Theology in the Raw - Slow Theology: Drs. Nijay Gupta and A.J. Swoboda

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Join the Theology in the Raw community for as little as $5/month to get access to premium content! A. J. Swoboda (PhD, University of Birmingham) is an assistant professor of Bible, theology, and world Christianity at Bushnell University. He also leads a doctor of ministry program around Christian formation and soul care at Friends University. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including the award-winning Subversive Sabbath and After Doubt. Nijay K. Gupta (PhD, Durham University) is Julius R. Mantey Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. Gupta is an award-winning author of numerous books, including Tell Her Story, Strange Religion, and commentaries on Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. He is also a senior translator for the New Living Translation. A.J. and Nijay cohost the Slow Theology podcast and co-authored the recent book Slow Theology, which is the topic of our conversation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology. My two guests today are A.J. Suwoda and Nej. Gupta, who have been on the podcast many times as individuals, and they come on the podcast together to talk about this new book, Slow Theology, Eight Practices for Resilient Faith in a turbulent world, which they wrote together. It is an incredible book. It's not easy for scholars to write in an academic way and yet make it so accessible, and they do it so well. And we talk all about the content of the book. So, AJ, if you don't know, has a PhD from University of Birmingham, is Associate Professor of Bible and Theology at Bush-Shanel University and Eugene, Oregon, and E.J. Gupta has a PhD from the University of Durham and is Julius Aramantee Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. We also engage in an extra Indians conversation.

You'll want to stick around for that. We talk about where, I asked them, where have you guys changed your mind on a significant theological issue? you. And that ended up getting into a lengthy conversation about some thoughts around women and leadership that weren't planned out. So anyway, if you want to listen to that extra innings episode, you have to go to Theology in the Raw, or sorry, patreon.com forward slash Theology and the raw or click on the link in the show notes to get access to our extra innings episode. Okay, without further ado, please welcome back to the show, the one and only. AJ Subboda and E.J. Gupta.

All right, I am here with two awesome theologians, good friends. DJ Gupta, AJ Sabota, how are you guys doing this morning? Doing great. Fabulous Preston Sprinkle. I've had each of you on, I've had each of you on individually, I don't know how many times, cumulatively at least. We should get like a smoking jacket when it's been like five times or something. Yes. But this is so cool to have you.

both on at the same time. So you guys both co-wrote this awesome book that is, well, when people are listening to this, it will have just released called Slow Theology, Eight Practices for Resilient Faith in a Turbulent World. What led you guys to want to co-write this book together? Is this something that's been brewing for a while, or did it just kind of come out recently? Well, we actually, Nejah and I, quite a while ago, started a podcast called In Faith in Doubt, which was originally a spinoff from a book I'd written years ago called After Doubt, which is really our attempt at giving good content, idea resources to people that were walking through the Doubt deconstruction experience.

And when we started the podcast, it kind of hit a, I think it hit a nerve pretty quick with a lot of people, I think, in a positive way. And then over time, kind of this idea of our podcast morphed more into what we eventually called slow theology. I actually don't remember, Niji, if it was you or me, who came up with that idea of the term slow theology. But basically the idea of learning to do your faith and cultivate your theology in a meaningful, intentional, non-reactive, non-adrenal-based way, a non-adrenal approach. towards thinking about your faith. And so eventually that led to Nijai and I wanting to write a book on this.

And it's been a really fun journey. It's been hard. Reactivity is the, I think, the mode of most of our lives at this point. And so to cultivate something that goes in a different direction is often countercultural. But we're very pleased with the result and we're very excited to help Christians. about resilience, slowing down in the way that they think about their faith, their theology, and think about God. There's been a lot of books out that, and even name a lot of them in the first chapter,

you know, John Mark Comers and Ellen Fadling, yeah, so many people. Yeah, yeah. But those are more, they seem more focused on, like, as a spiritual discipline, not being so rushed, Right. Being slow in your spirituality, being patient and all that. But this seems to be uniquely, well, I mean, it includes that for sure. But it also focuses on even being slow in your theological journey, which is something I've been thinking about and trying to promote. But as you look at our culture, like in the last like 20 years or so since social media has become kind of our, for some people, our primary lives, you know, Has that produced, like, this fast-paced need to consume, consume, consume? Like, is it as simple as that? Like, in the last 20, 25 years, we have lost the art of being slow in our spiritual disciplines, in our lives, and our theology?

Is it or is there something else that adds to that? I think, yeah, that's definitely a part of it. But one of the goals of our book is, you know, I think maybe this be one of the kind of taglines that goes around from our book is having all the answers isn't the answer. And that's the idea that, you know, I don't if you guys feel this way, but like I feel like when social media first started like Facebook, like it was fun to like make friends on Facebook. Like people across the country, people you might know in other countries and you, you know, have conversations. And then social media shifted over time to being more just information.

and you're not so much having conversations. I don't really have conversations and comments as much as just like, hey, this event's happening or this book came out or read this essay and social media shifted from being relational to being like consumer-driven.

