This choir cast podcast is brought to you by the book too much and not enough. Sacred Thoughts Set Out Loud by Karen Shock. This book is for anyone who has big questions about God and is feeling like a misfit among the people who seem to have it all figured out. Journey with me as we dive into the hard stuff and ask the questions no one else seems to want to ask available now on Amazon. ♪♪♪ It's choir week right here on Honoring the Journey. I'm Leslie Meese, your host, and I'm so excited that you get to be Pierce Marks, an author with choir, and also brand new dad. Really cool guy, you're going to love him, he's an artist. He thinks outside of the box, just a really fun guy. So, looking forward to introducing him to you in just a minute, but first of all, make sure that if you're interested in signing up for religious rehab, coming up in the fall, you let me know that you're interested because we are starting a wait list for that right now and I would love for you to be a part of it. Anyway, if you'd like to find some community and just have a safe place to talk through some deconstruction and in a group coaching experience, I would love to invite you to be a part of it. All you have to do is send me an email, LeslieMeese@gmail.com, and when you do, just make sure you put in there that you're interested in being on the wait list for the fall session of religious rehab. All right, without any further ado, let's meet Pierce. Thanks for hanging out with us today on honoring the journey. Welcome back to honoring the journey. Glad you're here with me today. I'm Leslie Meese and I'm here today with a guy named Pierce Marks. What a cool name, by the way, Pierce. That is like, you sound like a movie star. Thank you. I'm named after Pierce Brosnan, unfortunately. Not a famous actor that I like, but my mother was in love with, so. Totally. Oh, my goodness. My son was named after Thomas Magnum. So I get that. Yeah, that's what his name is Thomas. My husband said, let's name him Magnum, Thomas Magnum. And I was like, no, so we went with Ryan, but yeah, definitely I get that. So your mom and I would probably get along anyway. Pierce is an artist and a photographer. He also is a writer in a graphic design. You literally do so much. I was looking at your history and what you like to do. He's a philosopher of religion, and he has a new book coming out in June. It's called A New Way of Seeing, Meaning in Life and the Christian Vision of Nature, which sounds incredibly intriguing, so we're going to get to that in a minute. But Pierce, I've been starting the journey off with honoring the journey with a just a random question with people just to get to know them as a human being, not as a writer or philosopher or any of the things that you're professionally known for. So, all right, I'm going to say, what was your favorite movie when you were a kid and why? Oh, gosh, this is going to tell me a lot about you. Yeah. This is, I was a weird kid. My favorite movie for a long time as like a little kid was bridge over the River Quai, what, which is a like four hour long military drama, World War II military drama. And I just, yeah, it was weird. I don't know why I like it so much other than I thought it was really, I just like the clothes. I really love World War II, like clothes. Yeah. And I thought it was really cool. And also, Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan, the original Star Wars was a main character. So I thought that was cool as a kid. Seeing him in a different light was probably a little weird for you at first. And then it was kind of intriguing. Yeah, I don't think I actually understood anything that happens with that movie because it's really slow and like actually a good movie for adults. But I think I just looked at it and was like, that's cool looking. That's so fun. Well, you know, maybe it was the artistic side of you because you clearly are an artist. And maybe you just, I don't know, that's interesting though. That's really fun. Yeah. I'm like sitting here thinking, I don't think I've been able to sit through the entire movie before. I've cried. But, you know, I'm an adult. I'm sure it's a great movie. I just, I can't sit still that long, you know what I mean? Oh, I get it. A little hyper, hypergirl. But so okay, interesting. Were there any like kid movies that you liked or what? I'm trying to think of what I really liked as a kid. Like Airbud. Did you? No, I was raised on like war movies in Western. So it's like all the Clint Eastwood Western movies too. Oh fun. Yeah. I love those as a kid. That was like my fun side. I was always big into like adventure and, you know, the kind of American military or cowboy, like, let's go get them type stuff. I love that because you know what that really helps you as, you know, as you mature sort of have a broader perspective in life and, and have your own little path. I love, I love that little pier sort of carved his own little path. That's good. Yeah. It's definitely not reflective. Well, it is reflective of who I am now, but it's definitely not reflective like the jobs I have right now sitting down. But I definitely feel that craving for adventure within me still boy, okay, there's where we're alike. Pierce, I am such a girl for an adventure, always up, always up for an adventure. So okay, tell me a little bit about your journey then. So you grew up, what is it, Southern California, right? Yeah. In Orange County. Love it. Love Orange County. Just went there for vacation. Tell me a little bit about your, you're, you're growing up. Were you always sort of in religion? Was that part of your family? Yeah. So on my mom's side, my dad's side is not really religious, but my mom's side is like an East Coast Italian family. So we were Catholic. And until I was about nine years old, I was raised in the Catholic church. And then it was right at the height of like the big Catholic sex abuse scandal. And so that was like when I was about eight or nine. And so that pushed my family away from that and into the sort of non-denominational evangelical spaces in Southern California. And so my family started going to different like Calvary Chapel type churches, these kind of like non-denum, but basically like Baptist evangelical spaces. I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah. Um, I, through my teeny, from about, you know, nine or 10 through the end of school, I was mostly homeschooled or went to like these small like kind of college prep schools. And they were all, you know, the non-denominational evangelical stuff. So that was really, um, from like 10 on the, the sort of space I was in was these evangelical Baptist type spaces. So you were homeschooled all the way up through school or did you go to school? I went to prep school in first grade, but yeah, I was homeschooled second through 12th grade. Yeah. So I'm sure it hurts for the classes like two days a week. So you guys had like, um, socialization, like you had, you know, homeschool groups that you were with. Is that? