Today’s bonus episode is the recording of our most recent monthly subscriber Zoom conversations. This is the second of these we’ve released (the first was here). Give them a listen and join us for the next one! In this episode, the group discusses:
- Books and other resources that have been particularly helpful in spiritual formation
- Emotional health and authenticity in discipleship
- Following the way of Jesus over believing correct beliefs
- How discipleship includes things like the economic choices of Christian institutions
- Whether gender makes a difference in how we follow Jesus
- And a lot more!
Mentioned on the episode:
- Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
- The Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas
- John Mark Comers book, Practicing the Way
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together
- Lindsay Olesberg’s book The Bible Study Handbook
- Matthew Desmond’s book Poverty, by America
- Sy’s essay, “I Am Not a (Real) Man”
- The Confession of Evangelical Conviction, and the associated resources
- The video we produced for the Confession
Credits
- Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.
- Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.
- Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.
- Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.
- Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.
- Editing by Sy Hoekstra.
- Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy.
- Production by Sy and our incredible subscribers.
Transcript
[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending – F#, B#, E, D#, B – with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]
Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra. This is a bonus episode. It is our September conversation that just happened on Monday. We turned this one around pretty quickly. This is our conversation, we had some stuff planned for it that we were gonna talk about. But as always, we let the questions from the subscribers, like you, all of you listening to this bonus episode for subscribers only, direct our conversation. So the conversation ended up being a lot about spiritual formation and all kinds of, like our, Jonathan and mine, some other people on the call's influences, and just day to day walking with Jesus, what that looks like.
We also got a little bit into ideas about economic spiritual formation and kind of the gender issues around spiritual formation and whether or not there is anything relevant that we care to talk about [laughs] when it comes to gender differences in following Jesus. Before we get into this, you all are our lovely subscribers. I'm not gonna pitch you on KTF Press or anything like that, like I would at this point in the podcast normally. I'm just gonna ask you to please go ahead and tell a friend about this show. Just tell somebody. It is one of the best ways to spread news, the word about a podcast. It's the best ways to support us. You, somebody who enjoys this, telling somebody else who you think might enjoy this, about why you enjoy this.
That would be enormously helpful to us. If there's anybody you’ve been thinking of texting or letting know about this show, please go ahead and do it. Point them to KTFPress.com, or to Shake the Dust, wherever they get their podcasts. That's all I'm gonna say before we jump into this conversation. It's a Zoom conversation. So the quality is what the quality is, I cleaned it up as much as I could. It sounds not bad at all, honestly, but it's still a Zoom conversation, so I'm just telling you that. Alright, here we go, getting into the conversation starting now.
[The intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]
Jonathan Walton: Do you wanna say Drexel’s question?
Sy Hoekstra: Well, yeah. It was just asking about books that were important for us for spiritual formation, or just books that have influenced us in general. Jonathan, I know one of the bigger spiritual formation ones for us is the same, but do you wanna go first?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I'll jump in. The one that is not the same as Sy’s [laughter], I think is actually the Bible.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Well, okay. I have read that too.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, but I'll say, and this is the reason why. I had a conversation with… for 16 years, I've been on staff within InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the large campus Christian ministry. And for 15 of those years, I led the experiential discipleship program. So one-day, week-long, month-long, year-round programs where people come to learn how to live out their faith in an integrated, practical way. And a couple years I had a partnership with a Christian bookstore, and I'll never forget going to the bookstore, the guy who runs the bookstore, super Christian, seems to me. He just takes out the Bible and he's like, “Have you ever read John 3:16?” I'm like, “Yeah, for God so loved the world.” I do the Christian Sunday school answer.
But then he has something called a keyword Bible. And then he's like, “Do you know what the word God is in this part? I’m like, “No.” So then he's like, “Okay, it's this. And do you know love, do you know that?” I’m like, “Oh, okay, agape, and something else.” It's like, “Oh, okay.” And then, the world. And I'm like, “The world?” And he's like, “The word world is the Greek word cosmos. And it's like God's ordered purpose.” It's like, so if God, the Creator of the universe, loving, sovereign being, created, so made all that there is, the world. For God so loved the world, so God, this agape, all-encompassing love. And then cosmos is actually his ordered purpose.
So when you read the verse, the rest is like, oh, so Jesus, perhaps I have been reading this verse too small because I thought Jesus, the world was just us people. But if he died for his ordered purposes, then that changes the entire latter half of the last 65 years of evangelicalism in the United States, post Billy Graham, creating effectively this barcode, what Lisa Sharon Harper would call a barcode faith, where we could just pray a prayer and be done. That is a very recent development in Christianity over the last 2000 years. And so I was like, I need to go read the Bible, and I need to go know what the words mean [laughter]. Not just how I interpret them so quickly, because I don't speak Greek, I don't read Hebrew, all those things. So let me go and do that.
And that, so having a keyword Bible, which a New American Standard Bible, and then having an NIV Bible to a thought for thought translation. And then, now there's the First Nations version of the Bible from IVP. To read the creation narrative from the First Nations Bible is different than reading it from Genesis. So like…
Sy Hoekstra: Well, wait, except the First Nation’s Bible doesn't have the creation narrative…
Jonathan Walton: It does, you’re right.
