Exploring the Divine: A Roundtable on Spirituality and Contemplative Practices

Joshua Noel: 00:00:23

Second Peter, chapter one, verses two through four. In the New American Standard Bible, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

For his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

Through these, he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world on account of lust. So here the author is opening up a letter to a group of Gentile believers who are learning what it really means to be a part of the faith.

In this intro, the author states that we are partakers in the divine nature. Josh Patterson, what does it mean to you and why do you believe the author may have included that in an introduction?

You know that line about partakers of the divine nature? Why do you think you would have included that in an introduction of what it means to be Christian?

Josh Patterson: 00:01:17

Yeah, so I'm not going to claim to speak for the author because I'm going to give my interpretation of this and what I think it means to participate. It's probably better than the divine nature. And I know for a fact the author didn't have this in mind, because I want to offer a process perspective.

So for me, as a process person, much to Aaron's chagrin, I believe that God is present in each moment, inviting us into the next best thing that is good and beautiful and true.

And so one of the things that Jesus did really well was he gave in to that divine lure in each moment of Jesus becoming to the point where Jesus literally becomes the image of the invisible God. And I think the invitation is there for us as well.

And so through Jesus example, we are shown that we too can give in to the divine Lord, participate within what God is doing, and become more like God and bring the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. And so I think, you know, that's kind of when I think about participating within the divine nature, that's where I go.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:27

Yeah, I can dig it. Not sure how on board I am, but I dig it. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Whole Church podcast. If you're on YouTube, you notice several faces.

You're like, oh, this must be a round table. We are back with around the old first round table of the new year, and we're rounder than ever. We have several guests.

You know, sometimes we say round table, and it's just Joe or Joe and Christian. But today for our first roundtable, we're gonna be talking about spirituality kind of in general, and then, like, contemplative practices.

Aaron Simmons is back. You just met him last week. He's back. So your. Your favorite philosopher that talks about Kierkegaard and the.

What it means to live a life worthy of your finitude, and then you're like, wait a minute, who's that process guy at the beginning? Yeah, that's right. Your favorite process podcaster who's not Tripp. If Trip's listening and Trip's not listening, who's even better than Trip?

The one and only Josh Patterson from Rethinking Faith. And I think the first time you guys have ever met, Reverend Laura Whitman is here.

She's going to be one of the hosts over there on Systematic Ecology, helping us with that show. She's also a Methodist. I know she's a minister, and it has something to do with college, and she's cool, but I'm blanking on the rest.

Help me out real quick.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:03:55

I am currently serving as the chaplain of Lewisburg College and the coordinator of Lighthouse Congregations for the North Carolina Conference.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:03

Gotcha. That. That is cool. That sounds so official. I need to be. I need more official titles for myself. Another official title. My pastor.

The one and only pastor of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Pastor Will Rose. How's it going?

Pastor Will Rose: 00:04:19

It's good. And I remembered, since this is a roundtable, the first time you met me in person, you looked at me, you said, your head is rounder than I was.

Like, man. So I'm glad my round head can be a part of this round table.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:33

Yeah. This whole series is actually inspired by Will's Head. It's the sponsor sponsored by Will's Head.

We are also joined by the most frequent frequenter of the roundtable, Pastor Joe Day. You know, he does the home church. You guys should know him from, like, a million different podcasts and other things that we talked about on here.

But, yeah, he's a pastor of a home church, leader of several Christian podcasts, as well as his own. His own network. Did you want to talk about the Mention what the network is real quick? Because I'm blanking on the name.

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:05:01

Yeah. KFM Broadcasting, where we live out our faith through our fandoms, through our theology, and through every part of our lives.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:15

Beautiful. And we will link that below with everyone's links. There'll be lots of links today, and Joe actually is the one who inspired today's conversation.

So in the last roundtable, we Were talking about fruits of the Spirit, and he talked about how maybe it's more than just attributes and there's something more spiritual there. And, yeah, we're going to use that as a springboard later on for this episode. Yeah.

Aaron Simmons: 00:05:35

Yeah.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:05:36

So if you like our show, this is your first time here. What's up? Thank you. But you should check out the Onazone Ministry podcast network.

Much like Joe, we do have our own network that we partner with and run to. You know, just kind of get a bunch of people out there, listen to a bunch of stuff. You can also get in our Discord server.

The link to that is in the notes. You can talk to us on there. You can bug us on there.

There's a little feature called pinging, and you can just at everybody, and then everyone on the server has to see what you have to say. So check that out.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:05

Don't encourage that. Oh, man. All right, well, with that, everyone listening knows, and hopefully everyone here knows. I like to start our episodes off with a.

The holy sacrament of silliness, because you can't be not in unity when you're being as silly as I like to be. And this one. This one's kind of a little bit more straightforward. I tried to make it straightforward for the round tables.

What is the best profession that a turkey could possibly pursue? Hey, Josh wants to go first. I'm gonna throw this to Josh.

Josh Patterson: 00:06:40

So my answer is a phenomenologist, because they are loud. They kind of puff their chest up and squawk around a lot, but they can't fly very far. And so a phenomenologist would be my answer for.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:56

Oh, I like turkey professionals.

Aaron Simmons: 00:06:58

So I. I guess I get to respond to that. I think a turkey might be a podcaster for exactly the same reasons.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:08

All right, well, I'm gonna go ahead and go. I'm. I'm thinking that they'd be. They'd be all right at landscaping, you know, growth or like, pest control.

Like, they go through your yard, pick out any bugs, you know, keep it nice and on the level. I think they could be. They can handle that. Oh, Laura has one. We're just going all kinds of order today. It's fine.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:07:28

Okay, so here's what a turkey would be, and that is a tofu salesman, obviously, to try to distract.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:36

Good. Good market.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:07:37

That is mass turkey homicide at Thanksgiving. They would be the ones responsible for encouraging the tofu market, obviously.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:45

I'll just have to let them know they won't be successful. For me, at least. DJ What. What do we Got what? What's a turkey's best career path?

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:07:54

Well, I think if initial D couldn't get people to eat tofu, then turkeys probably can't eat people to eat tofu. But I was thinking, like, I don't know the official name for it, but a trailblazer. You know, they work for the county.

They just make trails and parks.

Joshua Noel: 00:08:10

Oh, okay.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:08:10

Just a big team of them because. Yeah, I could see they do only have their beaks.

Joshua Noel: 00:08:14

I could see it. I could see it. All right, Will, what. What career path are you sending a turkey on?

Pastor Will Rose: 00:08:21

Well, some of you guys know my dad passed away not that long ago, a few weeks back, and he was notorious for calling UNC basketball players turkeys when they missed shots. Try not to cut.

Even though I learned all my cuss words from him watching Carolina basketball, he later in life tried not to cuss in front of, like, grandkids stuff. So he would yell and call him turkeys. So right now, the way that basketball team is playing, UNC basketball player, bunch of turkeys.

Joshua Noel: 00:08:51

All right, Joe, take us home. What is a turkey's best career path?

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:08:56

Flagger for road construction crews. The way that they stand in the middle of the road and do not move. Absolutely fantastic.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:09:04

The stop slow, guy. The stop slow. I love it.

Joshua Noel: 00:09:10

I love it.

Well, Joe, while you're speaking, I'm gonna go ahead and throw the first question to you because it's about something we talked about last time in that last roundtable.

The fruit of Spirit came up as something that's like, you know, we were arguing like, should Christians have the fruit of the spirit because they are Christian, or are they Christian because they have the fruit of the Spirit? Or is there something else going on you were kind of getting at? There's something more than just attributes. There's something spiritual going on.

So could you kind of unpack a little bit what that miniature debate was and, I don't know, just kind of springboard us into this spirituality conversation here?

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:09:48

Yeah, so I. So where what had happened was you had posed that it is that they're just basically personality traits of folks that would be.

That would be Christian.

And I argued that while other people outside of the faith may have these personality traits, that may be because of the deep metaphysics of exposure to the spirit. So if we take seriously the realities of the Holy Spirit and the realities that this is a world created by and inhabited by God, then what if the.

The real McCoy, if you will, is had by Christians because of exposure to the Holy Spirit and that outside of that. It's reverberations, if you will.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:56

Yeah, yeah. And I think part of my. Not pushback, part of my hesitance, maybe I don't know how to word it actually comes from Josh Patterson.

So I'm really cool that Josh is here because he keeps, like, talking about this, like, radical theology stuff, and then I'm like, wait a minute. But, like, what if there's some truth to that?

What if it's not just Christians, but, like, anyone can actually actualize, you know, love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, kindness, self control.

Like, what if it's not just attributes and it's also not just, hey, only Christians have this thing, but what if it's more something that we're able to realize?

And then to throw my own spin on it, like, the more I get into daoism personally, you know, there's a lot of this, like, emptiness, and we actually can't know and stop trying to define and know things that aren't definable or knowable. So I got a lot of that mixed in, where I'm just kind of hesitant to be like, yeah, fruits of spirit. That's a.

That's a Christian thing where Christians have this spiritual thing that God gives them. Not that I, you know, not that I dismiss your take. It's just kind of. I'm starting to see things differently, I think.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:12:02

So the question being, can anyone have fruits of the spirit, or is it just Christians? And we are gonna let everybody get their shot at that, and we're gonna make Josh Patterson go first because it's his fault.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:15

Yeah, Josh. That's what you get for having a name like that, too.