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. I wasn't just shut in my parents basement or something. You know what? Most homeschoolers aren't. I think that is a misconception. It is definitely a stereotype, but definitely not. My kids actually, well, my younger ones, um, specifically I have, I have four kids, but they're like, you know, several years apart. So I've got the first two. And then later on, we decided to have two more of us crazy. So the two younger ones, definitely, we, we homeschooled them through middle school, but, um, then they went to public high school, you know, and it was nothing like, you know, in a basement. We're in a gene skirt that goes to the floor. You know, it was nothing. Yeah. That's that, you know, that really is the stereotype and I did know some people like that. Oh, yeah. I really do exist, but yeah, not most of us were not like, right, right, breaking the mold. I love it. We would just slightly more awkward than normal public. Yeah. Well, and that is true. You think, Ned, did you have your, um, did you learn about evolution? Or was that something they sort of worked out of it? No, I, so I'm 30 right now. And that was, uh, I love looking back on this because it's such a different time culturally, I think. But that was really the height of like, um, the evolution versus creation debates and stuff with like, can ham and answers and kind of stuff, that I would like raise all these homeschool groups would not teach what I would now consider good science curriculum. Um, I think I was raised almost completely for science curriculum, Bob Jones University, if you know what that is. Oh, I actually lived in Greenville, South Carolina. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The science curriculum and that, wow, that was really terrible and that was all the way through high school. So I knew about evolution because I was a reader and, uh, they mentioned it and I looked into it on my own as a teenager, but like, we basically taught that it was all BS and the earth is 6,000 years old, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I remember when my kids were homeschool, because I was really in those evangelical spaces when I was homeschooling and, um, I did an online curriculum for them that was a public, you know, thing, but I knew they were going to be taught evolution and I wanted to oversee it. So they would learn it and then I would, you know, say, yeah, but that's not true and I would show them in the Bible, you know, because the Bible is a history book. Yeah. Right. It's a literal one for one record. Yes. Yes. And so yeah, I was very scared. I was a very afraid mom, if I could say so myself, but not anymore, but that's a whole another story, so you grew up in this space and you were in church. I have a feeling something happened. You're not there. Are you still there? What are you standing? Yeah. Really. Okay. Right now I'm Eastern Orthodox. I've been Eastern Orthodox for the last, like, four, go ahead five years. Yeah. So can you explain that to people who may not know what that means? So Eastern Orthodox is like the second largest denomination within Christianity goes Catholicism and then Eastern Orthodoxy and I know my priests and other people would criticize me for saying what I'm about to say, but basically it's substantially the same thing as Catholic other than we disagree about a couple of things, theological points like the Pope and what's called the Filioca Claws in some of the creeds and there are some other theological issues, but those are the two main big ones. But you know, it's this, it's high church, very traditional liturgical Christianity that claims to be, you know, apostolic claims to be the continuation of, you know, the original church as it's evolved over time. Well, that's kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Are you drawn? I'm curious about this because my son is an artist as well and he's very turned off by concerts and in a church and he's very turned off by, you know, fog machines and the show. He would loves to go to a traditional church that he is very literted, literted, okay. We're turning. Okay. Well, it came out so bad. I'm sorry. It's been a day. It's fine. Is that something? Can you relate to that? Is that something important to you? Yes, absolutely. So, yeah, now, especially I appreciate it even more, but there was always some, you know, like I said, I was raised to Catholic Church, went to Mass and I love Mass. I grew up like two minutes from a monastery in Southern California. Then my grandma and mom would take me to visit, go to some of the prayer services. I just loved it as a kid and I love the art. And when we went to those evangelical churches, I immediately hated it and I was never really like involved. I never really wanted to be there. And as soon as I was allowed not to go, I stopped going, even though I was forced to go to the schools and stuff and their chapel services. But yeah, I always felt, even though I led a worship band in high school, or because our school was like also like a church, I hated, I hated contemporary worship services. And I was always craving something more like more devout, I guess, I don't know, I don't know how to put it, because I don't want to say that like worship services, no one in theirs devout or something, but no, no, I don't think that that's what that means. I think for you, that's what it felt like, you know, and I think that that's very individualized. And I, I highly, I mean, I respect it like you wouldn't believe because I know it. I mean, that's the same, my son felt the same way. He's like, something's very wrong. And he also said he hated the way they would just take scripture and put it like on a wall or a poster. And he said, and they would just like put it up there like it was just this normal everyday thing to do that. And I just couldn't be like, I was always afraid for him. I don't know how your parents felt with you, but like I was always afraid, oh no, he is not on the right path because he does not fit in the church box. And I don't know what I'm going to do. So I was always worried about him. But then when he would say things like that, like, there was almost a depth to him that I didn't get