Sy Hoekstra: …because it's only the New Testament [laughter].
Helen: Right. Only the New Testament, yes.
Jonathan Walton: You’re right. I'm talking about the prologue. So there's a prologue.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah, that's right.
Helen: Yes.
Jonathan Walton: And that paragraph, it says, the Great Spirit created us to steward in harmony with the Creator. And I was like, “Huh, I'm supposed to be concerned about harmony as I have dominion?” That's different.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: That changes the quote- unquote, colonization and all that kind of stuff, showing up somewhere to spread the gospel. So I'm like, “God, how do I not subdue my children? How do I not dominate the people around me? How do I try to live in Christ centered love and harmony?” So the Bible in that way, just reading it in that way. And then Sy will have his own journey in talking about this. But the other book that's probably changed my life the most is Pete Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, which is the prequel of one of the books that formed Rich Villodas to write The Deeply Formed Life.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: And so a bunch of people from New Life Fellowship are kind of downstream of emotionally healthy spirituality. Being able to do that I think, it's like spiritual formation light basically. Like he's taking quote- unquote the Desert Fathers, taking a bunch of practices that are very much rooted in Catholicism, like the Benedictine life and things like that, and kind of popularizing in a way that evangelicals and Protestants who are detached from that tradition can have access to. And so that book changed my life and basically created a lot of the emotionally healthy activist work that I do now, because being an activist in the traditional sense of marches, protests, boycotts, mobilization, when we do that from a place rooted in Jesus, it should look different.
Which is why MLK, I think, endures in that way. Because he's pulling from a well that is deeper than, “I can speak really well and I'm from the south. Listen to me.” He's pulling from the gospel. He's pulling from the theology that started when the Spirit came down at Pentecost. So I would say those two books. So scripture, but engaging with it in a more holistic way, and then Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. I could say some more. They're back there, as you can see, there's some. But I think if I was to name one more book that has endured me growing in my faith over the last 25 years or so, the other book that I would say is, there's a book called Celebration of Disciplines [Note: Jonathan meant to say the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook], and it just has a lot of just different spiritual formation practices in it, like generosity and prayer and giving and eating together.
It's just ways to think through, like I could actually live out my faith in these other ways. It doesn't have to be this static quest that I set off in one direction and I just go. Yes, Eugene Peterson said long obedience in one direction. Yes, that's true. But [laughs] it doesn't have to be the same things over and over again. We can have a dynamic faith that influences all facets of it.
Drexel: What was that last one called again?
Jonathan Walton: You know what, I might have just said Richard Foster's book, Celebration of Discipline. It's not that one.
Drexel: [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Hold on. Hold on. Look Sy, you talk, I'm gonna find out.
Sy Hoekstra: Okay. Yeah, yeah. So the reason I would say the EHS one is, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality was important for me, was it just unlocked a bunch of emotional health stuff that a lot of other spiritual discipline or spiritual discipleship books don't talk about, which is, I don’t know. I spent so much time as a young Christian being like, “I don't really want to spend time with God [laughs]. I don't really wanna do my quiet times, my prayers or whatever every day.” And then you would go to your small group, and all the other guys would be like, “Yeah, just pray for me, I'm struggling with my quiet time consistency,” or whatever. And I don't know, I just felt like a lot of us were just avoiding saying, “I don't actually wanna do any of this. I have no interest in it.” [laughs].
And the reason that Emotionally Healthy Spirituality was good was… it's a place where you can acknowledge that sort of thing [laughs], which is not really… I don’t know, in a lot of Christian circles, it's like, “Just try harder, or just focus more on how much Jesus loves you,” or something abstract like that. And that kind of book helps you really get at why do you personally not want to do this? Or why do you personally engage in this spiritual discipline so readily, and this spiritual discipline so infrequently? And talking about your emotions, what emotions actually are, how they're not good or bad, just they just are [laughs], and they just affect your mind and your behaviors in these ways, and here's where they come from. And here's how you can get to the point where you understand them better and change your relationship with them.
And not dominate or suppress them or defeat them, but just exist in peace with them, and use them for what is… the good things that you can use them for. And so I love that book, and that his whole way of thinking. The Deeply Formed Life, like Jonathan said, comes out of that book. It comes from the same kind of ideas and applies it to I think, some justice issues in a more practical way, like talking about how do you deal with communities that are interracial, and how do you talk about sexuality and that sort of thing.
So that's why that one's a big deal for me, and it's also why I don't have a lot of other recommendations, because so many books don't [laughs] necessarily want you to be honest in that way. I don't know. There's a lot of the Christian spiritual formation industry books that just aren't necessarily that helpful for me, because I'm looking for something that's radically honest, and they're trying to make you a good Christian, and not necessarily someone who [laughs] has a real relationship with Jesus, with a real person. So what I go to a lot is some of the stuff that we have on our show, like Lamar Hardwick or Amy Kenny talking about how you incorporate people with disabilities and celebrate people with disabilities into the church in a way that is respectful and actually listens to disabled people.
