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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,

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Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the

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Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions

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Speaker 1: that hinder Christian's from becoming more like Christ. Now onto

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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this

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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm

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Speaker 1: joined today by my co host Ashish Varma, but also

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Speaker 1: our special guest oxer Oscar Garcia Johnson. And he's the

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Speaker 1: author of Spirit Outside the Gate Decolonial Numatologies of the

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Speaker 1: American Global South. He's also a professor of theology and

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Speaker 1: Decolonial Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, and so we're excited

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Speaker 1: to have him here today to discuss this book. I

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Speaker 1: was able to read through it before the interview and

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Speaker 1: really enjoyed it. I thought it was just fantastic and

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Speaker 1: resonates with a lot of what Ashish and I have

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Speaker 1: talked about. So We're excited to have you here today,

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Speaker 1: So thanks for being on the show.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, uh, Doctor Spencer and Ashish. It's a pleasure

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Speaker 2: to be here and join you in what you are

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Speaker 2: doing through the through these podcasts. So it's a it's

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Speaker 2: a great space.

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Speaker 1: Well, maybe to start out, why don't you give us

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Speaker 1: a sense of what led you to write Spirit Outside

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Speaker 1: the Gates and and maybe even how it plays plays

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Speaker 1: against Christ Outside the Gates, you know, as a as

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Speaker 1: sort of a title.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's you know we. Usually when I

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Speaker 2: say that we, I'm talking about usually Latina Latino. I

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Speaker 2: asked for a scholars and teach us. Uh. Usually begin

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Speaker 2: with a journey of ourselves. So when I think of myself,

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Speaker 2: even in retrospect, and I present myself, I think of

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Speaker 2: three three pieces of identity. One, I'm an ordained minister

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Speaker 2: of the Christian Church. So I think I write, I

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Speaker 2: believe I do where I am, and where I am

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Speaker 2: is the Church. The church is my primary epistemic location,

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Speaker 2: the place where I where I learn and and and

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Speaker 2: relearn and unlearned, and also where I teach. But that's

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Speaker 2: not my only epistemic location. So I think my first

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Speaker 2: book sort of registers that and the mestista community of

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Speaker 2: the spirit. When i'm I'm I'm leading a denomination with

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty churches of all kinds of uh

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Speaker 2: uh you know, ethnic diversities and languages and styles. So

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Speaker 2: that was that was quite an experience for me. Piece

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Speaker 2: number one, so to speak. Then the way I got

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Speaker 2: into this book out of that is being a commuter.

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Speaker 2: I call myself from the church to the academy, always traveling.

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Speaker 2: My day job was working with the church with the nomination,

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Speaker 2: with pastors, litership, formation, new church planting missions, and also

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Speaker 2: the classroom, the classroom where I would see pastors from

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Speaker 2: other arm or leaders from other denominations and traditions, uh

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Speaker 2: and asking questions and bringing the questions from the church

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Speaker 2: to the classroom, and also bringing the questions from the

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Speaker 2: classroom to the church. That commuting in a way generated

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Speaker 2: sort of a research agenda. How do we talk about

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Speaker 2: issues that are expressed in the Bible in particular conitectural

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Speaker 2: ways in their time, historical time that have some of

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Speaker 2: them have been carried by different traditions in the West

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Speaker 2: and outside the West, and are part of our daily

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Speaker 2: lives today. The Christian witness. How do we coexist live

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Speaker 2: together as the body of Christ in a nation state

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Speaker 2: and under certain laws that are not necessarily favoring everybody

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Speaker 2: but have a preferential space for others. So how do

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Speaker 2: we respond with some level of theological coherence and responsible ethics.

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Speaker 2: So that was part of a motivation. So my activity

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Speaker 2: as a as a minister and as a teacher in

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Speaker 2: the church, in the academy and clearly passing through the

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Speaker 2: city the public space, it is that activity that generated

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Speaker 2: the desire for more conversations, for more research oriented to

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Speaker 2: to asking what is this spirit doing in places that

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Speaker 2: and with people that sometimes we're not looking at and

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Speaker 2: necessarily together with, and and so that that conversation is

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Speaker 2: clearly not just happening in my mind, is happening with

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Speaker 2: people along the way, all kinds of individuals, you know, leaders, uh,

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Speaker 2: millennial p KSh colleagues and the institution pastors that have

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Speaker 2: just migrated a year, two years ago, those who have

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Speaker 2: grown in in in the context of the US and Canada,

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Speaker 2: and and so those conversations I think we're the ones

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Speaker 2: triggering a research in which the Spirit can teaches to

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Speaker 2: look at places and people that were not just looking

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Speaker 2: at or when we think of Christian theology.

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Speaker 3: Very good, that's great, I think sorry, go ahead.

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Speaker 1: Jae, no, go ahead, go ahead.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I was thinking in the way that you were

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Speaker 3: describing what raised the questions to you? This desire to

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Speaker 3: move back and forth between the church and the academy

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Speaker 3: fluidly very much goes against the ways that people generally

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Speaker 3: tend to see the relationship.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: We hear, of course that the academy should be ministering

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Speaker 3: to the church, and we hear that the church should

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Speaker 3: care about the conversations going on the academy, but often

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Speaker 3: there's a big wall between them. Have you found in

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Speaker 3: that process, as you've done that that there are barriers

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Speaker 3: you have to overcome in order for your work to

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Speaker 3: be meaningful in the church on one side, but then

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Speaker 3: also your questions brought back to the academy to be

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Speaker 3: seen as sufficiently scholarly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're naming it. You're spelling it out for me.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I mean, you're right on. You

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Speaker 2: know that. That is the question that I begin with

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Speaker 2: in my journey as a scholar in Mestisto community of

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Speaker 2: this period eight post a post modern ecclesiology uh and

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Speaker 2: and and because I'm particularly in that transit and that commuting,

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Speaker 2: I name and the very prolo what you were saying.

