[DAWN]
Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, host of Faith Fringes Podcast, recording live from Castle Rock Colorado, not only where I love to live, but I also work as the owner of a counseling center in the historic downtown. This podcast is a place to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. For those desiring deeper connection with God and engaging their spirituality in new ways, this will be a safe place to allow doubt, questions and curiosity, without judgment. We will be creating intentional space to listen in on other’s faith journeys, whether that is deconstruction or reconstruction, with the hope of traveling alongside you on your own spiritual path. If you’re interested in getting even more out of this podcast, grab my free email course Spiritual Reflections on my websitefaithfringes.com. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello spiritual explorers. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are enjoying your summer. I know I am. It’s been a great time to slow down, but also get back out in the sunshine, get back out with people and just really start enjoying, for us community life and being involved back in some fun activities. We are full swing in baseball for our kids this summer, and I hope you’re really finding some time to just slow down and connect with one another, connect with God and just really explore what’s going on internally with you. Today I am going to be interviewing a couple Luke and Erin, and I’m really thinking that this is a really helpful tool. This episode is just so good at really looking at how do we have conversations with people that really are impactful when we don’t agree?

I think what I noticed after I listened back to the episode and as we were recording, what I noticed is something that actually Erin said in the recording is that we need to have conversations that help change the cultural narratives and the landscapes that we’ve already, that have been ingrained in our own personal culture, but to not like be reactionary and yell that and be dogmatic, but to really be effective. To have effective conversations, we really need to help people examine what’s really going on in their heads and in their hearts and why they are feeling so strongly about a certain subject.

I don’t know about you, but for me, I feel like the last few months or the last year has been so intense on different subjects, a lot of people on social media or just even in the community asking you to take a side and stand up and pick sides. And I’m fine picking sides, but I think the way in which it’s happening is very reactionary and very, almost like yelling and screaming about their side rather than inviting into a good conversation to really understand where the other person’s coming from and to also listen, listen to one another, listen to the stories. So today I feel like this episode really jumps into that and give some really good specific key tools on how to do that. You’ll find Luke and Erin share like specific things you can apply right away.

Also, they help you think, they give some stories and help you really think through how might I talk to someone who has completely different opinion than me, but I still want to engage because they’re in my life and I care about them. So listen in, as we dive into this subject on how to have a conversation around divisive issues and you can fill in the blank with that what might be a divisive issue for you and your family or for you and your workplace or community. I think this is just really going to help you think through and have some really practical steps.
[DAWN]
Welcome Luke and Erin to the podcast.
[LUKE & ERIN]
Hi, good to be here.
[DAWN]
Yes. I am so excited about this conversation and I’m sure my listeners are going to really enjoy it because it sounds like you guys have both, on different levels, have had many conversations with people surrounding what could possibly be divisive issues that you create open space, where it’s a comfortable conversation. And it sounds like you love having those conversations too.
[LUKE DURAIN]
Yes, that’s true. I think in our own individual lives with some of our friends together, we’ve practiced some of that. I come from more of that therapy background, so trying to create that open space in a therapy room, but then how do we translate that even to our personal relationships and with family. What do you think Erin?
[ERIN DURAIN]
I think this is a very essential part of how we changed the cultural landscape and some of the narratives ingrained in our culture because, to try to approach it more from even like a reactionary position, just spitting out certain things towards the other side on social media platforms has not really been effective and getting people to sort of examine their own values and narratives the way they really interpret situations. So I really think that these types of dialogues are very constructive and instrumental in how we not only grow together in our relationships and communities, but slowly bring some type of change in the cultural landscape as well.
[DAWN]
Yes. I love what you said that, like social media, blasting something on social media has not been helpful, but having these constructive conversations where you understand where people are coming from and understand how they’ve made their decisions, that’s been way more helpful in changing cultural landscape. So why don’t you guys tell us how did you get here? What’s your background? How did you get to this place where you love having these conversations?
[LUKE]
Sure. So I grew up in a home that became, my parents split and they became divorced as a teen and I grew up more conservative Christian and not really exploring other aspects of faith or other aspects of politics. So conservative both politically and theologically, and then went off from, I moved from Texas to California so quiet a cultural shift. I studied some theology but also expanded my horizons, my friend group, my becoming more diverse. So I guess what I’d say is that there’s like a personal development and then a professional development in terms of wanting to learn how to form bridges because of the broken home I came from and also feeling as though I came from a more isolated kind of mindset and so wanting to explore what are other ways of seeing the world, what are other ways that people interpret reality? So yes, I guess just developing these relationships and communities there and professionally wanting to build marriages. So I specialize and couples therapy as well. And noticed that in my own relationships, I’ve been trying to foster the same kind of environment of like open dialogue and mediating a little bit.
[DAWN]
Yes, thanks, Erin. What about you?
[ERIN]
For me, I grew up in Oklahoma in a very, very conservative environment and there wasn’t really room to ask any questions. In that case, I think faith and politics were so intertwined that if you believed or held any sort of policies that not really congruent with their very ardent Republican values, you’re almost immediately dismissed as having no faith. So I grew up in sort of that type of environment, in that more, very stringent Republican Christian level. And I think when I went off to seminary to study theology I really thought that was going to be the answer where people were deconstructing their faith and asking hard questions and really challenging sort of the Republican status quo that has had monopoly on some evangelical circles or a great deal of evangelical circles.