Josh Patterson: 00:12:19

Yeah, that's there. All right, so where. It's fruits of the spirit, right? Not, I guess, a larger question, which would be like, spiritual gifts or something like that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think. I don't know. I would be comfortable saying that. Something along the lines of, you know, especially this. Dang it. I'm at.

I'm at odds with myself because I'm trying to answer it from two different perspectives. Since I started with process, I'll go from a process perspective again. I would re.

Reiterate that God is present in and through all things, at all times, luring all aspects of creation forward in each moment of becoming.

And so if the fruits of the Spirit are something that are part of God's will for us to carry out, then God can be offering those things to all of creation, and then we have the ability to actualize them, to give in to that Call. And I don't think God is only active and present and engaging with Christians, but like I said, all of creation.

So I would say I think anybody can manifest the fruits of the Spirit.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:28

Yeah, real quick. Since Josh and I both kind of commented some on this before we get to everybody else, Joe, did you want to respond to any of that?

Because I feel like you're not saying that only Christians can have an experience of God, but I'm not entirely sure I'm getting what you are saying.

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:13:46

Yeah, so it definitely, it definitely feels like you both are going in a direction that I, that I definitely didn't go in. That it's not there. There isn't a measure of exclusivity.

If anything, it's inclusivity because when you talk about the magnitude of the God of the universe, sure there are things that can be felt and experienced by everybody. The fullest manifestation of said thing comes by way of exposure to the Holy Spirit.

And so I'm definitely not saying that it's a Christian only thing and Christians are the only ones that can experience it, but that God is so pervasive that, that we need to take a look at something beyond where this whole thing started of them just being personality traits and being something more than that.

So I want to make sure that the things that are being responded to are definitely within the lines of where the conversation started in the first place.

Joshua Noel: 00:15:04

Yeah, yeah. Will.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:15:06

Yeah, I kind of like where Joe's going with this in terms of speaking of sometimes we turn in the fruits of the Spirit or the gifts of the Spirit into some like spiritual my Myers Briggs kind of test, you know, and that that's what you're born with or strength finder or something like this is this, this is yours. And, and once you accepted Christ then, then you know you're gifted with these personality.

But I think we carry our own personality distinctiveness with us. But I also think that like yeah same way like God is a part of all of creation and all beings.

Same way we talk about truth with a capital T, love with a capital L is not just exclusive to Christians or people who claim that Jesus is the Christ that pervades all through creation and all people and all human beings since all created in the image of God. So I would my reflection and meditation on on that leans into that these are our gifts that are given apart from ourselves.

But there is an, an aspect of, of kind of choice or conscience or intention of, of lean into practicing these things that you're, you're invited or Lord to be a part of it.

And then, and then we, we have that kind of, whether it's our personalities or choice or intention to, to accept it, to grow in it, to practice into it.

As if, like any gift that you have, you could take any gift and ignore it, not grow into it, or, or you could, you could take it and use it and, and grow in it and evolve with it and those kinds of things. So that's kind of where I'm thinking, these, these spirits. It's not exclusive just to Christians.

One day I say a magic prayer, and then it's given to me, but it was there from the beginning. And then, and then once I acknowledge and lean into it more, I. Then I then become practice and get better, better at it, you know, kind of thing.

It's kind of where I, where my reflection meditation goes.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:17:01

Yeah, I, I feel a similar way. I like, I don't really think spiritual, like fruits are exclusive to Christians.

I think that's kind of an insane thing to say, that only Christians can be gentle and kind. That's just me. Personally, I think it might help a lot, might make it a lot easier if you're a Christian in some cases. But to me, it's just a.

It's a wild claim. So anyone else feel like they have anything else they want to add to that? Because to me, it's pretty dry. Go ahead, Aaron.

Aaron Simmons: 00:17:32

As a philosopher, which for the listeners, if you haven't heard the interview that I did with them, I am not a theologian.

And so the kinds of responses I'm going to give are going to try my best to defer to the theologians about deep theology and say there's some philosophical overlays that may be productive. So I'm a postmodern philosopher, but I am also a Pentecostal Christian, or doing the best I can to be one.

And so that tension for me is definitely one that leads me to a radical inclusivity. I'm a hopeful universalist when it comes to the mode in which God might interact with the world.

But the earlier sort of jovial ribbing between Josh and I is because we are both relationally inclined theists, but I'm an open theist as opposed to a process theist. And one of the distinctions that I take so seriously about that difference is I am still absolutely a robust personalist when it comes to the divine.

I'm a theological personalist. And so what I would suggest is that something like a phenomenological account of.

Of being loved is something that can actually invite us to understand what a Christianity specific understanding of the fruits of the Spirit might offer not as an argument for exclusivism, but as a rationale for why. Well, then, who cares about being Christian if you can have all of the stuff without that? Right?

So it's not a claim about soteriology, it's not a claim about access to heaven, or it's a claim about you're either now good or bad. But to say something like Jean Luc Marion when he says there's a difference between loving and receiving oneself as having been loved.

And so part of what I take seriously about being a Christian or trying to become one is that from the outset, anything that I think I can pull off as good in the world is a response to my having been loved by a person, right. A personal God who is so invested in the good of the human condition that that's why those sorts of fruits make a difference as lived practice. Right?

So it's not at all to say you have to be Christian to display these fruits. It's something more like, you know, accidentally throwing a line into a trout stream. You might catch the biggest trout of the day.

But there's a different thing that happens when you intentionally are casting into that hole because you're making sense of the way the water flow behind that riffle is likely to carry trout. Right.

So for me, that's what Christianity offers is not some special access, but a kind of lived mode of receptivity that maybe gives us a weight to why these fruit are so fruitful. So there's the phenomenologist take on maybe how this matters for me.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:32

Oh, that's interesting, man.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:20:35

Real, real quick, just in terms of, like Dr. Simmons talking about, I love how he's using a fishing reference because, you know, camping, fishing. I love, I love that.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:43

I'd like to go camping. Kierkegaard myself.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:20:45

Yeah, yeah, there you go. But, but it's. It's this language like Lutherans will use, and I think all denominations will use it too.

But this difference between if then because they're for language. And so it's not like if you become a Christian, then you can have gifts of the spirit.

It's like, because these gifts of the spirit are there for you, therefore I live into it and respond to it in a way that, that, that I live into that gift. That's as given to me.

Luther in the catechism also said in with the third article of the Apostles Creed that faith is a gift, that even faith itself is a gift from the Holy Spirit. And so we respond to that faith and we lean into that faith. We practice that faith in our daily lives. That even faith is.

Is not just something that I create on my own strength, but it's also a gift from the Holy Spirit that's given to me. And because it's given to me, therefore I respond to it and into it and grow into it. So I just had to get that in as the Lutheran on this round deal.

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:21:40

So.

Aaron Simmons: 00:21:40

And it's important to distinctiveness. Right. Is what I want to maintain. Right. Because I once had a student who asked me, so she wasn't religious at all.

And she got really, really mad and disappointed in me when I said, I think there is a degree to which my Christianity does open a different relationship to the idea of love. And if it didn't do that, then I'm not sure what it is we're doing by trying to take seriously on podcasts and in communities.

Why then keep talking about all the God stuff? Right. If there's nothing distinctive, what's the point? But distinctive doesn't mean superior. It doesn't even mean better.

It just simply means there's a reflective dynamic here that maybe has something to recommend it. Right. And that's a risky gesture. So distinctive doesn't mean superior.

And I think that's something that in broader evangelical Christianity, distinctive almost always indicates a superiority that then functions within an exclusivism. And that's the thing I think that we should oppose as Christians.

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:22:55

Yeah. As somebody who sits on a weird line of.

In some ways, for those of you who don't know me and haven't heard me speak, there are some things that you're going to hear me say where you're going to be like, yo, that dude is probably the most theologically conservative person out of the group. And then there's going to be other people.

Other times where you're going to hear me say something where like, oh, that dude likes to color outside the lines. I'm. I'm not ever going to. You're not going to hear me say that I am a universalist.

That is not a title that I would claim for myself, but I certainly believe that modern evangelicalism has missed the point when talking about the grand nature and scope of the God of the universe, that there is this dichotomy that we. And Dr.

Simmons mentioned it where there's almost like this implied superiority that's spoken behind the scenes of, oh, as Christians, we get the good stuff. We get the top shelf stuff, whereas the. The heathens of the world they can, they can go hang out in the clearance aisles, you know what I mean?

They got, they get the bottom shelf stuff. Like, it's not that, but there is a measure of reflective nature to the person who is living out of relationship.

And that's a weird thing because I think as, as, as children, that idea of living in relationship with Jesus is presented from authoritarian perspective.

And we' model that says, oh, I'm going to say this, and I'm going to memorize Scripture and I'm going to do all this stuff to appease the authoritative structure in my life. But in all actuality, as adults, there is a measure of, okay, are we just trying to be good people or are we trying to be something more?

Is there something more to the spiritual experience of the man than to just be a good person who's happy and joyful and a pleasant person to be around? Or is there deeper resonance for the human being that goes beyond just the person who would call themselves a mainline Christian?