And that can send a message about your faith that when you wake up in the morning you drink your coffee, you're just downloading data. And one thing that we wanted to do with slow theology. So I don't know if we want to do, want to get into this, AJ, but I think it's probably helpful for listeners where the book actually comes from. It's an experience that happened to us a few years ago when we wrote a now infamous

Christianity Day article on Jesus experiencing doubt. And we admit that we could have said what we wanted to say differently in order to achieve the same result without being as offensive. But I stand by what we wrote, but we could have maybe nuanced a little more. Anyway, we were really surprised Preston, how quickly we got attacked by what we think is friendly fire. People that we know, people that we feel like our respected Christian leaders. And what was really interesting in that whole, you know, within three days, two or three days of that getting posted online was people were talking about us, but no one was talking to us. And, you know, AJ and I processed this together. We processed it with our spiritual director and with friends. And we were,

would have been open if a Christian leader like you said, hey, let's, let's have a three-way discussion and just say, you know, listen, Nij, you guys wrote some wild stuff. I want to talk about it. I want to process it with you. Nobody did that. And people that could, people that had access to you. It's not just some rando on Twitter. You wouldn't, you would probably wouldn't have, yeah, open their email. And if we thought they had friendly intentions, we would have done it. I mean, this is, you know, We're very dialogical. We're very open to repentance or whatever it would take in order to kind of be right with God. But nobody did that.

And that really got us thinking, what's the instinct of attack first and ask no questions? Like, where does that come from for these really high-level Christian leaders who have massive profiles, platforms? They've got to get in the news cycle. It's got to happen. And, you know, we talked to our editor at CT, and he said, wait a week and then do a podcast episode about it and then do a blog post. We did. And the discussion was over. People had moved on to something else to be upset about. I was going to say, if you waited a week, I was like, it's long gone, which is so weird. Nothing. And I thought our response was great. We added discussion from like torrents and all kinds of, you know, really good stuff. Nobody cared by then. So that got us thinking down the road of like the slow food movement. The slow food movement was like, hey, in the 80s, 90s. 90s, you know, we're all about the same age. We grew up with like Salisbury steak microwave dinner. So good.

It's so terrible. Oh, so terrible. I love them. But in styrofoam or something. Oh, gosh, it's so toxic. And we just thought, hey, fast food, fast, you know, microwavable stuff is the way to go. Low cost, low quality, low nutrition. Yeah.

And then we realized over time, I mean, Preston, I just assume you live on a farm or something. But, you know, we realized, you know, making your own food is good, not overpriced. process stuff. And so if we're in the same way with like fast, with slow food movement, we thought we need a slow theology movement where people actually do it the right way and do it the slow way. The best way is the slow way. And that kind of got us on this track of when I think about this book, slow theology, I think, you know, Preston, you and I, we're a little older than AJ, by the way. You and I, we grew up with Ravi Zacharias. We grew up with Bill Heibels. We grew up with D.C. talk.

And now we're seeing these legends one by one, right, fall from grace. And it is, it can rock your faith, right? And as we wrote this book, I was thinking, if I could go back and hand 16-year-old Nijay a book to say, how does he make it for the long run from beginning to end without burning out, crashing out? And so we came up with these principles out of our podcast work, out of scripture, out of great theology, to say, how do we help people navigate the bumpy road of their Christian faith? Since you mentioned, I just, I'm sure people are wondering about that article. We don't need to spend a lot of time here, but just like what was the gist of your argument about Jesus and doubt that caused such an uproar? I'll start.

It was my idea. And then it was my terrible idea. They invited him to write an article because he wrote After Doubt, fantastic book, by the way. And then I was like, I have this idea, ding. And the idea was basically part of the mystery of the incarnation is that Jesus, not only has a human body, but also a human brain. And part of having a human brain is you learn, you discern. and and one thing that Jesus does for us is he shows us what faith looks like and what faith looks like is you're going to have times of uncertainty so when we use the word doubt we

meant times of uncertainty we didn't mean sinful doubt people assumed we meant that when we used the word doubt and we didn't and we didn't clarify because we didn't know what we didn't know but like for example a garden in chesemone you know not my will but you'll be done the cry of dereliction, my God, my God, way of your stake in me. We see these as normal human moments of hesitation, right? Uncertainty. And one of the beautiful things about who Jesus is,

is he was willing to take on our plight as humans with human brains and point the way to discipleship, point the way to doing things even though you don't completely understand what's going on or completely understand how it's going to turn out. it's a mystery how Jesus has more knowledge than us, but at the same time had a human brain. But I think from our circles, Pentecostal, Wesleyan Holiness, we got a lot of favor because they appreciated the gritty reality of a Jesus we can follow.

And some from some other camps they didn't like what we had to say. AJ, what would you add to that? Well, actually, I wouldn't add a whole lot more to the doubt conversation. But Preston, you know, I think when we look back over that experience of writing that article, part of the thing that I think me, Jay and I both learned, you know, when you're constantly, and you know this, like when you're constantly writing, producing, putting ideas out, you almost get caught up in this, it's almost like you get caught up in the need to constantly be producing something. Like you're always, you've got to always be saying something, right?

You've always got to have something to offer. You know, when we wrote that article, one of the things that I look back on and just wish that we would have done more of is just taken more time to sit on it. Like not feel the need to have to get it out so quick. And part of the necessity of life, right, is you've got to get stuff out.

Books are coming out. Things are happening. Deadlines. Yeah, deadlines. And at the end of the day, Nij and I are both were able to learn from that experience. It was a good experience. Not good for our blood pressure, but it was a good learning experience.