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Speaker 2: And I just so we're talking about two thousand and

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Speaker 2: nine year imagine, So in two thousand and nine, I'm

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Speaker 2: describing that as a participant in the and and you

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Speaker 2: know the metaphor of southern California. The traffic here, heavy

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Speaker 2: traffic was the word that I use. I faced heavy

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Speaker 2: traffic in terms of ideology, in terms of of UH

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Speaker 2: mission or preferences, in terms in terms of liturgy, in

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Speaker 2: terms of what kind of doctrine I want, heavy traffic

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Speaker 2: And and when you're in heavy traffic and and driving,

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Speaker 2: you just want to get home. You don't have time

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Speaker 2: to really talk to anybody, and you don't want to

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Speaker 2: talk to anybody. Well, nowadays we have a phone. We're

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Speaker 2: talking to some people, but but your neighbors are are

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Speaker 2: are not necessarily the most hospitable colleagues. You just wanna

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Speaker 2: you just want to get home in that traffic heated journey.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes it's like the movie Crash. I mean, the

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Speaker 2: argument right there is we crash in a way because

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Speaker 2: we don't have time to get in contact and to

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Speaker 2: know each other, so we have to crash and then

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Speaker 2: negotiate that. I think in a way that that heavy traffic,

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Speaker 2: that metropolitan individualism, the pressure of the city, and the

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Speaker 2: competition to make it. You know, we have to do

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Speaker 2: better ministry, we have to do better, appreciate and always

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Speaker 2: this competition doesn't and fragmentation doesn't necessarily help us to

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Speaker 2: see each other as partners of ministries and and and

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Speaker 2: and also uh, in a way, we have to become

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Speaker 2: very selective and what is it that we need to

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Speaker 2: train ourselves. What is it that we need to know

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Speaker 2: in order to communicate and gain and of uh you know, uh,

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Speaker 2: and of attention from particular audiences. Because we have to

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Speaker 2: run a church, we have to run an organization, we

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Speaker 2: have to run a seminary. Uh. Sometimes theological education is

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Speaker 2: in decline. So the wather you're talking about the church

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Speaker 2: in a way saying, well, where am I learning what

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Speaker 2: I need to be a church and not necessarily finding

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Speaker 2: it in the academy and the academy saying what's going

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Speaker 2: on with the church? Why is that going that way?

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Speaker 2: You know, looking looking back and and and and learning

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Speaker 2: from the wealth of wisdom that we have to be

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Speaker 2: better witnesses today. So yeah, that is that is part

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Speaker 2: of the whole of the whole ecology where we are

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Speaker 2: sometimes operating from. And and yet I would say that

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Speaker 2: there's some of us, several of us actually that are

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Speaker 2: trying to breach one with the other because we believe

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Speaker 2: that there are different There is an ecology of knowledge

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Speaker 2: that the church has particular wisdom that the academy needs

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Speaker 2: to learn. The academy has particular wealth of wisdom that

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Speaker 2: the church needs. And the city, so to speak, even

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Speaker 2: if we build the city as a modern project, but

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Speaker 2: the community, the community that is in a way not

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Speaker 2: self identified either as a church or US academy, has

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Speaker 2: also a wealth of knowledge that we all need. And

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Speaker 2: that is That's all part of an intersectionality and inter

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Speaker 2: relationship that I think the spirit does abide. That's why

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Speaker 2: the outside the gates of our preferential you know, our freeway,

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Speaker 2: we're going that way now, well sometimes this perit is

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Speaker 2: going through the through the backstreet and we're not looking.

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Speaker 1: You know, in your book, when you talk about numatology,

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Speaker 1: it comes off as a method. It's not it isn't

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Speaker 1: like a systematic theology topic. It's something you're doing like

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Speaker 1: you're doing numatology, and I found it really compelling the

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Speaker 1: way you talk about the spirit in the book. And

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you can just kind of give listeners

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a sense of that, because I

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Speaker 1: think that part of the genius of using the Spirit

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Speaker 1: is that unlike Christ or theology proper, or even ecclesiology

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Speaker 1: or something like that, which sort of lend themselves to

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Speaker 1: a much more static image. Whether they are or not,

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Speaker 1: I think is arguable, but they do lend themselves to

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Speaker 1: that It's easier to box Christ in, for instance, than

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Speaker 1: it is to box the Spirit in. And so I

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Speaker 1: think it's just interesting that you choose the spirit. And

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering how you think through discerning the spirit while

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Speaker 1: and allowing the Spirit to guide us into new areas,

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Speaker 1: while also avoiding that any new agenda that I want

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Speaker 1: to pursue I can now justify by saying, well, the Spirit,

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Speaker 1: let me to it. Talk a little bit about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you allow me, I'd love to present what

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Speaker 2: I think, because you know, once it's written, is written,

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Speaker 2: and it's the handle is like a piece of art,

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Speaker 2: I mean, the beholders. So I think I think I'm

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Speaker 2: saying this, I think I'm saying that it is very

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Speaker 2: important to learn to discern the Holy Spirit beyond the

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Speaker 2: boundaries of Western Christianity, not without, but beyond so Western Christianity,

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Speaker 2: Christendom and colonial modernity. This is a this is a

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Speaker 2: sort of a the colonial term, right, is the idea

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Speaker 2: that the great the greatness of modernity didn't happen independently.

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Speaker 2: There were some colonial you know, projects that were funding

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Speaker 2: and were interconnected to a colonial modernity. I mean Europe

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Speaker 2: westerransform and also other places like Africa. The Americas worked

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Speaker 2: on form at the time of the uh discovery of

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Speaker 2: the Atlantic, of the route to the Atlantic, and that

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Speaker 2: is transformation has a colonial relationship with modernity. So that's

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Speaker 2: what we call colonial modernity. So I think, uh, the

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Speaker 2: Spirit is operating and is and is and is UH

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Speaker 2: walking with different communities beyond the boundaries of Western Christianity,

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Speaker 2: colonial modernity, and UH regretfully, within the tradition of the West,

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Speaker 2: Western culture, Western Christianity, we have treated knowledge with UH

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Speaker 2: uh more uh the interest is more uh to to

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Speaker 2: to emphasize the limits than the possibilities.

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Speaker 1: Mhm.

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Speaker 2: The limits. So in a way, this book is and

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Speaker 2: and I think, let me connect with what you're saying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah in in Unfortunately, I mean, I don't know how

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Speaker 2: we've gotten here because part of I mean my education

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Speaker 2: is in the modern university, suspect and the western modern university.

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Speaker 2: I don't know why we have come to use Jesus

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Speaker 2: as a as a gating, you know, a mechanism, because

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Speaker 2: when we use when when when you see the Gospel,

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Speaker 2: you see a generous Jesus of napaith that that in

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Speaker 2: a way challenges most of the tendencies that we have.

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Speaker 2: Now I can understand we got to is the to

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Speaker 2: the history of Christianity. There are many things happening we

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Speaker 2: really need to understand. What is it actually what makes

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Speaker 2: us a Christianity and identity and all that thing. But

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Speaker 2: the insistence on limits and on borders in knowledge. I

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Speaker 2: think that has been an obsession in the West, and

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Speaker 2: that is easier to achieve with Christology, not necessarily with

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Speaker 2: Jesus of naturer but with Christology, with neumatology and the spirit.