Joshua Noel: 00:25:23

Yeah.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:25:23

All right. So sometimes it feels like the more spiritual Christians focus on these spiritual gifts instead of the fruits of the spirit.

So does anyone have any idea why that might be? I know for me and Aaron, we're Pentecostal, so that's what we're all.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:42

I'm still half.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:25:43

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:44

Wait. Wait till our spin off podcast. It's going to look exactly like Two and a Half Men, but it's going to be called Two and a Half Pentecostals.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:25:50

Yeah, Two and a Half pence. Yeah. Should debut sometime next year. You know how TV deals go. But why might that be? Who knows? I want to hear.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:26:04

I think I'm United Methodist pastor, so we have a long process of ordination in the Methodist Church. You gotta, like, sell a kidney and, you know, do all the life processes that go along with it.

But, you know, in our process, one of the things we talk about early on, in the process of not even just ordination, but, you know, licensed ministry, when you're discerning your call into ministry, we talk about fruits of the Spirit a lot. And, you know, in that we're not talking about those gifts like, can you sing in church on Sunday morning?

We're talking about where is the fruitfulness? And one of the things I think that the Methodist Church does well in that maybe too well, sometimes to a fault.

One of the things that they do well is asking, how can you measure the fruit of your ministry and the fruit of what you've actually done in the world around you? And again, this isn't just about Being Christian or being a follower of Christ. But where do you see the fruits of what you've put out into the world?

And there's lots of different ways we see that measured in different traditions and different religions. You know, even something as simple as karma, like what do you put out into the world? Right.

And I think sometimes we get so caught up in what our gifts are that we forget that the measure of our gifts is that fruit of the spirit. Where have you actually seen something happen because of your faithfulness or because of your growth with God?

And we had that language about relationship, right.

Talking about, you know, how do we build relationships with one another, how do we build authentic relationships with God and with the people that we're in community with that isn't, as you said, appeasing the authorities or trying to, you know, be able to. To recite the most scripture or do Bible drills or things like that. But how, actually. Which I still have trauma from as.

Joshua Noel: 00:27:58

A kid, but I always won, so no trauma here.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:28:01

I had never was anywhere near. And I was the preacher's kid, so that made it even worse. But. But yeah, I mean, how do you.

How do you actually show that measurement of relationship and of faith and how you grow with God in a way that allows you to produce fruit? That was a long answer, so I'll let someone else.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:18

No, I love it. I love it. Also, for anyone who's not on YouTube, jump on YouTube long enough to see how cool Laura's backdrop is. It's fantastic.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:28:29

Yeah, that's all JP's background is also pretty cool. Kozik jersey.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:35

True.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:28:36

In a frame. That's sick. I'm not paying to get any jerseys framed.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:39

Well, Will's got Captain America, so that he gets a bonus. I'm moving, so I have an excuse. Usually I'd have an Indiana Jones poster.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:28:47

Back here, but we can imagine it.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:49

Yeah, just. Just pretend you see Harrison Ford every time you see me, actually.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:28:55

So I think what happens a lot here is we live in a such a sensationalist society, like someone being exceptionally kind or exceptionally gentle because their question is not gonna get anyone's attention. But here's somebody healing the sick, speaking in tongues.

That's the kind of thing that grabs attention, gets attention, and that's what most people care about these days. I think that's one easy answer as to why people are more worried about the gifts than the fruits. But, yeah, well.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:26

And that's where I am. Still a continuationist. I'm still like, got a lot of my Pentecostals speaking in tongue, stuff being real.

But that's where, like, I get where some cessationists are coming from of, like, hey, you know, sometimes maybe the stuff is borderline demonic because a lot of people speak in tongues. Like, the way that they act, I just have a hard time believing God's in that business, you know?

And what's funny to me, like, what really kills me is, like, there's this book called First Corinthians that's in the Bible, where, like, literally, Paul's like, hey, you know, speaking of tongues isn't all that. And somehow we still make the same fault. That's, like, directly talked about in the book. It's like, yeah, it's nothing new, right?

Pastor Will Rose: 00:30:04

Like, there's like, First Corinthians 12 and 13. Like, there's a reason he wrote that from the very beginning. Like, it's in terms of, like, hierarchy of gifts, of, I'm special. You're not.

I'm better than you are. Look at me. I, I, you know, I have more Instagram followers than whatever, you know, like, comparison. Comparing one another, you know, is, Is.

Is part of being human, I think.

And so, yeah, even from the very beginning, Paul was, was trying to sort that out with those early churches, trying to figure out these gifts and working together as a team. North Carolina basketball. Come on. And others. So, like, anyway, that's. That's what we're gonna do.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:41

Yeah. Well, I haven't heard Jay Patty speak for a second, so I'm gonna throw the next thing to you, Josh. Sorry, guys. I still call him Jay Patty.

I don't know where that came from. Like, at some point, I heard him. Someone say that, and I'm like, there's too many Joshes. So that's just how his name registers in my brain.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:30:55

His Instagram handle, like, in that.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:58

Is that where that came from?

Josh Patterson: 00:31:01

It's my IG handle.

And I actually was given that nickname in middle school when I was still tall enough to play goaltender in soccer before the goals got bigger and I didn't.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:31:14

Yeah, that's real. That's really annoying. I get that.

Josh Patterson: 00:31:17

J. Patty was the nickname I was getting.

Joshua Noel: 00:31:19

I. I think what's funny is I'm about to throw you a phenomenologist question, but it's fine.

Josh Patterson: 00:31:25

Ask Aaron.

Joshua Noel: 00:31:26

No, it's good you got this. No, actually, I wanted to see if anybody wanted to share anything.

I was just going to put Josh on the spot first to help everybody else think, as far as just experiences within the church, I feel like. And Josh actually Mentions this in his own podcast.

It's hard to shake that Christian label, even for some of us who are not so sure about stuff anymore. Usually I'm on board, but I have my moments where I'm like, do I want to be called Christian?

When I see what some of these people who are calling themselves Christians are doing, and, you know, I'm like, I'm not sure. But then some of these experiences, I think, are what really hold me to it still.

And I think we can't talk about spirituality without at least touching on experience. So, Josh, again, you're on the spotlight. But if so, everybody else can think about any other experiences they might want to share.

Josh Patterson: 00:32:14

So you want me to offer a spiritual experience that I have or just.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:18

If you want to talk, like, just vaguely about, like, how your experience as a formed you, maybe.

Josh Patterson: 00:32:22

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I've had. Because I could go in two directions.

I've had personal spiritual experience that makes me uncomfortable to think about because I don't always feel like I have nice categories for them.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:34

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:32:35

You know, like, I've had really beautiful, transformative experiences doing, like, imaginative prayer with a spiritual director where I have made big life decisions based off of that prayer experience. I quit a job because one of them, you know, it. It kind of involved this. A few different spiritual direction sessions.

We were doing the kind of imaginative prayer thing, and I was really struggling. This was after I stopped being a pastor. I was really struggling with separating my identity with my. From my vocation.

So I thought Josh Patterson was pastor. And now that I no longer did that, was I giving God the middle finger? Am I, like, breaking the rules somehow?

And so in my imaginative prayer, my spiritual director would have me place myself at the bar that I was working at, because that's what pastors do, and they stop being pastors. They go work in a brewery. So I'd place myself there. And this place was really cool. It had a circular bar.

So there was a big circle of people kind of always around me. And she would ask me, okay, where is everybody sitting at the bar? Okay, there's some people here. There's a couple here. People up there.

She's like, now, where is Jesus at this bar? And for some reason, Jesus was always at the end of the circle because, you know, the circle had to open up so you could get into it.

And so Jesus was always at the end, but he was always the one sending drinks to different people and, you know, always, like, waving and acknowledging me while I was there. And that was really helpful. To kind of get this sense of peace that Jesus was okay with my current career choice.

And then one day I was doing this prayer and Jesus was no longer at the bar. And I was like, looking around like, what the heck? Where's Jesus?

And he was standing in the entryway to the brewery, and there were two people standing in front of him. And Jesus was kind of like beckoning myself to him. And it was like, okay, it's time for you to go.

But, like, you have to forgive these people before you can leave. And so in my imaginative prayer, I forgave these two people who caused me significant harm at this brewery. And then I left with Jesus.

And then I went downstairs and told my wife that I was quitting my job that day.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:56

Oh, man.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:57

I don't have categories for this. It was an experience that I remember vividly. Like, it actually happened. But, like, I. I don't know, was it real?

Was it just my mind playing tricks on me? Does it matter? I don't know that that's a spiritual experience I had personally.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:15

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:35:16

And then I think, yeah, anyway, no.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:18

No, I like that. That's attracts to me in a lot of ways. You know, growing up in a castle, I've had a lot of experiences that I don't quite have words for.

And then those who are aware, which I think pretty much everybody here, probably a lot of people listening.

There was a shooting at my house last year, and one thing I struggled with is going through, okay, well, maybe I should deal with radical theology and then I'll make me feel better. Because, like, this whole idea of God predestined this to happen pissed me off too much, so I can't hold on to that.

And then I was like, well, God not existing at all and being with us kind of sucks. So I couldn't hold on to that. And then like. Like Tom Ord's thing of, like, oh, hey, God's working with us.

And I'm like, well, where was God here then? Because, like, don't. My dog just. Is it good enough to work with God here? Like, what? None of it really satisfied me.