and I didn't understand. I do now, but, you know, I don't know that I, you kind of strike me that way. When I was doing research on you before this, it's like, man, I, you need to meet my son. He's about your, I mean, he's 31, 32. So you guys are about the same age and both very artistic. So it's kind of cool. Yeah, I like this photography when you showed me it. I mean, we clearly have something in our souls similar drawing, I see it, I sense it. I was really excited to meet you and talk to you because he is like one of the most fascinating people in my life. I'm sure you feel the same. I mean, I'm sure your mom and dad feel the same about you. Yeah, I think my mom definitely does. Yeah. I mean, she was never really so much worried about me because I was always the most like once I became a Christian, whatever that means, I was always the most like, let's embrace it and fight everybody about it. Yeah. Yeah. You were in the church and then you were also homeschooled. Now, did you go to a regular college? Yeah, I did. So after high school, I went to a community college in Southern California, San Diego Canyon College. I studied philosophy there and yeah, I kind of had so it's like growing up, I never really felt like I wanted to be a part of the evangelical spaces. I was always butting up against pastors and principal of school and my classmates who were all in. I was just, there's some tension there and I didn't really know what it was. I just definitely knew that I was like, this is not my type of religion in Christianity but I had to be here. And then when I was about 17, I had, I would say like, I was agnostic pretty much until I was like 17 and then I became a Christian but I immediately, it was like, I'm not, not this type of Christian. I don't know what type of Christian I am, I'll keep looking. You're still trying to figure that out, huh? Yeah. Yeah. And that took me a long time. But out of that, I ended up studying philosophy. And I wanted to do theology but then that's not really something you do to community college. But yeah, I studied philosophy, got my associates in California and then me and my wife got married really young and we moved to Oklahoma, finished my undergrad and my master's degree in philosophy there and then I started teaching at University of Central Oklahoma, teaching philosophy courses there. Oh, wow. So when you were studying philosophy, did a lot of things, did you start to have questions and or maybe even some answers that you had questions to about religion? Yeah. So it's like one of my big, one of my big crises, I'm like a very angst driven person. So I have said for a while, I'll never have a midlife crisis because my life is a midlife crisis. As a teenager, you'll be surprised. Yeah. We'll see. Turning 30, I was like, Oh my God, I'm so old. So maybe I'm wrong about that. You are. So like my big first existential crisis was over whether God existed or not, because I wanted God to exist because I chalk it up to being raised Catholic in a decent Catholic church. I saw the beauty of that religion could bring through someone's life and I saw the beauty of Christianity in particular. And I had a profound love for nature and especially nature as like an artwork of God. And when I seriously began to doubt the existence of God, like that was a big thing for me. It's like, well, then how do you have meaning in life? You know, all of the beauty of Christianity would just be false. Things like, you know, then how would you have objective morality, stuff like that. So as a teenager, that really hit me hard. And then I, so I devoted, you know, all of my younger years to studying and trying to resolve those things. And yeah, along the way, it was a very like, I wouldn't say it was like a winding path. It was very narrowly focused in terms of like, I was very devoted to studying those issues. But it, I learned so much in my perspective, broad and so radically in ways I never thought it would that I, yeah, I fundamentally changed the sort of, I guess the sort of questions and worldview I was asking, if that makes sense. Absolutely. Can you give me an example of one of the ways that it changed your perspective? Yeah, so like, for instance, the existence of God, until I was several years into studying philosophy, I didn't realize that I had just like the completely wrong idea of what God was. I had a very antihistorical and naive idea that God is not like a man in the sky or something like that. You say an entity, an invisible spiritual entity that kind of acts in the world and runs the world. He's a disembodied mind, you know. That's what we're taught. Yeah. And you know, people call it theistic personalism. And yeah, that's how I thought of God. And so it was always a question of proving whether this entity exists or not. And it was only like, I'd say like, really, right before graduate school that I realized like, oh, that's not the historic view of God, which my book gets into fully. But you know, God has existence itself, a reality itself that pervades all things. The being of beings, not a being, not a particular being, that sort of thing. So that was one of those radical shifts that happened. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Another one. Yeah. That is big. And it went along with that grew out of the sense that I had. And I knew this in my heart as a child and a teenager, but didn't know how to articulate it. But it grew out of a sense that like everything, all of creation, everything that exists is inherently valuable and inherently well. Every animal, every blade of grass, every leaf, like existence is just a miracle and a wonderful, beautiful thing at every level. And when I, when I was taught around, I think I was like 22 to read the church fathers and to actually look into historical theology, I found them expressing that same idea. The reason that the church fathers held the view that everything is inherently lovable, right? All parts of creation, big and small, was because that the divine God was infused into everything and interpenetrated all things, that God's everywhere and in everything and everyone. And when I realized that, that was like a major paradigm shift. Yeah. And that itself helped resolve some of my doubts because then that got me into away from the modern kind of like pseudoscientific arguments and to like the older metaphysical traditions about like how you discuss God and things like that. And that, that was a really helpful part of my life. Such a heavy, like to be in your 20, you know, most people are like partying and like being irresponsible. It sounds to me like you've just always been somebody who needed answers to like life's most deep questions. You know, that's, I mean, honestly, it's kind of a gift, but I do have to say, I wonder if as you, when you get to your mid life, if maybe you'll kind of let go and just enjoy, you know what I mean? Like trying to find answers and just enjoy the fact that maybe there aren't answers to everything, but the ones that you've found along the way satisfy your soul. