This "Quire Cast Podcast" episode is brought to you by Wild Olive, where we host game-changing conversation about literature, culture, and the Bible. I'm Jennifer Bird, a biblical scholar. And I'm Jean Petrol, a literature scholar. If you want to change your Bible-reading game, you can try reading the Bible as literature. The way writers such as Emily Dickinson, Octavia Butler, Ursula Lekwin, James Baldwin, or Tony Kushner do. Every other week, we let modern writers give a fresh take on a familiar Bible story. Tune in to Wild Olive, wherever you get your podcasts. This week on "Honoring the Journey," we are honoring the journey of an early 2000s youth group kid named Mason Menenga, talking to him was so much fun. And he is actually the age of my two older kids, so hearing his journey really brought back some memories, you're absolutely going to love him, and he'll be up just after a few quick announcements. First of all, theology beer camp coming up October 17th through 19th, don't forget that if you do register, you can actually use the code "Journey2024," it will save you $50 on the registration, and that link will be in the show notes. Also, if you want to leave a voicemail or an idea for honoring the journey, you can do that now. There's a link right there in the show notes. All you have to do is click on it, you can leave me that voicemail, and I would love to hear from you. And also, finally, if you're enjoying the podcast, me I'd be so bold is to ask that you leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. We're just trying to grow the audience, and for my experience, this is the absolute best way to do that. So, thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy this fun, upbeat conversation with the self-proclaimed Internet Youth Pastor Mason Menenga. Welcome back to "Honoring the Journey." I'm Leslie Nice, and I am so excited today to welcome somebody who I feel like I know you, Mason. His name is Mason Menenga. He is an aspiring theologian, YouTuber, and he calls himself the Internet Youth Pastor, which I got to know more about. He's also the host of a podcast called "A People's Theology," and also the Black Sheet Podcast presented by H.M. Magazine. And you know what? He's a guest today on "Honoring the Journey," and I can't wait to hear more about your journey, Mason. Welcome to the program. Well, thank you. You listed a lot of things I do in the world, and I'm glad to add being a guest on your podcast is one of those many things that I do in the world. Yeah, you got to make sure you put that in your bio. That's right. It's not even just on my bio, I'll put it on my resume if it helps, I guess. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Thank you. No, it's funny. I am kind of a new podcast in the deconstruction world, I guess, but just trying to kind of do what I've done for many, many years, just in a different way, because I kind of grew up in ministry during Christian radio, stuff like that, and now I get to do it in the deconstruction community. Kind of cool. I'm excited to have you here. So I like to start the podcast off with just sort of like a random question. And today I created one just for you, Mason. I haven't asked anybody this question yet. So the question I want to know to get to know you as a person is what is one of the most significant turning points in your life? I know I'm going to start off deep. So, I mean, there have been so many significant moments in my life. I'm trying to think if there's like one. If one like jumped out immediately and you were like, no, there's probably more. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I can certainly talk more about it. And I'm sure it kind of fits well with the kind of deconstruction podcast that you're doing. But I still remember very, very clearly going into my very first class of college. And I went to a small little Christian college in Iowa. And so I went to this one to my very first class. And we were it's like a syllabus day, right, where you just sit there and you go through the entire syllabus. And I remember sitting through this. And I think I'm sure I had received the syllabus beforehand or whatever. And maybe we were supposed to read like a part of a book beforehand or whatever. But I just remember sitting in that class and we were going over this book called Postmodern Youth Ministry. And I remember thinking to myself, all right, I have no idea what postmodern means, but I know I'm not supposed to like it. I know enough about that. And so I was really confused by the fact that it was connected to the school of history. And it was a youth industry class. So it wasn't it wasn't like a math class and we were talking about postmodern. It was an actual youth industry class. So that part of it made sense. But yeah, what didn't make sense was this word postmodern connected this word youth ministry. And so I just was like, this is weird, but so I remember reading through the book because obviously it was an assigned book to this class. So if I wanted to pass this class, I was going to have to read this book. So I start reading this book and I quickly realized that this author, the author of this book had very, very similar questions that I've been having for probably the last like year or so about my faith. And it really opened me up to realize, Oh, there's at least one other Christian in the world that has the same doubts and questions about their faith as I had out. And so that was a huge, huge, huge moment for me to realize that I was not the only one, you know, as an Enneagram for normally, I try to be the only kind of person in the world like myself. I really try my best to do that as an Enneagram for, but this was like the first moment in, you know, my life that I realized I am not the only one who has these kinds of questions and doubts about my faith. And that was such a, such a significant moment for me to realize, Oh, wait, there's so much more to the world than I had realized. And so that was a big moment for me that I, you know what? I remember when I first was like going through deconstruction didn't even know that's what it was called. I don't even remember like what I searched on like apple podcasts or whatever. And I found holy heretics and I went, okay, wait a minute, that sounds like me. I think I might like these people and I like lists. I like sat down and I could not stop listening because I was like, holy crap. You know what I mean? It was amazing. So then of course, everybody that they had on had a podcast and so then I found their podcasts and I found your podcast and I've listened to so many and I realized I'm not crazy. And it was the first time I ever heard what postmodernism is that I didn't even know that's what it was. I had somebody call me that and I was like, what is that? I need to look that up. So do you want to explain what postmodern is? Yeah. Let's talk about it. Yeah. Well, there's so many different routes. We could go with this. Well, let's go with kind of the more technical definition of it. So postmodernism started in the 1960s with a number of different philosophers, but the one