And that's where, like, I've been kind of borderline on this Taoism thing for a while.

But then this whole idea of, like, hey, stop finding answers, stop defining things, sometimes we should disregard a lot of this stuff and let things just be. And, you know, it hasn't given me any good answers, but it's calmed my spirit a little bit, and that's what I've been meditating in.

So for Me, right now, my spirituality is probably closer to a Daoist spirituality, even though I grew up Pentecostal, and that's probably how I understand stuff most of the time right now, that's just more useful for me. So that's where I'm at. Yeah. Speaking of Pentecostal, do either of the Pentecostals want to talk about experience?

Because that's kind of high up there on that.

Aaron Simmons: 00:36:39

So something I'll give is a experience that I had, but it's a experience of challenging our typical conceptions of what experience looks like within Charismatic or Pentecostal traditions.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:52

I like it.

Aaron Simmons: 00:36:53

So I've told this story on some other podcasts, maybe on Josh's highly, highly, highly recommend, by the way, to the listeners Rethinking Faith. I think Josh is doing some really, really cool stuff recently.

So I was, oh, shoot, I don't know, six, seven, ten years ago auditioning to play drums at a very large Charismatic Pentecostal church in the city where I live. I had been a professional drummer for a very long time, so auditioning to play drums was kind of no big deal.

So I rolled up and went in, played drums, and then they put me in this, like, hot seat surrounded by all of the musicians. The music director was the wife of the head minister, head pastor.

And the first question out of her mouth was, well, Aaron, we know that you take intellect very seriously and that you're a very thoughtful person and you're clearly a good drummer, but we're a little bit concerned because we don't really see the spirit in you.

So can you tell us how it is that God just speaks to you or is active, experiencing God in your daily life and how God just sort of, again, kind of just quickly pricks you as you're moving through the life?

And I say, well, I'm perplexed by your question because it seems to me that the categories you're providing me with to frame the experience of a divine speed, daily quickness, visibility, these are categories of capitalism, not Christian theology. And so the conversation only went down from there, I should note.

And at one point I responded to them and said, look, when you understand experience, you almost always are talking about the very thing that would make it objective and universal. Right? You're talking about gold dust falling from the ceiling that everybody then can see.

And the reason you do that is it elevates your church above all the other churches because that's the thing that they see here.

And I said, well, when I read the Kenotic account of a God who loved so much that the human condition was participatory rather than something to escape. Escape. It seems to me that Jesus goes where the hurting are, not where the signs are. Right.

So it seems to me that maybe there's an inverted conception of experience on offer in a lot of charismatic churches, despite still holding theological commitments to the potential vericality of those things. Right. I have a phenomenological defense of glossolalia, though I've never spoken in tongues.

But it's just so easy to commercialize, commodify, and then deploy experience as some sort of external criterion by which you then elevate your church or your congregation as now the hallmark of what it looks like. And it seems to me that when I was growing up, we kept being told, you know, go into your prayer closet where no one can see.

And yet there's an awful lot of pastors running around saying, look, look, look, look at us. And then making T shirts that say I heart my church and not recognizing the idolatry that they then bear upon their own. You know, cotton blend. Right.

So I think experience has to be inverted in order to understand how is it that experiences transform me, not how can I deploy an account of authoritative experience to try to then dictate how the world should look?

Joshua Noel: 00:40:37

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we are going to have to move on here. I love that answer, but I wanted to throw this to the Christian mystic of the group.

Joe, you've kind of more recently got into this whole mysticism thing, but I feel like that puts you in a unique place to talk about experience and spirituality. So I didn't know if you wanted to comment real quick before we moved on.

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:40:58

I jokingly call myself the longest overnight Christian or Christian mystic in the world, because this has been a process over the last six years, really. And I just. It's taken different wording and things like that. So I vibe a lot with what Dr.

Simmons just said, that it is so easy to commercialize experience. And I. I'm still in this weird space of whether or not to go forward, stating the verbiage. And it seems innocuous. It really does.

It seems like I'm splitting cares.

But if you are aware of the labeling and the word, the word choice, you understand just how much weight this difference has, whether or not to say going forward, I am a Christian mystic or I study Christian mysticism, because there are a lot of people who go forward talking about mysticism in a modern sense that are not in any way, shape or form tied to the ancient mystics. It is a modernized reinterpretation that elevates mankind to the fourth member of the Trinity. And in that version, there is a lot of emphasis put on.

Let me tell you about my experience.

The issue with that though is if you go back and you read the original mystics, they warned against doing that because it gives a weird error that you are somehow holier than another person. It presents a weird situation where now you have presented yourself as some kind of hyper spiritual authority.

So to answer your question, Josh, at a base level, have I. Yes, I have joked, but it's not a joke that my come to Jesus moment reads like a Hallmark movie, bro. Like it is got the bells and whistles.

It is radical. My world shattered in the best possible way when I met Jesus.

But the experience of the individual isn't about gold dust coming from the ceiling, as the doctor said, or these big radical moments. They're in the quiet, transformative moments where you are walking with Jesus when you are living with your God. In a real sense.

This is not hyperbolic, y'all. This is not. I mean this in the most shot out possible sense that I could possibly frame it. I mean that literally, not figuratively.

But that doesn't necessarily mean hyper charismatic expressions of the faith in the most standard sense of it. I too can also give a defense of exactly why I believe that things like speaking in tongues, healing, all that jazz do still happen today.

Do I believe every dude that gets up on the stage and starts shalama lama ding donging all over the place and starts knocking people over here, there and everywhere and freaking out everybody? No. No, I don't. Because that's not what scripture says. That's not the example that we have in scripture. So I think this is.

I agree that in order to really get to the actual root of what it means to have an experience as a human that has engaged with the divine, we need to get out of the framework of selling your experience as something greater than the next guys.

Joshua Noel: 00:44:48

Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah, there's a. There's a lot to that and a couple quick remarks and then TJ is going to bring us into the roundup.

But for me, and maybe this will be a good future roundtable conversation is there is this troubling thing of like, what? When do we believe this stuff? You know, I still do believe in the glossolalia. I speak in tongues.

When I'm in my car and I hear certain worship music, I don't have a defense for it. So I'm going to need Aaron to pass that along to me. So I have one, but I just do it, you know, I just allow it to be.

And yet at the same time, I have a lot of troubling troubledness. Troubling troubledness around this because, you know, I do remember the first time I was at a church camp and someone was praying for somebody else.

And you know, we usually have these big Pentecostal moments and someone said, hey, why are you trying to push me to the ground? And then I realized so many times when I saw someone fall out in the spirit, they were literally just being pushed.

Then I'm like, oh, now what do I do with that? I don't have an answer, but maybe that's a good discussion for a later date.

Aaron Simmons: 00:45:51

Cool.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:45:52

So like he said, we're at our roundtable roundup. If you've been on this before, you know what the deal is. If you're new here, going to read out four questions.

So everyone's going to know what they are. Then we're going to go one at a time and all of you are going to answer one of the four questions.

You have to repeat the question you're answering and no one can ask any follow up questions until we're all done. So we have four questions.

There are seven of us, so we might just get seven different answers to the same question, but we might get most of them twice. So Josh and I are also participating and here are the questions.

A, how would you differentiate spiritual gifts from other kinds of magic or witchcraft? B, what kinds of contemplative spiritual practices do you personally participate in?

C, are spiritual gifts something beyond our control or do we participate in them and do we need to exercise or build up our gifts? And D, can contemplative practices build up or increase the presence of the fruit of the spirit in us? So think about it for a second.

I'm going to make Josh go ahead and go. Josh host, not J, Patty. So Josh, which one of our questions are you going to ask answer today?

Joshua Noel: 00:47:13

Oh man, this is a hard, hard score. I'm gonna go with B, what kinds of contemplative spiritual practices do you personally participate in? And I'm gonna do a weird one.

I still read the Bible every day, like hardcore every day. I know a lot of, like, more progressive Christians are like, oh, hey, the Bible, it's still, you know, whatever.

And I don't know, I don't, I probably don't consider myself progressive, but like, I don't know, I live in this space where a lot of people to my right are like, Hardcore. Here are these theology books you have to do. And a lot of people to my left are like, here are these progress practices.

And I'm like, I still, even if I don't agree with it, I just enjoy reading the Bible and kind of like sitting with it, you know, having conversations with it. That's me.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:47:55

Cool. I am gonna go ahead and go, and I'm gonna go for our spiritual gifts.

Something beyond our control, or do we participate in them and do we need to exercise or put up our gifts to Annie?

Spiritual gifts, and the way I've been explained it to and taught it to is that you can sure lie about it, but spiritual gifts aren't something you control. They're something that comes over you and you're just kind of washed away in. So that's what that is for me as a young Pentecostal guy.

All right, then I'm just gonna go kind of in screen order for me right now. So, Joe, round up.

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:48:35

What contemplative practices do you engage in? Silence and solitude and prayer as dialogue. So I'm. Silence and solitude is.

Is self explanatory, but prayer as dialogue is a practice of purposefully leaving out Father God in Jesus name, stuff like that. And it's, it's intended to create a comfort in your mind to having relational conversation with God.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:22

Good stuff.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:49:23

All right, Laura.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:49:26

Okay, so I'm going to go with a. How would you differentiate spiritual gifts from other kinds of magic or witchcraft?