I thought I was going to be sort of the answer and a way out from some of the suffocation I felt in the very tight-knit evangelical circles, but it actually wasn’t because what I realized was over time that both sides, whether people go towards becoming insulated in their conservative bubble or people completely react out of that and go towards more of the extreme left movements, both sides are actually similar in that they operate from Monism. Monism, according to philosophies is that only one set of values is true and all others are false. And I actually have found both sides doing that, that whatever values they hold that I don’t have a problem with. If that’s your value, that’s fine, but it almost comes to the point of, I hold this value to extensive rejecting all other values.

That’s what I found to be problematic, even in the progressive circles that I hoped to be an Oasis for me intellectually and spiritually, is that narrow holding certain values at the expense of rejecting all others or demonizing other groups that don’t hold their values. And I saw both sides doing that. So that’s when I started my journey of pluralism to see, is there another way between choosing left or right in a more reactionary scheme, but to kind of work through these issues of how we hold values and understand values different from our own?
[DAWN]
Wow. I felt like everything just said there was a bunch of nuggets. I want to break it down for a second. So you first were, well, both of you, it sounds like had upbringings where your faith and your politics were closely related in how you’re brought up. But as you got older and started searching on your own, that’s when you realized, wait, I might have faith over here, but my politics don’t match what maybe my church or my family has said, and I want to go to a different place. But then Erin, what you were saying is that the, can you say that? Was it monism, is that what you called it? I actually never heard of that word. I’m glad you described what it was. I just love that what you said that people usually go to the extreme at the expense of everyone else than they believe their beliefs, but no one else can have beliefs opposite of them. That’s huge. People don’t think sit down and think about that.
[ERIN]
And I think that’s actually what leads us further and further away from more of a comprehensive or what I would call even a generous truth because if one holds onto the fragment of their values and hold it so rigidly, at the expense of all other truths as false or all other values that’s problematic or inherently evil, then I think we actually become further and further away from sort of a generous truth that really backends us to see the irreducible plurality of this world. So, yes, I think that’s kind of the root, symptom Monism, which is a monolithic thinking that is so ingrained in us and it makes us think of things very, in a reductionally scheme, in a binary scheme of black and white, and that there’s only a single answer that we possess that our values are that one answer. And it actually cartels us from being able to be on a journey of truth, to see the world in all of its varieties, and to be able to have a more comprehensive and generous truth.
[DAWN]
Yes. I want to break that down even more and hear what you guys are thinking, like, say more about how we get to the more generous truth and more pluralism, or maybe describe pluralism a little bit more.
[ERIN]
So pluralism is not Monism or relativism in that it doesn’t say there’s only one single set of values that’s true and all others are false. But neither is it supposed to say that nothing’s, there’s no sense of truth that my values are mine, yours are yours and too bad, none of us are right. And that type of attitude is in some sense, very morally relaxed and then there can’t be any sense of ethical responsibility. But pluralism is to say there are genuine values. There are genuine values that can be harmful and that can be constructive and our values are different, but we’re going to try to work through that. We’re going to try to understand, we’re going to try to really wrestle with this by recognizing that there is a plurality of values, that what I think of when I think of issues like social welfare or what is good for society might be different from yours. And it starts with this very important recognition that maybe what the others say in their political positions or ideologies come from a deeper issue of values and narratives that ground their values. So I would say that even starts with this fundamental awareness of recognizing that there is more to what forms a person’s opinions and to go deeper into the moral sources and values that shape that.