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's always, I think that has consciously been my goal. So it's like, I don't enjoy philosophy. I don't enjoy reading all the time. You just like answers. Yeah. I like answers tonight. I feel like I have to do it or I'll go insane. Yeah. That's great. I hope eventually like I get to a point where I'm comfortable enough where I can just like just focus on art or just chill, you know? Just chill. Like it is what it is. I have no chill. Well, you know what though, with a mind like that, that would be hard. But I will tell you, I have heard, I mean, and I'm 55, I just turned 55. So I feel like I'm at an age now where I'm starting to kind of let go a little bit and say, yeah, maybe I'm just not going to figure it all out, but I'm just going to enjoy it while I can't. But I have let go a lot of dogma. You know, I don't really have a lot of that anymore. And that has, like I can breathe. You know what I mean? Like there's something really freeing about the mystery of it all. But there were answers along the way that I really wanted. I wanted to know what I really believed. And I think that's actually responsible of you and I really respect that you did it at such a young age. And most people are not focused on, you know, things like that. So good for you. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I, as a disclaimer, I don't think I'm responsible for me doing it at all. It was forced upon me by suffering as a child. So I was epileptic as a kid and I still have like fairly bad OCD and having health issues as a kid and then also being in churches that constantly taught like the rapture. Oh yeah. At one point when I was a kid, like I think I was 11, I gave like all of my toys away because I was like, I can't take it with me and the rapture is coming any day. And I couldn't stop ruminating on it. And it really ruined my life. So it's like the trauma from that stuff like really fueled a suffering that was productive in the end. So yeah, because, but yeah, well, and in doing the research, I think probably I'm assuming for, you know, the rapture and where that came from, you probably realize this had nothing to do with the original church doctrine. Yeah. Right. Came along much later as a translation by one guy who all of a sudden just permeated. And for some reason, American white evangelicalism for the most part is completely convinced that this is a thing. Yeah. And that, you know what, that answer now that you have it, do you still, like, do you ever find yourself still maybe what if it is true, you know, or are you pretty convinced that no way? Um, there was a while where I felt that. So it's like, I'm not a very secure person. I don't, uh, I don't think of, I don't hold my theological or philosophical positions like very confidently most of the time, I'm very open minded and if someone disagrees with me, I will immediately be like, I must be wrong. So I for a long time, I thought like, well, what if that stuff is, is actually true? What if, you know, um, what if the literalist interpretation of scripture is actually right? Because in my mind, it, it wouldn't be true. It would just be false if, if sort of fundamentalism was the correct version of Christianity, then I just wouldn't be Christian. But yeah, I thought for a long time, like maybe I'm just compromising or maybe I'm just making things up to make myself feel better and try to like save a sinking ship until until right before grad school, um, where I got, I kind of got that confidence as because I learned how to read the church fathers, like I didn't know how to read those. I didn't study those. I studied modern philosophy of science and analytic, like philosophy of language and metaphysics mostly. So I did not know how to do that stuff, but reading the church fathers and, and tapping into what I would call like the historical stream of Christianity, like that kind of transformed by outlook and, and help me let, like you said, let go of some of those worries and unburdened being like substantially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one thing I've noticed since, you know, deconstructing a little bit. Well, not a lot. I guess a lot. You know, I, I'm trying to think that what were the things that brought me the most anxiety in my faith? And it was like the rapture. It was hell. It was, you know, even penal substitutionary atonement, like scared me to death because I was like, why, like my sin did that to hit like it was, I felt so bad. I could, I could not watch the passion without absolutely losing everything and I like, it's just like, I can't even explain how sad it made me feel because I, you know, the message was you did this to him, you know, and so these are the things that I really, that brought me anxiety made me uncomfortable. So those were the things that I really researched. So I totally get why you did what you did. You're like, okay, wait, this is giving me anxiety. This is making me feel uncomfortable. I'm going to get to the bottom of this. And I think when you, when you do let go of that, you realize it's not Jesus that's giving you anxiety. It's what you've been taught about him, and when you realize where that came from, you're like, why have I been so afraid of the one thing that I really definitely don't need to be afraid of, and that is God. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. That's how I always felt. I would always get so angry and anxious talking to other Christians, and I would always have such problems with other Christians because they'd always be so combative and everything. And then I would, it would make me be like, Christianity is just, this is what it's like. It's stupid. Right? It's always about arguing and being right. Yeah. Exactly. And the sort of dogmatic mindset of like, no, you have to fit into this box. You have to do it this way. Yeah, but then whenever I would read the gospels again, then it would be like, okay, I sense something that doesn't, I said something that actually gives life and peace in the gospels that isn't in the life of the churches I was in at the time, you know? Yeah. No, totally. I get that. So you so you branched out and found you found your place. I love that you're still in church. That's really cool. Pierce. Yeah. I'm grateful. I it took a long time. It took like, I'd say like eight years of real constant full time study to where I was comfortable even, even like confidently saying, I believe that God exists and I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I'm a Christian. Right. I was a Christian, but I was very like not confident and I was kind of skeptical, right? And seeking if you want to put it that way, which I think we should all be. Yeah. I mean, if you allow me to get on like my hobby horse, like one of the problems I have with like the popular deconstruction movement, it's like we often talk is that we don't have control over our beliefs. And it's like, well, you know, I've got a great exercise for everybody. It's it's to just pull over an a day cart in the first meditation, lock yourself in a cabin, write out everything you believe in and everything you're not certain of and don't have a proof actual conscious proof of. Just get rid of it. Throw it. Yeah. Do your best that you can to just strip your mind of everything and just be like, I don't, you know what? I don't have reasons for anything, I believe. Let's start from the ground up. And that will take you a long, long time to recover from, but it can help unburden you in a way that's very productive. If you if you go back and do that repeatedly as a meditation and a lot of problem I have with with how people pursue things right now, whether they're atheist or religious, trying to hang on is like, they're not willing to actually write those things out and meditate on that sort of thing, you know, yeah, that's good. Yeah. So that's kind of the approach I took and it took a long time to to get to the point where I felt confident enough that I could be like, okay, now I'm going to look for what type of church that I think I should belong to. And it took another existential crisis to then bring me into Eastern Orthodoxy, which I'm fairly confident is at least a true church that I believe if nothing else, it is the right one for you. Like, I think that's what we need to remember is that we're all different. You know, I, I remember being taught when I was, you know, in my previous faith tradition that, you know, we all basically, we can't, there's only one truth. And so you can't seek after your truth. It has to be the truth. And it's always what they believed. You know what I mean? But then when you, when you branch out a little bit, you start to realize every religion believes that. So somebody's either wrong or everybody's right. I don't know. But to me, I was like, okay, so if that's the way this is, I need to find what works for me, what gives me less anxiety, that gives, you know, is good for my mental health and my spiritual health. Because both of those were very affected by the fear, sort of fear based theology that I was, I was under. So yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Right. And it really was like the type of circles I grew up in, and it sounds like you were a part of, I mean, it's a fear based religion on many levels that you have to escape from. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could go into stories about how like, I have a board of elders at like 12 o'clock at night as walked out and confronted me at a church, I didn't even go to things like that. Okay. Wait, I want to hear this story, but let's take a break real quick. And when we come back, this is what I got to hear. So hang around guys, don't go anywhere, we'll be right back and we're back honoring the journey. I'm Leslie Nees with Pierce Marks and Pierce, you were about to share a story about elders in the middle of the night. And I'm just, for one thing, I'm intrigued because you said you don't even go to that church. So I'm like, why do they have authority over you at all? But I digress. Go ahead. Doing this story. What happened? I'll drop names and everything. I don't care. I'm coming back. Kindred church in Southern California in off the '91 freeway, I was helping my friend who did go to that church out of high school, he was making a student film. And I was playing a bad guy in the student film, and there was a scene where I had to smoke a cigarette. And this church is, there's a church, there's a parking lot, and then there's several acres of nothing. And so we're filming in the middle of the night, no one's there. And I, for 30 seconds in the scene, smoke a cigarette, and I did not smoke at the time. And next thing we know, I'm not joking, like 20 elders of the church and the lead pastor walk out. I don't know why they're there at midnight. But they walk out and come up to me, who I've never met them for, I'm just there to help a friend, and they're like, you can't be doing that. You need to think about the consequences of your actions. You're setting a bad example for everyone on these church grounds. If people were to come in here, see you smoke, that would be, you'd be leading people astray and things like that. And I was just looking around, and I remember, I was kind of a hothead at the time. I remember laughing at them being like, it's midnight. I'm smoking a cigarette for a movie, who cares? But apparently for that, my friend got severely chewed out and disciplined. I don't know the details, but he was kind of like, shamed for that whole event. But yeah, that's a typical scene of things that would happen for very trivial things in the type of circles I grew up with. And it's very much like you were saying, it's fear-based, not just theologically, but in terms of the institution of these supposedly low church, non-hierarchical churches, they have significant power and controlling the people. Well, and I think, man, that just reminded me, I'm literally so many examples came through in my mind of when I had been pulled aside or pulled into an office or whatever. One of them, one time I was at a church, and I was a greeter. And I'm in my 30s, maybe even my 40s at this point, I don't know, probably late 30s. And I was handing out bulletins and introducing myself and being myself, it was a beautiful summer day. I was wearing a tank top and a skirt that was down to the knees and was called into the pastor's office by a woman who was told by the pastor to tell me that I needed to cover up because the men were lusting. Oh my God. I was horrified, like I was so embarrassed, and I felt so guilty and so sad. I had my husband drive me home, I put on a sweater, even though it was super hot outside, and went back to church because, you know, that's what you do. And just from that