I'm going with this one because I love Harry Potter and I love D and D and I love all things that use these sorts of things. But when I was thinking about this question, the first thing that popped into my head is the Patronus charm.

And hopefully other people are nerds here and you know what I'm talking about. But, oh yeah, there's this, this gift of sort of a force of light that guides out evil and wards out that sort of of thing, right?

That everybody has a Patronus. That's your thing. Mine is a dolphin, in case you wanted to know.

Joshua Noel: 00:50:02

But I think mine's literally a ferret. So sad.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:50:08

But you know, when you play like D and D, if you're a healer, you have certain spells. You can't just use your spells willy nilly.

There's a certain order of rest and ways that you have to use your spells that involve dice rolls and things like that. And I think sometimes we want to think about our spiritual gifts as things that we can just use willy nilly, however we want to.

And that's not really how it, how it is if you're using your gifts the proper way.

So if your gifts are gifts of God, gifts that are meant to glorify God, gifts that are meant to give back to God, it's not like just using your patronus to fight the dark in the world, but it's really building your relationship, relationship with God in such a way that those gifts glorify the person who gave you those gifts. So that's, that's my response.

Joshua Noel: 00:50:54

I like it.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:50:56

All right, Aaron.

Aaron Simmons: 00:50:57

So, hey, Laura. That was the coolest answer ever. I have no idea what patronus means, so I appreciate the explanation.

I've only watched maybe two of the Harry Potter movies because my son at one point liked them. So I'm gonna take up number number four. Can contemplative practice build up fruit of the spirit in us?

And my answer here is a simple yes, I think it can. But a recommendation.

The single best book on how it can is by a friend of mine, Wendy Farley, who does queer feminist, very process oriented sorts of Christian theology, absolutely fantastic, fantastic woman and an amazing theologian. But she has a book called, called Beguiled by Beauty. And I use it in my philosophy of religion classes.

It's something that resonates deeply with non religiously identified people who are still trying to seek the kinds of contemplative manifestations of a life well lived.

And my favorite example, to be honest, I forget if it's in her book or it's just something she told me personally, but she says sometimes all it takes to will a kind of faithfulness in your life is the contemplative awareness that you might be able to let the song end in the car before you get out to go into the office. Right.

So this radical sublimity in the pedestrian, as Kierkegaard would say, or the transcendent in the mundane is what I think contemplative practice can build up in us. And so for everyone, pick up a copy. Beguiled by Beauty by Wendy Farley. It is fantastic.

Joshua Noel: 00:52:35

Yeah, I put it on my wish list as you were speaking.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:52:38

All right, we'll put that cup down. It's time to talk, brother.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:52:43

Okay. Yeah. I'm tempted. I'm tempted to go like with, with a. About spiritual gifts.

Imagine WC witchcraft and talk about the beauty and gift of craft breweries and, and beer. Whether that's witchcraft or spiritual gifts, I think it's.

Aaron Simmons: 00:52:59

I think it's both.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:53:01

But I'm gonna go, I'm gonna lean into spiritual practices because my prayer life tends to be. I. It's hard for me to sit still. I know it's hard for you guys to imagine, but hard for me to sit still.

Go, go, go to do list, Sticky notes all over the place. I turn my prayer list or prayer time into like a big to do list as well for God and myself.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:53:20

But I.

Pastor Will Rose: 00:53:21

My practice that I really try to do often is just breathing and being still and relaxing my face. Just relax my face and breathe.

And then let whatever thoughts or images or people's faces or people that are on my heart come to mind in that stillness and breathing. And I just lift up simple prayers that, that God knows what they need and to be with them and those things. So, so Joshua has been a part of that.

Everyone on, on this, this call has been even Aaron, because we've been a part of theology, beer camp, things like, you've all come up into those, those, those mindfulness of things. So, yeah, I mean, the secular ideas of mindfulness versus, like, intentional with contemplative practices, I think there's some overlap.

There's a Venn diagram. But I, I'm on the go and it's hard for me to sit still.

So I have to force myself to breathe and be still and relax my face and let whatever comes to mind comes to mind and lift those names and places and situations to God. That's where I am.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:54:22

All right, Jay Patty, all right.

Josh Patterson: 00:54:26

I'm going to answer the first one. How would you differentiate spiritual gifts from other kinds of magic or witchcraft?

And I'm answering this one because it's the one that makes me the most uncomfortable because I don't know things like this, magic, spiritual gifts, all these kind of things, they still make me deeply uncomfortable because of some, like, metaphysical commitments and stuff I bring to the table as a process person. So, like, I'm a proponent of. I don't know if this is a proper term, but like naturalistic theism.

So I don't think that God is out there somewhere and then kind of like breaks into the world, does some miracles, and then pisses back off to heaven. Or that, like, sometimes God breaks the laws of physics, but then other times God doesn't. I think when miracles happen, I will use that term. Fine.

It's because God is already active and present anyway, and creation is participating, participating with the divine. Creation is giving into the divine lore. Miracles happen. So it's not this breaking of physics. It's not this, again, God out there swooping in.

But it's like baked into how creation works and how God and the world are intertwined and so that leads me to like, weird things. We're like, I don't really know what the difference would be.

So what comes to mind though, just from this conversation might be something like intentionality, reality. Like, what are my intentions in engaging this behavior? Or maybe what is the source? Am I, am I drawing this out of love?

Am I actively trying to participate with the divine to do things that are good and beautiful and true? Or am I choosing to neglect the divine and do things that are selfish and like hex people or something? I don't know.

So all that to say, I don't know, it makes me uncomfortable. But I think maybe intentionality and love, if we lean into love and let that be our guide, then we won't go wrong. So a half assed answer.

Apologize, Apologies.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:56:38

All right, so does anyone have anything to add or that they just want to respond now that the roundup is complete? Okay, that's just two, three.

Normally I would have had to like spray Josh with the water bottle by now, but Laura's hand went up first, so we're gonna let Laura start.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 00:56:54

Oh, I just wanted to respond to Josh by saying thank you for reading your Bible. As a person who teaches Old Testament and New Testament at Lewisburg College, I like when people read their Bibles. So thanks for that. That's all.

Joshua Noel: 00:57:06

Yeah, anytime, literally, all the time. I love it.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:57:10

Literally.

Joshua Noel: 00:57:11

Yeah, yeah.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:57:13

And then Joe's hand went up, I think.

Joshua Noel: 00:57:15

Yeah.

Pastor Joe Dea: 00:57:17

So, so two things. One, actually, both, both of them are to the two, the two respective. Josh's first. I actually have a, a similar response to, to, to Laura's.

I, I always appreciate when I hear somebody say that they read their Bible.

I think one of the misconceptions that people have when they hear the word mystic in, in me associated is, oh, I must be, I must be gun shy about reading my Bible. No, I, I, I too teach Old and New Testament.

I actually teach a class, I travel, I travel around teaching a class of teaching people the proper execution of how to read their Bible and what the Bible actually is and all of that sort of stuff.

So I, I always appreciate hearing, hearing somebody say like, okay, I'm actually engaging with it authentically to, to the other Josh, when, when we do these kinds of things, it is inevitable, it is inevitable that I hear somebody say something that makes me cringe more than anything.

But, and, and, but, but I'm also reminded in moments where I hear somebody be like, like, look, I don't, I don't really have all the best flowery language to give to all of this.

I don't have the right framework and all of this thing worked out, but I'm just gonna put my, put myself out there in the wind so, so to speak, and just, and just put it out there from like what I'm experiencing and what I think and all of that sort of stuff. And so I actually don't think that you had a half assed answer. I think it's an answer based off of like, what would I hear you and say.

And for the record, I'm not. It was more of a, of a joke setup. It wasn' you were the thing that made me cringe this time.

But, but I, whenever I hear somebody trying to be authentic, I don't necessarily care as much whether or not I agree with them, especially in the topic of mysticism.

I think there's probably a, a pretty distinct point where we would shoot off in, in two very, very different, different directions as, as far as this stuff goes.

But I still can appreciate somebody trying to reconcile what they believe and why they believe it, even if they're doing so in a framework that I wholly and completely would not agree with.

Joshua Noel: 00:59:49

Can I go?

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 00:59:50

Tj, you're gonna, you're gonna wait for me to call on you on your show?

Joshua Noel: 00:59:52

I was. It's your show. You're the boss. See right there. Co host for tj the boss. I was also gonna respond to the, to the other Josh, the better Josh J.

Patty, man, I loved his answer because I resonate with that where, yeah, it makes me really uncomfortable.

And then growing up Pentecostal, I feel like it's probably part of why it makes me so uncomfortable sometimes where I'm like, I've seen this thing, like I mentioned earlier, where it's like, stop trying to push me down. I'm like, yeah, sometimes this happens in ways that I just don't like.

For me though, and I'm going to sound a little bit like my pastor today will Rose when I hear questions like that.

Even though I wrote the question so I can tease the question as much as I want, I think it's a bad question because, like, I'm immediately like, what do you mean by gifts of the spirit? And what do you mean by witchcraft and what do you mean by magic? Right? Like all these things like, like these mean so many different things.

If you, if you trace like Eastern Christianity, Christian witches were a pretty common thing.