Yes. So it sounds like you’re setting us up for like a, how to almost like, how would we go about having these conversations and creating this open space for dialogue? Can you kind of either one of you walk us through that, like what —

That was a really good segue, because I wrote a blog on some of the, how to. I tend to be more, so she’s really good at the abstract ideals, like she’s diving into and I like to put my sleeves and say, “Okay, what are the practical steps?” So I can just touch on a few major points from that article and then any points that you like to hear more about or explain further, feel free to. So just the question, how do we create this space? How do we talk about issues that can be divisive? My first question is to prompt the person to reflect and say, “Well, what is my goal in my interaction?” For example, if I’m going to write a post on Facebook, if I’m going to talk down to my family member about something that bothers me, even something that bothers me about what they believe spiritually, what they vote politically is what’s my goal here.

And if my goal here is to, well, let me actually give a few examples of different types of goals. So maybe my goal is to bring awareness of a concern. Maybe my goal is to hopefully change their opinion or maybe my goal is to vent. Then your actions should follow that because I think what often happens is we see something that disturbs us and then we react with almost a compulsive shaming, calling out that’s like the cancel culture mindset. So I do think there is a place for criticism and for calling right, calling out injustice. So I think if our goal is to just call out then that makes sense, but if our goal is to hopefully bring the other person into a discussion to awareness and to maybe changing and considering a different approach, then a more tactful approach is kind of required.
[DAWN]
Yes, definitely
[LUKE]
For example, you might think of the classic Facebook posts that like calls out something that’s wrong and you may be using shaming language using labels like, oh, you just raise this ignorant X, Y, Z. And you hear on both sides of the spectrum, of course. While again, it is important to call out injustice, if my goal is for an individual like a friend or family member to change a label will just create a sense of shame and defensiveness, and they won’t really understand where you’re coming from. So just think of it as almost a debate or me versus them. So in terms of respectful dialogue as maybe what would go for, if the goal is to change, to create a sense of change or a deeper understanding. So a respectful dialogue would use ingredients like, well, respect to start off with, but maybe using, fostering a sense of genuine curiosity.

Like my attitude is non-judgmental. Again, I’m not ignoring my own values or maybe I might have a sense of being disturbed by something they say, which is normal, but just say, “Hmm, tell me a story about why you, how you arrive at that belief or what values that connect with for you? And then just to briefly go into other types of goals and then we can revisit anyone that you want, in other situations, you might see like a civil demonstration or disruptive demonstration. So the goal there wouldn’t be necessarily dialogue or calling out. It would be to say like this is wrong. So we might think of like Rosa Parks or even the Boston Tea Party. It was just a disruptive demonstration and that was the purpose of it. And then other times we might just want the event.

So whether you’re talking with a friend or Facebook, I just need to vent about something that hurts me or bothers me. So maybe I’m looking more for solidarity and empathy there. So that might be more of a raw expression of pain. Like I can’t believe they did this. Like how could they. So again, maybe less tactful, less filtered, but maybe because the goal wouldn’t necessarily be to create change or to bring someone across your site, but maybe gather support and understanding from people who do know where you’re coming from.

Maybe the last one touch on for now is maybe all of these things feel like too much. Maybe if someone’s gone through a lot of pain or suffered a lot of injustice, they don’t have the energy for sitting down, patience, respectful dialogue, or even doing all of the marches and all of the justice work, maybe these things, I’m exhausted. And so that’s viable too, to have a season of rest. It’s saying, I just need to recover. I need to heal. And I don’t maybe have the energy to do these other things at this point in time. So I’ll go ahead and pause for now on these different topics and see if you have any questions.
[DAWN]
Yes, no, I love that. It sounds like the main thing is learning how to, first of all, know your own personal goal of what is my goal and what I’m about to post or say, or do, and getting really up close and slowing down long enough to not just react, but to really thoughtfully respond and kind of look at what your goals, what your values are here. The question I have is how, we might be able to do that because we can control our own cells, but how do we do that when someone else close to us like a family member or someone, a friend, they are not doing that, and they’re reacting all over the place? What would you recommend there?
[LUKE]
Sure. I guess that triggers mindset, almost the same goal as like the respectful dialogue, because they’re respectful dialogue, the goal of that would be to foster a greater awareness in another person. So whether I’m personally hoping to change, eventually maybe change a person’s mind or give them a greater sense of conviction about a value that I hold, the things might be true of a friend who maybe I share the same conviction, but they’re going about it in a way that seems destructive or divisive. It’s essentially maybe the same approach, which is, “Hey, let’s talk about this. I noticed this is happening. How’s that going for you? What are your thoughts about it?”