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Speaker 2: To your point, so I'm asking what happens in that book,

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Speaker 2: I'm asking what happens when the church takes Pentecost seriously,

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Speaker 2: not as a miracle of language or an exotic subjective experience,

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Speaker 2: but as a re ordering and theological imagination for ecclesial

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Speaker 2: coexistence what happens. So the book argues really that this

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Speaker 2: spirit is not the possession or the accessory of any

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Speaker 2: center or any power. The spirit leads the church outside

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Speaker 2: the gate, to the crucified, to the displaced, to the

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Speaker 2: rationalize as indigenous and I particularly put example sort of

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Speaker 2: an ethnographic word Afro Latin X. I also work with

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Speaker 2: immigrant women and children and the borderline communities where God's

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Speaker 2: mission is already taking place and we are not necessarily

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Speaker 2: looking at least not looking for wisdom, not looking for

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Speaker 2: what God is doing. We're looking to probably do ministry service,

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Speaker 2: and you know, we're doing something for the people right

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Speaker 2: in that sense, you know, the book is not really

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Speaker 2: a rejection I mean the book, I mean, I don't

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Speaker 2: think people have seen it that way. But there are

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Speaker 2: some people that say this book is very critical of

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Speaker 2: Christian theology. Not necessarily. I don't think it's critical of

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Speaker 2: the project of Christian theology and the activity of Christian theology,

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Speaker 2: even Western or Otherwhile I think the whole idea is

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Speaker 2: to be able to reroute the theological imagination and the

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Speaker 2: theological project, because theology in very very serious ways have

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Speaker 2: been trapped by one dominant theological imagination, what I call

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Speaker 2: the canonical imagination of the West, which leads to a

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Speaker 2: monocultural type of Christianity. So this rerouting, I think it's

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Speaker 2: a reviving from this colonial imagination to a more spirit

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Speaker 2: led witness in the global space from what some you know,

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Speaker 2: indigenous in Africa, they call it terminal knowledges, some knowledges

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Speaker 2: that in a way decide that you are incompetent. And

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Speaker 2: in theory that's we call it terminal knowledge, when terminal

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Speaker 2: degree is when we go to a PhD. But in

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Speaker 2: some places that terminal knowledge is a wounding knowledge. It's

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Speaker 2: a knowledge that will tell you you cannot do this,

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Speaker 2: you cannot be this, you cannot achieve this terminal knowledge.

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Speaker 2: In that sense, it's a discipleship and no to say

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Speaker 2: that there is a dicolonial epistemic. Healing this spirit is

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Speaker 2: healing this spirit, the teacher is healing those who otherwise

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Speaker 2: feel incompetent and sometimes left behind by more formal mission structures.

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Speaker 2: So in that sense, it's moving beyond monocultural nationalist Christianity.

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Speaker 2: In what I call a church without borders, because nation

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Speaker 2: state have borders, but the church, the church has the

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Speaker 2: Spirit and the Gospel, and with the Spirit and the Gospel,

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Speaker 2: the church travels without a pasport around the earth. So

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Speaker 2: in a way, U, that is what I'm trying to

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Speaker 2: do in the book. And the colonial numatology is UH,

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Speaker 2: the UH discipline, if you will, the set of UH

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Speaker 2: cold Christian and principles of the Guide. This conversation that

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Speaker 2: I just mentioned to you.

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Speaker 1: So, so what I thought was interesting as I was

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Speaker 1: reading your book, I two texts came to mind. One

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Speaker 1: was when Stephen gave his speech to the Jews who

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Speaker 1: had accused him of, you know, defaming Moses in the

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Speaker 1: Temple in Act seven, and then the deliberation of the

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Speaker 1: Church in Jerusalem after the salvation of the Gentiles and

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Speaker 1: the coming of the Spirit on the Gentiles. And what

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Speaker 1: I found was as I was reflecting on those two texts,

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Speaker 1: is you know, what I felt like your book was

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Speaker 1: doing is resisting closure. It's like, let's not close this down.

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Speaker 1: And you get a different tone of that in Act

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Speaker 1: seven than you do in the Deliberations in Jerusalem. Act

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Speaker 1: seven is a clear prophetic critique. It's it's saying, you've

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Speaker 1: perverted this, you've closed it down so much, and now

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Speaker 1: you're denying and rejecting. You know, you've killed the Messiah.

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Speaker 1: You refuse to see in Jerusalem, you see something very

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Speaker 1: different happening. They're trying to be sensitive to what the

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Speaker 1: Spirit is doing and ultimately yielding to the movement of

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Speaker 1: the Spirit amongst the gentiles and recognizing that they shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be putting more requirements on the gentiles, that they should

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Speaker 1: just let this happen as an expansion of their understanding,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to as a requirement that the Gentiles be

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Speaker 1: pulled back into a box that they understood. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know what you think about those two texts, but

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Speaker 1: that as I was reading through it, that's where my

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Speaker 1: mind went. It's you have this sort of interesting opening

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Speaker 1: up by the Spirit that oftentimes I think we're just

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Speaker 1: closed off too, because we get too enamored with our

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Speaker 1: own sort of settled understandings. And I would use settles

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Speaker 1: I suppose in air quotes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you, thank you for that, games, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I appreciate that. And if this the reading of the

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Speaker 2: book suggests the same kind of biblical narratives to people

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Speaker 2: written and I think I've done my job. I think

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Speaker 2: I've done my job. Thank you, I mean honestly, and

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Speaker 2: you are absolutely right. Just think about what you just said.

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Speaker 2: I mean, on the one hand, is dealing with those

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Speaker 2: who holds, you know, quote unquote holds the keys of

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Speaker 2: of of authority. I mean they have the authority, they

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Speaker 2: have a keys of truth. Yeah, and saying I mean,

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Speaker 2: how dare you? How dare your kid dis close when

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Speaker 2: it's not even yours with Jesus in a way, it

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Speaker 2: was such a challenge. And on the other hand, you

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Speaker 2: see a community which is part of creation of God

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Speaker 2: saying that you know the God of creation, and this

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Speaker 2: is Paul all over the place. The God of Creation

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Speaker 2: is also your God. And this is the way to

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Speaker 2: relate to this God in a way that is affirming

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Speaker 2: to your humanity, to who you are and who you

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Speaker 2: can become in Jesus. So in that sense, I want

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Speaker 2: to suggest that this book is deeply evangelical in the

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Speaker 2: sense of the evangel it is and bringing the Pentecost

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Speaker 2: because I put the Pentecosts on and Babel the Tower

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Speaker 2: Babel side by side to say there are two logics

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Speaker 2: here and we see it in the scripture. One tries

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Speaker 2: to control, tries to monopolize, tries to you know, put

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Speaker 2: together here and put borders and all that things, that

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Speaker 2: gaining thing. And on the other you have a pentecost. Now,

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Speaker 2: the pentacost is not I mean the way I presaid it.

