Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1055: Celebrating Our Creaturly Limitations: Dr. Kelly Kapic

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Kelly M. Kapic (PhD, King's College, University of London) is a professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, where he has taught for twenty years. He is an award-winning author or editor of more than fifteen books, including You’re Only Human and Embodied Hope, which each won a Christianity Today Book Award. Kapic, a popular speaker, has been featured in Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition, has worked on research teams funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and contributes to the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care and various other journals. In this converation, Kelly and I talk about his latest book, You're Only Human, and what it means to celebrate our creaturly limitations as a source of joy and hope. We cover areas related to performance driven Christiantiy, Sabbath, transhumanism, and how the never ending quest to do more, produce more, achieve more, and fulfill all the duties that we're told we need to fulfill is hindering our flourshing as humans and cuts against the grain of how God wants us to live.  If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel!  Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Dr. Kelly Kapik. Kelly earned his PhD from King's College at University of London. He's a professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, where he has taught for more than 20 years. He's an award-winning author or editor of more than 15 books, including his book, Embodied Hope, and his most recent book, Only Human, both of which won the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award in Theology. So super excited about this conversation. I had a wonderful time talking to Kelly. So please welcome to the show, the one and only Dr. Kelly Kavik.

Kelly, thanks so much for being on Theology in a Raw. I really enjoyed your talk at the last QIdeas Cultural Summit. Then I think shortly after, your publisher sent me your book, and I was like, oh, sweet. This is such an absolutely needed topic. So anyway, thanks for being on the show. Oh, thanks for having me. This is fun. Yeah, we can being on the show. Oh, thanks for having me. This is fun. Yeah, we can dive into the book.

It's called Your Only Human, How Your Limits Reflect God's Design or Why That's Good News, which I'm so glad a theologian is tackling this because it's one of those things that I feel like a lot of us intuitively are feeling. Yeah, sure. When I look around, I see so much efficiency right i mean the last just few decades it's like we are we are masters of efficiency and yet we're more overworked than ever more stressed out anxiety rates depression through the roof so i'm just in the back of my mind just a practical question like is this working like what we're trying to do to make our lives like less stressful, happier and all

these things. Why is it not working? Anyway, that's kind of where my mind goes. But why don't you begin with telling us what led you to write the book and maybe give us an elevator pitch of what it's all about? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think we can feel it in our souls. Yeah. Let me start with your last question in terms of what took me to it. There are some personal and some pastoral and actually some theological ones. The personal is just, you know, like many of your listeners, I'm sure, can relate. So often at the end of days, I have this nagging voice in my head that is accusing me, saying, why didn't you do more? You know, why?

You know, and it brings with it, you know, these waves of guilt and shame. And so, and as a theologian, I'm not against repentance. Repentance is a gift, right? And, and when I've been cruel, when I've been greedy and unkind and hurtful, I want to, I want God to convict me and I want to be liberated and repent of that. Uh, but as a theologian, I just, this thing is not shaken for years. And one of the questions is, well, do I, should I feel guilt over not doing more? Right. And if, if I'm spending 10 hours a day playing video games or whatever, yeah. I mean, there, there is this guilt unto life.

Right. Um, but I think a lot of us can relate to that. It's like, when have you ever done enough? When have you done enough of your to-dos, right? And so that's part of what's driven me personally is trying to think through. And even in that, like, how did I spend my day? Which is a sign we have just been driven in our imaginations by this economic model, right? And that we're going to spend it. So there's that personal side. And the other personal thing is my wife in 2008 got cancer and by God's grace, and this is a longer story, but after a year was declared cancer free. But since 2010, she's dealt with pretty serious chronic pain and fatigue.

And so as two very, you know, driven people, all of a sudden, one thing after another, we just having to trim and trim and trim. And that brings up questions of identity and purpose and what do you do? And so by God's provision, I ended up with, and with her encouragement, I wrote a book on pain and suffering called embodied hope, but it was only after doing that, that I finally felt able to start reflecting on the good of being a creature. Um, so that's it. And then the very short theological things driving the book is I really think, um, Christians in the West and particularly evangelicals, the kind of the world I work in, um, I think we have a very underdeveloped doctrine of creation

and an underdeveloped appreciation for the humanity of Jesus. So that's, that's a lot, but those are some of the theological and personal reasons driving the book. That's interesting. Can you expand on that and maybe give us some examples of what it looks like when people have an insufficient doctrine of creation and the humanity of Jesus? What are some practical ways in which that plays out? Yeah. So, you know, since I mentioned, you know, in evangelical worlds, I just think our view of creation

is underdeveloped, underutilized, however you want to put it. And people say, what do you mean? We talk about creation all the time. When we talk about creation, historically,

in the last 150 years, it's all been about when did God create the earth and how did he do it? Right? And I'm not going to say there's nothing to those questions, but they are certainly theologically not first and foremost, but that has captured our imagination. So, so this is partly why we struggle to appreciate the goodness of

our bodies and how do we relate to the earth? Or even, um, I have a chapter on the importance of process. God, God actually in the creation narrative, one thing you actually, no matter if you think the world is, I don't know, 10,000 years old or 10 billion years old, either, either vision, what you do get from the narrative is the God who could have made everything in a millisecond actually takes his time, which me and the spirit hovering over the waters, these, this, this this chaotic water, and starting to bring about order. That means from the beginning, even before their center fall, God likes process. He's very comfortable taking his time. Now, that view of creation is important because as Christians, we get to a view of sanctification in the Christian life. If you don't have a high view of

creation, then your only option as a Christian is every day you kind of feel like God's disappointed in you. Like, well, you screwed up today, but you got forgiveness. You're like, wait, is that the only option? Or is God very comfortable in process? He knows where you are. He knows where he wants to take you. And that's just part of him being the creator and you're a creature. So anyway, there's all kinds of things related to that. But I've thought about the, the, one of those brilliant titles of any book, I think was, um, Eugene Peterson's a long obedience in the same direction. I've never actually, I've never actually read it, but I bet it is. Cause I get kind of like, I've read, I've read, you know, several books by Peterson and I get his, you know, kind of, I can almost

predict what, what, what the book's gonna. The title is so good. You don't need to read the book. I should probably read it. I should probably read it. There's several Peterson books. I'm like, I can't believe I haven't read that one. But I, yeah, just that idea of in our, and I, I don't know what, I'm sure we'll go here, but in our pre-internet age or, you know, just, just things just took longer. They were more thoughtful. We didn't rush things so much.-internet age or, you know, just things just took longer. They were more thoughtful.