Like it wasn't outside the realm and it wasn't like people who were out there like I'm going to put an evil hex on someone and I'm worshiping these pagan gods. It was people who like believed that there was some spirituality in the nature and that God was in all things.

And they were using like some of the crystals and weird stuff we see kind of commercialized today, but in a more genuine way, in my opinion.

And it's one of those, like, I don't know if I agree with it, but I wouldn't look at that and be like, that's not Christian and that's somehow different than fruits of the, you know, the gifts of the spirit, not fruits of spirit. So I'm like, I don't know.

But then at the same time, you know, when I hear people speak in tongues, well, I speak in tongues, so I don't want to throw it all out. But I also hear people who get in church together and everybody shouting in these weird languages.

I'm like, doesn't the Bible say that that's not how it works? Like, like I'm like Harrison Ford with the. That's not how the force works.

So like, and then of course there are people who practice in witchcraft and are cursing people and they're doing it with like these pagan gods. It's like, I feel like there's good and bad in all of this. And I, I wouldn't have a clear answer.

I would want to know what you mean by all these things and probably have a much more nuanced question than, and answer than what was possible the way that I laid it up as the one who wrote the outline.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:01:53

So anyone else? Aaron.

Aaron Simmons: 01:01:56

So I have two things.

One, just because in several of the responses we've said things about Josh, I think you model what it looks like to say to talk about the divine is to encounter mystery that would rupture any kind of linguistic adequacy. Right. Which of course for Joe, that's the mystic awareness is that this kind of apophatic overflow or excess is going to be part of it.

However, I want to compliment you, so don't miss this, Josh. It doesn't happen often in a two volume set of omnipotence reflections.

Engaging some Tom Ord stuff which as I understand it, the whole church is going to do a roundtable on that coming up, which I think I'm participating in. But Josh's essay in that volume is fantastic.

So for a guy who doesn't know how to apparently frame the categories, dude, you do a really, really good job of articulating these views when in print and so I just want to a recommend two volumes on omnipotence. Definitely go read Josh's essay in there.

But then secondly, Will, when you kept saying just breathing is a kind of mode of engaging in contemplative practice, it reminds me, of course, in this Hebraic or Talmudic tradition, where breath is the only way of adequately pronouncing the name of God. And so Yahweh understood as simply inhalation and exhalation.

And so the idea of the name of God being continuously on our lips is taken literally within that tradition. And I once had a pastor in Arkansas. His son tragically committed suicide.

And the pastor, several months afterwards, when he was finally back in the pulpit, got up and he said, during, you know, this hardest time in my entire life, I found myself weeping. And in the midst of tears and a, you know, grief beyond anything that could be speakable. Right.

Groans and utterings too deep for words, he said, I found myself then, like, breathing deeply, like, you know, in the heaves, in the midst of weeping.

And he said this idea that the name of God and the presence of God, and here, you know, Josh and Laura, this idea that there's more in this excess, right. Participating with us.

For him, that was something that allowed him not to get through by understanding the theodicy that would ever make sense of this tragedy, but it allowed him to take seriously the contemplative practice of speaking the name of God when words were not possible. And so the way you articulated that will resonated with me because I remember so vividly one of the most powerful sermons I've ever heard.

And it was just him telling a story about mowing the lawn and falling over on the ground, weeping, and yet recognizing that he was saying the name of God with every breath. So, yeah, I think thinking about these issues is just so, so powerful to me.

Pastor Will Rose: 01:05:00

And how did creation start with. With their right In Genesis, the first chapter, first couple verses is the breath of God hovering over, over the face of the deep.

And, and the gift of life being breathed into this human out of the soil of the ground. So, so yeah, yeah, if you're using a surf analogy, I'll use a surf analogy. God was surfing there.

The breath of God hovering over the face of the water. But, but, but that breath and wind is, I think, important.

And to get back to that, and it's not reductionistic in a sense of like, I'm just, you know, but, but yeah, just maybe getting back to just, just breathing, man. Just, just breathing.

Aaron Simmons: 01:05:37

Yeah, and shout out to Was it so powerful? Especially in light of the reality of, you know, let Me Breathe being a sort of social statement against the abuses of power. Right.

Where bodies get compressed into the molds and that injustice is sadly too often also deployed as a mode of Christian community is that we get together to basically make bodies look a certain way such that breathing becomes impossible unless it looks like the categories, the power structures, the authoritative models by which certain bodies get elevated and others get diminished. Right.

And so just today, the consent decree that came out in Minnesota was making me think a lot about how policing of bodies, the injustice towards persons of color, is also a mode by which we police what experiences count as religious, what practices count as spiritual. And the way then that who gets to be a Christian is often articulated internal to that authoritative model rather than one that is breathing with us.

Right.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:55

Yeah. No, that's good stuff. Yeah, no, there's a lot of good there. So a couple quick recommendations. I mean, I love that Let Us Breathe.

And that immediately makes me want Josh Patterson to go on a radical theology ramp. But we don't have time, so he'll do that on his own show soon. Check out Rethinking Faith. Also go to Plug.

Will's going to be writing a book about God as a surfer. And, you know, this might be a weirder plug because I think they're more Reformed theology, I'm not really sure.

But King's Kaleidoscope, they have a song called A Prayer, and he literally wrote it right after his son died. And it is quite possibly one of the most moving songs for me ever. But moving on, I'm going to throw this to Reverend Lauren because if I.

Laura, if I remember correctly, she's about to have to jump off here in a second. So I'm going to start with you here.

A lot of our different traditions, you know, we have a lot of different things represented here within Lutheranism and mysticism and radical theology and Pentecostal hostile. You know, we got a lot of. A lot of people represented here.

A lot of traditions criticize one another for either being too spiritual or not spiritual enough. How do we know if we've hit that mark? Like, that's the correct amount of spiritual. You should be.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 01:08:08

I don't think there is a correct amount of spiritual. I think that it's like hot sauce. Right. So I love hot sauce, and I put a lot of hot sauce on everything.

Yeah, but some people can't handle hot sauce, and that's okay. That doesn't make them bad hot sauce enthusiasts. It means maybe they like the flavor of hot sauce. They can only have it in small doses.

So, you know, for me, I think a lot of it comes down to relationships and conversations like this, where we're engaging and just having conversations about how we experience spirituality or hot sauce, however you want to look at it. For me, you know, I'm not an overly, like, spiritual, like, feeling the stuff kind of person.

And that's just because I come from a very quiet tradition where we sit very quietly and do quiet things, and it's just different. And that's my comfort zone.

But it doesn't mean that I don't love showing up at a Pentecostal church and experiencing worship with my Pentecostal brothers and sisters. Because sometimes I just want to experience something that isn't the way I've always done it. So I don't think there is a right amount.

I think the right amount is where you feel comfortable and where you feel you're growing with God.

Joshua Noel: 01:09:12

Yeah. Yeah, I probably agree.

And I can't wait till the next time I get to go to church in person and then lean over to Will after he preached and say, man, I really felt the hot sauce with that sermon. Anybody else have any remarks with that, or do we all think that Reverend Laura answered that completely, perfectly and no one wants to say anything?

Because I'm cool with that, because I really do think that was a perfect answer. I love the hot sauce. Yeah. All right then, guys. Well, you all know one thing we like to ask everybody to do.

Maybe we can collectively all come up with something like, Josh will have his first idea, and we'll all just workshop an idea until we think this is the perfect answer. What is one single tangible action that everybody could do right now that would help better engender Christian unity? We end this show.

We always do this before we do our wrap up. So I think everyone here, other than Reverend Lauren actually has answered this before. So maybe, maybe, Josh, you want to let.

You think Reverend Laura should answer this first, then and we can workshop her answer, because I just realized she's the only who hasn't done this. So, Reverend Laura, what's. What's something practical people could do that would help better engender Christian unity?

Reverend Laura Wittman: 01:10:19

So this sort of relates to my previous answer, but we talk a lot about relational discipleship in the church, especially what I'm working with in the church, which is lighthouse congregations and the Methodist movement. And I think what that really goes back to is the idea that you don't go into a community and Just start a ministry.

But, but you start with relationships.

I think one of the biggest flaws that churches have in Christianity in general is we love to go in and colonize and run with our ideas and the things that we think a community needs or that a person needs, and we end up bombing it.

My last church experience was as a church planter, and I went in with all of these ideas and I surveyed the community and they hated everything that I said to turned out what they wanted. That was hard, by the way, but it turned out what they wanted was not outreach or food programs or all the things that I thought they needed.

What they wanted was a place to gather and play cards and gather with their kids and be safe. So I think for that answer, relationship has to be the forefront of what we do if we want actual unity in the world around us.

You can't establish unity when we're sitting in places of judgment rather than actually getting to know one another.

Joshua Noel: 01:11:35

All right, yeah. Anybody want to workshop that one? Any? Or are we still just like. We're all just in awe of Reverend Laura? That's, that's the theme.

We're gonna wrap this one up. Everyone's going to just follow everything Reverend Laura does.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:11:48

Yeah. Yeah. So who, who wants to tell us, like, what's going to change in the world if we start listening to River Laura?

Pastor Will Rose: 01:11:56

A lot less turkeys.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:12:00

But specifically about this.