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Speaker 2: How that is, It's clear, it's not cosmetic diversity. For me,

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Speaker 2: it is not cosmetic labor. It is about re ordering

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Speaker 2: communal life and the power of the spirit. And that

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Speaker 2: reordering is fell as disruptive if even when you read

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Speaker 2: the text is disruptive because we're used to this. We

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Speaker 2: have the perspective of elite Jerusalem theologians, so to speak.

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Speaker 2: And you have the Roman coloniality and and the Hellenistic

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Speaker 2: holders of tradition and and and the second century Judaism

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Speaker 2: you have, you have all that, and yet when you

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Speaker 2: when the spirit comes, like like the prophet Joel says,

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Speaker 2: upon every fledg, no matter who you are, oh, that

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Speaker 2: is disruptive because in a way, you know, re orders

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Speaker 2: the possibility of living together as the body of Christ.

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Speaker 2: And that's the story across the the New Testament.

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Speaker 3: I would say, yeah, I think it's interesting when we

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Speaker 3: look at a line share of the Gospel's counts that

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Speaker 3: Jesus is often pushing on the religious leaders. He's pushing

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Speaker 3: against the Pharisees, pushing against the Sadducees. Arguably, the entire

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Speaker 3: Sermon on the Mount is his way of saying to

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Speaker 3: a group of marginalized Jewish people, these things that you've

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Speaker 3: been bound to by the Pharisees, by the Sadducees are false.

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Speaker 3: They're false boundaries. And then at the same time he's

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Speaker 3: talking to those people when he says, Okay, you guys

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Speaker 3: want to exclude these people who have had various problems,

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Speaker 3: perhaps perhaps one of them is even murder, right, a

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Speaker 3: horrific thing, But I want to remind you that you've

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Speaker 3: also hated, right. And I see and God sees these

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Speaker 3: as in the sense not in the sense of actions

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Speaker 3: being equal under consequences, but actions cool in the sense

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Speaker 3: of both setting themselves in opposition to a way that

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Speaker 3: God is trying to commend to people. Right, So he's

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Speaker 3: pushing against things and people that have set themselves up

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Speaker 3: as gates. So then we take Jesus and we make

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Speaker 3: him into that sort of a gate. Very ironic, I think, right,

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Speaker 3: very very antithetical to who Jesus is. What is it

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Speaker 3: specifically do you think about the spirit that prevents us

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Speaker 3: from doing that? Is is it something about the spirit?

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Speaker 3: Is it something just about traditions? Is it something about

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Speaker 3: us as people?

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Speaker 1: What do you see?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, let me first probably tag piggyback on the

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Speaker 2: gate on the Gate conversation. Clearly, that's like James mentioned

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Speaker 2: of the big very beginning, and this is not something

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Speaker 2: I made up. I mean, we have a beautiful book

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Speaker 2: called Christ Outside the Gate by Orlando Costas, and that

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Speaker 2: book grew out of a sermon he was pretty because

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Speaker 2: it was an evangelist, wasn't it was a missiologist, theologian

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Speaker 2: and evangelist, and he was preachy on Hebrews. Uh. You

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Speaker 2: know that Christ died outside the gate and and and

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Speaker 2: and outside the gate of the city, so you know

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Speaker 2: that's that place where the damned of society were living.

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Speaker 2: You know, he joined that crowd, and that's where salvation

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Speaker 2: happened in this such a reological you know way, that's

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Speaker 2: that's the sermon that he preached, and then the book

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Speaker 2: grew up. I think I'm I'm adding only that. And

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Speaker 2: he was part of a of a time where Christology

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Speaker 2: was so important for liberation, so to speak. But I

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Speaker 2: think that many pneumatologists of our time, like thinking of

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Speaker 2: Veali Matic Arcanaan my my, my colleague at Fuller Seminar,

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Speaker 2: and even Amos John another Asian American, uh Pentacostal theologian,

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Speaker 2: have have clearly said whatever Christ was was in the spirit.

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Speaker 2: We cannot separate Jesus and the Spirit. And we have

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Speaker 2: James Donn from from New Testament studies, you know, helping

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Speaker 2: us do that. And so I think it is important

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Speaker 2: to see actually the Trinity, and we have a lot

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Speaker 2: of work in in in that since Augustine and and

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Speaker 2: others you know, and the Trinity, uh, Jesus, I mean

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Speaker 2: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are are a family,

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Speaker 2: are a whole. They are an incarnational of Divine presence,

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Speaker 2: that is a month us. But particularly in the realm

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Speaker 2: of in our own realm of mission the earth, I mean,

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Speaker 2: Jesus and the Spirit have have an activity. And whatever

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Speaker 2: Jesus is doing, the Spirit is enabling Jesus and is

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Speaker 2: with Jesus, and is Jesus is true the Spirit that

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Speaker 2: is continuing his ministry on earth. If even after a sansion,

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Speaker 2: Acts Chapter one, then Act chapter two, all the way

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Speaker 2: through our time. So in that sense, outside the gate

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Speaker 2: is not outside of God. I just want to make

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Speaker 2: that clear. When I use outside the gate, I'm trying

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Speaker 2: to point out where the spirit exposes false security of

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Speaker 2: the center uh and sometimes the distortions of truth, which

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Speaker 2: is what Jesus in a way was saying. In a way,

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Speaker 2: when you're talking about Matthew five, you've heard, but that

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Speaker 2: is not that that what you heard is completely wrong,

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Speaker 2: It is insufficient, it's not the whole story. There's more

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Speaker 2: to it than what you've heard and being concealed by tradition,

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Speaker 2: rabbinic tradition, and in those cases, and on the one hand,

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Speaker 2: rabbinic traditions, and on the other hand, people listening to

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Speaker 2: those rabbinic traditions saying I cannot do it that way,

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Speaker 2: so I'll do it my own way. You have popular traditions,

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Speaker 2: you have a rabbinic tradition on the one hand, and

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Speaker 2: popular tradition, and both of them are generating ways of

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Speaker 2: seeing God using God and and and the law the Torah.