Like the last season we had on José Humphreys and Adam Gustine talking about the economics of Jubilee in your neighborhood, and how the church can be a part of the economic formation of the land, of the people around it. Those sorts of things are usually more interesting to me because I am more interested in, how do I be obedient to God in the relatively simple but difficult things that he has instructed us to do, like caring for our neighbors [laughs] and less so in the just like acquiring more knowledge about, you know what I mean? Because there's so many places in the Bible, there's a scriptural reason for this. It's like when Samuel tells Saul, “God wants obedience, not sacrifice.” Sacrifice being part of the religious activity of the day. Or when like, is it in Isaiah, Jonathan, where God talks about how, “Your worship services disgust me [laughs]?”
Jonathan Walton: It’s Isaiah.
Sy Hoekstra: It’s Isaiah? Yeah. “Because you're not paying attention to the matters of justice that I've asked you to come to.” Or in Revelation, where he tells the church, “You do all the right activity, you believe all the right things, but you've lost track of your first love.” So that's what I wanna get at. I wanna get at, how do I stay in a loving relationship with Jesus? How do I cultivate the wisdom and the emotion to do that? That's the important stuff to me.
Jonathan Walton: And I will lean into that. So just for scriptural references, that's Amos 5, Isaiah 1 to 17, 18. So Isaiah 1 is amazing for that distinction. Particularly because he lays it out in the beginning, the rebuke, but then he said, “Learn to do right. Seek justice. Plead the case of the orphan and the widow and the fatherless.” So there's this rebuke, but there's always an invitation afterwards to come close. And then in Revelation, I think Sy is talking about the end of 17, all of 18, which is like just a…
Sy Hoekstra: I’m talking about one of the letters to the churches, but I couldn't remember which church, so I didn't say it [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Oh, okay. No worries. I was thinking in 18, there's like the rejection of Babylon and then 19 is the worship at the end. But you might be talking about Laodicea’s seven….
Sy Hoekstra: I might be talking about Laodicea or one of the other churches. Laodicea was the one that was tepid.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: It was, “You’re neither hot nor cold, you're just basically lazy and rich [laughter].”
Jonathan Walton: Essentially.
Sy Hoekstra: “I would just rather you be anything other than what you are,” is kind of what God says [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Well, if we can go into the weeds a little bit. So Laodicea, it's fascinating because Laodicea was a center for fashion and a center for medicine.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, they were super wealthy.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, they had it [laughs]. And they were between two, I think, water places. So they didn't have springs, and they didn't have a rushing river, so there wasn't hot or cold water. So that like, when people heard that during the day, they'd have been like, “Oh, you're not that or that. That's not good [laughs].” You know what I mean? So they would have heard that story that way. But one thing that I wanna add to the conversation is that a lot of this stuff, particularly… So me and Sy, we went to college together. Some of the books that they gave us in college would be trash today.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: So Joshua Harris, when he wrote that book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Terrible book. Millions of people read it.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: Wild at Heart, exceptionally patriarchal and unhelpful. Me and Sy were saying, “Yeah, we should leave it in the woods.” And I was like, “No, you shouldn't, because then somebody will find it on a quest and think this is what they should do.”
Drexel: [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Wild at Heart, when I had… I'm from a farm. I'm from the south, from Southern Virginia, grew up on a farm. And then you take into account how masculinity is framed in the United States. Like Black males are framed as hyper masculine. So I sit in a Bible study, and I'm from the country, and when I look at everybody like, “He's a man,” but then there's other people in the study that don't embody that reality because of their racial background, racial assignment or ethnic characters and things like that. And that became something that I could see the shutdown happening, like I'm not man enough. And then Wild at Heart had the concurrent book for women, which escapes me right now.
Sy Hoekstra: Captivating? Was it that one?
Jonathan Walton: Yes. That’s it. And so those were spiritual formation books that formed people in some really unhelpful ways. And so when me and Sy were talking earlier, I think that there's no substitute for life on life conversation with people. Jesus said, “Come and follow me.” Like, so I'm reading John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way of Jesus right now, and he just breaks down. So Rich Villodas and John Mark Comer, they hang out with each other. There's a podcast they do called Resilient Preachers, I think, or the Resilient Pastor, or something like that. But he talks a lot about what it would have meant to follow Jesus. Like how Peter and John, like Luke was a slave.
Often times we see Luke as a doctor, but rich people would have never taken care of sick people, and poor people wouldn't have been educated. But if you were a slave, they were using the people that were, they were the people that would have been made to take care of folks in that day. And I was like, oh, I didn't know Luke was a slave. I framed medicine in my day and age, not in theirs. And then Peter and his brother Andrew being like, “You're a fishmonger.” And so in the Jewish day, you would have never been called to come and learn from a rabbi if you worked in a trade like that, it just would have never been a thing. So he just breaks down what it means to follow Jesus, and it's like, “Come and hang out with me.”