We didn't rush things so much. And, you know, most of my life has been in the internet age. But, I mean, I do remember back then, you know, and things were just, I don't know, just the slower movingness of things did seem to, I't know produce i don't say better results because there i go back into the kind of production thing but just um i don't know more thoughtfulness more humanness i don't know i can't even put it in words really but it just felt more just different no i i mean it's it's i think it's interesting i think in some ways what we have to wrestle through here is our imaginations. Because our imaginations, which at one point were kind of shaped by, say, horses, an elderly neighbor, these kind of things.

Now they're shaped by a smartphone, a car, the cloud. One is so about efficiency, car, the cloud. One is so about efficiency, speed and expansion, right? Whereas the other is just by necessity, there's process, there's slowness. Um, and so our, I do think there's a different, you know, we watch Westerns or whatever you see and you're like, Oh, look at the person ride the horse. But even in most of those movies, if they're any good, they got to get off the horse. They got to rest the horse. But when now our imagination is shaped by the smartphone, you plug it in for 20 minutes, it should be ready to go for hours again.

And that's kind of how we view life. Like even in Christian circles, much less non-Christian circles. Like if you say you really need eight hours of sleep, it's like you're weak. Right. You know, the, and it, that's starting to change, but it's, you know, it's been a big thing. And so, you know, one audience for this book that's been huge is pastors. And I get a lot of notes and letters from people who they're just, they've been dying. And one of them, you know, recently said, you know, in college, there was a small group of us and we said, you know, how can we just sleep on four hours a night? So we have 20 hours for Jesus, right? Well,

that sounds like great. And that'll sell a book. You know, it's like, don't waste your life or something, but you got to think through what does it mean to be human and what does God actually want? What does faithfulness look like? So. Yeah. Yeahoral burnout i mean kovid didn't help either do you think um do you think it is a production performance drivenness that my identity is found in how much i produce how much i grow i mean as a church board even i know a lot of churches that don't say they're church growth oriented and yet sure when the church doubles in size they're not like saying ah who cares they're excited you know because we doubled you know it's like but we're not church you know but like we yeah like a thousand one of the thousand people this week so um or eastern you know how many people attend on

easter and yeah sometimes these measurements can be just intuitively you know production kind of oriented would you say i don't oh yeah for Sure. And, and the pastors in the congregation, I don't want to make anyone the bad person here. None of them, like you said, none of them are going to say we hate evangelism or we don't want to grow or anything like that. And yet they're saying, we're not making it the main thing. But I think the, the, the test of this in my own soul and in others is how do you view prayer?

Because even though we all know we should pray and most of us say, oh, I know I should pray more. The reality is we don't pray because we don't think it's doing anything. It's a waste of time. It is inefficient. And pastors of all, you know, they know, and you can sense this, like, is prayer,

and I'm not trying to guilt trip any pastors or anyone else. I'm like, this is life with the living God. And you, especially who are feeding sheep, you have to be with him, right? But those things are inefficient. Pastoral ministry, it's funny when business people, and I do think this contributes to pastoral ministry. You'll get business people like, listen, I know the church is having trouble. I know you're struggling. Let me come in and advise you. And they'll come in and they'll organize them and, you know, say all this, which is great on paper. And then Tuesday morning, the pastor gets a call and there's a kid in the hospital who

overdosed on drugs. And then, you know, Tuesday night, there's, you know, he finds out this couple that's been in the church for 10 years is divorcing. And all of this blows up your calendar because it's inefficient. It's relational, right? But if you want growth, if you want productivity, relationships get downplayed. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've noticed in my own schedule. So this, I feel like we're off to what, 10 minutes now? And this is going to be probably a pretty personal podcast for me because everything you're saying,

I deeply wrestle with. In my most honest moments, I don't pray nearly as much as I should because if I'm honest, I'm like, well, I didn't pray yesterday. Got a lot done. Things seem fine. Two days before that, I prayed five minutes and same thing. I just spend, when i'm so focused on life in front of me or just a material realm if you will um or production i'm like i'm producing

pretty well without right prayer and i i mean i want to throw up on my face just saying that because i'm like well am i even a christian you know but like i'm just that reality is just front and center with me and as much as i deeply value that kind of slow-moving, marinating in life, and there's quality of the things that take time. A meal that takes two hours to cook or four hours to cook is going to be a better meal. Taking time to produce something, a book, is typically going to be a higher quality. And yet I just battle so much i don't know every time i turn around every month and i'm like okay how did my schedule get so jam-packed it's like i'm looking at myself saying this well because of me really you know like but like to your point in when i jam-pack my schedule unexpected people

become an interruption and that is just, so wrong on so many levels. What's wrong with me? I really appreciate it. I'm a therapist, Bill, after this podcast. Honestly, I appreciate you sharing that. A lot of us can relate to that. And that's part of me. Part of what's driving the book is me working through this stuff myself. I'm not writing as an expert, but as a fellow pilgrim and some of the uncomfortable things I've seen in myself. And I, you know, I've been, I turned 50 this year and I feel like I'm just been in recent years learning how to pray, right? Learning how to, and listen, I, you and I both, because of things we do, life can be incredibly busy, right? And you were constantly, you have to say yes to things and no to things. And it's not bad to be busy and even stressed at times stress. And we can talk

about stress if you want a little later in that. I talk about that in the book. Stress is not a bad thing. Stress is a gift from God. Like when you hear the roar of a lion, stress can move in your body. There can actually be an adrenaline move and you can, you can actually respond in super powerful ways. Um, the problem is what we've taken is the gift of stress, the gift of even times of busyness, we've made them into a lifestyle. And so what is a good gift is a terrible master. And, and what's happened is all of us, because of the imagery of efficiency and productivity, feel like every moment should be producing something. And so it's not bad.