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Speaker 2: And so Jesus comes and say, well, let me, let me,

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Speaker 2: let me, let me say that you've heard. But I

431
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 2: tell you, and and and they tell you, is not

432
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 2: how we're going to do it individually. How we're going

433
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 2: to do it in community, in community with God, my Father,

434
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 2: and the Spirit, in community with each other, and in

435
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 2: community with people that are looking at us and will

436
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 2: become part of that. Is that the prisonly prayer of

437
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 2: John seventeen. The people that will belong to our own community.

438
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 2: So in that say, in that sense that outside the gate,

439
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 2: it's more a signal to where God and the Spirit

440
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 2: particularly is is is doing great things when we're not looking. Uh.

441
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 2: The Gospel repeatedly move us to our rejected places. Jesus

442
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 2: suffers outside the gate, Penticos scatters linguistic control, and mission

443
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 2: crosses boundaries constantly. We see that, uh in the in

444
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 2: the scripture. So I think you used to go back

445
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 2: a little bit to the former question. The colonial pneumatology

446
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 2: is really about discernment, not relativism. I'm not a relativist.

447
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 2: I think that is in a when you when you

448
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 2: become a relativist, you you're not only affect the other,

449
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 2: you affect yourself because you can become highly tribal. And

450
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 2: that's a problem. So it does not mean that the

451
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 2: spirit is the only is. It does not mean that

452
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 2: every spirit, so to speak, is the holy spirit of life.

453
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that. It means that the Church must

454
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 2: continue to learn to discern the spirit without assuming that

455
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 2: the wist that particularly communities that are in the located

456
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: in certain privilege and power, that colonial legacies and particularly

457
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 2: forms of Christianity, have the monopoly of faithful perception. It

458
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 2: is about perception. It is that we still need to

459
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 2: be opened to learning pretty much who God is time

460
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 2: by time, moment by moment. We have data, we have

461
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 2: information that leaders to that, but we have to remain

462
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 2: open and wonder two to quote card Park and wonder,

463
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 2: to be surprised and to be responsive and responsible. Responsive

464
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 2: to God is responsible to our neighbor and our creation.

465
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 2: I would say that in that sense, UH, the colony

466
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 2: aneumatology is an effort to UH to UH to help

467
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: us walk with dispirite in places and in ways of

468
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 2: knowing that are not necessarily the ones emphasized in Western Christianity.

469
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 3: I think, let me, let me give you a suggestion

470
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 3: and tell me what you think about it, because I

471
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 3: think some people what you've hit on it's the heart

472
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 3: of their fear. It's the fear of relativism. Right that

473
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,760
Speaker 3: once we lose the sort of careful controls, then people

474
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 3: say whatever they want.

475
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: Right.

476
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 3: My hunch is that when we have that inclination first,

477
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 3: there's an element of fear tied into that. I want

478
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,439
Speaker 3: to set that fear aside for a moment. Feel free

479
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 3: to bring it back if you want to, But I

480
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 3: want to say that there's a second element, and that

481
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 3: second element is there's a method, and that method. While

482
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 3: methods are helpful, they're also deeply bound to peoples and

483
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 3: traditions and places, and so that when we create certain

484
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 3: kinds of boundaries that we find non negotiable, we find

485
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 3: them as the hard lines that we use to protect.

486
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 3: We're deeply tying any talk about the work of God

487
00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 3: in this world, not actually to Jesus, but rather to

488
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 3: that method that's bound to a people in a place

489
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 3: and a time. It's just that that aspect is invisible

490
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 3: to us. But conversely, what I hear you saying is

491
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 3: that what we need to do is grab a hold

492
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,959
Speaker 3: of the person of Jesus. And we do that precisely

493
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:21,879
Speaker 3: by grabbing a hold of the person of the very

494
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 3: Holy Spirit of this Jesus, and that spirit can confound

495
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 3: the ways that we think, right, it can surprise us

496
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 3: because that spirit doesn't bound to the same traditional and

497
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 3: mental and thought structures that we sometimes don't realize that

498
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 3: we are. Is that fair to what you're saying? And

499
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 3: if not, please correct it, you.

500
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 2: Know, in a way I mean, I mean one of

501
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 2: the things that is clear. I mean Christ is the

502
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 2: mediator between God and us. Nobody can call Jesus Lord

503
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 2: without spirit. So there is a mediation even between us

504
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 2: and Christ. And I think somebody like Augustine too, you know,

505
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 2: to call some some some of the of the sources

506
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 2: of of of different traditions in the West. Uh clearly

507
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 2: understood that the that the spirit is the is the

508
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 2: is the relating agent of love, God, love, Jesus, Who's

509
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 2: love in the spirit, the loving connections I speak in

510
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 2: a way, yes, I think, and I'm going back to

511
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 2: James again. It is uh easier to build a boxed

512
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 2: Christology than a boxed New mythology. There is a reason why.

513
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 4: For for several centuries, even the Christian in in in

514
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 4: the history of the Christian of Christian in the West,

515
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 4: there was no allusion to the spirit.

516
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,799
Speaker 2: There was sort of a how do we put our

517
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 2: hands around that? That's complicated, it's it's not what I'm

518
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 2: going to say. On the other hand, in the modern era,

519
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 2: we've said, oh, but we've got to say something because

520
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 2: all and we've said some some some good things, some

521
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 2: of the things are not necessarily as good, like like

522
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 2: theology is that way. That's why you need discernment, and

523
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 2: you need practice, you need you need orthodoxy, but you

524
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 2: need autopractice, and you need autopathos the way to fill

525
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 2: also a god and sense God the way. So I

526
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 2: think it is it is appropriate it said to say that,

527
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 2: and you mentioned fear and method. I even wrote a

528
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 2: book lately twenty sixteen called Embracing Fear was more my

529
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 2: public telogy book, by the way, and we don't need

530
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 2: to get into that book because that book is more

531
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 2: into our current set of events. But the part of

532
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 2: the arguments of that book is we need to reclaim

533
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 2: the tradition of fear the Lord more than the tradition

534
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 2: of fear Empire. And that calls to Martyrian the witness.

535
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 2: So yes, we all need to deal with our fears.

536
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 2: And I would suggest in a spiritual posture with desert Christianity.

537
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 2: And that's our spirituality. That not just surrendering our personal fears,

538
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 2: even our cultural fears, even our religious fears. It's important

539
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 2: but also to embrace the fear of the Lord and

540
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 2: let the fear of the Lord guide us to and

541
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 2: let me use the word method that you use to waste,

542
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 2: because method is away to weighs of recognizing the cloud

543
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 2: of witnesses, the traditions that we have received. We canna

544
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 2: simply trash them. That would be another form of suicide,

545
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:24,439
Speaker 2: that would be ridiculous. But carrying those traditions walk as

546
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 2: disciples attentive to God here and now and moving forward.