At the end of the day, though, you know, Preston, you asked, how does the internet and how does social media affect, you know, the way that we think about God? In the course of writing this book, I had come across a pretty kind of interesting idea in the realm of sociology called Cognitive Load Carryover, which is the idea that when you are in, when you're in rush hour, so you're late somewhere you can't get there you never have this in idaho but there's a thing called rush hour in some parts of the world where you get caught in from la i know all about it yeah

oh okay he's got so you you get you're late somewhere and you can't get there and what is what's happening to your blood pressure you're you know you're you're getting angsty you're getting frustrated you're getting mad well when you're driving home you know from from from rush hour and your blood pressure you don't come into your home and all of a sudden your heart rate like goes back to normal right away, you carry into the next space the rush of the previous space. So what ends up happening is you, the cognitive load carryover idea is that we actually end up bringing into every area of our life the the rushedness of the previous few eras, the previous few places that we were in. And I think what happens

it's theologically is that social media, our addiction to digital technology, cultivates within us a russionedness of spirit. And then all of a sudden we come and come before God and we want to think about God, but we can't just immediately lower our blood pressure and our posture of heart. We bring that russedness into theological reflection. And the minute we do that, we're not actually meditating on God. We're not meditating on Scripture. We're not reflecting on God.

we are just obeying our adrenal gland because we just came in from a really rushed space. So, you know, it's an interesting thing to think about the principle of Sabbath in Genesis, in Exodus 20, to take a day to rest, to take a day to cease, stop, enjoy, delight with God. You know, we're theologians. I'm a theologian. I'm a theology as a Bible scholar. what does it mean to do biblical studies and theology at the pace of the Sabbath? And we put this in the book. I actually will take a day a week to not read scripture because I need a day a week where I'm no longer, I'm no longer studying God.

I'm merely enjoying God. Like what would it look like to actually meditate on God in the Sabbath? Sabbath way. So what we're trying to do actually is apply in a way. We're trying to apply Sabbath theology to the way that we do theology, which is not something I've seen a lot of. It's a pretty rare conversation. Well, first of all, in the article, I just, I was, I was kind groomed. My Christology was forged from a guy named Doug Bookman at the Masters College, now Masters University, John MacArthur's school. Nobody's going to know. the name Doug Bookman, but if he went to

Masters, everybody knows him. He was the most not eccentric, but just dynamic, raw, engaging professor. And anyway, he, he had this thing that he just would not let go of on

the real humanity of Christ. And I think he would not only sign off on everything you're saying, but probably go even further. I mentioned that because this is at one of the more conservative Christian schools in America. Baptistsy, reformity, you know, very, very conservative. And it was enjoyable that Doug had these views that, and he was our main life of Christ teacher.

He led trips to Israel. And people were kind of like, eh, you know, he's got this kind of wild view of the humanity of Jesus. And he's accused of being a heretic by, I think even Dallas seminary. There's some other conservative schools that said, this is heresy. He's like, no, it's humanity. This is like, like Jesus learned as he went. He didn't know what was going to happen next. In fact, towards the end of his three-year ministry is when he said, I think I might end up getting crucified. You know, like it was real raw humanity stuff, you know.

I only bring that up because that was 25 years ago. And I felt like that was kind of allowed, even at a very conservative place to allow for a view that other prophets are like, man, I'm not sure I'm totally on board, but he raises good points. And this is good. he's causing us to think and everything, it just, but it seems like that the beauty and art of being on a journey together, it seems like that's not even allowed anymore. Now, if you say anything that doesn't line up with somebody's airtight view of God, you're just accused of being a heretic. Do you think that that coincides with the fast-paced information load?

It almost sounds like these are two different conversations, but I wonder if there's a connection between the two? I mean, I in general think that we just have such a historic ignorance of what that word heretic even means. It's basically become a catchword for people that I just don't like. I mean, it is essentially what the word heretic has come to mean. It no longer represents what it would have originally meant for the early Christian community, which is choosing, willingly choosing,

something, willingly choosing something, not accidentally, but willingly choosing something that violated core Orthodox Christian teaching of things like the Trinity, incarnation, you know, place of scripture, whatnot. But, but I do, you know, I do wonder if the term heretic, we need that category, because there are heretics. It's not as though we shouldn't have the category, but it certainly should not become just an easy way to dismiss somebody because they've said something I don't like or they are somebody I don't like, which is often what it can become.

It just becomes a catch-all category. Okay, back to your book. Your chapter on Embrace the Theological Journey. Take the long view of faith. I love this chapter so much because you're really opening up some things I've been thinking about, but you're adding a lot of meat to it.

can you just maybe summarize that chapter for people you know obviously obviously i haven't read it yet because uh i think this is such a crucial crucial part of the book jay you want to go for it teclet i'll jump in yeah i'll jump in real quick this really does get in the heart of the book and and i think we're wired today to to want easy answers and quick fixes the idea of paradox mystery we struggle with that we want things that are linear we want things that are really easy to grasp. And one thing we really want to draw out is the struggle of our faith, the struggle of the journey is part of it. So I talk about this concept called Deus absconditas, which is the God who hides. And there are all these occasions in Scripture, and some of them are kind of

funny, where God could totally be obvious and clear, and he chooses to be hidden. or in disguise. So you have, for example, you know, Jacob wrestling, you know, with God. That whole, what's such a bizarre incident? He wrestles all night and you're wondering who is this. Give me a blessing.

But one of my favorite ones is like the road to Emmaus. And you have Jesus in disguise. Like I want to think like a trench coat and a fake mustache and sunglasses or whatever. Like, like what I would love to know what this looked like, you know. but he's in disguise, he's walking with them and just imagine this scenario. This is Jesus, like the most important person in the world. And he's just like, hey guys, what's going on?