Work is a good thing. It's just when it becomes the main thing. And that is the metaphor of our lives now. So trying to rethink that. And what I'm interested in is kind of biblically, theologically, is that God's vision, right? What is, this takes us really fundamental, what is the flourishing life look like? And I'm not trying to present some romantic view where we're just, you know, hanging out, drinking piña coladas all the time and never doing anything.

It's not that. I'm just asking, what does it mean to be really human and to be more humane in an inhumane world? Well, I'm glad you mentioned that. There are times, there's necessary seasons for busyness or even where my mind just went is like different socioeconomic privileges, for lack of better terms like you know you and i are white collar intellectuals that you know might be able to take time to spend the morning contemplating the things of life and slow down other people are like man if i don't if i don't work my three jobs you know i'm a single mom whatever and and and yeah i don't get enough sleep because i'm just

trying to survive you know um how should we think through that just different, I don't get enough sleep because I'm just trying to survive, you know? Um, how should we think through that? Just different. Um, I don't know. Yeah. You want my real answer? Yeah. It's such a good question. And I think we need to be super aware of it.

In my limited experience, the P the people I know who are Christians, who are in some of those pretty dire socioeconomic settings, both in America and elsewhere, they're wondering why I'm asking that because they actually spend way more time in prayer and stuff. It's just interesting because, because fundamental, what the thesis of the book is that we confuse finitude and sin And finitude is just the fancy word for limits in space, time, knowledge, and power, right? Or the Christian word for it is creature. And we feel guilty for being creatures, right? And in a different kind of way to circle around, if I'm talking to someone and I say, and you overhear it, and I say, yeah, I met Preston,

great guy, but man, he's really dependent on a lot of other people. Is that ever a positive in our culture, including Christian culture? Like that is such a negative. Yeah. But dependence is fundamental to being a creature and a Christian discipleship. We were made, there's a whole chapter on the, on humility. And I think we, we've misunderstood humility because we built it on sin rather than creatureness. Even before sin or fall, we were made to be humble and humility is about being dependent on God, dependent on our neighbor, dependent on creation.

That's the good of creation. That's not a bad thing. That's not a response to sin. So this becomes really important because dependence is this positive and people often believers who don't have a lot of socioeconomic resources often cultivate a dependence on God, a dependence on others and the earth. And so it may not, it doesn't have to look like this long, quiet time, but there is this fostered dependency and because they often can't be anyways productivity is not the

only thing for them yeah i feel like my wife little shout out to my wife she she models a good balance she's incredibly productive um she's one of those people that doesn't need near as much sleep as like i do like she just wakes up yeah they're just differences among yeah there's yeah i actually i met another buddy of mine new friend of mine um he's a pastor and he he says uh yeah i think four or five hours of sleep or something but not it's not because of why most pastors might limit themselves in four or five he just and he even he did a lot of research and said there are some people almost like a it's almost like a genetic disorder or something you know that yeah um so but my so my

wife i think my wife might have that actually because she she can function on so little and she doesn't force herself to get little it just happens but she's also she has a rhythm of dependence on god while she's being productive in a way that i'm like that's a great combination um because yeah some people yeah they're depending upon god but might also – some people might be a streak of laziness where it's like, you know what? Today I'm just not going to work. I'm going to meditate on the mountainside all day, which sounds great. And maybe it is. I don't know.

Yeah, and I'm not – this idea of being a creature is not about not working. And it's not a utopian vision. It's what does it mean to be human with rhythms of rest and work? And even like you were asking earlier in different times, when, when you, when your imagination is informed, say by the seasons of crops, listen, those guys, there are times when farmers historically, and even to this day, I mean, you put in a lot of hours, you might be putting in 15 hour days or whatever it is. You just, you're going all the time. You've got to do that. And you can do that for a season. The problem is we now try and make it a lifestyle. Right. Um, and it's fascinating, you know,

maybe to change a little bit. So there's this, I don't know if you've read this book. Um, Oliver Berkman is, he writes, he's, um, he's kind of a, uh, he's written a lot in time management, um, and bestselling books. And his most recent book is called 4,000 weeks. And that's the average lifespan of someone in the Western world, 4,000 weeks. And he wrote this while he was researching and writing it while, while COVID was happening. And it's fascinating. And I read it, It came out right after I turned in my, my manuscript, but it was so great because here's this guy bestselling book on time management. And he has this aha experience writing this book. And he realizes, oh my word,

all of us in time management, we're trying to deny our mortality. Oh, wow. That's the whole point of time management. And from what he's very thoughtful, he's clearly reads, you know, Augustine and other Christian authors, but I don't know if he's a person of faith, but it's super interesting. Right. And he actually ends up just saying, there is an irrationality to what we're all doing here. Right. And so I'm a college professor and I've been talking about this stuff for a while.

And so I, like you, I love to ask people questions and I want to learn from them. And a couple of years ago, one of my students, she came, said, let's have lunch. So we had lunch and she, we sit down and she, she takes this piece of paper and slides it across to me. And it's color-coded seven day, every hour is on that page, color-coded every hour. And she says, on this is everything you and other people, you know, professors, pastors, parents, you guys all say I should do right. So it's like, you say you should have eight hours of sleep that matters. Right. And she blocks it off. You say I should read my Bible a little bit and I should pray blocks it off. You say I shouldn't have three meals a day and not just shove it in my mouth, but actually talk to people. You say I should go to class 18 hours a

day, every hour in class, do this much out. You see where it's going, right? And I should go to, and here's the, you know, we laugh about it. And it's literally, literally impossible for her to do everything that she's quote unquote, supposed to do. Well, I think most of us could do that in our lives. If you actually take the time and go, what are all the things I should do? I should do exercise. I should be investing in my church and I should do this for work. And you go down the list. And that's part of how I start the book is I realized it's impossible. Like at best, I'm just getting through, right? I constantly feel like I'm letting people down, but part of it is this unrealistic view of what it means to be human and how much we should get done. And so part of my frustration is as a church, our answer to this dilemma has been the