that sort of kind of coined the term, if you will, his name was Jock Starrada, it's like the most French name ever. And so Jock Starrada, again, he was a philosopher, so he was like, it's really brainiac smart guy. And what he was trying to do was really uncover like how language operates in the world, like how we use language. And so for example, one of the things that he would talk about and this sort of fits under the idea of deconstruction that he would talk about is when we say the word God, we realize that you would have to realize that the word God is not God itself, right? The word God is a symbol or a sign that points to this reality or what we think is a reality called God. Or take out God, think about justice, for example, right? Like when we say we want justice in the world, the word justice itself is not the thing itself, right? It is the word justice is just simply a sign that helps us to uncover or try to get a sense of what it is that we're trying to do or trying to think about in the world, right? And so that's essentially kind of in a very, very, very basic way. And I'm sure there's actual postmodern philosophers who are like, you're really butchering that. But that's kind of what Jock Starrada was trying to get at when he was talking about deconstruction and the way that language operates in the world. Okay. Interesting. Well, I love that you are this aspiring theologian because, man, I can just pick your brain about all kinds of fun stuff. And you'll probably like really enjoy talking about it, which I mean, I will enjoy talking about cooking. I know, I know, NFL or about philosophical theology, whatever that too, I mean, I'm kind of a, I can kind of do all of those things. Everything wears many hats and look very cool hair. I have to say. Yeah. Well, thank you. I just put it in a bun. Just, just, you know, to look nice for that. He's got the man bun like going out, but hopefully people aren't, oh, you do. Okay. Well, I should have, I should have made this set up way fancier and I feel like I'm really screwing you over. No, no, no. Listen, here's what I do. I usually don't do the YouTube until a few weeks later. You know what I mean? I'll have it out just and we'll just have like videos of us as like promotions or whatever. But anyway, so, okay, Mason, let's talk a little bit about little Mason, how did you grow up and what kind of environment was it? Yeah. So I grew up, I was the first born in my family and my parents weren't supposed to have children. My mom had cancer when she was in her mid twenties and I don't know what it's, I don't know. I'm not a cancer treatment person at all. My guess is back then, when you had cancer treatment, it was pretty invasive and pretty hard on your body, right? And maybe that's still the case to this day, I don't know. But back when my mom had cancer in the, I think, but would have been probably late 80s, maybe. It was just, it was really difficult on her body. And so after she went into remission, she was told that the chemotherapy and the radiation had killed her entire reproductive system. And so she sort of went into this relationship with my dad kind of thinking, all right, well, I'm just never going to be able to have children, you know, maybe they could adopt or, you know, they could figure it out. But they just sort of knew that they weren't going to have their own biological children. Well, roughly about three months after they got married, my mom starts experiencing things like morning sickness and, you know, all the classic signs of pregnancy, right? And so she's like really confused by this. Sure enough, she is pregnant with me. Wow. And, and so the doctors are just like absolutely stunned by this, because again, in their mind, they're at least based on what they saw with her reproductive system after all of the chemotherapy and radiation was that she didn't have much reproductive system to have a child. So they were a little, they were a little confused, but sure enough, she had a very healthy normal pregnancy and out comes me on July 29, 1994. And so that was sort of the beginning of, you know, obviously my journey in life. And so after I was born, I grew up just prototypical, conservative, evangelicalism, right? So my, my parents, and the reason why I bring up kind of that pregnancy story is for my mom, at least, you know, this is like a miracle child, at least in her mind, right, that this is like what this is amazing. And my mom, she had grown up Catholic, and then my dad and they, my dad had sort of grown up evangelical, essentially. And my mom left Catholicism and became an evangelical, when they started dating. And so all of that, right, like, it just was a very intense evangelical experience for me as a child, because my mom was essentially a convert to evangelicalism, which when you're a convert to something, especially early on, you're pretty intense about it. Right. And then you add to the fact that, like, in her mind, she had just had a miracle child. Miracle child. That is only more proof that this evangelical thing is right. And so anyway, it was just the experience of growing up evangelical was pretty intense for me. And so, you know, all the music I ever learned, you know, the first music that I had as a child, you know, I would imagine that children my age were probably listening to, I don't know, Barney songs, whatever. And, you know, I'm sure I listened to that stuff too. So the first music I remember listening to is Veggie Tails, right? So that was a big part of my life when I was a little kid. And then eventually got into all the, like, CCM stuff, like Michael Douglas Smith and Amy Grant, I remember, I still remember all of those Amy Grant Christmas songs from the Christmas album. Yeah. I still listen to it. It's just, I mean, they're great. I mean, yeah, nostalgic man. She's fabulous. Yeah. So I, like, those were our, you know, whenever Christmas season rolls around and I hear Amy Grant song, I'm just immediately transported back to, like, the late 90s. Yeah. And so anyway, that was my experience growing up, right? Going to church every single Sunday, going to Sunday school in the mornings before church service would start or whatever. So it was just, it was the kind of prototypical evangelical experience where that was my whole life. And your community, everything, I'm sure. Yeah. It was everything. Yeah. Yeah. So relate. Yeah. It was enough to go to youth group. Obviously I was going to youth group every Wednesday and I grew up a block away from my church. So that was, you know, I just, if I wanted to go hang out somewhere, if I was bored, I would just go to the church like this. That's how, that's how evangelical I was was when I was bored, I would go to church. So that was, that was my life for, for quite some, some time. And it was during the latter part of my high school life. So probably like my junior or senior year, just started to have some questions about like human sexuality and my faith, you know, I, obviously I'd grown up in purity culture where I was like told to abstain from sex and, and I grew up in the kind of purity culture where I was discouraged from dating. I ended up going to this small Christian college, like I mentioned before, and I got there. And then everybody was already in a relationship and not just that everybody was in a relationship, but probably by the end of the year, they're going to be married kind of. Ring by spring. Ring by spring. Yeah. So I was really married at 19 having a few children by the time that you graduate college. Like that was, that was my experience going to college and I realized all of my, I have two older kids who are about your age and they, all of their friends are like, have like five kids have been married forever. Yeah. Yeah. My best friends about to celebrate his 10th anniversary, and you know, I'm not married at all. So it's just, it's like unbelievable to me that like there are so many people out there that are my age that have been married for so long. Yeah. Yeah. So you grew up in the, in the lake. Oh, what was that? Hey, Jay, five, two. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You did. Oh my gosh. You would, you would have loved my, my kids. You guys would have loved. Yeah. It would have been fun. Yeah. So all the like tooth and nail stuff, all the, all those kind of alternative bands, switch foot, reliant K. So that was all the music I was listening to when I was in youth group. So yeah, that was, that was my entire world. And so yeah, fortunately I, I've loved that music so much that that's why I have the music podcast where I get in and interview a lot of those kinds of artists. That's so fun. Cool part of my life right now, but yeah. So I grew up in the kind of purity culture where I was not allowed to date. And then I found out later on that there was a purity culture where it was like, you're supposed to date to get married as soon as you can kind of thing. And I was like, oh, I had no idea that kind of purity culture goes left and do things wrong. Right. Yeah. So you're lost, get married at 18 kind of thing. And I'm like, I, that was not the purity culture I grew up in. I was just cold. Yeah. So see if you can make it to 30 without getting even, you know, your kiss in and then we'll maybe talk about marriage kind of thing. So that was the kind of purity culture I grew up in. And so I started having a lot of these kinds of questions around, you know, is this really what the Bible teaches? Is this really all that's in store for me for the next number of years as I can't even kiss anyone. And obviously being a 17 year old boy with hormones running through my body, I was like, this just doesn't make much sense with my life experience. I don't think that's going to work. Yeah. Like everything about me was like, I just want to kiss a girl so bad. And so, yeah, it was such a, it was such a kind of a weird experience. Mason, that was just saying I'm tempting you a little did I know. And so, yeah, I remember probably, you know, just in the same way you mentioned that you were probably on like Apple podcasts and you know, like typed in something and then all of a sudden you got introduced to all of these different kinds of Christians. I still remember typing in something like, does the Bible actually say that you can't have sex before marriage or something along those lines I googled and started reading through like all these different blog posts about it and again, that was sort of my like first, when I look back now, I'm like, oh, that's kind of when I started deconstructing is I was starting to have questions about my faith, especially as it related to purity culture. And at the same time, I was starting to have some doubts about just kind of the political nature of my faith, you know, obviously growing up in conservative evangelicalism, you only supported Republicans, everything was about, you know, supporting pro life candidates, that kind of thing. And it was around that time that a lot of states were starting to legalize gay marriage here in the United States. And so, I still remember thinking to myself, and it's funny to think back now, but I remember thinking to myself, you know, gay people are going to hell, but who am I to say that they can't get married? And I remember thinking, right, and I'm like, you know, I think, you know, it's a funny thing to think about now, but that was, I was like, differentiating the kind of faith that I had grown up in. And that was pretty significant for me to realize, oh, wait, I can like think about my faith, maybe a little differently than what I was taught at church or by my parents. And so that was a, that was kind of a big moment for me in that, again, kind of like proto deconstruction, if you will, for me. And then I, you know, told the story about how I went into my very first college class and started, you know, realizing that there was at least one other Christian. So that was all kind of that first early part of my deconstruction. And so, yeah, but obviously looking back, it's like, I just had the prototypical conservative evangelical experience, you know, where just, you know, praise and worship kind of music, youth group every Wednesday, going to mission trips, going on, you know, to the big youth conferences, like, well, I went to acquire the fire once, then I went to like the diet version of that called there to share. And so, yeah, I just was, you know, prototypical, conservative evangelical youth group kid experience, you know, especially for somebody who like was growing up in the 2000s. That was, I would imagine anybody else who had that kind of experience, we probably have the exact same childhood. Yeah, it's not, it's, there's not a lot of differences. You know what I mean? You're like in it and everybody's the same. It's very, very similar. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's why, you know, connecting with a lot of other people who have deconstructed it. It's kind of unbelievable when we start like chatting with each other and we start, starts sharing our experiences with each other and we're like, Oh my God, are we literally the same person? How have I not known you my whole life because it is one of those things where you don't realize like how insular your experience in the world is growing up until you meet other people who lived thousands of miles away and they had the exact same experience. And it's like, yeah, how is that even possible other than the fact that that culture was so insular? Yeah, you're so right. And when you do meet people, I mean, it's fun to meet them online. I'm actually going to be meeting people. I cannot wait. I'm going to theology beer camp and I'm going to meet people. It's the first time I get to like see people face to face and have conversations. I've wanted to go for years, but it's always near my daughter's birthday and so I was like, didn't want to leave. And she's like, Mom, I'm going to be 26. I don't care. Like go do your thing. I'm like, okay. So at this point, I am going, but I haven't done that yet. And I get so jealous when I see everybody, you know, because I'm friends with Sarah and she'll post pictures and from Rev. Covery Sarah and she'll post pictures and do the and I'm just like, ah, that is so fun. I feel like I know these people, but I don't because I haven't met them. But yeah, you just, you find so much in common when you've been through, I call it like we've all been through like collective trauma and we're coming out of it and finding healing and just being able to have these conversations is life giving. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I'm excited to see a beer camp. But one of my favorite times of the year, I've been able to do it the last few years and obviously I've become really good friends with a lot of the people that are a part of beer camp. So I'm excited to see there. Yeah, it'll be fun and it's funny because I am a little older than I think most of the people who are going to be there. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I feel like I am well, yeah, I guess there's a few people who are my age, but no trips, trips fan base is like older than trip. Really? Okay. Yeah. I'm excited to know. I'll fit right in then. Well, in either way, like I'm really good friends with my kids who I, you know, brought up in this stuff and they've forgiven me and all as well. We have a great relationship and so I can connect with pretty much any age group. I don't really care. Age is the number. That's right. But so, okay, so you grew up in that and then all of a sudden you find yourself asking the question, did you have anybody to talk to you at this time or were you just kind of keeping it to yourself? A little bit of both, you know, obviously it was kind of an isolating experience to start deconstructing at a very conservative Christian college. One thing I should say is much as it was truly a conservative Christian college, the religion department at this college was like fairly moderate, I'll just put it that way. Like, I mean, they, they were actual scholars, right? Like they're, you know, the Bible professors and the theology professors were, you know, they had legitimate degrees. It's not like they got some online, weird degree from somewhere or whatever. They were legitimate scholars who are well respected. They just happened to be mostly kind of theologically and politically conservative, you know, nowhere near like kind of Trump mega conservatism, but you know, they were more or less fairly conservative and because they were scholars in their own right, you know, they at least recognize, even if they disagreed with other more maybe progressive or liberal scholars, they would recognize, oh, those people are legitimate scholars as well. So when I start reading different books from like, I don't know, Brian McLaren or whoever else, my professors were really encouraging to like, yeah, go, like go explore that, like learn more about that. That is important and, you know, come to your own conclusions on it. And you know, when you write papers, like, you know, cite your sources and that's what all that matters really does, like make clear arguments, cite your sources and that really is all that matter. So I was really supported by my professors to really explore the, the kind of faith that I was encountering at that time in college. And so yeah, that was, that was really helpful. Obviously back home, I quickly realized, oh, these are not the kind of conversations I can have with my parents. I started, I tried to early on when I started deconstructing because I thought for my parents, at least from my, when I thought to myself about my parents perspective, I thought they would be really encouraging to me in, in this kind of exploration because for me, the way I thought about it, again, we didn't have the, it wasn't the word deconstruction back then. Right, right. But for me, I was like, oh, I'm kind of taking my faith really seriously. And I'm sort of making it my own. And I thought my parents would really be encouraging on that. And then quickly, quickly, I realized, oh, the reason why, you know, they probably would be supportive of me of doing that, if I didn't come to the wrong conclusions in their mind, right? And so that was, that was something I realized pretty quickly is I actually can't have these kind of conversations with my family. I'm more than open to it, but they just were not in a place to have those kind of conversations. And so, yeah, in, in some respects, yes, I was supported and was able to be open with some people about the fact that I was starting to think about my faith differently. And then clearly, when it came to like people back home, people at my church that I had grown up with, those were the kind of people I was not going to be able to have those kind of conversations with. That's interesting. So, okay, how is that now, are you able to do that at this point in your locker? Not that I have been able to experience, obviously, I've been able to connect with so many people outside of now my college to, you know, through Twitter and podcasting and all these different ways. I've been able to connect with so many different people. So I've been able to have these kind of conversations very openly, obviously, I even went to seminary and everything, but back home, yeah, I'm, I'm still not really able to have those kind of conversations. Yeah, I would love to. It's just, I don't think my family, my parents, my home church, they're just not in a place to, they're not in a place to listen to those kind of conversations or listen to my story without trying to correct. Yeah. And so that like, I would be fine, even if they disagree, like that, I'm fine with having those kind of conversations where they're like, yeah, I disagree with your theological or political conclusions, but I am open and I want to know your story. I don't think a lot of people back from kind of that life back home are in that place where they could listen to me, listen to my story and not feel like the compulsion to correct it. It's interesting because I would say the majority of my clients, I'm a deconstruction coach, the majority of them are struggling in this area. And they're like, I really just want to say, and I'm like, no, see, that's you being evangelical again. You don't have to like, you don't owe them anything, like, just love them, respect them. You know, what would that look like if you just, you know, because I think, I think remembering we were once there, I remember the fear when my son was pulling away and like, and didn't want anything to do with the God that I had, you know, and it was horrifying, it was terrifying. And I, I just remember thinking that enemies got my son, I was just afraid all the time. And so what I try to do, there are people in my life who I can talk to, not very many. I can tell there's a couple of people that I'll talk to, especially my mom. I love her. And she's so accepting and kind, but I can tell she's concerned, you know, so I have to be careful. And then like other people in my family, like I can't talk to you at all, it would just freak them out. And I'm not going to do, I don't want to be the source of that to someone. So we can just agree just to not talk about it. And that's okay. But we're not taught that in evangelicalism