And these people would have never been invited to a space like that. And so I think it's essential for us to just sit with people who are trying to follow Jesus together, and that has probably been the most formative, because all of these books that we've mentioned are really only, they only made sense because you're talking to [unclear 00:19:12]. None of this stuff got worked out just sitting and reading and like there's some theological ascent. It came through the doing and the wrestling with other people that we were then...
Drexel: Wow , this is good stuff.
Jonathan Walton: Great.
Drexel: I got a few questions, but I don't want to derail if there's an agenda playing.
Jonathan Walton: No.
Sy Hoekstra: Well, no. We would love to hear questions, but also I actually want to hear yours and Helen's answers too. Like, if you have books that were really big for you.
Drexel: Yeah. I'll just jump in.
Sy Hoekstra: Yes.
Drexel: Number one book I recommend for people is Bonhoeffer, Life Together.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh, wow. Okay.
Jonathan Walton: So good. Yeah.
Drexel: Yeah. I will live and die on the hill that community is the answer we need for Christianity. And I don't think we are even close to doing biblical community.
Jonathan Walton: That’s a kind review [unclear 00:20:16].
Sy Hoekstra: I would say, yeah [laughs].
Drexel: So, yeah. So that's my number one. After that, I'm not sure I would have a go to.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Drexel: But I've been reading the Bible. I do the Bible in a year, every year for, maybe I've done it 12,15 years now.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh wow.
Drexel: But I think it's fascinating that you said, Jonathan, reading the Bible, but it's kind of how you read the Bible, that kind of changed. And I'd be curious if you had any recommendations on hermeneutics or… because that's so key. I'm sure you guys have talked about this on the podcast but if you come from a starting point, you will get to your end point [laughs] if that's where you want to go. And so how do you kind of open the aperture in a healthy way without losing yourself, because that can be done too. But anyways, if you had some thoughts or recommendations there, that'd be cool too.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I'll hold that answer.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, let’s hear from the others. Who just came in, Jonathan?
Cassidy: Hey.
Jonathan Walton: Cassidy McDonald.
Sy Hoekstra: Hey, Cassidy. How's it going?
Cassidy McDonald: Good. Hello, Sy.
Sy Hoekstra: Hi. Cassidy is a good friend of my sister’s. Cassie, were just talking about, Drexel had a question about books that we recommend for spiritual formation, and stuff that's influenced us a lot. Jonathan and I talked for a very long time, Drexel just gave us his answer [laughs]. So Helen, I don't know if you have any thoughts, or Cassidy. Yeah, I know you just came in. You don't have to talk immediately, but if there are any more then we talk about those, or we can talk about Drexel’s other questions.
Helen: I have thoughts, for sure.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, go for it.
Helen: I come from a spiritual but not necessarily Christian family. So my initial spiritual formation happened in college at Houghton college, and I was very, very blessed and grateful that I had an amazing Biblical Studies professor my freshman year, and she did an incredible job doing biblical literature stuff. So it was eye opening my first semester of freshman year. And then I did an east meets west program where we talked about all of Christian history from Jesus onward, and all the things that happened in Europe. It was a very intense freshman year, but very, very informative as well. So all that to say, there's not really a particular book, but I think the Bible Project group does a really good job, kind of taking a lot of the things that I learned in that course and other things and kind of really breaking things down and doing those word studies and like, okay, what is the historical context here, and what it actually meant to a Jewish? That context versus the American context today.
And so that's one, and then InterVarsity has a lot of great resources out there as well similar to that. But, yeah, that was, I guess the Bible Project has been very helpful for me. We used it a lot in our InterVarsity groups when I was at Clarkson. So that’s the main thing.
Jonathan Walton: Oh, nice. You were at Clarkson?
Helen: Yeah, because I was a Clarkson student when I came to your program, Jonathan.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Helen: So that's how I originally got involved.
Jonathan Walton: Nice. I'm always like, I think who people are, but I don’t wanna assume [laughs].
Helen: Yep. I think it was 2017. I think it was March of 2017 or 2016.
Jonathan Walton: 2016?
Helen: Yes. 2016 yes, that I was there.
Jonathan Walton: Nice.
Drexel: I wanna piggyback off of Christian history. I think I don't have a particular book, but I graduated from seminary last year, and going through Christian history. And ours was biased and kind of American centered, but still just mind blown [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Where did you go?
Drexel: I went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I'm in [unclear 00:25:08] so it’s right up the road. But yeah, I was mind blown. Just Christian history explains so many things. You think your beliefs are unique to you, but really you're a product of your time and the thoughts that have come before you. And it was just mind blowing.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Random, but our pastor right now at our church plant graduated from there.
Drexel: Okay.
Jonathan Walton: Andre Grey and his good friend Jordan Botelho, they both live in the city now. Dre lives in my house [laughs] with Jordan. They live here. And one of the things, there's two books, it's Lindsay Olesberg who used to be the national director for scripture engagement at InterVarsity wrote like a big, thick book called Reading the Bible for All Its Worth [Jonathan meant to say The Bible Study Handbook]. And that was just, it's just a really, really good primer. If you want that book, I can try and get it for you discounted. If you see it and like, “I want that,” you could just email us and I'll figure it out for you. I don't know how much it is right now, but you know those books that are old, they're always expensive. So let me know if that's a problem.