Obviously, if I’m hoping to bring into their awareness, maybe a very sensitive thing, like their approach that can elicit defensiveness and shame. So I might want to start off with some validation and empathy, like, “Man, I know this is hard. These times are hard or yes, that topic is so angering for me too.” And then maybe just sharing, “Hey, this is something I’ve been thinking about for myself. This is an approach I’m trying now. What do you think?” So then it feels like more like collaborative, more like we’re sharing ideas versus like, you’re wrong? What are you doing? That’s stupid. Again, that would just create a sense of defensiveness. Just like calling someone out for their political or spiritual views would be also igniting their defensiveness and shutting down.
[DAWN]
Yes. And I feel like that speaks to so many of my pillars that I’ve talked about on this podcast is, one of them is creating space to engage not only your story, but someone else’s story and you can’t judge, unless you hear their story and know like what they’re really going through. And so this is very similar to that of just curiosity versus like shame and judgment. Like, let’s have curiosity here. What’s going on? What are you experiencing and how did you get there? Yes, it’s beautiful. I love it.
[ERIN]
Yes. I use the term narrative inquiry for that, that type of work of understanding, of course, not just our narratives, which I think is important to be self-aware of how our own values are shaped and what to access, but narrative inquiry into the lives of others to see them beyond just sort of an abstract idea, because when we have these types of difficult conversations and the other person is being rather reactive and speaking in extreme ways, it’s easier for us to categorize them into a certain group like, oh, they’re the conservative or they’re the, whatever the name is. And then we’ve kind of reduced them to this idea. And because of that, we’re not genuinely open to figuring out like, well, what is the background narrative of their lives? What’s going on in their lives currently in the past, but also what are some ways their lives can unfold from here on because no one is a completely finished product?

I mean, we’re all people that are on a journey of becoming and to understand that the person that we see now in that limited space and that limited framework and the ways that we are able to see them is not the complete version of that person. That that person is in some sense, a part of a larger flow of time and a larger space in which different background experiences, as family, the pain could have affected them to be where they’re at now. So I think a narrative inquiry kind of moves us from seeing people in groups and boxes as an abstract idea, but to actually be able to sort of humanize them and just seeing, not their pain, even their reaction and defenses come from a genuine state of fear and to kind of allow space that might neutralize that a little bit, I think would be important.
[DAWN]
Yes. As I’m sitting here listening, I’m like, okay, I’m taking notes. You guys have such good descriptions and words. I’m like, we need like a vocabulary sheet to go along with this podcast and the show notes to like remind people. Like narrative inquiry and what’s that? And yes, and even you guys just even talking it, you’re so warm and inviting. That’s the word that comes when you’re talking about this open dialogue, is it’s an invitation rather than this reactionary push. And I think most people would respond well to an invitation to discuss and inquire. And curiosity, like that’s just so invitational, like sitting down with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and just having a great conversation with respect and curiosity.
[LUKE]
Yes. I mean, I think one potential concern or question that someone listening might have is, this sounds nice, like kumbaya, but what about, I think the fear or the concern might be, would this lead to apathy, passivity, not creating real change, not confronting real concerns or injustices or change. So I think what these approaches that we’re talking about aren’t for the sake of avoidance or passivity, but in fact, I think that the greatest amount of change that can occur requires this foundation of trust and collaborative relationship. I think it’s founded on relationships. So the people we hope to change or, or even to learn more about, or to convict are humans too, and so why would someone listen to someone who’s angry or just attacking them or being like, “You’re wrong.” Of course, no one would want to like give that person a ear. So Erin and I have had personal experiences with people and even some friends who had moments of maybe extreme situations or extreme positions at times.