And they're like, oh, there's this thing, he's like, what? No, like he plays along for a really long time. And then he gets to the place where they arrive and then he pretends to keep going. Where is he going? And they're like, no, come. It's this weird thing. So like, why don't we ask why? Why would Jesus do that? Or when Jesus is in the garden with Mary and she thinks he's the gardener, there's got to be some sense.

of obscurity there. Why? I think there's this sense of God wants us to reach for him outside of our comfort zone. So I think about when you have a small child and you want them to walk to you, you want them to learn how to walk, right? From the child's perspective, they're like, Preston, just come to me. Why am I coming to you? You can walk. You come to me. So they don't understand in their little brains, why is mommy or daddy standing all the way over there wanting me to come to them? When they're an adult, they should come to me. And it's like that with God. Like, why is God hidden somewhere way over there? And we're saying in our prayers, hey, God, would you come closer? And God's saying to us, no, I want you to struggle to come to me.

And that, once you start to wrap your head around that, the Bible and the journey of It makes a lot more sense because we're saying, where are you, God? What have you been doing? Why am I going through this? Why do I feel like my prayers aren't being answered? Like, it doesn't solve all your problems, but it makes more sense of what God might be doing. One of the things that I've delighted in over the years is watching you go through your theological journey in various areas of, you know, watching kind of the where you, you know, where you got saved, masters kind of story. and walking through these various areas in your theology over the years,

be it thinking about sexuality, gender, thinking about trans issues, thinking about now women in the church. Watching you go through the theological journey that you've been on is I think something that a lot of people don't have any models for how to walk through that journey. Because I mean, I think a lot of us, like we get saved, we meet Jesus at some, church, this awesome community. But over the years, we realized, like, gosh, that church gave me the gospel, they taught me how to pray, they taught me how to read my Bible, they taught me about the Trinity. But man, they really did not think through what scripture has to say

about X, Y, and Z, which puts all of us in a weird position because we want to honor the place where we met the Lord. And yet, we are more faithful to Scripture than we are the place where we met the Lord. And so we are all on this theological journey to a place of discovery. I mean, this is exactly what Paul is after when he talks about, you know, First Corinthians. I see, I don't, you don't see clearly. You see through glass dimly. You know, and it's not until we see God face to face that we will, we will see perfectly. So until then, any, anybody who's listening to this podcast who's ever, ever gone back and looked at their old sermons from 10 years ago, knows that they're on a theological journey because you you every single one of us 10 years ago

were preaching things today that were like how did they even give me a microphone back then like I can't believe right I mean and that's not that's not that's not being belittling you 10 years ago it just is evidence of the fact that you're following a god who is bigger than yourself and so being on the theological journey is I mean you could call it discipleship but it's it's it's the journey of learning that you haven't seen perfectly. And that's okay. Embracing that journey is scary because I think we'd all love to have the same beliefs our entire life, but that generally just doesn't isn't the way it goes. Why do we feel the need? And I think it's a pretty universal feeling among Christians. Why do we feel the need to kind of have it all

figured out early on, you know, like, you think about the, you know, the Bible's a big book, you know, what, 66 books written in three different languages by 40 different authors over 2000 years, ancient historical content, like it's, of course it would take a lifetime to really have it all figured out. And yet, you know, I talk to young people and they're late teens, early 20s, and they're just, they either think they have it all figured out. You know, they're so confident in all these viewpoints and I'm like wow really like I'm not nearly as confident as you are about all these things and I'm 50 years old um or maybe they don't have it all figure out but they feel the pressure to have it all figured out and they have this almost just this

anxiety like oh my gosh I can't sleep sleep at night until I figure this out um where does that come from do you think that's just a perennial like human thing or is it or Or is it a byproduct of this oversaturation of information, all these opinions, every time to go online, everybody's passionate about something, and they feel like I need to figure out what I believe about all these things. I think there's a human impulse there. I think there's human impulse there to systematize the Bible from the, you know, from the early church.

You know, you think of like Augustine's Enchiridion, or you think of, you know, some of the, you know, Thomas Aquinas later on, others, Calvin later on. you know, there's this impulse to try to corral the Bible. I don't think it's a bad thing to write a theology, but this is one of the reasons I'm a biblical scholar is I feel like you end up smoothing out a lot of the rough parts of scripture in order to make it all make sense. This is one of the reasons I tell my students not to use study Bibles because sometimes the notes try to simplify the Bible. But part of our book is, is let the Bible make you uncomfortable.

Like part of its job is to make you uncomfortable. And sometimes when we are quick to synthesize, we try to explain away the uncomfortable parts of the Bible. And we try to make it more palatable. We try to make it easier. I think it's human tendency to put things into categories. I think that's okay. But I think where we end up with problems

is when people try to get the Bible to say what they feel and they want it to say rather than just to say there are parts of the Bible that make me uncomfortable. Jesus is teaching pretty much beginning to end should make you uncomfortable. The things that he says about judgment,

the things he says in his parables, like the parable, the shrewd manager, it should make you uncomfortable. You should not walk away from that feeling like you preached a great sermon on the parable the shrewd manager. You should walk away from that like, I still have so much more to learn. And some

this stuff just doesn't fit my way of thinking at all. And so part of part of our job with this book is to just make Christians more comfortable with being uncomfortable. And that pushes against everything that we try to do on social media or in seminary or, you know, through a master class or whatever, we want to simplify. We want to give people, you know, lose weight in 10 days or, you know, whatever it is, we want to simplify. And this thing, the Bible just doesn't allow for that. It doesn't allow for that kind of simplification. Preston, I think there is, I think there is a developmental part to early on in one's faith, having a deep certainty about all things. I think there's a developmental part that is actually really healthy. I think in reform

circles, they call it the cage stage when it would be best for you just to be locked up for a couple years and not talk to anybody. The cage stage. I've not heard that. And I grew up in reformish circles. That's funny. Yeah. Just lock them up for a couple years and give them the institutes and don't let them talk to