And then there's another book that I had in there. I'm going to grab it when we get a second, but it's just about the gospel through the lens of a Jewish person that doesn't see Jesus as a messiah. Just like he was a dude to them. You know what I mean? It's interesting to see and talk about… Sy you're muted, by the way. But it's easier to just recognize there were people who saw Jesus, heard from Jesus, ate the food that Jesus multiplied and did not follow Him [laughter]. That boggles my mind. I don't get it. But Judas was like, “Nah, 30 bucks. I'm good.” So there's just, I think the hermeneutic stuff is helpful, just to dive in from a Jewish perspective, like a culturally relevant perspective, and then Reading the Bible for All Its Worth is also a really good book.
Sy Hoekstra: That always brings up a question for me, Jonathan, of if Jesus was so difficult to follow for them, why is it so easy for us [laughs]? And what are we maybe possibly missing about what the call to follow Jesus actually is [laughter]?
Helen: I was gonna say, is it easy [laughs]? Are we sure [unclear 00:27:47] is that easy [laughs]?
Sy Hoekstra: Maybe we've made it a little easier than it may have been supposed to be.
Jonathan Walton: True.
Drexel: Well, I was, I think I was listening your podcast. I'll just give you the credit anyway.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Drexel: But somebody was, we were talking and it's like, only if God can show us himself now and more, I guess, prevalently than he has. But then I think you took it to Exodus, where he has done that, and they still did not follow. The Egyptians rejected particularly even more, and so it's just interesting that the hardness of man to follow, it's incredible.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, I think a lot of the things that we think that we would want from God wouldn't necessarily change our minds. You know what I mean? This is why I think Jesus is so harsh on people asking for a sign, or people, “Just show us and then we'll follow you.” [laughs]. They will not [laughter].
Jonathan Walton: He’s like, “Tried that.”
Sy Hoekstra: Right. Which is in some ways just another plug for us to get on the emotionally healthy spirituality bandwagon, because that's what helps you figure out what you actually want [laughs], and why oftentimes, what you actually want is the thing that drives you away from being a disciple. Or taking your cross, doing the difficult discipleship road, as opposed to doing the, “I checked all the doctrinal boxes and so I'm done with everything being a Christian now.” [laughs]. Cassie, if you have any thoughts you're welcome to jump in. Or any questions, by the way, you can put them in the chat too, or just ask. Drexel, you said you had some other questions though, or anybody could go.
Drexel: Yeah. We could let Cassidy if she wants to jump in.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Do you have... if you don't, it's fine.
Cassidy McDonald: I think nothing pertinent right now. So Drexel, go for it.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, go for it.
Drexel: Yeah. I mean, you guys hit up a lot of stuff.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Drexel: You talked about the economic formation of kind of the community.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah.
Drexel: And I'm reading a book right now. I'm only a few chapters in Poverty, by America.
Sy Hoekstra: Yes, by Matthew Desmond.
Drexel: Maybe I got that… No, I can't. I don't think I can give you guys credit for that one.
Sy Hoekstra: No, you can’t. I don’t think so either, but he’s great.
Drexel: But I'd be real curious at your thoughts on how can we as Christians do a better job with the economic formation of folks around us? Because it draws me to Galatians more specifically, where you have a book by Paul that one of the, if not the earliest Christian book written defending the gospel. And then you see specifically in there a call out to not forget the poor. And he was like, “As I was going to do anyway,” you know what I mean? “I got you, Peter,” but I find it fascinating that in the defense of the gospel, the very earliest is a connection to help the poor. So it's almost like you can't talk about the gospel without defending the poor at the same time, because they go hand in hand, almost.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I mean, I'll give you an even earlier example, that is Luke chapter four, [laughs] when Jesus comes out and says the reason for his mission and part of it is pronouncing the Good News to the poor. Yes, it is inherent to the gospel, I think because, as we've talked about a few different times, gospel is a lot broader than sin and salvation and going to heaven for eternity. The gospel is the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand, and the kingdom of God being at hand includes a whole lot of good things happening to marginalized people that would not have otherwise happened in this broken world that we live in now. And so I think like that… yeah, I agree. Go hand in hand. Economic formation.
I mean, what I was talking about specifically was our episode from season three with José Humphreys and Adam Gustine. Because they wrote a whole book about basically the church, and like I said, the Church and its economic place in the neighborhood, and making it more about being part of a ecosystem of Jubilee, as they call it, an ecosystem of economic liberation for the community around it, as opposed to being sort of an entity that exists to prop itself up economically and make money for itself. Which is how a lot of churches operate like sort of a business. And so, yeah, I agree that it's inherent. I guess I could talk about a couple of the points that they make there, but I would really just point you to that episode [laughs].
Drexel: Yeah. That’s fine.