same as non-Christians. It's time management. We give people time management theories and I want to reintroduce us to what it means to be human, right? So, so trying to come to terms with your limits without apologizing. So I was a college professor for a number of years. I didn't think about this until you brought it up, but that was a common complaint among students is exactly that. And students can be- Oh, it's so unrealistic as faculty. Yeah. Well, so what I'm just, I know that's more of an illustration, but I'm curious, that's a great concrete thing to think through. Like many people have various pressures in life that if they did everything that they're supposed to do, just quantity wise, the numbers don't match up. and you're taking your, even 12, let alone 15 credit hours and doing your work study and having meals and doing your spiritual formation stuff

and going to chapel and eight hours. The numbers don't match up. So do you think- No, they don't. Do you think schools should, we should say it's a seven-year program instead of four or something with the same amount of credit? It's worse than this, Preston.

It's worse. So I actually, I think we, as not just in Christian circles at large, we are catechizing way before college. So the average high school kid there, and I didn't plan on this research. It just ended up taking me there. Here's an app. And a lot of your listeners can tell you if this is true or not. And this is, this is middle and upper middle class public and private school. It is a little different when it's not that, but this is happening all over the country and has now for decades, the average day starts people, the kids leave in high school, seven 30 in the morning, they're in class till

about three 30. Then they go and change and go do an extracurricular. It could be robotics. It could be a sport. It could be theater, whatever. They do that till about six, six 30. They rush home, take a shower, slam down some food, and then normally do some other extracurricular activity and study until about 11, 1130 at night every day. And I'm not naive. I know that there's, they're watching YouTube videos and Tik TOK in there and all that, but that is, that's what's happening every day. So they're being catechized by this. And then college continues this. And so it's interesting because when I start to talk about this,

people often like, yeah, but what about the TikToks? Or what about Netflix binging? And I used to want to blame that stuff too. But actually now, rather than blaming those things, I'm more interested in why do, not just the kids, why do you and I want to binge on Netflix and do all that? And I think it's because it's the only way to escape the endless onslaught of to do's, which is why we can watch Netflix for three or four hours. But think about how you feel as soon as it's done. You feel guilty.

I just wasted time. So but it's it's the escape, right? We don't want to have any moments where we're not distracted because we know we should be doing something. So the phone, rather than being the thing to blame, I think is just kind of an accepted drug to help us in this situation. It's an escape from the rat race. So there's a cause and effect rat race that, so, so there's a, there's a

cause and effect here. Yeah. That's interesting. So, yeah. And I do think, say it's a college, say it's a work and we need to reimagine what faithfulness looks like. And, you know, people bring me into speak and stuff and they, they love what I'm saying about finitude and yes, I don't want to feel guilty, but then it almost always reaches a point where they're like, yes, you're a hundred percent right now. How do I do everything I need to do? And that, and the painful answer. Yeah. Is with a student, for example, maybe the answer is you get some bees and we don't want to hear that. Right. But maybe, maybe the answer is you need to, you can't work and go to school. Maybe the answer is, but we don't want to make choices.

And the lack of making choices is part of what's undermining our humanity. And there, I'm not going to say it's all this, but as you probably know, there's a massive mental health crisis happening all over, but especially in young people. And part of it is they do this for a while and then they're like i'm done i'm out this is not working right so this is huge and whatever the cause and effect i mean with latest statistics or you know they might spend six to seven hours a day on on on screens now they're people don't understand teenagers. I have four teenagers. And they're able to... Well, they think they're multitasking. But as...

Who's Andrew Huberman? Or who's the deep work guy? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Al Newport says... The brain doesn't actually multitask. No.

Yeah. It just moves between tasks. It moves between... And it tends to be inefficient. But yes, that's what happens but yeah so you add i mean again pre-internet well we saw tv and stuff so i mean we're watching i don't know what what's the solution yes i'm curious what is this because you're describing such systemic problems that i don't know if we're going to revamp you know the

four-year college degree anytime soon or tell professors to sign less. Or even when I was a professor, I just said this to my daughter the other day. She was first year in college and she's writing a paper. It's like a five-page research paper on I think the Sherpas or something. And I said – I'm like, okay, here's how you do research and stuff. But I told her, I said, make sure you don't just grab stuff really quickly and throw it together. Actually marinate in the sources. Like learn.

Like make learning the topic the goal, not just producing a paper. But then that takes a lot longer than just cranking out a paper that you can get a B-minus on. But again, our system is set up both in the church and in the academy to help students foster taking research slow and do a few drafts, you know, get some feedback, maybe, you know, meet with your professor, say, hey, would you mind reading this ahead of time? He's not gonna have time to do that. That would be ideal, right? I mean, that would be actually like people would be truly learning rather than just cranking out stuff to get through a course. Yeah, we I mean, often at Covenant now where I teach, get through it. Yeah. We, I mean, often at covenant now where I teach, um, if you're going to,

if you are going to assign a research paper, normally the, you have to do it in a way that the, the student will have opportunity to receive feedback from you and revise it. Good. Because all the data is if you only turn it in at the end, it doesn't, they don't get better. And it's in, you know, you undermine this very process you're talking about. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not, again, I'm not naive on this, but I, I think the fact that we, I am, I am interested in helping us reclaim our humanity. Students deal with so much guilt and shame, um, and most of us do in our lives. right? So it's, it's kind of like, uh, just to use to, to change examples, because I, I just have dealt with this recently where a young couple married super, they're doing great. They're, you know, excelling at work and they have a baby.