anybody. Like I've heard my reform friends like use that this term. And I actually think in a very, I mean this like positively. Like this is a this is a promoted. No, it's probably good. Just lock you up for two years and and then you can come out sort of thing. But I think there is a developmental component to. When somebody experiences God that they, and they turn to Christ,

that it's almost like, it's almost like when an alcoholic starts getting clean and they have to have such rigid control around where they can go, people they can hang out with, like they can't be around that thing because it triggers desires and all these sorts of things. And that is a person trying to get clean who's honoring their boundaries and they're honoring like needing to do things to protect. themselves. And I think you're probably not going to be in that forever where you can eventually start hanging out with those old friends again or maybe go to that restaurant again and it doesn't

trigger stuff. But there's a natural part to coming to faith and like kind of walking down and being like, you know, I need to know. I'm not against that. I think that's a developmental stage. I don't think you can stay there for long and have a lot of friendships. I think there's long term that there has to become a more dynamic way to live among people and complexity that is equally developmental. But in the last couple of years, there's been all these books about how certainty is bad. It's bad, it's bad, it's bad.

And I understand the impulse behind those books. But there are seasons in one's life when you just have to be certain about something. and it's okay. It's when we stay rigidly committed to our certainty above all things that we can tend to do tremendous damage long term. So to your question, like, is that a part of the Christian life? I do think it is a natural part of the Christian life. But over the course of a lifetime, right, the theological journey should eventually help us to be deeply committed to the core Christian beliefs that are Christians have always believed and simultaneously, live in a dynamic, chaotic, crazy world where we have to hold both at the same time.

And it's a tricky skill set to learn. Here's, okay, I've got two kind of related questions. One has to do with the purposeuity of scripture, whether that's actually true. Another one has to do with where is the balance between, especially for a newer believer, well, I guess any believer, really. where's the balance between trusting with some level of certainty the traditional teachings of the church versus figuring it out on your own like I need to I need to because like kind of part of my M.O. is well I don't know what I think about that until I

do a five year research study on it and really get confident what I believe. And I and I like that approach as biblical scholars. That's kind of like our M.O. You know, but then part of he's also like, I don't do that with like the Trinity or some basic, you know, Orthodox doctrines. It's just I'm a Christian and this is part of what it means to be a Christian. I didn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus because I did a three-year study looking at all the critics and looking at, you know, all the justification for it. I just got saved and that's part of being a Christian, you know.

But then that's obviously that's a kind of an important doctrine, the resurrection, but it's like where do we just trust? the traditional teachings of the church versus, you know what, you shouldn't be really confident in this viewpoint until you do your own study. Is that even a good thing doing your own study? I'll talk about the perspicuity of scripture. Yeah. And then maybe AJ, you can address kind of rule of faith sort of stuff. When we talk about like the clarity of scripture, you know, you learn in sort of Seminary 101. It's not clear on everything. Right. It's not clear on everything. It's clear on the most important things, which is the person of Jesus Christ.

There's no other name under heaven by which humans can be saved. There's one creator of the world, that sort of stuff, the big stuff, the stuff that goes in the creeds. It's clear on matters of faith and salvation. There's a whole lot of other stuff in there that theologians have been discussing and debating first centuries and centuries and centuries. And so we want to be really clear about what we're talking about when we say scripture is crystal clear. I think it's crystal clear in who Jesus is. I think it's crystal clear on sort of the story of salvation. But then there's a lot of other stuff. I think a lot of this has to do with why we read scripture. And I remember, you know, when I was a teenager,

kind of assuming you read scripture to learn a lot of information. And it really wasn't until I had read Eugene Peterson's book, Eat This Book, which is fantastic. That it really finally sunk into me that we Christians primarily read scripture for formation. Because if you read it primarily for information, you can read it a couple times and be done. But if you read it for formation, then this is God speaking to you through his word. And so when it comes to persepewis scripture, yeah, it's clear, but we don't read scripture just to mine data. We reach scripture to engage a living God. But, AJ, how would you talk about this in terms of learning versus trusting the fathers and the experts?

Yeah, yeah. So this is where Protestants probably are a little ill-served, or I should say Protestants, this is where we experience a unique kind of anxiety that I don't think Catholics probably experience. I call it Protestant anxiety, and it is this fear or this sense that because we believe in Scripture alone, or we have such a high view of Scripture, that I have to, and every generation has to once again every generation figure out what Scripture has to say afresh. So we are constantly feeling this need to have to once again, try to figure it out for me. When I, I actually think this is one of the reasons a lot of young people are becoming Roman Catholics today is because in Roman Catholicism,

in general, you don't, you do not need to figure out what scripture has to say. You believe the magistrate. You believe what the church teaches about something. So you, that anxiety of feeling like you have to try to figure it out is dissipated because it has been figured out for you. There's a sense of, like, you enter into something that's bigger than yourself. Now, there's a reason I'm not a Roman Catholic, neither is an E.J. and neither are you. But in Protestant circles, that theological anxiety of feeling the need, I have to figure this out. And if I don't figure it out, and what if I do figure it out, and I realize I'm wrong 10 years down the road? And then I have to, that's the dark side of Protestant theology, is this deep underlying anxiety that I've got to figure it out.