Sy Hoekstra: Because that's an easy place to go. I don't know, Jonathan, you have thoughts on that one?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I would just say that most of us… my brother, actually, he's a pastor in Richmond, Virginia. He just did an interview on just Christianity and capitalism. Because when you say economic formation, we could talk about, there's the… for me, breaking it down to personal, relational and systemic. There's our personal economic story that are downstream of, did you read Capitalism and Protestant Ethics? Did you read that?
Drexel: Mm-mm.
Jonathan Walton: Okay, so anyway, there's this enmeshment of the good life and our hard work and capitalistic effort that flows out of Martin Luther’s ideology and focus around vocational work. And so that's how we end up in a place, a place where, yes, the Romans saw people with disabilities and extra kids and stuff was disposable. They had an ideology that makes that possible. We also have ideologies that makes people less than. And most of that has to do around ability. And so then you layer that over with race, gender and class and citizenship. So there's a different kind of ball that we have, but it's the same result where we're both looking at Galatians 3:27, and trying to figure out why we don't do that, or Isaiah 1:27 like, the only religion that is promising [unclear 00:34:45].
There's stuff that we're downstream of, so I think, yes, getting Adam [unclear 00:34:52] book is a great place to start, Life Together, great place to start. But the weirdest stuff that’s going to get worked out is, can we have honest conversations about the idol that we hold, whether the personal one, like someone in my Bible study, he's like, “I just know I need $1.5 million to retire, so that's my goal.” That's economic formation. He has been formed in such a way to believe that when he gets this amount of money, he is then secured, but he's singing, “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe, he’s my everything.” Like they do conflict [laughs]. But then there's also systemic stuff, which is what Professor Desmond gets at. This stuff is made, it's constructed like this.
We've all agreed that we can all buy homes that we cannot afford. I live in a house that I cannot afford, but we've all agreed it’s okay for me to have a debt for 30 years. And I smiled when I got this opportunity to give people so much money that have been formed in a certain way [laughs]. You know what I mean? And so I think when you have these conversations, I would wanna narrow the question for the person you're talking to, because all of these things are going to hit them at once. Are you talking about your own personal budget? Are you talking about, how can we as a community pay for folks to go on the men's retreat or the women's retreat? Or is pop up? There's like, personal, relational stuff, and then there's like, oh, Dallas has the most slums in the United States. Like East Dallas, how it's set up. Corporations went and bought up all these houses and… did he use Dallas as an example in his book?
Drexel: I mean, I haven’t gotten there.
Jonathan Walton: Oh, wait. Okay, Did Desmond write Evicted too?
Drexel: He does. Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: Okay, sorry. Dallas is in Evicted not Poverty, by America. But anyway, all that to say there's that reality of how can we tackle affordable housing for one out of five people in Dallas? That's a question. That's a different question than, how can our community make sure when we have small group, nobody feels alienated by the food that we eat and paying for the food? And that's even different from, “Okay, I'm looking at my budget this month. How much am I going to save? How much money to give? Narrowing it for people can help have access because it's going to be overwhelmed when you open the [unclear 00:37:22].
Drexel: Yeah, that's good. Helpful. I mean, I can keep it going with questions. I don't want to monopolize.
Jonathan Walton: He got the questions.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughter]. Jonathan, you're a little bit quiet too, just so you know.
Jonathan Walton: Is this better?
Sy Hoekstra: That is a lot better [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: I'm like, backed away from this mic. I'm sorry.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, you got too relaxed.
Jonathan Walton: I did, that's too casual. They see me standing up here, you know what I'm saying?
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Let me know. I'll try to. But then the cameras be… I hope y'all don't mind me being cold [laughter].
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, we could do, let me see. What time is it actually?
Jonathan Walton: 15 minutes.
Sy Hoekstra: 15 minutes? Yeah, I'm always like, I don't know, what do people want? But the answer is, whatever questions they have usually [unclear 00:38:22] [laughter]. That's what you're coming here for. So yeah, go for it if you have another one.
Drexel: Yeah. You guys touched on Wild at Heart and I'd love to hear your perspective on, one… because there's a lot of people who can tell you what manhood is not. But what are we saying that manhood is, and is there a difference than in womanhood, you know what I mean? Because I'll give you this, my personal practical example. I took one of my sons on a manhood journey, kind of, maybe that's modeled after Wild at Heart a little bit. We go out in the wilderness, we do some spiritual formation stuff. And I have a three year curriculum. It's a whole thing here, but I'm going to do the same for my daughter, just different focuses. But she will be out in the wilderness too, with her dad [laughter].
But anyways, I think some of that, and you're talking to a former military guy, too. So I think some of that is good. And so I'll just speak for myself. The parts that I did like about Wild at Heart when I read it years ago, is there is a time for Jesus to take you and have focused time with you, away from distractions to then bring you back to your mission. And that time was preparation for you to therefore do the hard things that you will be called to do so you can go back and remember. My son will forever remember the time we were hiking. It was snowing on us, our water bottles were freezing on us, and so it's like a safety issue. But he will always go back to that and be like, and I'm gonna call him back like, “Son, you did this. You know you can do this other thing,” you know what I mean? So I just be curious at your thoughts.