So we have a practice, we got to walk the talk. We have to practice what we preach and be right. It wasn’t just a one moment conversation. It wasn’t just like a warm word just changed everything. But we did notice that when we maintain a relationship with them, when we asked, we listened to them and heard them out, but then they reciprocated to us and said, “Well, thank you for hearing me out and not judging me like everyone else would.” And then they would listen to what we say and then we were able to actually have more weight. And we did notice actual shifts because they considered a new perspective, a perspective we were hoping for them to understand more about.
[DAWN]
Yes, I love that. It’s about the relationship and the journey of it. It’s not just one conversation. It’s the reciprocal nature of respectful relationship and giving space. Sometimes that person needs to be angry and reacting, giving them space to do that, but having another conversation at a different time.
[ERIN]
Yes. And I think what you said about like invitation and leading them to a dialogue is so important. And I think one effective way of inviting them to this sort of larger dialogue kind of requires us to step into their world first because when people are especially in a defensive and reactionary state then they’ll hold the tiger on their own reality and their own worldviews. So I think it’s important for us to kind of understand their framework and their language and to kind of enter into that, not so that we could, in some sense, enable them to stay there, but enter into that so that we could gradually walk them out of it by asking questions and rephrasing like, “What do you mean when you say this?” And to get them to kind of reflect, why do they hold the positions they hold and what does that mean for them?

And then slowly they start to examine and lessen the grip that they hold because they recognize like, “You know what, I’m starting to reflect here that something is going on.” And then from there, get them to see what are the implications of choosing that view versus another, and to see sort of the consequences of it flowing out. And then from there, how can you consider viewpoints that are different from yours? I don’t actually talk about it like that. I actually just talk about it as, “All right, I understand what you’re saying about X and I also see a Y and Z.” And to use their language, to kind of consider these other options to slowly enlarge and loosen the grip of their own world and step out into a larger universe, a larger, I guess, territory of invitational truth. And I find that that has actually been really effective in talking to people even in the most extreme, left or extreme right. Sort of going through that journey together and using their framework and worldview and language has helped them to gradually step out into a greater terrain of discovering truth.
[DAWN]
Yes. And I’m wondering, I’m sitting here thinking, I wonder if you guys have like a specific story or a specific example. I know I didn’t ask that ahead of time, but if you can help us walk through like how this looks in real life, either that, or I even think I’ll give you time to think about that, but even I’m thinking of like, from my upbringing, like when you’re talking to someone about their faith and it does get confusing with politics, and it depends on where you live, I’m sure, those two things get mixed up a lot, along with a ton of other social issues. So again, I’m kind of going all around, but one of the things like with faith where they say, well, Jesus is the only way to get to heaven and you have to believe this.

Like, that’s what Christianity is founded on and nobody, you can’t get to heaven unless you believe in Jesus. I remember I had a friend who was exploring her relationship with God, but grew up Jewish and they don’t believe that Jesus was the son of God. So she was really confused when people came down hard on her of, “Nope, can’t go to heaven.” So just entering into that dialogue. So I’m curious if you guys have examples, whether, it doesn’t have to be a specific story, but more a specific example of how this looks and break it down, more like that.
[LUKE]
Sure. One of our friends had a recent conversation with us, so I guess I have two kind of stories in mind that maybe Erin and I can kind of reflect on together and pull apart some concrete examples. So I remember one, actually one story is what, someone more on the left side of things spiritually and politically, and one more on the right side extreme. And so obviously what I think what you’ve gathered is that what concerns us the most is rigidity or the impact of certain beliefs and statements and how that impacts the way they talk to people. So I remember, first, we just, we listened a lot about what this person was saying, and then just kind of gentle questions. So I think I remember saying something like, they mentioned maybe a very firmer, rigid standpoint, and I had said something like, “Hmm, tell me what you’re afraid would happen if someone didn’t agree with this.”
[DAWN]
Oh, that’s a great question. Say that again.
[LUKE]
Yes. So tell me what you’re afraid would happen if someone didn’t hold this value to, or tell me what would happen if you didn’t hold this because many times these stances come from a legitimate source of fear of pain because of a concerning situation that’s happened. So I think, I remember starting there.
[ERIN]
I think, too, so the friend that was on the extreme, she was defending a hardcore view on God’s sovereignty, that God is the one who designed everything to happen. And even if that includes situations, violence, and injustice, it was God who orchestrated that and for the sake of later good. But I think what Luke did was ask her also, what are you afraid of? Like, what’s the thing you’re afraid of, if what you believe is not true. And that actually got her to sink and admit her fears that for her, if she doesn’t believe that God is completely sovereign, then she would feel like God is completely helpless, completely weak, and would not be someone she could rely on. She was able to actually voice that fear.
[DAWN]
Yes, that’s powerful when someone realizes, oh, this is actually covering up a fear I have and it’s pivotal to who I am existence-wise.
[ERIN]
Yes. So then we moved from discussing just ideological, theological disagreements, which we initially address and just at the idea level. But once we kind of address, like, yes, what are you afraid of will happen if what you hold on to is not true? Then she started to address what are the fears behind why she’s holding so tightly in to that idea. And therefore we’re kind of getting her to think about phase two because, for her faith is believing that God is in control of everything. And we sort of like, our knowledge, like we understand that’s how you experience belief in God but what would you think of when we invite you to consider faith as believing even when not everything would go the way that we thought, or when things started kind of destructing before our eyes? Would you believe even when God does not have control in the situation that we’re at, or it seems like He doesn’t, what does it look like to believe then? Wouldn’t, that be in some sense an added dimension of faith beyond believing that everything is absolutely in God’s hands?