But this is how Protestants can probably do themselves a big service today, is we need to re-engage in a deep way. We need to re-engage, for example, creedal Christianity. We need to re-engage the creeds, reading the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athenation Creed, because these creeds are the early churches way of signifying and showing us what are the core issues that don't, really, they must be accepted on faith and you spend the rest of your life thinking about and reflecting on it. But you don't, you don't go away and study him for, like you said about the resurrection. You don't go study it for 20 years and then believe it. You believe it and then you spend the rest of your life reflecting on it. This is captured in Augustine's way of, his kind of famous Latin phrase of believe in order that you may understand. It's not that you

understand that you might believe. It's that you believe in order to understand. So for those core Christian beliefs of resurrection, Trinity, the place of scripture, these sorts of things, you don't go away into a cabin for five years, study all these scholars and then come out the other side and go, now I finally believe. No, you accept the resurrection. You believe it. And then spend the rest of your life trying to understand this beautiful mystery that you've received. Now, in some areas, we do spend the rest of our life trying to understand something and come out the other side with belief, but not with all things, with core issues. I don't think it's you understand to believe. It's you believe in order to understand. So let me, I guess, push on that a little bit. I mean, I agree with all of that. For me, I guess I used to have these kind of two categories ironed out. Primary issues, secondary issues, primary issues, creeds, Orthodox doctrines, Apostles Creed, Niccia.

And then there's kind of everything else. But, you know, as I often do, I get in my own head and start to just like, well, okay, let me, does that actually hold? Because, you know, I think about like the Trinity. All right, just you don't even didn't really study it. It's just it's so clear in scripture that everybody kind of believed it from, you know, I'm like, well, I don't know,

it took him like 300 years to hammer that out. And if I was going to read scripture on my own, especially, you know, the deity of Christ, you know, gospel John, book of revelation, yeah. He's also human, clearly. So he's both somehow, you know. But that, that's like a, that's, there's some complexity.

there that I don't think is so clear that, you know, just the, you know, just the basic reading of scripture. It's like, obviously, he's 100% God, 100% man. It's like, I, I, that does take a bit of like, study. But then you throw in the Holy Spirit, okay? Like, I'm Trinitarian. I have a couple verses where I can go to to say the spirit also, not maybe more than a couple.

But that one's kind of tough. You know, I've met some really sharp people who are very orthodox and everything, but they're like, yeah, I don't, I don't think the Holy Spirit is the whole like three persons, one God, that holds true to the father and the son, but the spirit is like an emanating power from both or something like that, whatever, you know, I'm like, that's a heresy, but then it's like, I can, I can see where you would be less confident in the full equal person or the Holy Spirit. Like, that doesn't just leap off the pages.

I'm going to go, I hope I don't get burned for that. Do you guys want to rebuke me for that? or my my let the internet do that for us I affirm it just being super clear I'm just saying it's less it's the Holy Spirit part to me seems less clear

not unclear not untrue for sure but just a little that one's a little messier for me I've got other thoughts but you're gonna it's helpful to know where the creeds come from they're not designed as little systematic theologies they end up becoming

something that we confess and it's important, but, you know, N.T. Wright's done a good job. I can't remember which of his books talk about this, but he does a good job of saying, like, the creeds don't replace scripture. They clarify against certain heresies, whether it's adoptionism or, you know,

dossitism or whatever it is. They clarify against these, but the creed should always be pointing you back to scripture where it's much more complex and nuanced, you know, that sort of thing. I think what Tom Wright does really, really well is say the creed isn't the word of God. Scripture is the word of God. And so we can confess and appreciate the creed keeps us within certain boundaries.

Okay. But scripture gives us a lot of freedom within those boundaries to understand the messiness, the complexity of each of these elements, whether it's final judgment, or whether it's the Holy Spirit, or whether it's everlasting life, what those things kind of mean in all their rich. richness in scripture. A few other thoughts along these lines. Like, I think about like baptism. Like, is it true that like Baptist, creedobaptist did really even exist until the 16th century? I mean, was it that at least the overwhelming majority of the church for 1500 years reading scripture over and over and over?

Like, of course we should baptize babies, you know? like but then like if you know that's one where it's like do we do we yeah I mean and that didn't even take a long time to hammer out like the Trinity you know so should we all just say like hey regardless of how I'm reading the Bible as an individual I should just accept this because this was so widely clear to everybody for 1,500 years um you have other things you can throw in I mean let me talk to let me talk about baptism for a second let's talk about baptismal practices Because I think that there's a, there's, as it relates to slow theology, I think that baptism illustrates, maybe, maybe illustrates a place that we can, we can more imaginatively think about the slower process of discipleship. So in, in a lot of churches, right, when somebody becomes a Christian, they will, in many churches, there will be opportunities for baptism in the next couple weeks.

Or in some churches, you'll do spontaneous baptism, right? You get baptized that Sunday, whether you brought clothes or not, we'll get you baptized, we'll give you a towel, we'll do all this stuff. Okay, it's great. You know, in the early church, the process of baptism was, since you bring it up, the process of baptism was quite an elongated process. In fact, you would go through a nearly three-year process, a catechesis process for the first few hundred years of the church. And you would memorize scripture. You would go through basically kind of a process of discernment with like somebody who almost was your sponsor, like a sponsor who walked with you through the journey. You would learn the Apostles' Creed. You memorize it. And then after three years of this longer process,

you would, on the Easter vigil of that third year, you would get baptized at your baptism, you would cast, you would be, the demons would be exercised out of you. You would spit towards the east as a symbolic reference to you turning your back against Satan, and you would be taken in. So three years, I've wondered, I don't know, I've wondered if part of the reason in evangelical culture that we've seen so many people so quickly, turn away from their faith in, you know, COVID, post-COVID years, like the deconstruction sort of thing. Not that all people are deconstruction are turning away from their faith. But