moment on was never able to really relax. I would put on something and I'd go, all right, honey, what do you think? And if you'd go, oh, looking good, I'd be like, okay, I'm changing. Like I don't want you to even think like that. I want you to look at me and be like, well, you look like a good church girl way to go, you know? You look like an old lady. Yeah, I was making my brethren stumble and more than anything, I was just embarrassed that the people in the church felt like they had to say that to me, you know? It was horrible. So it's amazing how much authority a church really just puts on itself to speak into the lives of people that, I mean, you weren't even a member, you were just on the campus, you know? To me, it's just, it's mind-blowing, I mean, like mind-blowing. No, it is and it's scary and that is part of what brought me wanting to be inside of like an institutional hierarchical church is because I realized like, oh, like they have a definite authority structure with power, for sure. But they also have the plus side of accountability. You can always go to another priest. You can always go to a bishop. You can always even go to a council of bishops or to, you know, you could reach out to a Metropolitan if you wanted to, whereas ideally, I think I am drawn towards like less powerful church institutions and political institutions, but in terms of like practicalities, the churches that I was a part of, the pastors of these low church non-denominational churches had more power than my local priest does over me and often wanted to exercise that power. So it's like, not only that, a church I was a member of, but I remember the church at my high school was in because I basically did not, I just, I had an open mind and didn't really have an opinion, but I definitely did not think that you needed to believe the earth was 6,000 years old. And I remember the principal slash pastor of the school, pulling me aside multiple times and telling me like, I'm concerned for your faith. Like I'm concerned that you don't have faith because you are doubting this. And I was like, so do you think I'm going to hell? Like, do you think I'm not saved? And I was really concerned like at the time like, of course, yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah. And he was like, no, I don't think you're going to hell. But I definitely think you have a problem and lack faith for that. I was like, okay. And then when I started experiencing depression as a teenager, the response of the school and the people at that school was very much like mental illness and depression or any sort of anxiety or worry is a sign that you lack faith. Yeah. And yeah, that's sort of power dynamic. It's weird because the church is supposed to be, it's a small church. It's confined. The pastor is just a guy, just a guy in normal clothes and yet somehow has more psychological power than I've experienced when I've met my bishop before, yeah, it's bizarre. And yeah, the whole mental illness thing, you know, that I've heard it was demonic. And don't worry, you're a Christian, so you can't be, you know, possessed. You can be oppressed. And so the demons are all around you. And I remember at one church, they, they had this deliverance ministry. Have you ever heard of this? Yes. Oh my God. Oh my. Yes, they would call the demons out, the demon of whatever and they would just, you know, and people would, I'm not, I wish I was kidding. This is like embarrassing to even admit that I believed this at the time. But like if you sneezed, you were expelling a demon and yes. And yeah, this was in my church. And I remember when I finally realized I think this might be BS. I went to the pastor and said, I don't think this should be here. I'm a little concerned, you know, I had all the, I had written down a bunch of reasons why my husband was with me. So I had my covering, you know, it wasn't like just this woman with no authority going it. Yeah, I had my husband there and they did nothing about it. They did nothing. They did just let that person stay and he ended up doing some pretty awful things after we left the church. But, you know, it's like, it's, I don't know. It was insane. It doesn't surprise me as someone drawn to a deliverance ministry and things like that would also be prone to doing terrible things. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's sad. Yeah. And that's, that's the history of my experience in those types of churches is even the better ones, there's always something like that that I just, it eventually drove me away. As no matter how hard I tried to get along with everybody. Same. Well, and what was happening to me and my husband is, you know, we were trying to do things the biblical way, you know what I mean? We would be in order and we would do it all the right way, you know, go to the person first and then, you know, bring the, you know, we would, we did it all. And but every church we went to, things were happening. So then I was like, is something wrong with me? I thought I was a bad person, right? Because we couldn't find a place where we felt comfortable, where we weren't going to get hurt. And so then I just started assuming it was me. And then, you know, so the self loathing and the, you know, doubts about my own ability to be a good Christian. I mean, it was just awful, so much anxiety, so much depression and, you know, a lot of it was just trying to fit. I just really just wanted to fit. It's interesting, though, when you, when you try to get somebody who is power focused and control focused to, you know, do things in the way that they teach you to do them, they don't want to do it like that. It's different for them. It's different. Exactly. So. Yeah, I've, I've been through it too, man. We've both been through it. You know, I think that it says something about you that you're willing to continue to go to a church. I'm not in a church right now. I don't want to say I'm never going to be. I could be. If I could find a good, you know, affirming church that was open-minded a little bit. And I don't know, we, I, but it's really hard. I live in Utah, so most of the churches are LDS and, and then the other ones are people trying to, you know, save the LDS, you know, from themselves. So it's just, there's just like this huge battlefield here in the churches. And I, to me, I just like, I don't like drama. I'm out of it. Yeah. I mean, I agree that's so how I ultimately look, look at it now is I am completely out of that world and I'm never going back. And the only way I will go back is when I'm teaching or writing or something. I typically write to those people