They're very happy about having a baby, but then there's the shocker that's super disillusioning because they all of a sudden deal with deep sense of shame because they're not getting very much done anymore. They're not getting very much sleep. Everything's becoming inefficient. It just slows way down. And if you don't have a theology that says, no, it's okay. This season is different. You can't just have everything that you had plus, right? At some point, something has to be taken away. That's what it looks like. And then when you're an empty nester, that looks different too,

right? Anyway, so this, this, I guess, even with the creation narrative, part of what's fascinating to me is since God could have made it in a second and doesn't, it's one of those signs for God, his high, he loves efficiency and productivity. They're just not as highest values. Love it. Love it. And, and I think the big test case for us is how do relationships fit in to our lives? How do we think about love and love tends to require margin. And again, this is not about being wealthy and having margin. Um, I find it, I find it super interesting. So many middle and upper middle-class folks, we just think we have no time, but when you are, when you are financially struggling, it's interesting. It's totally normal to help someone jump their battery, get gas for a car, because in your

neighborhood, everybody's just getting by. Statistically, some of the most generous people are people on the lower income level because giving is just part of life. But those of us, when you get more prosperous, the illusion of control and self-containment grows. And so anything is a problem that distracts you from your goals. Yeah, yeah. But actually, if you don't have a lot materially, you're pretty used to helping others and getting help from others. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

And it so helps when you go to other cultures. I think other cultures definitely struggle with similar things, if not the same things. But then other ones, my favorite, probably my favorite culture is Polynesian cultures. I went to Samoa a couple of times during college. Wow. On like a short-term term but longer short-term trip i've been to um tahiti and other places and and just um the cool thing about polynesian cultures is it's so close most of them are so close to the equator that you have uh you don't

have a lot of shift in daylight like uh it's kind of sun up at 6 a.m sundown at 6 p.m with minimal variation and that really controls um the the work kind of the work day like people once the sun comes up people kind of busy going out doing stuff once it goes down they're having meals or you know some tahiti they're out drinking in the lagoon you know partying or whatever but i mean yeah it just created this like really honest creational rhythm of yes the day that had built in kind of like things are shutting down and people were kind of chilling hanging out and i just i love love i remember the first time i was in samoa i came back and i was like i think every american needs to spend a summer in samoa like just the things are just slower moving and i don't know people just seem so much happy yeah you know like yeah somebody on the side of the road broken down and like you would have

no everybody would stop and like hey can i help you i wouldn't think about it yeah so one no i love that you mentioned that because i'd like to take a second on it because another area of research i didn't plan on was i ended up doing all this research and thinking through the invention of the clocks. And you have ancient clocks and sundials and all of that. And I won't bore people with it right now, but it's actually super interesting because what's happened now, it is about our relationship to time. And time now in our minds is about productivity. And so scholars in this field make a distinction. This is going to get to your, your illustration. They talk about the difference between contextual and non-contextual views of time. And most of us in

the Western world now actually have non-contextual views of time because you and I, if it's 11 o'clock at night, we can go in and this is not just about clocks. This is about electricity and all this kind of stuff. So at 11 o'clock at night, we go into the kitchen, we turn on the light, we open our laptop, right? It's, and you and I have an hour of work to do and we can do it contextual time, which is how most people in the history of the world. And a lot of the world to this lives, is it's in light of the context. So when the sun is up, it's one thing. When the sun is down, it's another thing.

When your body, you know, we deny our body chemistry of blood sugar levels. Is there a baby crying in the background? That's because we're trying to pretend it's all the same. Contextual time recognizes, no, someone's sick. This is a different time there. So the fact that we even sunrise and sunset have lost any significance for us is really interesting. And so I, you know, even just that a funny example for me is, you know, a lot of your listeners have heard you, you hear these examples of saints through the ages and they're like, they got up at five, four 30 in the morning to pray or three in the morning.

And that's great. Sometimes it was really amazing, but sometimes it was because they went to bed at eight. It was, and there were times when actually we have this history where they'd go to bed for about four hours and wake up for an hour or two and they can sleep for a little bit, just different patterns. Right. But if you don't know any of that and you just take our lifestyle, we're weakened with electricity. We work until 1130 at night or whatever. And then you're like, well, I should get up at four to pray. You're not understanding this is a different world. This episode is sponsored by Biola University's Talbot School of Theology. Okay, so I get asked a lot about which seminaries do I recommend, and my response is always the same.

It's, well, it kind of depends on what you're looking for. But no matter what, Talbot is always one of my top recommended schools, partly because I feel like I know like half the professors there, so I can vouch for who they are, and I know vouch for, you know, who they are. And I know their character. I know what you're going to get into. But I've also spoken on campus, which had amazing time on the campus there. I've had several of the profs on the podcast. Here's what I love most about Talbot.

They do a fantastic job combining rigorous scholarship that's saturated with a deep love for the church. And it's all integrated with a pervasive emphasis on spiritual formation in the lives and hearts of the students. The professors are super down to earth. They're involved in their churches. Many of them are pastors at their church.

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That's T-A-L-B-O-T. Biola.edu forward slash Talbot to get more information. I went through excited. I'm not a morning person at all. My ideal, maybe wake up at 6, 6.30. Today was 6.30, but it's always very slow moving. And yeah, I can't i can't really fall i mean it's hard for me to fall even if i'm tired to fall asleep kind of before for sure before 10 if not 11 11 30 so yeah i i'm not a morning person at all but i i've i've lit i used to i don't do anymore i i but i used to live with all this yeah guilt for not getting up super early super early yeah right it's something about you know jesus did it can't you you know he rose from the dead you can't even get out of bed like

oh that's a cute green man you're just dating yourself right there that's great yeah um luckily i don't struggle with guilt going back to my therapist my therapy session here i i i used to feel guilty for saying no for not doing this we're not living this kind of christian life that kind of christian life and and i really don't i genuinely don't struggle with that anymore i've just i've begun i've come to celebrate the diversity of god god's people how they're wired the gifts that they have the gifts they don't have the callings they have you know i'd feel guilty for like you know how come you didn't buy a one-way ticket to an unreached people group you know like right well you don't think that's a greater need than staying in america or something and i've

lived with that for years you know or how can we not doing how can we not doing more evangelism or doing this doing that i'm like you know i have a kind of a lane and a calling i feel like i'm in i feel like i'm you know doing that as good as i can or you know as faithfully as i can and and not be so like because if you just start succumbing to that guilt it's just you can be crippling and because i've experienced that before just feeling like you're around where you're around all these other people are doing so many different things why i need to do all that i need to get up at four you know one of my buddies is like my wife he um yeah 4 a.m he springs out of bed.