and evangelicalism, you guys tell everybody everything that you believe and they need to believe it to, or they're going to help, you know. Yeah. You all got to be accountability partners to each other. And yeah, and I, I still have a good relationship with my parents, like I love them. We, in fact, I think I called them pretty recently, you know, and we see each other maybe every few months or whatever. And so I have a more or less good relationship with them. Right. And there's a significant part of me that they probably will never know, or at least they have not given an indication at so far that they would ever like to know this pretty significant part of my life, which is fine. I can be the kind of person that, you know, it seems like one of those things where in every relationship, there's sort of a certain part of you that maybe is a little bit more accentuated or emphasized, right? And there's a, there's a part of me that, you know, love sports or whatever. And that's the part that gets accentuated or emphasized when I go back home, right? Right. And so there, there, but there's a significant part of me where I'm sort of have to de-emphasize that. And obviously that's sort of the theology part of me, the public work that I do. I have to de-emphasize that when I go home, which is, is fine. Like I'm, I'm more than willing to do that. And that's fine with me, you know, it's not like I have to live in on a daily, like it's not a daily reality. Right. It's not like I see my parents every single day. So, yeah, and you're doing it out of a heart of love and, and kindness and a gentleness that, you know, some people just aren't ready. And I remember hearing Rob Bell say, you know, you, you just can't take somebody someplace they're not ready to go. So you got to quit trying, you know, sometimes you just got to let it go and just love them. And that to me, it was so hard initially because, you know, I had to deprogram myself with making sure that everybody agreed with me, making sure everybody felt the exact same way I did, because, you know, what I believe was true. And, and then when you deconstruct, you sort of let go of all that dogma. Yeah. And it just starts to feel so good and you're like, okay, I, I know they're not there yet, but that's okay. I can just be in the moment, you know, you, you, you mentioning, you know, that Rob Bell quote where it's like, you can't take somebody where they're not ready to go. And that, that has really run true for me in my life. And as much as a lot of conservative evangelical people, maybe even including my parents, I don't know, they probably think that I'm just like some heretic that doesn't even believe in God. The funny thing is after I've deconstructed now or, you know, however you would want to describe it, I feel like my, there's going to be a big fancy theology word called pneumatology, which is basically the study, the theology of the Holy Spirit, right? And so I would say my understanding of the Holy Spirit has even like maximized even more since deconstructing because in my mind, in my really powerful experience of kind of like leaving evangelicalism, deconstructing and everything, I think of that, at least in my own life as a like very spirit-led movement where, you know, again, I grew up super insular. I had no idea that there were any other kind of Christians out there. And then all of a sudden I start getting this movement within me that something's stirred within me to think, you know, maybe I don't really agree with this anymore or like maybe I should start questioning this or whatever, right? And I, there is nothing that contributed to that other than the own, this movement that happened within me. And the only thing I could, I can attribute that to is the spirit of God moving within me, right? So the spirit of God was working within me and trying to lead me to a new place. And to me, I'm like, I believe even more that the spirit of God moves all the time in the world. And so I like have a more, a sort of higher or more maximized understanding of the spirit of God in the world than I probably did when I was an evangelical, which is kind of ironic. But a lot of that is just, again, my own personal experience of getting to this moment where I realized, oh, maybe I do think of these things differently. And so the spirit of God was ready to move me, right? But there are a lot of people in the world where the spirit of God ain't moving for them, right? There is not a moving right now for them. And you can't, it is not our job as people who are deconstructed or whatever. It's not our job to move people where they're not ready to move, right? That is something that the, that is the job of the Holy Spirit, at least that is the job of the spirit of God to move in their lives. And when the spirit does, then great, they have a wonderful resource in you as a loved one to help them along, right? Wonderful. But your job is not to help them along until the spirit of God has moved in their life. So all that's to say, I love that. I really think the spirit of God more highly now than I did when I was an evangelical. Well, and a lot more mysterious and, and lovely. And I think what I had to do in, in my process, I guess you could say is I had to let go of fear first. I had to let go of fear, fear of hell, fear of Satan, fear of God, fear. And when I say fear of God, I don't mean the respect one because every time I say, I'm not afraid of God, people go, well, you really should be. And it's like, no, I don't think that's what that verse means. I'm pretty sure it means respect, reverence, you know, that kind of thing. But you know, I had to let go of the fear so that I was okay with going in a direction that felt very different than what my expectation would have been. And if I, if I didn't let go of that fear, I would have never gone anywhere. And that was nobody, nobody did that for me. I had to do it myself. And when I was ready, that's when I, I let go. And that's when I was able to move past it and move toward, I feel a richer spirituality than what I had before. And that's not to say that people who are in evangelicalism can't have rich spirituality. I'm sure they do. I just personally wrestled with way too much fear to be able to feel that freedom and enjoyment that I was longing for in the faith. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Very, very similar experience. I would imagine, you know, again, when I was starting to Google some of these questions about my faith, you know, I would imagine I was probably deleting that search history, you know, almost as if I was like searching porn itself or whatever, right? Because I, again, porn would have been easier to explain. Right. Well, exactly. And it, I think highlights this fact that like even when I was starting to question things about my faith, I was still living in that I was operating out of fear still, right? And you know, I think back and it's kind of funny to think that I was probably deleting some of those, some of that search history. But, but yeah, that, I mean, that was probably certainly the case because again, I was operating out of that fear that, oh, I don't know if God can handle me questioning some of these really deeply held beliefs, which is a bizarre thing to think that God, the God of the universe can't handle little masons searching and trying to figure out what he actually believes. It's kind of funny to think back, but that's how a lot of us grew up. This is how you feel though. I can't handle you questioning a few things about what you believe. Yeah, he may just have to send you to hell for that, you know, and all of it. I mean, it's, it's odd because like when I'm in it, it felt like, okay, this makes sense. But as soon as you come out of it, you're like, oh my word. And I think a lot of me opening up my eyes, you know, was coming and living, we were in the Bible Belt and now we live in Utah. So I'm like the minority in a, you know, this LDS is the big religion here. And so seeing them do their thing, and it's very similar looking to what I did. And I was told they were a cult. And then I was like, wait a minute. Am I a cult? Am I a cult? What is happening here? Like it was so weird to realize, wow, wow, and I'm not, I'm not saying that I was. It's pretty funny when you move from the Bible Belt and you somehow end up in a place even more conservative and insular. Yeah, it's more conservative, but I will tell you it's, I don't know, it's a different kind of there's a, they're a little better at at least making me feel like they're not judging me for where I'm at. I felt very judged in the Bible Belt. And so I was afraid to ask these questions. So moving here was like freedom to be able to just like do what I felt like I needed to do in my own walk with God, whatever that looked like. But, yeah, it was interesting though, I just remember hearing them say things and I'd be like, man, we say that or they do things and be like, hey, we do that like wait a minute. If they're a cult and they're going to help, what, what makes us any different? You know, I mean, it's just weird. It was just, it was such a wake up call for me. So when you, when you graduated from school and got out of, I guess, what was your degree in? I was still a youth ministry degree. So what was interesting again was even though I was deconstructing, I became even more passionate about I want to help other people in their faith. And so I was like, even though I'd no longer believe a lot of the things that I went into college believing, I still really was passionate about helping other people in their faith. And so I was like, well, youth ministry seems like a good next step in that. So that's what I ended up majoring in was youth ministry. So you really use all degree in youth ministry? Yeah, so I, yeah, I became a youth pastor after I graduated from college. So I moved to Minneapolis and started working at a very progressive church in Minneapolis. Yeah, I was pastored by a person who was one of those people that I read in college that helped kind of transform my life. And so yeah, it was this great little church that was a part of. And yeah, started doing that for a little while. And around that time, I also started seminary. So I started my master of divinity and have kind of bounced around like some other jobs and I'm no longer a youth pastor at that church, I ended up around like 2020. But yeah, I did the whole seminary thing and have been working at a seminary since then. And so have, you know, that was also when I started the podcast and started kind of, you know, taking Twitter more seriously and, you know, all that whole thing. So that's when all of that kind of started was after college. Yeah. And you get a lot of heat. I just cannot stop laughing at some of the things you post. Because when people come after you, you like post it, you're like, yep, this is what I get. Yeah. Like, oh my God. I mean, it's publicly available information like somebody will see it. So I might as well, like this person willingly posted this publicly. So they're not trying to hide it. So I might as well just share it with the whole world because I think some of the things that they post are really funny, even though they're not trying to be funny. Well, it's funny because you're like, oh my word, like, it, or I don't know. Sometimes I feel like the way that some evangelicals come at people like you or like me can seem very unloving. And if they're doing it to protect God or to protect the name of God or their religion, it's just, it's falling flat when you don't, I don't know. There's a scripture about, you know, a clinging symbol. But yeah, the way dehumanizing people to me is the absolute worst thing you can do. And that's what they do to you. And I just can't. And I just, and you laugh about it. And I would be like crying if it was me. But. Yeah. I mean, when I was first kind of starting doing Twitter stuff and, you know, initially started getting heat like that, that it, that was difficult. But yeah, I've just kind of learned to shrug it off with a pretty, yeah, it's pretty easy at this point. Like, I don't really think about it. These people probably think about me a lot. And I truly don't think about them at all. Other than like the five seconds to be like, oh, look at this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really all I think about. Like to me, they're just all one person. I know there's thousands of them, but they're just all the same person to me. So I, again, like I don't really get much thought of who they are. But yeah, I mean, obviously a lot of the things that they say are rather unloving, unkind. And the thing is, is like, I don't think when I was at my most conservative evangelical, I don't, I probably thought a lot of the things that they thought about other Christians or about other people, but I think I would have filtered it through a much more kind way. Yeah. So it does, it does seem like there is, and maybe it's because of Trump, I don't know, but there does seem to be this like permission to be extremely unkind that like didn't even exist, at least when I was around. Like when, when you disagreed with somebody as an evangelical, when you thought they were a heretic, like you at least like filtered it through this like gentle way. But now it's just like very upfront and unkind and sometimes really nasty. Or at least passive aggressive. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's just really. It's come on. Yeah. It's just, it's really interesting. And I just don't remember at least when I was at my most conservative evangelical, like maybe behaving like that. It's a yeah, it may be things have changed, maybe these are just a certain kind of segment of evangelicalism. Right. It's probably not most of them. I would say, I would say it's probably not most of them. But I do think Trump, you, you totally hit the nail on the head there. He has shown us what it's like to talk like that and to be cruel and that you get rewarded for it. And you know, we see more politicians doing that. We see more, you know, evangelicals doing that and to me, it's just, I don't know yet another, I don't know, confirmation to me that I did the right thing and leave it. And 2016 was when I really just was like, okay, enough, I'm done. Yeah. Can't do this. Yeah. And in 2020, it just took me over the edge. I was like, huh. So done. Yeah. I remember growing up listening to Rush Limbaugh. That was always on the radio and you know, Rush Limbaugh had that kind of behavior in the world where he just was really, really nasty to people he didn't like. And again, like, and what's funny about like Rush Limbaugh was not a conservative evangelical. I don't think he was even really a Christian, but certainly, like we would almost identify him as like a Christian nationalist in the sense of like what he valued and what he wanted in the world. And what's interesting is, you know, I still remember there was this big controversy when Rush Limbaugh, and I remember the exact story, but I remember he called women some women or a woman, like a whore. And I remember that happening. And even at that time, I was still super conservative and evangelical. I was thinking that that's probably not the way to behave in the world. And it just like did not make sense to me that my dad would like praise this guy. And yet he would like, I don't think my dad would have ever behaved like that. And so it just never made sense of like, how can you praise this guy? And also you yourself for sure would be convicted not to ever say something like that about a woman. And so I just like those sort of things never made much sense. But then when Trump came to power and, you know, realized like the way he just talked about people all the time, I'm like, Oh, that's the embodiment of how Rush Limbaugh has been for so many people. And and there probably are a lot of Christians in the world. Maybe my dad included of that's the kind of person we've been looking for. But all of the other Republican politicians were never willing to go that far. You know, I still remember when McCain was asked a question about Obama being like a Muslim terrorist on like a literal like live televised town hall. And and John McCain saying, you know, I, I'm not going to accept that kind of behavior. Like, I disagree with Obama on a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to call him names and make up lies about him. And then literally like, essentially the next Republican candidate that comes to power is this guy who does all the opposite of that. And it just blew my mind that, you know, people could behave like that. And again, I think the kind of behavior that I receive all the time from a lot of evangelicals is this embodiment of what Trump, I think, has embroiled them to do. And I think there was a long time where even evangelicals themselves were sort of censoring themselves from what they were actually thinking. And then Trump comes along whether they think he's an evangelical or not. And he, he really allowed them to sort of desensitize themselves. And now we get the kind of behavior we get and I see a lot of it on a daily basis. Yeah, you do like personally, which to me is, and I know that that's probably the direction I'm headed. If I keep speaking up and doing things, and that's fine. And and yeah, I think it probably would have crushed me before, but, but I have noticed that deconstruction has pretty much inoculated me from the fear of other people's opinions. Like I just am to the point where I'm like, eh, if you're not speaking in love, I ain't even listening to you. Like it's just not even going to happen. If you want to talk to me in a loving way, let's go, let's talk, but you can, you can disagree with me. You can, I mean, I have so many people, there have been so many people from different ministries I've worked in before who have reached out to me and genuinely said, like, help me understand where you're at and what you believe. And I will tell them and they'll say, well, you've clearly thought through this a lot. And I respect that it's, it may not be where I'm at. And that I appreciate, like you don't have to care if you agree with me. It's just where I'm at. And I think that's part of, I don't know, honoring somebody's journey. No matter what it looks like, can you not just like honor that and just say, you are a person, you have life in you, you have, you have every right to believe what you want. And it doesn't affect their life at all, you know, it's just crazy. But yeah, it definitely has inoculated me from all that mess, but as an evangelical woman though, it was all about perception as reality. And I needed to behave a certain way. I couldn't even, like, I remember when I would go out and like have dinner after I would speak at an event, my mentor would say, well, don't order from that type of glass because it looks like it could be alcohol, and you don't want to give the impression that you're drinking alcohol. And I was like, oh, you're right. You're right. Everything. I was just so afraid of everything. Right. What about you? What, what, what's the biggest freedom that you have found in all of this? Yeah, I think mine is similar in the sense that when I started deconstructing, I realized that this movement of, or what I, again, I think to be like kind of the spirit of God moving within me is something I can trust, right? Like, it used to be before where I had to, you know, everything had to be filtered through what the Bible says or what some sort of pastor might say. And, and it realized, oh wait, there are moments in my life where I can actually trust what I believe God to be doing within my, my soul and my heart. And that was a really big moment for me to know that, you know, when I, when I have these feelings of like really liking some girls, like that isn't Satan trying to attack me. Like, that was a big moment for me to realize, no, I can like trust some of these things. And maybe, maybe like even some of those feelings, some of those experiences are actually God moving into my life. And that was a really big moment for me to sort of trust that. I really try to, again, you know, I mentioned earlier, I'm at any year before, I really have leaned into that more as I've gotten older to recognize there are moments in my life where if I feel really, really strongly about something, I think maybe that's God trying to tell me something and I can trust that. Yeah. And trusting that, that intuition, I think has been one of the big freedoms of deconstruction for me because I was taught not to trust that. Don't trust that inner voice. Your heart is wicked. You're a mess. You're disgusting. Oh, but you have Jesus over you. So now when God looks at you, he sees Jesus and not you because you're trash, but Jesus, you know. And so then you just kind of like assume that narrative like, okay, I'm nothing. And you just make yourself smaller and smaller and smaller to the point where, I mean, like you're hardly discernible, you know, that's how I don't even, I had to understand, have you ever seen the movie with Julia Roberts's and I can't remember which movie it is. It's a really sad one. But she doesn't know what kind of eggs she likes because every time she's with a man, she always likes the, she likes whatever he likes. Like this guy like fried eggs. So she ate fried eggs. This guy like scrambled eggs. And so one day she's like, buy herself and she's like, I don't even know what kind of eggs I like. I usually just like whatever somebody brings me. That was me coming out of a toxic relationship with evangelicalism like Leslie. What kind of eggs you like? What do you want? And, you know, having that freedom to be able to ask myself that without feeling like I'm being selfish or self-centered or not putting Jesus or others before myself, it's liberating. And I don't, I don't feel like that's not God's spirit. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's why I've, I've loved kind of the progressive Christian world that I've been in for the last number of years now where, you know, if I encounter like a certain theology, I can sort of almost like try it on for size or, you know, try it on to see what I think I look like in it. And if I like it great, like, I'll buy into that theology. And if I'm like, oh, I kind of like this a little bit more than that about that theology, you know, I, but basically it's sort of like I get to kind of pick and choose what kind of works for me and what I like best and to know that that's even a possibility was just really revelatory for me. Oh, that's cool. Well, and you know, the Bible does say, if you seek me with your whole heart, you'll find me. It doesn't say, if you seek me this way, you'll find me. And I do feel like there's so much more liberty that we have been given to find that connection to the divine than what we're taught in religion. I think sometimes it, it holds us back from, from really seeking God through experiences or, you know, we're not just like, it doesn't need to just be the Bible, you know, God is real in other ways to, you know, it's, it's just amazing. And I'm just thankful to, to me, people like you on this journey and, and hear your thoughts and what you've figured out and found out and I just love it. I love that so many of us are, are willing to talk about it. You know, I don't think 10 years ago, this would have been the case. I think. Yeah, I mean, there were, there were, I mean, there have been, you know, progressive Christians saying their thing for some time now, but, but yeah, the fact that we have so many people now that especially like those of us who grew up conservative evangelical can connect on a place like TikTok or Twitter or Instagram or whatever it might be and connect over that experience and try to find a new kind of life. Yeah, we haven't seen anything like that. And I'm hoping that more and more people kind of join that and, and leave some of the toxic parts of their life, like conservative evangelicalism behind to find a life that is actually fulfilling and life giving to them. Yeah. And free. Yeah, I love that and I think it's happening and I think it's, you know, with, for every voice that we hear, it's giving others permission to speak their truth and, and to say where they're at and to not be ashamed. And yeah, I just, that's, that's who God is. I really believe and I feel like the community and the people that, that are in my life now, I don't feel like I would lose any of you, any of you just for saying, I believe something a little different. Mm hmm. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, oh, well, I'm not sure I believe that anymore. But here's how I feel. Oh, well, that's cool. Like it's just so nice to be accepted for who I am and not for what I believe or don't believe. Yeah. I mean, I disagree all the time with all the sort of people in the progressive Christian world. Yeah. I mean, nobody disagrees with each other more than like progressive Christian people. They constantly are harping on each other about stuff that you disagree on. But at least like where I try to be is like, you know, even if I disagree with you and, you know, could even be something that, you know, really is a deep conviction to mind that I disagree on. I'm still really wanting to be in a relationship with somebody that I really think that this person, even if I disagree with them, they matter in the world and, and what they do in the world really matters and it really is important for me to remain in relationship with that person. If we have super strong disagreements, you know, I think of someone like Diana Butler Bass, she's become a good friend of mine and Diana Butler Bass, like, you know, she's typical, like, kind of, you know, establishment Democrat where, you know, the Democrats can do no wrong. And I'm like way more on the left than that where I'm like, Oh God, the Democrats drive me nuts about stuff. And we like disagree with us all the time. And we just are back and forth on it. And also like, I think of Diana Butler Bass almost like like a, like a, like a mother like a theological mother, like, I mean, I love her that much. And again, like, just because we disagree on this, like, certain thing and we might have strong disagreements about it, we can still love each other in the midst of that. Right. And what a great example. You know, I think that's, I think that's the way life is. We don't have to agree. We're not told. I mean, that wasn't one of the things that Jesus's message was, Hey, everybody, you need to agree. No, just love. Just love. His disciples has 12 closest people in his life. All disagree with all with each other all the time about who this guy was. They probably disagree with Jesus about who he was. Right. Exactly. Very common theme in the entire Gospels is the fact that we get the 12 closest people to him constantly not figuring out who he is, like, and he just constantly like giving them shit about it too. Right. Like just constantly giving them shit about who do who do you say I am? And they just get it wrong every single time. And yet, he still called them disciples, right, like they were still his disciples. They were the closest people in his life, right? And I think that's a great example of how we should live in the world. Yeah. That is beautiful. And man, thank you so much. I appreciate so much you've been in time with us today and sharing your journey. And you'll also be at Theology Beer Camp. Are you going to be anywhere else this year or? I will be there. I'm trying to think. Oh, I'm sure things will pop up. Sounds like I might be doing a thing in New Orleans for some podcasting stuff. But yeah, I'll be around. Well, I'll make sure to put a link. So if you want to go see Mason in person, hear him speak and just kind of maybe have a conversation with him face to face. Hang out in the mountains. Yep. We'll try to get some altitude sickness and we'll see convert you all to processed theology. Mason, you've been a delight. I've had so much fun with you. And of course, getting to know you just in person kind of here has been super fun. And I will see you for sure at Beer Camp. So looking forward to meeting you in face to face. We'll see you in October. Yeah. Thank you so much. And yeah, I'll put some information also for people to come and contact with you, your website, all that stuff in the show notes. Love it. Thanks, Mason. [MUSIC]