I wonder if part of the reason that we have seen so many swing so far away is because our baptismal process in evangelicalism doesn't actually give a slow, long-term process to make big decisions. So we become, in a way, we become really we don't have a three-year process to discern, do I really believe this? Do I really want to be a part of the church? Do I really want to lay my life down for this? And I think there's a brilliance in that long-term period of like struggling, wrestling, and then the roots have gone deep that longer down the road because you've gone through

that struggle over a long period of time, you have these root systems that make you resilient and you're not pushed around by the pressures of culture and the even inner pressures that you may face. I've wondered, you brought up baptism. I just wonder if we could think about a slower approach towards catechesis to creating a longer-term space for those roots to go deeper. Otherwise, I think we're just going to see sort of shallow conversions turn to shallow de-conversions. turn to shallow deconversions really quick because there's no there's not a longer process. I don't know. I submit that.

I've wondered, and we write about that in the book, that maybe we need to create longer periods of baptismal struggle to help people discern. Are you really in on this Jesus thing? It's counting the cost, right? Yeah, counting the cost. And I used to be a, you know, dunk him as quickly as possible. kind of person, but then I, you know, then I kind of thought a little hard about, because you see that in the New Testament, but the difference is converts in the New Testament had, right, Nijay, I mean, they had like a cultural category for baptism, whereas today, I think new converts

kind of, they don't have the same cultural category, you know, like in the first century, they had this kind of pre-understanding of what they were getting themselves into, whereas today, a lot of people don't. I don't know if our mutual friend, Josh Butler, or he tells a funny story where he was a pastor at the time at Mago Day Church out in Portland and somebody came forward, hey, I believe in Jesus, you know, and I want to be baptized and he was going up to baptize him. And then right before he was going to dunk him, the guy's like, you know, yeah, I totally believe in Jesus's death. You know, I'm not really, I don't think he rose from the dead. The whole zombie Jesus thing freaks me out, but I believe in his death.

Josh said, well, unfortunately, I could put you into the water, but I'm not allowed. I can't pull you out. So that's not going to work out well. So yeah, so yeah, I don't know. I'm just wrestling with that tension of when do we confidently just accept a doctrine that we haven't been individually necessarily convinced of by our own raw study of scripture versus this is an issue that, you know, I don't need to accept or deny or whatever, you know, like women in leadership, you know, like we're allowed to say, yeah, I'm not sure where I'm not on that, you know, even though that's for half of the population in church, it's kind of a big question, you know,

but I think we would all agree. There's maybe less clarity on that than on women in leadership than other doctrines that are just received as Orthodox views that you just accept if you're a Christian, you know. So anyway, I don't want to bog down the conversation too much. But going back to your book, I mean, how does slow theology apply to Ecclesi, theology, how we do church. So we've talked about just kind of a general slow approach to Christianity,

specifically taking a long view of theological formation. What about ecclesiology? How has, how should a slow theology approach affect how we go about doing church? This is one of my favorite parts of the book. We have this chapter, chapter seven, believe together. And one of my favorite stories from that is I taught at Eastern University for a short period of time. I had a colleague named Dwight Peterson, and Dwight Peterson was in a wheelchair for many years of his life. I can't remember the exact illness he had, and he was homebound for years, and during the whole time I was there. There was actually this video that was produced by a group called work of the people or something like that.

Do you remember these videos back of the day? I don't know. The work of the people. Okay. Anyway, it was a theological group. And they went and they interviewed Dwight kind of about his faith because he'd been living sort of in this homebound situation and not be able to walk for years. And he tells this really interesting story where he was thinking about the story of when

the paraplegic gets carried to Jesus. And Jesus heals him not on the basis of the people. paraplegic's faith, but the faith of the people that brought him. And he told us, you know, he had some friends visit him while he was at his worst in terms of his health. And they asked him, hey, Dwight, how are you doing? And he said, I'm struggling with my faith and I can't find Jesus. And they said, we will, we will help, we will help find him for you. Like, we will carry your faith. And it was that moment that story really clicked for him. Yes, we all need to have individual faith, but we also need to carry each other. And that's really where the church

comes in. And one of my biggest burdens that I feel today is that our churches aren't really, many of our churches aren't really coming through on this. Church is just a gathering point for teaching and worship. We're not really carrying each other and sharing that struggle of faith together because some of us are in a period where we're feeling really great about our faith and others are really struggling. We can help each other out. There's an illustration I love for the book and my wife's a science nerd, so she's taught me some of this.

We all know the body illustration, but this illustration, I think, hits at a different angle. You guys might know this, but just pretend that you're amazed by this. We've learned with trees in a forest that they are connected by this kind of fungus, my cordial fungus. So within their root systems and they're interconnected and there's this fungus that connects these trees. There's all the details are in the book. Trees are actually able to communicate with one another throughout the forest. And what's amazing is there are these studies that like there's a tree, for example, and there's a particular pestilence, like an insect pestilence, that's attacking the tree. And so the tree will actually communicate to nearby trees. And so the tree will actually

communicate to nearby trees and say, hey, you need to get ready for this attack. And those trees actually create defense systems based on what the other tree is experiencing. And then trees will actually share resources. Like if there's a sapling that is in a particular sun-heavy part of the forest and it's struggling to grow, one of the older, stronger trees will send extra water to that sapling in order to, in order to strengthen it, because there's the sense that we have to survive together. So what's amazing is there's this invisible network of sharing that happens in forests. There's all this data right now on this and how they protect one another, they care

for one another, the older trees support the younger trees, knowing the younger trees are going to have to support really old trees. And I'm just like, are we doing this in the church? Are we actually doing this stuff? Are we actually taking care of each other? Are we actually supporting one another? And I got to tell you, Preston, I love my church. church, but it's not really a place where I can say, I'm a complete mess.