to try to give at least a lifeline to them to come out because what really concerns me is that what I've seen everybody I went to high school with, that I was friends with, what I have seen is basically everybody except me and like one other person is not no longer religious or it's not that they're atheists, but they're just completely apathetic and they don't care. And that is what happens when bad pastors and bad religion and Christianity like breaks people. They just, they give up on every day give up, yeah. And I'm glad that I'm not in, in that world anymore and that doesn't affect me on daily basis. But I do worry, I do worry all the time about that battle of the churches because I know there's a ton of people like myself that are stuck in it. And that they have not been given the access to broaden their vision of things. And it worries me because I, I in particular don't want people to go from that to atheism or don't want people to go from that to like some vague new age spirituality. I mean, I'm a philosopher and a very hardcore like evidence-based person, I'm very careful. I don't think that a lot of the alternative like spirituality and stuff that people have are good and especially with young people, I see like dabbling and like neo-paganism and stuff like that. And I, I, I don't really think any of that stuff is evidence based, it's just trying to feel a void and thankfully what helped me hang on was that sense. I mentioned earlier that sense in my heart of love for all of creation and sensing when I was in nature, sensing that God is love, reading the Gospels and seeing that God is love there. And then what helped me hang on is when I was miraculously taught by a Presbyterian pastor to read the church fathers, seeing that especially in the Eastern Christian tradition, the foundation of all Christianity should be. And the majority opinion of even the most hardcore institutionalists was fundamentally like love, an attitude of love for everything that exists. And seeing that, it helped me, knowing that there was that alternative, I guess, knowing that, okay, maybe, maybe I'm not crazy. Maybe there is another way of being Christian, maybe a better way. But that, let me hang on, yeah, instead of just despairing, giving up. And so that little thread, just that little thread of having a lifeline of one pastor, kind of helping me tap into this other, I don't want to say other form, I'll be bold and say true Christianity, true, the true gospel. Well, it's the roots, yeah, the roots, giving me that little lifeline to the roots, that one of the only things that kept me alive. I mean, seriously, yeah, yeah, I mean, it was... Is that why you wrote a book about it, because it was so life-altering? Yes, yeah. So your book is called A New Way of Seeing, and then the subtitle is Meaning in Life and the Christian Vision of Nature. So the new way of seeing is that the big thing that you now, all of a sudden, see Christianity is so very different, and now you're trying to share what you've learned, is that what's going on here? Yeah, so... I love it. I love it. This is... It's kind of hard to explain in that I can summarize the entire book, and I can summarize all of the foundations of Christianity in one way by saying God is absolute, creative love. And just unpacking the logical implications of what that means is basically what the book does in a very short way. But there's so much there that it quickly becomes complicated to talk about details. But the basic idea of my work over the last five or six years has been that if we truly saw the world as the church saw it for 1,800 years, if we truly saw the world with the eyes of Christ or the apostles or the saints, it would be a radical shift of our paradigm. It would be like seeing the world through a whole new set of glasses, where all of a sudden our worries about having a meaningful life or purpose in life would just vanish because the solution to them is so trivial and obvious. And I guess the new way of seeing isn't so much a new way of considering the Christian religion. It's essentially the claim that seeing reality through the gospel, seeing reality through Christianity makes your life instantly, infinitely meaningful, and will start making you a better person instantaneously, because it rewires your way of seeing reality. But not Christianity the way that we see it today. That's definitely not Christianity the way we see it today. In the preface, I make the claim that basically most of us have never heard the gospel. And most of us have, at least American Christians, have never actually understood what Christianity is. I can't wait to read this. Yeah, I hope it's good. I've read it like 10 times and I keep thinking like, oh my God, I'm not doing justice. Well, and I want to say to you right now, because you said something at the beginning where you were like, I'll do something or I'll say something and then somebody will come back and refute it and I'll be like, yeah, you're right, I was wrong. Be confident. This is your life work so far. You know what I mean? Like this that you've spent, I don't even know how many hours and days and weeks and maybe even years pouring over this stuff. It has made your life substantially better, your outlook, your mental health, all of it. So be very confident when it goes out and you will have critics because people don't like hearing that what they think is right is maybe not. Like be you be sure that what you're doing is absolutely going to help people. I believe it will. So speaking of that, thank you. I appreciate that. You're welcome. You're welcome. I mean that. And if you need to like record that and like play it, yeah, when this interview goes up, I'll just clip that and clip it. Yes. No, but it's true. I understand what you're saying. And I would say, you know, a lot of times when I was in evangelicalism and I would speak and I would do. And the first thing I would do is I would talk to my mentor who was always there. And I was like, what did you think? She's like, oh, well, it was good. And here's what you did. And blah, blah, blah. I needed to know that it was okay because I was so afraid to misrepresent God or maybe not give the full story. I mean, that's a lot of responsibility. You're saving souls. You know what I mean? Like it was a big deal and I was so afraid to get it wrong. But what I've realized in my life, and I believe this to be true for what's getting ready to happen for you as the as the world opens up a little bit and your book is out there and the vulnerability that you're going to feel is going to be overwhelming. But, you know, God