He's like, yeah, you just got to kind of just do it for a week, wake up, and your body will adjust, whatever. I tried it. I was like throwing up in the afternoon. I was so tired. I'm just not wired that way, dude. Yeah. Well, and I think, honestly, part of what also feeds this, maybe in a surprising way, is our overly individualistic framework of viewing the Christian life and just life itself. So take, for example, Matthew 25, I think is a good example. So in Matthew 25, um, it includes the whole sheep and the goat goats episode,

right? And Jesus says he's very, it's in red letters. We can't ignore it. Right. And, uh, he, you know, sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell. It's this very sobering thing. And when you read it, it actually, everyone wants to bring in other things, but when you actually just read the text, the thing that, as you know, the thing that separates the sheep and the goats is how did you treat the least of these? Did you clothe the naked? Did you feed the hungry? Did you visit the prisoners? Those kinds of things. And I think I find it fascinating because right now, part of our polarization is even reflected in how we deal with the passage

like that, where when some people read that, they rightly feel convicted and feel like I'm not doing any of those things. I really need to do them. And then others read it and go like, nah, those, that social gospel stuff. That's, you know, I don't care if it's red. It's not my Bible. So kind of ignore it. And, you know, I had a friend of mine who's in ministry, who's super faithful and all of this, but he called me single guy, very faithful.

And he just said, Kelly, I can't shake Matthew 25 because I don't know if I'm a goat. I don't want to visit prisoners. I don't. And he's like, I don't have very much money. Maybe I can get a few more hours in the week to visit, you know, to work at the food shelter or whatever. So what, what do you do? Right. And we, and I think honestly, we hear, we hear something like that. We think, oh, he's just has an overly tender conscience and he just needs to be. And I think, well, or he's, I mean, that may be true, but also maybe he's just taking Jesus more seriously than us. So anyways, without taking too long, I would just say the way I answered Matt,

the way I answered this guy is the way I think through this is, you know, when I think about my last week, you know, I was in Nepal, um, evangel, and I was praying with children in the hospital who were on the verge of death, and I was helping recovering sex traffic folks, and I was helping fight racial injustice. And you're like, how did you do that last week? It's because I'm part of the body of Christ. And by the Spirit, I'm not just united to Christ, but I'm united to all these other people who are doing those things. Okay, Interesting. And so the argument I would make is, which is when you say, I don't feel guilty. Here's, I think the theological reason you shouldn't feel guilty is because it takes the entire church to be the one body of Christ. It can't be that Matthew 25 is irrelevant.

It has to be, we got to do those things. for jesus to say these are really important doesn't mean that each individual must personally do them but we as the people of god absolutely must do them does it take some sense yeah does it take some level of connection to people doing those things i'm thinking of like you mentioned nepal we i've been to nepal a few times and have churches there that we've been involved with and pastors and stuff or even organizations in africa and that are literally doing exactly those things and if some whether it's i mean financial support or some kind of camaraderie prayer i mean is is there does there need to be some kind of tangible connection or is it simply by existing as a christian that you part of the global church? You know what I mean?

I mean, yeah, I would want to, well, actually, I just want to say it's my connection by the Spirit. Okay. Right? The Holy Spirit. And that when we, I'm thankful that union with Christ is being rediscovered by people, that we are united to Christ, that is our security. But part of our union with Christ is union to his people. So I do think the more you appreciate that, it should also then foster those connections so that when the missionaries or whatever say, I'm sorry to ask for money, you're like, no, no, we as a church are so thankful in this small way, we get to participate in what you're doing tangibly. Um, but I, I don't even

want to, I don't even want to say that you have to know about it. I mean, there are things that God is super passionate about, passionate about that he thinks are really important that I don't even know about. Right. That's okay. Right. I don't need to know about him. The fact that I don't know about him doesn't mean that they're not important to God. And that in some kind of mystical way by the spirit, I still benefit as part of the body of Christ. So there is something to that larger connection, I think that's worth exploring. What are some, Kelly, some practical ways in your own life that you integrate all this stuff that you've been thinking through and learning about? Are there any major, since writing this book or in the process of writing it are there changes you've made like concrete

changes that you can talk about or yeah no that i mean it's that would be a long answer but it's a it's a great question so i'll just give you a few things um because it is me kind of working through these things both in the in the process and i've written and edited a lot but this book i've probably been wrestling with for 20 years to be So, and I don't just say that that's not, that's not hyperbolic, but, um, yeah, so I'll give you, I'll give you one concrete example. I think the, the life, uh, the humane life that I'm talking about, a way to cultivate this is by learning to express lament and gratitude, lament and gratitude. Cause lament part of the reason why we lament like the Psalms, is we're frustrated.

We're like, God, where were you? Why is this happening? But that, surprisingly, is an expression of your creatureliness. You're not in control. You're looking to the creator who is. And the flip side of that coin is gratitude, right? That to recognize God is working all over the place. The question is, do we recognize it?

Do we acknowledge it? And so I do work with the Templeton Foundation with various groups. And one of them, a guy named Robert Emmons, who recently retired from UC Davis, but he's part of a, he's a Christian psychologist and was part of the positive psych movement, which is good. And potentially there's some challenges there, but he helped lead all these gratitude studies and there's all kinds of fascinating work on this. But if you have someone just, and so here's a practical thing. If you have someone just write a gratitude journal every day for a month. And by

that, I mean, just take five minutes and write down five things that you're grateful for your day. And that could be, that could be a crunchy apple. Someone at the grocery store said something nice to you, whatever it was you can find. And as a theologian, this stuff makes me nervous, but it's still fascinating. You can find if people do that for a month, there's physiological changes that happen. They actually tend to sleep a little bit better. Heart rate goes down. There's all these kinds of things you can measure. So, well, that that's part of how God made us. So anyways, one practice is to cultivate both lament and gratitude. It's a, it's a way of doing that.