That caused her to kind of understand, like maybe my version of faith was very limited and I hadn’t considered how to step outside of that box. That actually brought me to a story of my own when I started to deconstruct, well, I feel like I constantly go through deconstructing faith up and down. But when I was pregnant with my first child and I realized I had had past fears because my baby sister died 45 minutes after birth, and that is how my father became a believer or started his faith journey. So they didn’t mean to, but my parents told me like, “God took her to be in heaven with Him.” So here I am in my late thirties, pregnant with my first child, and I was scared to death, unconsciously of God’s going to take baby for His greater good.

And that’s how I was raised. And again, it’s not my parents’ fault. They did the best they could, but I didn’t realize that was such a deep seated belief in me. And I went, God and I went rounds and rounds for like eight months of, I don’t care if you do for your greatest good. You are not taking this baby from me. Like I was pissed. And so that was just one of my many deconstruction moments of, well, what would that mean and what’s my deepest fear here? And can I still have a relationship with God in the midst of this fear? And what does that mean about my faith? So you had just giving yourself space to question and go rounds. That’s what I call going rounds with God.
[LUKE]
Thanks for sharing that. And then I remember another, so another person that we spoke with recently who was more on the left and moist position as well. And I remember, I think we went down a similar route where we listen and we identify kind of where that was coming from. And he acknowledged the fear behind like, basically something concerning that he saw on the right, like the other extreme of his position, the issues that, that had. The negative implications of that. So I think, I remember trying to give some kind of empathetic and validation, like, no wonder you hold this because you’ve seen the damage or the harm that comes from this other position. And so he’s like, “Yes, exactly.” And then I think one of the next things we did was highlight while on this other extreme, that you are concerned about leads to this if we also only hold to. And then I named kind of his side. So if X is the right and Y is on the left, if X causes this, but also only holding to Y rigidly might also cause us to forget about this aspect of spirituality.
[ERIN]
I’ll be more specific here, because it’s not quite clear what we were talking about. So he was actually on a deconstructive journey and he was very resistant to the idea of sin and the idea that human beings are sinful. Because of course, I do think that the angelical right often focuses so much on our depravity and our state of original sin and our fallen nature that not kindly to immense sense of guilt and shame, or even shaming others. So sort of that very rigid narratives of shame has been ingrained in that culture of thinking about human beings as primarily depraved and fallen.

So he was really pushing back against that saying he just doesn’t think it’s really helpful to think of people as being sinful. And he almost did have a very reactionary, I guess, defense against any conversations surrounding sin. And we completely hear his concern and where he’s coming from, because we have seen how that has been really misused and misapplied in the church and how that has led to a lot of really destructive thoughts, both for the individual and even in relationships too. So we did acknowledge and also we wanted to just kind of explore, I should say, ways of thinking like, so what happens if we completely reject the notion of sin? What happens when we rather than kind of pushing back against sort of the human beings are only depraved, but move towards human beings are only good.