Joshua Noel: 01:12:01

That was what she said the turkeys would do. That's not what she was advocating for. She herself never advocated for me to stop eating turkey. That's why we're still friends.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:12:10

Yeah. Turkey is a lot better when Josh cooks it, though.

Joshua Noel: 01:12:14

I do love turkey.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:12:15

So I don't know, I think the.

Aaron Simmons: 01:12:18

The tricky thing about relationship right now for me. So here I'll speak to, you know, my Pentecostal roots. Like, amen, Laura. Like, woo. Preach it.

Joshua Noel: 01:12:28

Yeah.

Aaron Simmons: 01:12:29

And then I think, so what's that look like?

In my life, I struggle a lot right now with knowing how to be in relationship with people who I think have abandoned any kind of good faith effort to be people of integrity, who care about evidence based argumentation, who are in any sense interested in the deliberative project of democracy. So we are two weeks out from the second Trump administration.

For me, that is a active threat to the very relationships that you're saying call us to Christian unity.

And yet if I'm called to Christian unity, somehow I have to then model what it looks like to offer invitational love and hospitality in the spaces where I think I'm offering it precisely to Those who I see as a threat to it. So for me, that tension is one that I've been thinking through as a philosopher for 20 years.

Never has it been quite so palpably complicated as a lived practice as right now. And so for me it's not a here's what it would look like.

It's I believe so deeply in the virtue you describe and yet right now I find it to be the most difficult virtue to display. And yet I've never seen a greater need for displaying it.

Joshua Noel: 01:13:48

his show is like I'm like man: 2025

The whole church is simultaneously the thing I dread doing the most because it's going to be challenging and also the thing I think I need to do them all. It's like this is a rough project this year. Before we do anything else though, we got to do God moments and wrap up and all that.

But Joe, since you are kind of inspired this particular roundtable, I want to give you a last crack of like if we form these relationships and we're doing these contemplative practices, like everything we talked about today, it's been a pretty practical episode. Did you have anything you would add to like what we would see change.

Pastor Joe Dea: 01:14:25

I think we'd find it easier to be able to who see the shades of gray that make up the entirety of existence. Literally everything about existence is shades of gray.

And if we could actually stop and consider where the other person is and leave behind our necessity for complete and total commonality, then you may see the breeding ground for real and authentic relationship with one another.

And for any of us, doesn't matter what flavor, doesn't matter what denomination, it doesn't matter what your background is or anything else like that. If you claim the name of Christ, then the thesis statement is neighbor well, love well, love each other well.

And that is that that opportunity only comes when we can put ourself aside.

Joshua Noel: 01:15:32

Yeah, good stuff. Well guys, I know a couple of you are about to bounce so I'm going to throw to to will first for TJ's going to for the God moment. I need to shut up.

Sorry.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:15:45

Yeah, God moment. Before we wrap up, we ask everyone to share a moment where they talk on and recently challenged blessing moment of worship.

If you've been here, you know what we're talking about. If you haven't been here. Welcome to the God Will. Do you have a God moment for.

Pastor Will Rose: 01:15:54

Us before you leave, man? Yeah, it's been, it's been A month, y'all. It's been a couple months. It's been crazy. Yeah.

Family, dad passing away, trying to take care of mom in the midst of Christmas and.

But, but man, my God moment is just like I have a rock star ministry team here at my church and you know them like taking the ball and rolling with things. Like, I couldn't be more proud and grateful for, for that.

And so, yeah, we pulled off Christmas and Christmas Eve and in a new year and you know, nothing's going to get easier.

But, but, but at least like in terms of the people around me and you guys and all that, I couldn't be more grateful for, for the team and the people in the community around me. So. So that's my God moment, man. God. God in people. God and community. Yeah. And with that you.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:16:40

Love you all.

Joshua Noel: 01:16:41

Yeah, love you, Will.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:16:43

Okay. So Laura, do you have a God moment for us before you leave?

Reverend Laura Wittman: 01:16:47

Yeah.

You know, this time a year ago, if you had told me I would be serving as a college chaplain and doing what I'm doing now, I would have been like, whoa, what? Because that was not in my path of things I thought I would be doing.

And yet, as much as I miss pastoral ministry in the traditional sense, I absolutely love where I am now and the people I work with are amazing. And one of the best things about campus ministry is that you are off during Christmas.

And in 18 years I have not been off at Christmas and that was a wild feeling. My husband is a pastor, so I still did all the church stuff, but I wasn't in charge. I showed up and I sang and that was great.

But I'll say the other thing has just getting to be part of systematic ecology and getting to nerd out all the time. And that is just so good for my heart. So that's my God moment is unexpected changes and finding new community.

Joshua Noel: 01:17:41

Great. Well, I can't wait to record about Pokemon with you soon. So we'll be doing that.

Reverend Laura Wittman: 01:17:46

I'm a fan.

Joshua Noel: 01:17:47

Yeah. Thanks for joining.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:17:50

Okay. So Joe, do you have got a moment for us before you leave?

Pastor Joe Dea: 01:17:55

Yeah, I. Christmas was surprisingly non drama filled. So that's. That's a huge. That's a huge plus. Everything went pretty, pretty smoothly on Christmas day in.

In a similar vein, except for the opposite. With.

Joshua Noel: 01:18:16

Yeah, man, I. I'm gonna have to text you about that because. Yeah, I need to know more. Good thing about having people's numbers.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:18:24

Yep. See you, Joe.

Okay, so now that we can get back to a more regularly tempoed God moment, Josh and I do usually go first, so I always make Josh go first, so the rest of us have plenty of time to think. So, Josh Noel, do you have God moment for us this week?

Joshua Noel: 01:18:44

You know, it would be really funny if you'd been like, so Josh Patterson. Go on. I think that would have been entertaining. Yeah, man.

You know, honestly, for what I was going to say for my God moment, the two people who stuck around the longest are the ones that it's harder for me to say this to. So this is fun. Honestly, mine, it's challenging. Weird. Yes.

I have the moving and all that, but I'm gonna use that for a God moment later this week, so I have to use something else.

For this episode, I have found myself where a lot of people who I think are just super, super, super cool and the smartest people in the world and all this stuff.

Josh Patterson and Aaron Simmons being amongst them, legitimately, where I'm like, man, I legitimately remember a time when I was listening to Rethinking Faith Coin. I wonder if I'll ever get to talk to that guy.

And, like, you know, hearing Aaron Simmons at the first theology beer camp I attended, I was like, this guy is like, I want to be exactly like him one day.

And then, like, like, honestly, the thing that got me was, like, earlier, Aaron Simmons was messaging me on Facebook, which, like, for me is already like, what Aaron Simmons? And he, like, he used the word dude.

And I'm like, I think I'm becoming friends with people who, in my mind are, like, light years cooler and better than me. Um, so it's like, it's exciting and it's humbling. It's also challenging because it's like.

I think that's partially because people like them are seeing something in me that maybe I'm not seeing in me, and maybe I should live up to that better. So that. That's going to be my challenge. Blessing, everything combined.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:20:13

Yeah. Yeah. I. So I will go. My God moment.

I feel like I've already said this once, but I'm going to say it again because it means a lot to me because I love my friends.

I had friends come down and spend all of Christmas, well, right after Christmas of New Year's with us, which is a big time, and we finally got back to, like, cooking in our house. We all just kind of stopped for a while because I only eat once a day, so five days a week. I don't have to, like, I'm not gonna cook.

I get paid to cook the other five days of the week. I'M gonna get food. But it's really nice to get back to doing something that I love doing so much without getting paid for it.

Which sounds wrong, but, you know, I get it. It felt better to just cook because I love to cook and that meant a lot to me. It felt so good to do.

Joshua Noel: 01:21:11

That is a good one.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:21:12

So, Josh Patterson, do you have a God moment for us?

Josh Patterson: 01:21:17

Yeah, sure.

I just, I'll say, being, continuing to be invited into spaces like this, I count as a God moment because, you know, even though I no longer think a lot of the things that I used to think or whatever, I still long for community and friendship because I'm a human being and I have tried, I've sought that out elsewhere. And it becomes very readily apparent that unless you have the say the right things or believe the right things, that you're not actually welcome.

And so I am grateful for spaces like this where I can come fully as myself and still be, I don't know, like a part of things. Still feel like, you know, you guys don't, you know, maybe think I'm a little bit crazy, but not like all the way crazy or something like that.

So just spaces like this where we can have meaningful conversations with a wide variety of people from all over different walks of life and we can all kind of feel accepted and welcome and loved. That to me is a manifestation of the divine if I've ever seen one.

Joshua Noel: 01:22:27

Yeah. Making me blush. Also, you're not as crazy as me. And that's really the, that's the only line. It's not a high bar.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:22:33

Yeah, that is the bar. And man, no, I don't even trust Josh to try and clear that bar.

Aaron Simmons: 01:22:41

So it's like the old, was it Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin gets super, super angry because he gets like a B on a paper and he's furious. And Hobbs like, what's your problem? That's fantastic. And he's like, now my parents will always expect this. So, yeah, you set the bar low enough.

Joshua Noel: 01:22:58

Yeah. My pastor told me when I started dating, he said, yeah, do you just. First date McDonald's.

Aaron Simmons: 01:23:07

Yeah. So I have two thoughts that are God moments. But before I give them, I think it's really interesting.