547
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:36,800
Speaker 2: That attentiveness is the very method of being a disciple

548
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 2: of Jesus. Is not certain knowledge, is not accumulated data.

549
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 2: It is a posture of learning from God, with God,

550
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 2: and because of God, how to move forward. Sometimes our

551
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 2: witness today may look like even heretical to people fifty

552
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 2: years ago, but it is our generational call today as

553
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 2: long as we do it in deep discernment and and

554
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 2: you know, really having in our hearts that we're trying

555
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 2: to be as faithful as we can with whatever we

556
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,320
Speaker 2: have right now. We need to be able to defend

557
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 2: and not individually, that will have to be defended collectively

558
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 2: as the body of jesuscribe. So that's in a way

559
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:34,919
Speaker 2: the the pressure and and and if I'm mistaken, I'm

560
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 2: always open to be corrects, you know.

561
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 1: No, it's interesting when I was so when I was

562
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: reading through the book and just thinking about it, and

563
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: I used to work with a gentleman who is a Taoist,

564
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 1: and so he had kind of challenged me. I was

565
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: in seminary at the time. He challenged me to read

566
00:40:55,000 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: the dow Dejing, and I became sort of fascinated with

567
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: the image of water that is in the two de Jing,

568
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,760
Speaker 1: this notion that water is fluid and that it moves

569
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: and it's not captive. It sort of adapts to whatever

570
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: container it's in, whatever you know, space it's in. It

571
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:13,720
Speaker 1: tends to erode the rocks. I mean, all this stuff

572
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: was in you know, the sort of Eastern Chinese philosophy,

573
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 1: and it's much more prominent there than it is in

574
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: a lot of the Western philosophy that we read. But

575
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,839
Speaker 1: it just struck me when I was thinking about the

576
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is far more like

577
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 1: the Eastern understanding of the Tauadajing and the water and

578
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: this fluidness and this posture that those traditions are asking

579
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 1: us to have, which is to be more mobile and

580
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: flexible and malleable to context, not to be I understand

581
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: the fear toward relativism, but that's not the call. The

582
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,319
Speaker 1: call is to be sort of in the pocket while

583
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: still be being malleable within the pocket, right, And so

584
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: I just found that imagery to fit really really well

585
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: with the Holy Spirit and something that we don't do

586
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:09,240
Speaker 1: particularly well, I think, especially in the West, of being

587
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: that sort of malleable character, having that adaptability, being willing

588
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: and open to consider even that something else faithful is

589
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: going on in this community over here when it doesn't

590
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: look like us. And so there is a radical openness

591
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: I think that you're calling for in the book. But

592
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: I never took it as a relativism. I took it

593
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 1: as a let's recognize our limitations, let's recognize our inability

594
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: to understand all things, and let's also recognize that God

595
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 1: is a is way smarter than we are. Right, we

596
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: just read the back half of the Book of Job.

597
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: When we start to understand that God has it on

598
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 1: us right, And so there's a sense in which thinking

599
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 1: that we have God pinned down is. I wrote to

600
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: unpublished essay at one point, just reflecting on some of

601
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: my employment experiences, and I titled that God's cubicles in

602
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: the basement and we've stolen a stapler, And so anybody

603
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: who's watched the office Space will understand that reference. But

604
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 1: the idea was that we tend to take God and

605
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 1: put him in this sort of small space and expect

606
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,399
Speaker 1: him to serve our agendas, serve our needs, and act

607
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: the way we anticipate he's supposed to act. But that's

608
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: not really what God does. God's the one who does

609
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,720
Speaker 1: the surprising. God's the one who determines how God acts,

610
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: and God is going to do that in a multitude

611
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: of different ways outside of us, And so we just

612
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: have to be really open to that, not open to anything,

613
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: which I think sort of is probably more what people

614
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 1: are concerned with when we think about relativism. But I

615
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 1: would just I wonder what I wonder if you'd agree

616
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: with it. So all that preamble just to say this,

617
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,320
Speaker 1: my tendency is to think that we have a maturity problem.

618
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: I would go to something like Hebrews five fourteen. Right,

619
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,959
Speaker 1: you've reached this mature state, and from this mature state

620
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: now you can discern good and evil. Discernment requires maturity.

621
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: And if we're not even willing to engage in discernment,

622
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 1: I think it doesn't necessarily draw in to question the

623
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 1: method or the perspective. It draws into question our own maturity.

624
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 1: That just sort of was ringing in my head as

625
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:26,399
Speaker 1: I was reading.

626
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I mean,

627
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 2: that's a way to really have a conversation on daily

628
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 2: life about about these kind of materials. And thank you

629
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 2: for that. I'm preaching this Sunday, so that's anthing gone it.

630
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 1: All yours.

631
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 2: And by the way, in my church you have clinical

632
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 2: psychologists and things like that, so they will really top

633
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 2: that that that topic. Let me react to the first

634
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 2: thing to the question now I'm asking. I think if

635
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 2: I even wrote a chapter because I really wanted to

636
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 2: be I know, I acknowledged that spiritsiday Is is technical

637
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 2: and and it's introducing disciplines for theologians that are are

638
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: sort of a I mean, I've never been exposed, so

639
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:28,439
Speaker 2: I try to be as a front as I could,

640
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 2: as pedagogical as I could. I put a glossary. I

641
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:36,799
Speaker 2: even wrote a chapter, chapter eleven that color disclaiming UH

642
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 2: theology meaning this is what I'm not. I'm not saying this,

643
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 2: and I'm saying this so that to clarify that. And

644
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 2: I think that is important at least UH and and

645
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 2: so one of the and that chapter, I I just

646
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 2: try to help the reader to say, look, traditionally since

647
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 2: the color time, since fourteen nine into where we had

648
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 2: the Christian missions arriving at at the America's tortile island

649
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 2: or the different communities aren't calling it. The question was

650
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 2: really not so much about God, but was about the other.