What would the other, the reactionary narrative, would look like in terms of the consequences and implications? And I gave an example of that, you know I have a friend who also rejects completely. She’s deconstructed and said nothing about this is sinful, nothing about this is wrong. We’re all perfect. We’re all good. We’re all goddesses. And for her, when she actually really mistreats people and attacks people on social media, and if anyone kind of holds her accountable saying, “Hey, when you really insulted me like that, now that’s kind of hurtful.” Then her reaction to that is, “There’s nothing wrong in me. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me and the way I do. Everything about me is perfect. So don’t you dare say anything.”
[DAWN]
It becomes more of a defense mechanism at that point?
[ERIN]
Right. So that’s what we were trying to explore with him saying, I get your concern with seeing people only as sinful, but it would be equally just as much as concern to see people only as good. So it’s really moving past beyond the dichotomous binary thinking, are we just good? Are we just evil? Is God fully in control? Or do we have freedom? So many times some of the reactionary responses make people only choose one side of the truth rather than to hold things in tension. And I think there’s really a delicate balancing act of being able to hold things in their complexities and tension. That’s hard because that is in some sense, the burden or the weight of truth. The truth is weighty. It can be messy.
[DAWN]
It’s messy. It’s in the tension. Life is in the tension of the extremes. And I see that a lot. I’m like, I pretty much view everything on a continuum and truth is somewhere in the middle and it’s gray. It’s not black or white. It’s gray and a lot of that color is gray, or colorful, yes. That’s way better. I like that better than gray. That’ll change what I say.
[ERIN]
I like to think of the metaphor of a prism and all the light being refracted, variety of colors. And many times we are only, we’ve landed on that one particular fragment of color. And that’s going to be all of us. I mean, no one can say we have the absolute truth, right?
[DAWN]
Oh, no, no.
[ERIN]
We can only say we have light in its purest form, because we all have whatever is kind of a little tiny segment of that light. So I think, for me, it’s important to, given our human limitations, but also our capacity to slowly start thinking about truth in that colorful way. Maybe my segment of the light and your segment light we can kind of collaborate these different types of light mixtures and come together to form a more, wider version of what that light entails in our lives. Even though none of us can claim that we have sort of this monopoly or hegemony of the absolute, all of our particulars coming together would be much more colorful and a lively way of living this world.
[DAWN]
That’s a beautiful image, the prism and all the lights that can shine through that. I like that. So we’re kind of getting to the end of our time, but one thing that keeps coming up is I think you guys have done an amazing job at giving us ideas and specific questions and stances of how to talk to people, but I’m wondering what about the person, and I think Luke, you alluded to it, the person who’s in too much pain, too much reaction, they just need some space? Any last thoughts about that person on how we can talk to them or what we need to do when there’s so much that it’s almost hard to engage?
[LUKE]
Sure. Yes, I can start and then hear Erin’s thoughts as well. So I think of maybe two of their emotional or spiritual needs as well, which would be they need to process and kind of have some space. So sometimes that space will be expression. So there may be venting, there might be, like lament and that can be an appropriate way for them to try to make sense of what they’re going through. So maybe they’ve been really hurt by the church and at this point in their journey, they’re needing to name some of the things that they’ve experienced. And while we’re hearing that again, maybe with the lens that Erin and I have talked about, maybe we can see, “Oh, that sounds a little rigid, or we’re getting about another side,” but at that moment of deepest pain and in a way that the stove is hot, they may not be ready to have this more challenging conversation that we’ve referred to might be good at one point because it’s like the pain is gone and they’re just at the moment of processing that, maybe even trauma. So kind of honoring that space for them, but maybe they choose to post it on Facebook and just okay, taking it with a grain of salt, this is where they’re at.