Jonathan Walton: I think one of the things that was problematic about Wild at Heart is that it is not necessarily only how it framed manhood, it's how it framed manhood in relation to womanhood. And so you're saying, oh, yeah, this rite of passage, which is thousands of years old, from a boy to a man, and I think what it unfortunately did was it then said, “This is what men do, and only men do,” as opposed to, we as humans do this. So like I have daughters, and she was asking me like, “Well, what's the difference between me and a boy?” And we we're talking about faith, she goes, “Well…” Actually, the way it was framed, she goes, “What do you, baba, do as a Christian?” And I said, “I'm called to love God, love my neighbors, and then love myself,” like in this classic commandments.
And then she goes, “What about mama?” And I said, “Oh, mama is supposed to love God [laughs], love neighbors and love herself.” And she goes, “So it's the same.” And I said, “Yeah.” I said, “Now, there are ways that God made me like, I can love my neighbors through doing these physical things that mama just can't do, but then there's other things that I can't do, that my mama can do, and we're supposed to lean on each other in that way.” But and the way that she understood that in her mind, was that she was not then limited with God. Whereas I think when I read Wild at Heart, and particularly like I said, I read it and I felt fine, but for the queer guys in the group, I could see them shutting down immediately.
They're like, “This is not… I'm just not that.” And I think the Lord, when he invites us into things, there's something about the call of God that does not feel impossible in a way that we are disqualified, but it feels impossible and therefore we rely on him. And Wild at Heart for the people that I was around, felt impossible to them. And so then they just went down that road of exclusion, and then ultimately left InterVarsity. At least because that was a campus fellowship in that way. So I think manhood looks like womanhood in that way. But then we have these different responsibilities because of how God has made us physically, mentally, emotionally, and then the ways that we can liberate each other because of the gifts that we've been given.
We can talk more about what that looks like next month [laughs] on another call. But I think about it a lot too, because I have daughters. And how do I not perpetuate patriarchal structures that hurt my daughters? I'm just not interested in doing that.
Sy Hoekstra: Well, now, I was gonna say, I think the thing to do here would probably be to ask one of the women on the call [laughs], rather than have a third man speak. Although I have lots of thoughts as a disabled person too, but I'd rather, since we have limited time, if Helen or Cassie has thoughts, I'd probably rather you talk.
Jonathan Walton: Go for it.
Helen: Cassidy, you can go. I've talked. Jonathan, I liked what you said, that resonates. That's how I see it. Yeah. We come but with different giftings and different perspectives even, but it's not you are not a man or a woman if you don't fit this box, because that's not who God is.
Cassidy: Yeah. I think a lot of the culture that has kind of… I've not read Wild at Heart, but I am familiar with kind of the complementary culture and conservative evangelical. But yeah, I think, what you said of like the black and white, this is what being a woman is, and this is what being a man is, and often that's either implicitly or explicitly communicated as being a woman means submitting to a man. And I think Helen, like you said, that we all have different giftings, and even the individuals have different giftings. But Jonathan, I really like how you communicated out of like, that of we're called to love God, love others, love ourselves, no matter who we are and no matter what our giftings are. And then I think, yeah, just like each person is called to do that in the way that they have been gifted.
Jonathan Walton: How does that line up for you Drexel?
Drexel: Yeah. I mean, I think I agree. I'm in a personal journey right now. I went to one of the most conservative seminaries, I think, in America. But I was always, one, that was different because I'm a lot older than most of those folks. I've been in the military for 10 years. Most of these folks have just graduated from Bible College two weeks ago [laughter]. So it's just a different vibe. But anyways, so I think right now, you just caught me in a journey of unlearning the role, specifically, of women in the church and the way it's been taught and so I have a lot more questions than I have processed. I just read The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Barr.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh yeah. Beth Allison Barr.
Drexel: Yeah. So that was a very insightful book, and I think just well done to show again Christian history [laughs]. You know what I mean? When you look at the history, it just unlocks things. Things that you thought were like biblically sound are actually just a product of people and time that have just carried over and so I don't know how that hit me [laughs] to answer your question.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, you're still working on it. That's fine.
Jonathan Walton: I'm gonna speak for Sy in this moment. I pasted his essay, I Am Not a (Real) Man. It is one of the best things he’s ever written.
Sy Hoekstra: That's what I was gonna say actually, to add another angle on this, Drexel, is the disability thing for me. I have never, fortunately for me, I heard all those messages when I was a kid about real men do X, Y and Z, and it was all stuff that I as a blind man can't do. And people talk about you protect your wife and your kids or whatever. And I wrote in that essay, I was like, “I've told my wife multiple times if we ever get attacked, I wish her the best of luck, because I'm gone.” [laughs] That's just the way it is. I'm never going to be the man that those cultures, that those books, or whatever wanted me to be. And fortunately for me as a kid, I never had the instinct of thinking that I was less.