And then rest. I ended up actually, because I do wrestle with sleep, there is a section on a theology of sleep and trying to think through sleep. Uh, the reason we can sleep is God, God never, God doesn't. And I, it's kind of like when you're out in battle, you can't fall asleep because someone will shoot you. And part of the Christian promise is you can sleep because we have someone

who's watching out for us even when we don't sleep. And so anyways, there's, there's a lot to be said on that, but there, the last chapter has a bunch of practices of trying to be really practical about this stuff what about sabbath what's that uh do you have like a specific strict sabbath or uh informal sabbath or sabbath rhythms yeah i'm glad you i'm glad you mentioned that that's that is kind of where the book ends and it's funny i'm i grew up catholic

and then you know um i was in a in a a Baptist church for a while because I hadn't been in church and now I'm Presbyterian. It's a longer story than that. But all that to say, in certain Presbyterian circles, you talk about Sabbath and everyone wants to fight, right? What can you do? What can you not do? And if you grew up in some of that, you hear the word Sabbath, people just worry about legalism. But when I've been in circles where people haven't experienced that, and I just say, listen, read your Bible. What if God actually made you to work for seven to six days and then actually have a day off?

A day where you sleep, you get up, you worship with God's people, you feast with God's people, you gather, you enjoy God's creation, you do not do your normal work. What is it? And they're like, nah, that can't be. And here's the sign is students. Students feel guilty in college if they don't study on Sunday. Yeah. And I'm talking about Christian students. And so, and again,

I am not interested in being legalistic, but that is this model of like, you need to be using all your time productively. And I think it's hurting us. We desperately need rest. And if you never shut off, the consequences are pretty huge and and sabbath i haven't done a lot of thinking about it not even for theological reasons maybe for practical reasons my wife and i been married 21 plus years we've always had um really i mean more than a sab like the weekend typically we don't whatever we do monday through friday and but we may work you know really long hours and in between my yeah sure you know it might travel a lot so i'm you know literally i just got home a couple days ago from a gosh it was a is a seven-day trip in four states speaking

i don't know 12 times or something so it's like well was that a work week or work month crammed into seven days you know so the schedule is just kind of weird to have us, like I'm not living in an agrarian context where it's just like the, where it was just so set. But to have, you know, typically the weekends where we don't, whatever we're doing Monday through Friday, we're typically not doing on the weekend. But for me, because like you, you know, my job is to sit down in a chair and stare at a computer or think or write, you know. For me,ath is like going on a long run uh working out um chopping wood or doing something physical you know so i might be working yeah you know i'm in air quotes here you know physically exhausting myself on a sunday but to me that is actually rest for me because unlike my agrarian brothers and sisters

my work week is the opposite you know where they might they might spend sunday reading i'm like i should probably not read on sunday because i've been literally reading all week you know but yeah i think that is a difference i think that you know you and i if you own a landscape business or you you do that kind of thing the odds are you you probably shouldn't be doing that in your yard on Sunday and it's not enjoyable. It's not, but for you and I working in our yard, like trimming bushes, hanging outside, just enjoying God's creation, going for walks and runs. That is just fantastic. You know, I don't know if, if your life is an ultra marathon or something, and that's how you make your income, maybe Sunday is a day you don't run,

but for a lot of us, Sunday's a great day to go for a run. Right. And so again, I'm like, so not interested in any kind of legalism here. I'm just interested in pointing us to a very basic idea of how the creator made his creation in us. And it's okay to rest. We need to not apologize. And central to that rest is not just rest from work, but resting in God, which is why worship, corporate worship becomes important to that. It's not just labor, not labor, but yeah, there are rhythms even for our days though. And then the Sabbath is this reset. A Sabbath is to say, the Lord's day is to say, listen, amazing. I'm not the creator and sustainer. The world

continues even when I'm not working. And I do think more and more in our culture, this is the way Christians need to be counter-cultural, not in a legalistic way, but to remind ourselves and others, things don't fall apart if I'm not working 24 seven. And if they do fall apart, then something's wrong, right? That's not a good thing. I'm curious. This might open up a huge can. We might not have time to explore it all. But I'm curious, as we look, we kind of talked about the challenges over the last several decades with having a better rhythm of flourishing in God's creation what does the future look like because things aren't slowing down at all i just you know now i've been you know keep kind of tapping into

some of these questions about you know ai it's just there's some advancements going on there almost behind the scenes and it's starting to hit hit the hit hit society it's like this this is possible like internet level changes that could be happening. And then transhumanism is something I barely even know what that means. But like where as you look ahead, what are some things Christians should maybe anticipate so that we can be maybe more prepared to think theologically ahead of time rather than just reacting once we're already addicted to the latest thing that might come out? Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And as I'm sure you would say this yourself, it's always the challenge that technological advances tend to go quicker than our ethical

reflections, right? So without going down all those rabbit trails, I'm personally interested, I'm actually toying with the idea of this book, and your listeners can tell you if you should tell me if it's worth it. But I'm interested in maybe writing a book called Go Therefore and Make Humans. Because when you ask, what do I think about the future? I think Christian discipleship in the future is about helping people reconnect with what it means to be truly human, which is surprisingly becoming more and more difficult. And all the technological things you just mentioned are going to make it worse, not better in terms of our humanity. And so, and people like, I don't, I, no, no, no, it's discipleship. It's not human. Well, no, the creator is the redeemer. They're not different

gods. And the goal of the Christian life is not to make you superhuman. It's just to make you truly human. That's all we're doing. And to be truly human is to be in communion with God, neighbor, and the earth. That's what we're made for. That's where God's taken us. That's a beautiful, glorious thing. It's not something else. And that vision is getting more and more difficult. And I do think in the ancient church, in the second century, part of what was happening is they were presenting a vision of being human women were dehumanized children are dehumanized all these kind of ones and the church said no you have dignity this is what it looks like to live with god to be treated as your neighbor and all that kind of so anyways in light of all those things i think the church for me one of the greatest

apologetics apologetic moves we can make in the future is actually showing people what being truly human looks like. And it looks like love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you, have you looked into some of the challenges to that? Like again, with transhumanism AI or what are some things that some really big picture things that are happening that we should be aware of? Or is that not, would you say that's not really your. Yeah. I mean, I could say some things, but I don't think I'm the most qualified. You could get someone else to talk about those specifics that I think would, would be able to speak into them more. But I would, I would say that generally it is fascinating that for every technological advance, most of them that we say are going to help us get more done, be more productive and all this kind of thing.