But if they’re sharing that with you, just accepting where they’re at right now, like kind of noticing the pain, validating, maybe the pain. And if they are saying things that maybe you don’t fully agree with or are concerning, maybe you don’t have to endorse everything they’re saying, but oh, wow, this is coming from this experience. That makes sense why that’s hurtful. And then if there something that you want to come back to eventually, maybe make a bookmark note in your mind of maybe in a few months or something I’ll come back and talk again with them because we’ve had this loving, vulnerable conversation. They’ll know that when I share another perspective it won’t be dismissing their pain. It will be coming from a trusted friend who hopefully understands where they’re coming from. And then lastly for some people it’s kind of just that taking a break from the work either of mental or challenging others and saying I’m exhausted. This is difficult work and not putting that burden on another person or even on ourselves to say, I always, always have to be on the go. Always, always have to be challenging or every protest or something like that. Life is a journey and giving yourself that grace and space and time.
[DAWN]
Yes. Space and time, very powerful. But it’s hard to quantify that because you can’t control it. It’s very much like you have to see, give yourself space and time and see what happens or that other person’s space in time.
[ERIN]
Yes. When I worked as a hospital chaplain, I’ve worked primarily in cancer care and palliative care and ICUs. So when you mentioned people in immense degree of suffering, I immediately thought of my patients. A lot of them were suffering so much at one point in time. They could really hardly breathe. They just had a hard time even breathing and asking the questions, “Why would God let this happen to me?” Because their belief is God is causing this. At that point I’m not going to go in there and try to get them to think like, “Well, where do you think that belief is coming from, that God is causing the suffering or that you did something wrong to deserve it?” I’m not going to try to intellectualize or get them to engage in this collaborative, constructive dialogue to think beyond. That’s not my role. My role is to enter in there and meet them where they’re at to acknowledge their pain.

One thing that I love doing and the patients also enjoy is I would bring up a metaphor that would illustrate kind of what they’re feeling and what they’re going through. By doing that, I would let them know that they’re being seen and not their pain is valid. I want to make space for that and I’m acknowledging that. But also I think metaphor is what connects our ideas and reality in that just the idea of pain and the reality of suffering kind of converges through metaphor. And by being able to acknowledge them in their suffering with my usage of metaphor, I’m also letting them know that they’re not alone in that pain, that there’s something greater that the metaphor, in some sense, kind of, I wouldn’t say universalizes the experience of pain, but does connect us beyond just our own experience. Because when we hear metaphors, we’re hearing something that is other than just us. And I think that is one way of connecting them from their own experiences, pain to maybe a larger landscape of pain. And yes, I just found that metaphors were often very soothing in helping people to feel understood and heard while also having some glimmer of hope that maybe it’s not just them, maybe there’s something more to this world. So I thought that was a very gentle way of meeting people where they’re at.
[LUKE]
An example real quick?
[ERIN]
Gosh, I have too much.
[LUKE]
Maybe a quick one?
[DAWN]
Well, it sounds very creative, like engaging the creative space in someone to, and beauty of a metaphor.
[ERIN]
One interesting one was when I was at the psych unit actually, and a guy who had schizophrenia episodes mentioned something about how his spaceship, he lost his spaceship. And because of that, you can never go see his family and because he lost his spacious, he’s just stuck in this planet. So when he just kept on going on and on about that, very frantically too, I kind of heard him where he was at and said maybe your spaceship is, they’re putting guests on your spaceship and that’s probably why you can’t see it. What if your space was being charged? What if it needed a little break? I just kind of brought that type of imagery for him and he actually became more and more calm and said, “Oh, oh yes. Oh, that could be it. Oh yes, yes. Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yes, yes, yes. I was using it too much. Yes. I think it needs a break.” So that’s an example when he was already using a metaphor and I just kind of joined in and added to that metaphor, a different imagery for him to think about. So yes, even in cases, when it’s not in the psych unit, I actually found that type of metaphor and bringing some imagery through that to be really consoling for people.
[DAWN]
Reminds me of when you said the prism of bringing it into another space of that, to bring more color to it and help them. Wow, well, I feel like you guys, as a couple, just hold this beautiful sacred space for people to be curious and invitational. I think you have a great thing going. I don’t know if you guys work together and offer that, but I can definitely see a need for just offering that on a broader scale to people. I love it. I love what you’ve shared with us. I feel like it was very helpful and it made me even start thinking of different ways to engage people. So I just thank you so much for your time and just your knowledge and experiences and sharing that with us.
[LUKE]
Thank you for having us on the show.
[ERIN]
Yes, thank you.
[DAWN]
Thank you for listening today at Faith Fringes Podcast. If you want to explore more of your own faith journey, I offer my free eight-week email course called Spiritual Reflections, where you take a deeper dive into your own story included as a journaling workbook that has guided exercises. So if you want to explore more of what you were brought up to believe, or even look at where you may have been disillusioned or hurt, but yet still deep down you desire to authentically connect with God, then this course is for you. Just go to faithfringes.com to sign up.

Also, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can reach me at dawn@faithfringes.com.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.

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