My instinct for whatever reason was always just, “Well, they're wrong. I'm a man, you say whatever you want, get out of my face.” [laughs] I've just never experienced, all the things that people say should be the distinction between men and women that I can't do, like never once have I experienced it as like this actually pulls me farther from Jesus. When it really comes down to it, it doesn't affect my relationship with Jesus, that I can't go hunting, no [laughs]. No, it does not. Or whatever it is that I'm supposed to do as a man. So in fact, it's often been the opposite, it's often been, I have found that in my exclusion or whatever, in my marginalization from the status of real man, you find Jesus more.
It's in weakness that you find God's strength made perfect. It's not in your big, powerful strength as a strong man. And [laughs] so I don't know. I just come at it from that angle, and the distinctions that people always try and come up with from my perspective, that like saying this is the distinctions that we have to have between men and women, they do not resonate with my experience, and always ended up sounding a bit silly or like we're trying to cling to something by justifying it scripturally. And so I don't, I just come at everybody's on their own journey, I guess. But I don't know the difference, and I don't care. I really am at a place now where I'm like, I do not know if there is a meaningful distinction between men and women when it comes to discipleship, because whatever the distinction is, I don't fit it.
And there's so many individual exceptions. There's so many women who do things that are traditionally male, and so many men who do things that are traditionally female and whatever that I again, I never see any hit to their discipleship. I never seen any noticeable un-Christlikeness, because of that, that I kind of am sort of left wondering if the distinction matters at all. And then I see so many of my queer siblings and people who just screw up the whole binary for everybody [laughs], also following Jesus to an extent that I find quite admirable, and I see all the fruits of the Spirit in them that I'm left pretty skeptical about the importance of the binary. Does that, I think that kind of brings us to the end of our time, then, doesn't it?
Jonathan Walton: [laughs].
Sy Hoekstra: I’m sorry I had more background noise than I expected to have today. That was my fault, and bad timing of telling people when they should come into my apartment and fix things [laughs].
Drexel: I didn't hear anything.
Helen: I have heard nothing the whole time [laughs].
Sy Hoekstra: That's wonderful news.
Jonathan Walton: Friends, thank you, because Sy has superhuman hearing [laughter].
Sy Hoekstra: No, I don't. No. I have hearing that any human could have if they were forced to use their ears in the way that I am.
Jonathan Walton: But all of our calls, he's like, “Did you hear that?” I'm like, “Sy, I don’t.” He’s recording. He's like, “No, no, there's a noise.” I’m like [unclear: 00:52:13] apartment above you. I don't know what's happening.”
Sy Hoekstra: Well, Jonathan feels vindicated. I'm glad for that. Jonathan, you want to close us out?
Jonathan Walton: Yes, yes. Two things. One, we dropped a lot of things in the chat. So if you want to use any of those things, please click on them. And because we do a lot of stuff around political discipleship, that's kind of our thing, want to point you to the evangelical confession that came out a few weeks ago. We were able to produce a video for that. If you're like, “Oh, what can I be thinking about? Can I lean into something around in this season?” Those are just some really great leaders to look at. And then if you're looking for a Bible study, something to go deeper in that, I was able to work on this thing called God's Good News About Politics, five session Bible study, that's a resource as well.
Just open another tab and all the tabs get opened on your screen already if you wanna do that. Please do email, reach out if you have questions, it’s literally why we’re here.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh yeah. For sure, feel free to, info@ktfpress.com, just email any follow ups, any whatever.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, or comment on Substack. You can comment on there.
Sy Hoekstra: Or that.
Jonathan Walton: We can chat on there. So again, thank y'all so much for giving us a solid purpose in the afternoon and be able to be present. The prayer that I'm going to pray, Sy, would be the Franciscan benediction. So if you're like, “Oh, I wanna pray that too,” these are prayers I pray every day, and I hope that if there are words that shape you every day, these are the ones that shape you. Let's pray. Father in heaven the name of Jesus, would you bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships that we might live deep within our hearts. Would you bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war, so we might reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.
God, would you bless us with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people and the planet that we might work with justice, freedom and peace. And God would you bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in the world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done. Bring justice, kindness and a good view of Jesus Christ to every form of creation, especially to children and the poor. In Jesus name, amen.
Sy Hoekstra: Amen
Drexel: Amen.
Sy Hoekstra: Thank you all so much for coming.
Jonathan Walton: Yep, thanks. Have a great rest of the afternoon.
Helen: Thank you guys.
Cassidy: Thank you.
[The intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]
Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for listening. Again, as a reminder, please tell somebody about this show who you think might be interested in it. We would love any and all people that you can recommend to come hear us. The more the merrier. We would so appreciate it if you could tell friends of yours that you think would be interested in what we do here. It's an extremely helpful way for you to support us and what we do at KTF Press. Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. The transcriptions of this show are by Joyce Ambale. I did the editing on this, the very minimal editing on this episode, and the production of this show is done by you, our lovely paid subscribers.
Thank you so much, and we'll see you on Friday. It's a good one, you don't wanna miss it. We have the one and only Lisa Sharon Harper on the show. So see you on Friday, thank you so much for listening.
[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you’re building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]
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