651
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 2: I mean, who are these folks? Who are this? Who

652
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 2: are this this I won't even call it people who

653
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 2: are these? And and then because they look so different

654
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:42,720
Speaker 2: than us, we really need to ask, I mean, what's

655
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 2: going on? Then we saw the ritual that we saw

656
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 2: their whatever we could understand I'm talking about I'm talking

657
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 2: about five centuries ago, right in the moment where Ivarian

658
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 2: I mean Spanish and Portuguese. Later on it's going to

659
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 2: be British and Dodge, are you know, bringing this this

660
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 2: helenic heleness their own framework and say, well, but this

661
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,320
Speaker 2: is so different. And the same time some of the

662
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 2: things that they believe is very similar. But they don't

663
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 2: even have a language how to call God. So all

664
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 2: this happened, and the question was, Okay, they're so different

665
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:23,800
Speaker 2: because because because because the devil is with them. So

666
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 2: the question is where is the devil in what they do?

667
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:34,919
Speaker 2: It was never where is God? So what I'm doing

668
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 2: in this book is I'm not denying that the devil

669
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 2: is in different rituals, but I'm saying that God is

670
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 2: all suppressing in the form of the spirit of life

671
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:47,320
Speaker 2: in those places.

672
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 5: To how can we discern what the spirit is doing there,

673
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:54,399
Speaker 5: just like what we're discerning and what Spirit was doing

674
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 5: and the and the pre Socratic uh, you know communities,

675
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 5: So we we we have a more easy way to say, oh,

676
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 5: God may be operating through Plato and Socrates that we

677
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 5: have through some of the ancient.

678
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 2: You know, wisdom tellers of the indigenous community. And that

679
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 2: is in part because we've been codified. We've been trained

680
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 2: to ask certain questions and not ask other questions. So

681
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 2: that I'm opening to your point, I'm opening the conversation

682
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 2: to say, let's look for God. Also I'm saying that

683
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 2: we should not ask the other question, but are saying

684
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 2: I wanted to add this other question, and you may

685
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 2: be surprised that you may find God operating, the Spirit

686
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 2: operating there in ways that you never thought possible. And

687
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 2: I think that's a generous theological posture that we need

688
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:52,280
Speaker 2: in our time because in a way, this this opens

689
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 2: up the possibility of cold humanity, of living together with

690
00:48:56,200 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 2: other people without pre judging and assassinating the character, and

691
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 2: the possibility of all these people's futures among ourselves.

692
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I hear in that way of you describing

693
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 3: it sort of implicitly, that there needs to be a

694
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 3: letting go of this hierarchical dimension of I have I'm teacher.

695
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 3: You don't have I give to you your student, right,

696
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 3: and maybe even in the teacher the actual teacher relationship

697
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 3: that needs to be loosened. Because the example you gave,

698
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 3: I think was a really helpful one with just the

699
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 3: poor question. Instead of asking just where's the devil, ask

700
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:41,879
Speaker 3: where's God? Where's the spirit at work? Because the flip

701
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,280
Speaker 3: side of that is that oftentimes in those same colonial works,

702
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 3: these people who ostensibly were doing what they were doing

703
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 3: as divine mandate, as they saw it, to give people

704
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 3: God through giving them maturity, were themselves doing some pretty

705
00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 3: despicable things, right, su that one could easily ask in return,

706
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 3: where's where's the devil.

707
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 2: In what you're doing?

708
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 4: Right?

709
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 3: Which should give us a moment to pause. I think, right,

710
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 3: if it's if it's unilaterally one directional, that's where we're

711
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:22,879
Speaker 3: starting to allow certain gatekeeping to prevent us from seeing

712
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,239
Speaker 3: that the spirits at work outside the gate of what

713
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 3: we were doing, right, and that we too are learners,

714
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 3: We too are teacher, not just teachers, but receiving. Is

715
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 3: that fair?

716
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 2: Yeah? And also I think now you made me think

717
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:42,399
Speaker 2: about the proposition of games about maturity, and I'm meaning

718
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 2: any study that you do in enlightenment, uh, you know,

719
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 2: philosophy and enlightenment theology is the sense that within the

720
00:50:53,760 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 2: Western European imagination, social imagination, you know, we've become mature

721
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 2: humans right here in this particular okay, geopolitical too, this

722
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:14,879
Speaker 2: particular location, because we have this tradition, we have these

723
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 2: religious legacies, we have these are industrial and we can

724
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 2: call it today technological advances that demonstrate that are human

725
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 2: and this is a civilizational thing that we are mature

726
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 2: civilization versus these other places that are underdeveloped in a

727
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 2: way sub humans. They need They're like kids that need development.

728
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 2: Once that posture is adopted. Uh, this is a very

729
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 2: self referential posture. And I think there's a there's a

730
00:51:55,080 --> 00:52:00,319
Speaker 2: biblical you know principle there have you seen people all.

731
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 3: Uh?

732
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 2: I know it more in Spanish English? Actually have you

733
00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:09,799
Speaker 2: seen people that believe their wives.

734
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 5: Is?

735
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 2: There? Is there not more hope in a foolige, those

736
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 2: who think that they don't know God than in somebody

737
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 2: who thinks they are wise in their own ways. This

738
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 2: is very dangerous, you know, assuming maturity in that way,

739
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 2: because I would argue from I'm I'm a I'm a

740
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 2: fan of this spirituality. I mean the fathers and the

741
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 2: mother the maturity that they show through humility, through openness,

742
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 2: through service, to acknowledgement that they were so little in

743
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 2: comparison to who God is and what God does that

744
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 2: there there are. Their posture is always a pasture of

745
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 2: what is it Lord? What is it? Have mercy? And

746
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:08,320
Speaker 2: me I'm not understanding. So it's a learn ignorance so

747
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 2: to speak, that enabled you to be to act because maturity,

748
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 2: I want to suggest I want to take it even further.

749
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 2: Maturity more than a thinking, is an acting, it's a relating.

750
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 2: You relate to others. And they will they will say,

751
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 2: this is a mature relationship, that a mature person because

752
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 2: I am built up, I am affumed, I am uplifted.

753
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,239
Speaker 2: I become the best version of myself when I am

754
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 2: with this community or with this individual. I want to

755
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 2: suggest that that's part of maturity more than my self perception.

756
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 2: And I think that's a that's an issue that we have,

757
00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:51,439
Speaker 2: that's an issue that we have, James very very much.

758
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes to the narrative of the I think

759
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: it's the religious leader. I can't remember what they call him,

760
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:00,719
Speaker 1: a pharisee or saduty, but you know he praised God,

761
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: thank you for not making me like these sinners and

762
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 1: prostitutes and uh, and then you know the centers and

763
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:08,800
Speaker 1: the tax collectors are there, you know, actually praying for

764
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:11,280
Speaker 1: a pentance. And if you just looked at that narrative

765
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 1: and you sat back and said which of these is mature,

766
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: you're probably not picking the religious leader. There's a there's

767
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: a self referential sort of righteousness that he applies to

768
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 1: himself that doesn't scream maturity. These other these other people

769
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: who are actually confessing their sins and who are aligned

770
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: with what with God and God's order have a different understanding,

771
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:33,800
Speaker 1: a different level of understanding of what it means to

772
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: be mature, and that that maturity comes in our to

773
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 1: some degree, in our agreement with God. And so yeah,

774
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:44,759
Speaker 1: I think that's a really important crucial point. It isn't

775
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 1: about embodying a certain tradition. That's not what makes you mature.