Whether it's a vacuum, whether it's a washing machine, we know experientially and historically, all of those advances, all that happens is our expectations change. change so that what cleanliness used to look like before the vacuum cleaner. Now, all that happened is now we expect more cleanliness, not less. This is why it, whether it's a smartphone, all these efficiencies. So everything at first that it does save quote unquote, save you time ends up making a greater demand upon you. And so all of the things that get promised in whatever, whether it's forms of transhumanism, this or that, as Christians, we just need to ask, in what way does this help humanity? In what ways does it dehumanize us? And, and again, technology is a great gift, right? I'm not again, you know, heart transplants are amazing. It's just, is a great gift, right? I'm not again, you know, heart transplants are amazing. It's just, we just have to think through these things and be careful about them. Um, but for my particular purposes,

a lot of the transhumanism, I will say this, the transhumanism and a lot of that other stuff, it is the promise of making you better than human. And the whole point of finitude is you're a creature. You're never not going to be a creature. And being a creature is a good thing. It's a beautiful thing. The incarnation is about the eternal son of God becoming a creature unapologetically. And that's not sinful. So at its root, the whole transhumanism push or movement or whatever we want to call it is not satisfied with creaturely limitations it's trying to expand no no no that's the whole goal is to overcome them

so it really is a dehumanization yeah and maybe that's too maybe it's too strong i would say it's trying to enhance humanity maybe but yeah it's a it's a superhuman that's the goal right it's the bionic man right or right you know to age ourselves, but it is the goal of making us stronger, faster, et cetera. Um, and at what point are we, we're not who we are in, you know, we don't have time to get into this, but part of the, part of the book is exploring the, we talk about the universal and what does it mean to be human, but we need to talk about the particular too, right? And so in the book, one of the things I explore is I actually think it's a very, if I say, hey, Preston, do you think God loves us? We all say, yes. Does God love you? Say yes. But then when you ask,

and this related to this conversation, when you ask, do you think God likes you? Yeah. That feels very different. And the reason that relates is it's kind of like I deal with this with students all the time. If I ask them when they're dealing with stuff and they're in my office, I say, you think your parents love you? They always say yes. But if I say, do you think your parents like you?

It's amazing how often tears come. And I think that's exactly what we do with God. That is related to transhumanism. Like how comfortable is God with you? And God's whole vision for you is not that God hates you. He hates the sin that's distorting the good creature he made. He loves you enough to want to disentangle you from the sin that is distorting and disordering you, but he doesn't hate you and he doesn't need you to be anything other than this particular creature that he made.

So anyways, that's a different vision of life though. I've got a buddy, Brad Sarian. He's a pastor in California. And years ago, I think it was

one of the first sermons I've heard him preach. It must have been like in his early 20s or something. Yeah. And he said that exact phrase. I'll never forget. This is probably at least 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago.

And he said, God loves you. And everybody's like, yeah. And he's like, but he actually likes you. Oh, yeah. The audience, they were like, quiet. That seems lesser than, but why do I feel stunned by that? Yeah. And I think it shows,

we use the word love. Love just carries duty with it. Like, of course your parents have to love you. They're required, but like carries this idea of delight, pleasure, you know, satisfaction. And so again, I, it's related to where we started. Do we have a doctrine of creation? We all say God created good but do we actually believe that yeah when we so quickly move to sin do we still think god likes his creation i mean i think you know when we think of creation i feel like genesis 1 comes easy at this kind of distant powerful elohim deity powerfully hurling creation into existence but in Genesis 2 now we have Yahweh you know this personal God that the image of him literally playing in the dirt and getting his hands in the soil and forming Adam and and coming face to face and breathing life into Adam's

nostrils I mean such an intimate I just love those twin ideas of this, you know, holy other, you know, God and Genesis 1. Yeah, transcendent and imminent. Yeah. Oh, man. And it's crazy. I mean, it's understandable that a lot of theologians are like, oh, these have to be two different authors. You know, like I get that because they seem so different. I get that because they seem so different.

And yet to know that those two ideas, the transcendence and intimacy, are both equally part of the heart of God is pretty profound. But I think for me, I read Genesis 1. I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Get that. Genesis 2, I'm like, wow. Yeah. That's hard. And part of the connection, there's a chapter. The title was going to be, and now it's just a subtitle but

it's praise god for mary you know and i'm a protestant but yeah we lose the significance of mary you have to connect genesis one and john one what is actually going on there it's really beautiful it has got the incarnation is god's yes to his creation he's like no no, no, no. I love this. I am committed to this and I will make it right. And it's not right. But that means the earthiness can't, is not sinful, right? He can enter in, uh, in this. Anyways, that's, that's a longer conversation, but it's, it's super beautiful. And then you even get to Jesus and the significance of touch for Jesus is, is huge and really important and healing. And what does that? So yeah, we could keep going all kinds of directions, but. Well, I'll let you go, Kelly. Let me, for the YouTube

audience, here is the book again, Your Only Human. I'm going to try and read it backwards here. How Your Limits Reflects God's Design of Why That's Good News. Just came out this last year, 2022. Your endorsements, man, are from John Swinton to Michael Horton, Beth Felker-Jones, Karen Swallow-Pryor, David Tripp, Scott Salls,

and many others. I mean, I'm excited to dig in. So, Kelly, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate your work. Thank you, friend. I appreciate it. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hey friends, have you been blessed or encouraged or challenged by Theology in the Raw?

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