Yeah. I'm struggling with my faith because you want to keep appearances because you just, you're in and out in an hour and a half on a Sunday morning. You don't really have time to get into the details. Oh, small groups, small groups. It's tough. My kids got sports. I got stuff going on.

You know, maybe it's the urban culture I live in that's just super fast-paced. but many of the churches that I'm involved in are engaged with, I don't know if they're capturing this vision of this forest that is taking care of each other. Those aren't trees, Nijie, those are ants. The ants. It sounds like, lower of the ring stuff going on there. That's a fast, I did not know that.

That's mind-blowing. Almost everybody I talked to would echo everything you're saying. Love my church. Some people I know wouldn't even say that, but they would say, but yeah, I can't just walk in. and say, hey, my wife and I have been fighting like cats and dogs on the way to church. My kids are undiscipline and I don't want to be here. I don't even want to be around my wife right now.

I just think, you know, like, if you walked in, you would, like, that doesn't happen typically in church. But why is that? Like, is it the size of the church? Is it the Western church? Is it like, why can't church be that? And why isn't it that? I'll say something, but AJ, he's the expert here.

but I'll say from my perspective, part of it, I think, is our obsession with efficiency and control. So our churches are based on, you know, timers. Like, we time these things for efficiency, for quality control. We compare churches to businesses and TV shows, and businesses and TV shows are designed on control, right? You want certain outcomes. You want those predictable. So you have to make it as efficient as possible. The problem is people are. messy and unpredictable. And so, for example, I went to a church here in Portland, wonderful church call Alongsiders. And the pastor, Greg Russinger, one of my favorite pastors, he had this vision right after the pandemic. We're going to do 15 minute, 10, 15 minute sermon, and then we're

going to have table discussions at church every Sunday. And it's, I ended up speaking once. It was a wonderful experience, but you just have so much unpredictability, what's going to happen at those tables. I think that makes other pastors really uncomfortable with this idea that what if someone says something offensive? What if all these what ifs? But people were having real conversations at church. If you could go to church and not talk to anybody and leave and not do anything other than sit there and listen and saying, the apostle Paul would not have thought that you went to church. I think that he would have thought you did some great stuff. But he wouldn't have thought that you went to church. He would just thought you received.

teaching and you worship the Lord, that's wonderful. But where's the church? Well, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I pastor, I'm pastoring now a church, I teach, you know, I teach and I, and I pastor a congregation. And I will just say, even as the, as a, as a pastor of our congregation, the constant internal temptation to trade in, in my mind, this is how I describe it, but I trade in ontology for utility. And what I mean by that is that I trade in the sacred presence of being with people with the mechanical work of doing things for people. So trading in ontology for utility. And it's a constant struggle. I mean, it's, you know, it's a larger congregation. I can't be everything for everybody that I want to be. And it's, it is a never-ending

inner, this is not other churches, this is my community. I am constantly feeling as though I want to trade in presence for activity. And it's insipid. I mean, it sucks the life out of every single one of us. And I think that there's a lot to be said about how culture has shaped church structures like this. It's not all our fault. But you know, the McDonald'sization of the church is a real thing. We turn it into a drive-thru, and we have bought, you know, hookline and sinker corporate models for organizations and have allowed ourselves to fit the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, into those paradigms. I think one of the things that we would recommend in this book, Preston, is that all of us

are going to be better people in our lives and in our disciples. ship journeys, if we intentionally create space for slower people in our lives. And when I say slower people, like, if we never spend time with somebody who is relegated to a wheelchair, if we never spend time with individuals who are older and move much slower than we are, if we never spend time with children who don't think as fast as we do, then something is lost, we need to spend time with people who require us to slow down. They force us to come back down to earth. They force us to be humans again, rather than individuals who are always on the mood. One of the books that we quote in the book quite a few times is a Japanese

theologian who wrote a book called The Three Mile An Hour God. And he was a Japanese I love that story. Kosuke Koyame, who wrote about the incarnation. A human being walks three miles an hour. And that's not very fast. That's really slow. So what is the incarnation? It is God choosing to come to us walking three miles an hour.

The incarnation is God slowing down to our pace. That is, right, is that not love in its fullest expression of coming to be with us at our pace? That's a difficult thing to embody. I don't like doing it. I don't like slowing down for other people. It is the nature of God. It is interesting that our relationship with God is described as him walking, not running with us.

Never thought about that. Hey, you guys, do you have a few more minutes to stick around for a more private conversation? We call it extra innings where I keep people for a few more innings to chat about stuff. I want to ask you guys personal questions about where have you each changed in your theology over the last 20 years. Maybe it was something you help. If you would like to check out

our extra innings conversation, then head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to get access to all of our extra innings episodes along with other premium content. This show is part of the Converge podcast network. Are you looking for news with a faith-based perspective, then tune in to The Pourover Today, the podcast that delivers the world's biggest news stories through a lens of faith

every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On The Pour Over today, you'll hear the same news and headlines as a major outlets, but interpreted in the context of God's sovereignty. I absolutely love that. You can stay grounded in the midst of chaos with faith forward engaging summaries that connect current events with eternal perspective. Just search the pour over, okay? Spelled P-O-U-R, like the coffee, on your favorite podcast platform or find the direct link in our show notes.