776
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:52,839
Speaker 1: It's it's it's something deeper than that, it's something more

777
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: significant than that, And I think that's why it leaves

778
00:54:55,280 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 1: us open to some of these other questions. Yeah, well, man,

779
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 1: this has been a really interesting conversation. We are We

780
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: could probably go for another hour, but we're not going to,

781
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:12,919
Speaker 1: so we'll close it out with this. But everyone, i'd

782
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,319
Speaker 1: really encourage you to get this book, and it's really

783
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:18,320
Speaker 1: a fantastic book. I think you'll enjoy it if you

784
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 1: get it, and we'll have a link to the to

785
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 1: it in the in the show notes. We're also this

786
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: is an IVP book and so we get a twenty

787
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:31,280
Speaker 1: percent discount if you order off of the IVP website.

788
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: So i'd encourage you to do that again. The link

789
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:35,800
Speaker 1: will be in the show notes, Oscar. Is there anywhere

790
00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 1: else that people can come and find your work outside

791
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:41,320
Speaker 1: of the book. You want to have a website, you

792
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 1: have a substack or anything fun like that.

793
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:47,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if they go to my web page

794
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:52,719
Speaker 2: and a foot seminary, but also in Facebook and Instagram

795
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,239
Speaker 2: for example. In the land twenty twenty six, I wrote

796
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 2: a book lately called The Colonial Love in Times of

797
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:02,840
Speaker 2: Hatred h and that was the tone right there is

798
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 2: particularly how can we how can we do very crystallogical

799
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:09,960
Speaker 2: cost christology? It was forty ways to follow Jesus Today?

800
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 2: So I'm as a matter of fact, let me if

801
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:17,959
Speaker 2: you tell me where to I'll send you a couple

802
00:56:18,000 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 2: of copies because I think that's that's what we're talking

803
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 2: about discipleship here. How do we land all this in ways?

804
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:26,160
Speaker 2: And this is actually meant for individuals as well, not

805
00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 2: just for communitycause I understand how life works and in

806
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 2: the city. So okay, let's begin one on one here,

807
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 2: but let's move beyond that. So that's where it begins

808
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:40,240
Speaker 2: and it hits how can I really follow Jesus today

809
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:43,800
Speaker 2: with all the complexities that we have in particularly with

810
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 2: an environment that I have to take a disposition or

811
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:51,279
Speaker 2: disposition I forced to go beyond what even and I

812
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 2: feel it's right. But if I'm not here or there,

813
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 2: I'm out of the game. So how do we take

814
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 2: control of our lives in God and become a faithful

815
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 2: witness today and to the point that you can affect

816
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 2: and if you will, infect those who seems to be

817
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 2: disoriented in ways that are more affirmative and constructive. So

818
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 2: in that sense, for couple, I did forty videos of uh.

819
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 2: I think it was uh five minutes and and and

820
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 2: the forty forty days of length about this dicolonial love

821
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 2: in terms of hatred because it was one per day.

822
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:38,280
Speaker 2: That's you can find a lot. And I did that

823
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,360
Speaker 2: in English. Well, I write more in English and in Spanish.

824
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do a series of seven volumes of

825
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 2: sort of a systematic in Spanish and volume tree right now,

826
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 2: and it's taking me a while to do that. But

827
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:57,280
Speaker 2: that is available in English. I engage in Spanish, English

828
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 2: and Portuguese and and so h fuller page and I

829
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 2: can send you also my my fath uh Facebook and

830
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 2: Instagram account. You're fine, something.

831
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:12,840
Speaker 1: Excellent and give the name of the Lent series again,

832
00:58:14,920 --> 00:58:19,680
Speaker 1: the Lent for fuller uh, the the when you were

833
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: just talking about the forty day.

834
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:25,080
Speaker 2: One okay for on a seconds, Uh, it's called The

835
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:27,480
Speaker 2: Colonial Love in Times of Hatred.

836
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:29,480
Speaker 1: The Colonial Love in Times of Hatred?

837
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, forty Ways to follow Jesus Today. Excellent, and

838
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 2: I'm very I'm very encouraged with that book because I'm

839
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 2: talking to those of the the you know, divided divided

840
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 2: by faith and divided by public, to say, okay, well,

841
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 2: let's let's let's leave a little bit of those camps

842
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,720
Speaker 2: and let's go let's come here. Let's let's focus on

843
00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:55,760
Speaker 2: Jesus for a moment. That's all I'm saying. What happened

844
00:58:55,800 --> 00:58:58,040
Speaker 2: after that? You know, it's out of my power, but

845
00:58:58,160 --> 00:59:00,720
Speaker 2: let's let's come here, am out of who you are.

846
00:59:00,920 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 2: Let's come here, Let's focus on Jesus, thank it through,

847
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 2: and then do what he do you want with it?

848
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:11,000
Speaker 1: Very cool, Well, Oscar, we really appreciate you being here. Man.

849
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 1: This is a great conversation. I love the book Spirit

850
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:15,520
Speaker 1: Outside the Gate. I'm going to check out some of

851
00:59:15,520 --> 00:59:17,920
Speaker 1: your other stuff. I actually read The Mestizo Community of

852
00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 1: the Spirit and so I read that earlier when it

853
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 1: came out, so really appreciated that book as well. But

854
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:28,000
Speaker 1: Spirit Outside the Gates was refreshing. I enjoyed it, and

855
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:31,800
Speaker 1: so just encourage everybody to read it as well. And yeah,

856
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:34,040
Speaker 1: just thanks for being here. Really appreciate you being here.

857
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:37,720
Speaker 2: Well, I fell at home. Your your great host, and

858
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 2: I will say, partners and colleagues and I a mile

859
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 2: what you do and we need more of this.

860
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:47,880
Speaker 1: Well hopefully we'll be doing it, continue doing more of that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all right, everybody, Well, thanks, thanks everybody, and we'll catch

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Speaker 1: you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just

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Speaker 1: want to take a second to thank the team at

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Speaker 1: Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking

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Speaker 1: Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll

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Speaker 1: find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.

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Speaker 1: They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.