Over the last, I don't know, four or five years now that I've been kind of actively pursuing public philosophy alongside my more traditional academic work, like, it's been so cool to see the relationships and friendships develop, you know, with people, you know, the Josh's and TJ and Tripp and Dan Koch. And Tim Whitaker and on and on, on. Right.

It's been so interesting to me because the ways in which we often understand, you know, the voices we hear through our, you know, headphones or see on the screen as people unlike us.

And yet one of the really cool things about the kind of broadly Christian, progressive Christian in particular, kind of, you know, online space is I really think that it does provide opportunities for relationships.

And so, yeah, it's humbling and flattering for you and Josh to say anything about me in the sense that, like, being a friend of mine would be something that should make you feel good. If anything, it's more like my wife saying, oh, good, you've got new friends. Right. So believe me, the perspective shifts.

Joshua Noel: 01:24:28

Right.

Aaron Simmons: 01:24:29

But it is cool to see this community develop and being a part of it in any sense is quite an honor. My two God moments are two sides of, we might say, the kind of sublime to the ridiculous. So the sublime.

My dad, I guess it's been three years ago now, got diagnosed with terminal cancer. And they told him that it would probably be a two year lifespan.

And he just went back today to the oncologist and for months now he's been getting just unbelievably good reports.

And they're basically saying, look, let's go three more months and we may just take you off of all of the treatments and all of the drugs because you're just doing too well. And all the numbers are below any cancer indicative sorts of thresholds. So that's certainly a God. And I want to put an asterisk there.

I think we, because God is relational and personal, we should be invested in gratitude as a mode of living.

We should be wary of acting like there is some sort of radical particularity to that circumstance that would then elevate, you know, my dad in some way differently than my two friends who are dealing with terminal cancer not getting those reports right. So none of this is meant as a, you know, thank you, God for uniquely seeing my dad's circumstance and choosing to move.

Instead, it's a mode of in the good and the bad, I think, you know, help. Thanks. Wow. And LaMotte's three prayers are always good ideas. And so that's what I mean by saying that God moment about my dad's good report today.

The other one, though, is the ridiculous. So there's the sublime. Here's the ridiculous. Josh will vibe with. Or Josh P. Will vibe with this one.

So two days ago I asked my son, I was like, Atticus, he's 15. I said, I've got to do a Music Mondays. So anybody listening? I do a substack called Philosophy in the Wild. Go check it out.

And every Monday, for paid subscribers, I do a Music Mondays post, which is taking some musical, you know, artist, song, rhythm, genre, whatever, and doing a little bit of philosophy in relationship to it. And so it was the first one of the year. And I said, atticus, you get the first one of the year, you tell me whatever you want me to talk about.

That's what I'm going to write, write about. And my son, without missing a beat, says, do Norma Jean song with errors. And I was absolutely the proudest father on earth.

And so I'm not sure if this is on our post it of words not to use, but I was so hell yes to that answer he gave. It was a kind of God moment, right?

This idea that my son at 15 is actually maybe enjoying just a little bit of what I also think is maybe some of the coolest stuff in the freaking world. And having friends.

Josh and I both are friends with Mason, who of course, you know, is like, went viral by jumping off of a stack at a Norma Jean concert and stuff. Like, it's so cool to think that my son still carries a ganglion cyst on his wrist from where he went down at a Norma Jean pit.

Like, I love all of that. And so there's my ridiculous God moment, is that my son gave me an awesome answer to that question.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:27:47

Well, you see, the best part about a ganglion cyst is we're, you know, we're Pentecostal. You just take a big Bible and whack it. It's gone.

Aaron Simmons: 01:27:55

Smack that thing. That's right.

Joshua Noel: 01:27:56

Oh, man.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:27:57

Don't do that, by the way, if you're listening.

Josh Patterson: 01:27:59

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua Noel: 01:28:01

But, Aaron, if you ever do Greta Van Fleet, my wife will definitely steal my phone to read that. Read that one and participate. She loves that.

Aaron Simmons: 01:28:09

It is. It is on the to do list. I forget if I have done Goodbye June. If I haven't, maybe I can do the two of them together.

Tell your wife to check out Goodbye June. It's like Greta Van Fleet, but I think more interesting.

And the absolutely best band, kind of in that broad, sort of Southern revival kind of classic rock space. Hands down, without any exception, the best space for me is J.

Roddy Walston and the Business, who I have talked about, because Roddy Walston is a friend of mine and I actually taught him some drum lessons when he was a kid. And so J. Roddy Walston in the business. Absolutely. Some of the best stuff in that kind of Greta Van Fleet space. So tell her to check him out.

Joshua Noel: 01:28:52

To check that out too. Other thing, quick personal recommendation.

If you haven't, you should watch the Good Place and then we should do an episode about it on our other podcast, Systematic Ecology. Like that.

Aaron Simmons: 01:29:02

Oh, Jack, let me know when you want to. One of my very good friends.

Josh Patterson: 01:29:08

Well, I was gonna say Aaron's buddy was like the philosopher for that show.

Aaron Simmons: 01:29:11

The philosophy consultant.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:29:13

Yeah.

Aaron Simmons: 01:29:13

Of that show is a friend of mine. I've had him on my. My YouTube channel too. So. Yeah, no, let me know. We'll hook it up. Get him on.

Joshua Noel: 01:29:20

All right, I'll email you after this.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:29:22

Okay, so if you like the show, you like the episode, please consider sharing with a friend. An enemy. Share with your cousins if you're already listening on the YouTube channel. What a show you got today. You got to see a ton of us for once.

And be sure to hit, like hit subscribe. We'll hit you. No, we won't. That's not legally binding.

Joshua Noel: 01:29:42

Also check out the other shows on the Anazzle Ministry Podcast network. Sorry, it's just the Amazon Podcast network. I just haven't updated this outline since we changed that. Rebranding is hard for me.

But the links in the show notes.

Two of our shows actually recently got put on some cool list that, you know, the homily with Pastor Will is in like the top 10 of Chapel Hills podcast now and then on some list for some reason. Not sure why, because, you know, I participate in this one so I get to down it.

Like the top 50 progressive Christian podcast list was we had the Bible after hours on there. That's kind of cool.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:30:19

That's kind of cool.

Joshua Noel: 01:30:20

Yeah.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:30:21

So we hope you did enjoy it. Soon we're going to be doing a bonus episode with Dr.

Tom or Nick Polk of Tolkien pop fame and the Nick Polk cult fame and Josh Patterson of Rethinking faith about a two volume set of essays in response to Dr. Ord's idea of omnipotence over omnipotence. Both Nick and Josh, who is here.

Joshua Noel: 01:30:38

With us today, Aaron Simmons will be there too. And Aaron, because I didn't know that.

Aaron Simmons: 01:30:42

I'm gonna jump in on that one purely because then Josh and I get to like actively disagree with each other.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:30:50

It's more exciting that way.

Joshua Noel: 01:30:51

Church unity by disagreement.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:30:54

But Nick, Josh and Aaron Simmons all have essays in that book. Then we are going to have Jonathan Foster on discuss his book Indigo the Color of Grief, which is fantastic.

His journey dealing with the loss of his daughter and theopoetics.

After that, we're going to have on Kate Blewett to discuss her participation in the Porter's Gate Collective music for worship services that can be used across faith traditions, from Catholic to Pentecostal churches and beyond.

And finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan will be joining the show that unfortunately, it's not someone that Aaron has some nebulous connection to.

Joshua Noel: 01:31:28

So, yeah, Father Jonathan does. Like, we do know people with connections. We're just that lazy. And that's why season one will never end.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:31:38

It's too possible. Moving on to the next bit is way harder.

Joshua Noel: 01:31:41

Yeah, yeah. And we just don't feel like moving on to the next past that. We've been saying it too long now, you know.

TJ (Tiberius Juan) Blackwell: 01:31:46

Yeah, getting the Pope on it would be way harder. We're not learning any new languages. He's too old to learn English.

Joshua Noel: 01:31:52

We assume it's way harder. It might be easier. We haven't tried either, actually. We haven't really tried getting either of these guys. Who knows?

Aaron Simmons: 01:32:01

I should also just note for anybody on YouTube how jealous I am currently that all three of the other people currently on the screen still have non white facial hair. It's. It just now occurred to me, like, it. I was looking at Patterson and it's like perfectly styled and all brown. I look up at, you know, Joshua. No.

And it's like this thick black beard and even TJ's rocking, you know, brown mustache. And here I am, especially with the light hitting my ball cap, it like exacerbates the whiteness of my goatee.

So I'm feeling super old right this minute. So I appreciate all three of you.

Joshua Noel: 01:32:41

While we're making remarks on people's appearances, I just gotta say, me and Brayden, I definitely talked about how we, we hate how skinny Josh Patterson is. Like, just like a couple days ago, like, this dude literally just made beer for a living and he's like, you know, like, man, I.

I drink a beer once a week and I'm like, I'm in shape. It's just that, like pear shape. And I, I don't know, it's crazy. I don't know.

Aaron Simmons: 01:33:02

I keep trying to get Patterson to get on a mountain bike with me and that has yet to happen.

Josh Patterson: 01:33:07

That'd be a blast. Well, I have a ice hockey, Joshua. That's my. That's my secret for me.

Aaron Simmons: 01:33:15

Rock star.