always about style over substance.

And that even gets articulated in Gibson's writing style. But then people have taken that and said, that's very true of postmodernity in general. We care more about style or surface over substance. And when you think about social media, TikTok, YouTube shorts, we actually have media formats that very much embrace this style or surface over substance theme over against the long form podcasts, books, longer blogs. And no shocker, some people are going to be drawn to one, some are going to be drawn to another.

But I do think that in this metamodern era, that style over substance thing is inverting. Again, I can keep going back to the Greek Orthodox thing. There's an aesthetic to being Greek Orthodox, but I wouldn't call it stylish. I think what's attractive about it is that it's depth, right? It's like even in the robes, even in the liturgy, even in every element, like everything is symbolic. Everything has a meaning. Everything is freighted with value. And I think that's what's appealing to people about the Greek Orthodox tradition, the Anglican tradition, the Catholic tradition. It's kind of what you're getting at.

Like that's even symbolic depth, like depth. It's even more than just intellectual depth. And so maybe there really is something there for a certain subset of people that's like, yeah, like I want something that I can actually dive into because again, I'm tired of living in all these alternate realities and this like fragmented imagination. Like I just want to live in a single world, like a single narrative and say,

yeah, maybe it's not the thing, but so what? Right? Like I'm just going to do it anyways. Right. Where does, so you just came out with a book, Joyful Outsiders, that kind of taps into a lot of these themes to some extent. Well, it's kind of different, but I mean, it helping Christians embrace not feeling at home in this culture. That might, I don't know if you'd resonate with that soundbite, but yeah, how does, tell us real quick, what's the book about and how does it relate to the stuff we've been talking about?

So, Kay, can I say how it relates to it? This is like the no one knows this except for on your podcast statement. So I guess everybody's going to know it now. Yeah. I'll tell you how it relates to what we're talking about. When we first started writing the book, so it's called Joyful Outsiders, the original title was Beautiful Tension, which sounds like a bad romance novel. And then we changed it to Out of Place because we were just trying to describe people's experience.

Like, what does it feel like to be in this world? I feel like I'm out of place. And our editor over at Zondervan, who's just a brilliant guy, Paul told us, he's like, guys, this is saying kind of what you're against, not what you're for. And he was saying that to him in part,

because he's a good editor, but also in part because when we sat down with him, we said, we are so tired of these deconstructive books that can only tell us what we're against, not what we're for. And we want to write a book that has a hopeful vision. And I didn't, I did not read any of this Meta Modernism. It wasn't like I was reading for us, like, oh, I've, I figured it out.

Right? Like it was, I was exhausted. I was like, because me, it wasn't like I was reading Fluss, like, oh, I figured it out, right? Like, it was, I was exhausted. I was like, because me five years ago, like I was all in on this deconstructive stuff. Like I was even three, like I was like, yeah, like this is it. Like we need this stuff. And like, I do think we needed it to a degree. So I'm not trying to throw it out, right? But then it was like a point where it's like, okay, I'm done. Like I'm exhausted and I, and I, and other people need a purpose.

Like we need a beauty unto which we live, an end to which we're aiming and pointing our lives. And it can't just be evangelicalism is bad and broken. Like my life is bigger than that. Like if I go to heaven and God's like, hey, all you did was tell me how evangelical is bad and broken. I'd be like, oh crap.

That's kind of a bummer, isn't it? And so we're meeting with them, we're like, we don't want to write a book that's critical to evangelicalism. Not because we think evangelicalism is great, but because we just want to give people a sense of vision and hope and purpose in their life, even as they feel like outsiders in our culture.

And so anyways, we have this book out of place, and our editor's like, hey, you're saying, this is kind of a what's your, it's a negative statement. Like it's describing like the pain. It's like, can you in any way articulate like what you're calling people to be? Like, give me the aspiration, give me the hopeful vision. And we're like, well, it's something about being an outsider. But as I was reading and working my way through the book, like that theme of joy just was,

you know, was shot through the whole thing. Like that's what it is. My vision for what it looks like to be exiles in Babylon is not to be combative outsiders or conformist outsiders or conflict avoidant outsiders or cloistered outsiders. It's to be joyful outsiders. People who are filled with the joy of Jesus, not because they've released the tension with the world, but because they're thriving and living with it in him, in union with him. And that's where the joy comes from.

Like he was an outsider, crucified outside the gate. And then Hebrews says, now you therefore go outside the camp and bear the reproach with him. Like we've been invited into his outsidersness and that gives us joy. And like that is a positive vision for life. And that's why the kind of second half of the book is all about looking at these old, mostly Old Testament, but some New Testament characters and exploring how they lived as joyful outsiders so that you can get some really practical, you know, understanding of a vision of what it looks like for you to do that in your life.

Because the Bible is so diverse. Like there's not one way to be a joyful outsider. We talk about six. There's more than six. Someone can write like the next book, Joyful Outsiders 2, the other six ways to live like Jesus in a disoriented culture. That'd be awesome. But that's what we wanted to do. I want someone to read this book and say, I have a vision for how I'm supposed to be engaged with my local community as a culture changer and a culture resistor, both and, I cultivate and I resist.

And I know how I'm called to do that alongside others. And if people walk away with that and they're oriented towards being a joyful outsider in Christ's name, that was the whole vision and goal. It wasn't because we're looking forward to this moment and be like, oh, the moment's coming where people are going to want a more positive vision. I do think that's where we're at. It just so happened the book just got published as we're seeing these major cultural shifts happening.

I don't think that's going to help our book at all because no one knows who we are, but that's why we wrote it. So it is, it is, yeah, a more positive counterpart. I mean, it fits in exactly how you started this conversation, which is just this growing trend and perhaps even a climax scene of these largely deconstructive type of works where people are craving more of the positive. Okay, what the foundations had been critiqued, torn down. I still need a foundation. I need to move forward with the foundation. What does that look like? The book's excellent. I endorsed it, read it, loved it. So yeah, encourage people to go buy it. I appreciate you taking the time to look at it.

Patrick, this has been fantastic. I could talk to you for hours. In fact, I'll probably talk to you later on today, maybe. It's awesome being here with you, as always. And hopefully people may get through this. Who knows? Maybe we all learned a new word, metamonetism. And people should tune in once we get Paul in here,

because he'll level up everything I said. Yeah, I think he's going to be on in, it might be a month from now, so probably won't be out for another two months. But yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, you threw me some of his videos and I watched them. I'm like, oh man, this is good stuff. I've talked to Paul a few years ago and I haven't talked to him in a while, so I was excited to see that he's really, he was always sharp So I was excited to see that. He's he's really

He was always sharp and he's like really sharp Yeah, he's he's lights out. So people should check him out. All right, man. Have a good one. Appreciate you. See you later This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hi, I'm Haven, and as long as I can remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore, usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte. But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave. So I started Haven the Podcast. It's a safe space for curiosity and conversation. And we talk about everything from relationships

to parenting to friendships to even your view of yourself. And we don't have answers or solutions. But I think the power is actually in the questions. So I'd love for you to join me, Haven the Podcast. Hey, so I'm launching a new season on the podcast, The Doctor and the Nurse. World renowned brain coach, Dr. Daniel Lehmann joins me as a co-host as we dive deep into the mind

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