has a way, I believe, of bringing what each person needs from something. Like, and not even like if there's something that's not for them, they won't even hear it. They won't even see it. It's amazing. I've seen it over and over again when I was a speaker and I see it now even in this podcast. I mean, 10 people will listen and get something completely different out of what we just talked about over the last, you know, few minutes. And that's because wherever they are, whatever their view is, whatever they're looking for, whatever they're, you know, it's all going to come to them in a different way. And you can go and you can hear the exact same message and get something completely different out of it when it's what you're looking for. So I believe, so who would be the person that you hope with all of your might will pick your book up and read it and get something out of it? Who is that person? Number one would be someone who is a Christian but who is embroiled in the culture wars and the church battles going on and frankly in their heart lacks love and reads this book and sees, oh my God, I actually haven't, I haven't even understood the heart of the gospel. I haven't understood the most basic part of Christian theology, which is that love reigns supreme over everything, that all of morality, that all of art, that all of knowledge are also the same thing as love because all those things are grounded in God and God is himself also love and beauty and goodness and truth and all that. And that person, I hope that it would simultaneously convict them that they've been devoting their life to battling people and fighting against things with anger and fear and would lighten their burden, simultaneously lighten that burden from them and let them see if there's a different way to relate to everything around you, to people around you, to other religions, to your own religion, to God, there is the path of pure love for everything and seeing the divine in all things. So that would be like the type of person that I hope my book can like convince to kind of turn and live a different way. The other one would be somebody who's apathetic and just kind of like doesn't really believe anything, just completely has given up like I mentioned earlier. I hope that in some way my book can like plant, fan the sparks, fan the embers of their heart to like get it going a little bit and to see well, you know, there's a reason why Christianity has been the cultural force in the West and most of the world for the last 2000 years. There's a reason why it lit the world on fire and before you get into all the complicated questions of like, are other religions all false, that type of stuff, understanding Christianity as like actually understanding it is the first step to actually like caring anymore and not just being not just essentially shutting down your mind and being a consumer for the rest of your life and just being apathetic. And so I hope I hope it's like, I guess to those two type of people, I hope it helps clarify what's at stake and clarify what real historical Christianity is. I hope that makes sense. No, it absolutely does. That was awesome. Beautiful. As a matter of fact, I think what I'll do is take that and like record it and you should share that. Okay. I mean, you release your book because that is that you just summed up so well, you know, what your heart is and people want to know that. They want to know what are you trying to do with this book. And right now, I know exactly what you're trying to do. And I know here's the hard thing I will say in this space of, you know, I guess some people deconstructing or whatever, questioning. The hard thing is that a lot of people who are in those spaces aren't going to listen. And that's the hard thing for me because like, I want to be a bridge builder. I want to be somebody to help them understand why people are leaving and why people are giving up and why people are looking into church history to try to figure because they know there's something to this, but it's not right. Something's wrong. I want them to understand why they're doing it. And the only people that are explaining deconstruction for lack of a better term to them are their own people that are upset about it. Right. They're listening. They're not listening to the people that are actually wrestling with it, including us, you know, and, and so that breaks my heart. I, I, I don't know, I keep talking to my husband, I'm like, honey, I don't know what to do. Like, I really want to get through to the evangelicals. I really want them to understand why, but they're not listening to me. They're, you know, they've stopped following me. They think I'm a heretic, whatever. But I'm really just trying to, I'm, I'm trying to show love. I'm trying to show love to them. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that and we think, well, you're wrong and you're evil and you're a heretic. So you're out of my life and it's like, well, sometimes we just need to listen and maybe that's what your book will do is help people listen. Yeah, I hope so. It's got a substantial amount of like very basic ethical instruction in it in that I, I feel, I, when I read the section, I'm like, this is so stupid, like this is for babies or something. But then I think about how, yeah, how big of a difference it made for me 10 years ago. And I literally walk people through like, when you're, when you're thinking about things, when you're trying to make a decision, or even when you're just sitting out somewhere and you're looking around you, stop and contemplate, like, what is the inherent value of everything around you? Is everybody in everything just a tool for you in some way? Is it just a way to experience pleasure or something? And that's part of that new way of seeing is, is slowing down and actually thinking about not just the tool like qualities of nature and people, but opening yourself up to not eliminating yourself, but seeing the world not just from your own eyes, right? Trying to make a cosmic external point of view is what I call it. And that's what we're trying to do with this podcast, you know, share different viewpoints and journeys and, and how, you know, there is a commonality in all of it. Everybody's trying to connect with God or the divine, everyone. And they're doing it in different ways. Some people, like you said, are giving up. And I think that that's why we're doing this too, or I'm doing this, I guess. It used to be we, but now I'm doing it because I really want them to see that there are options. Yeah. You don't have to give up. Right. It's like you said, I mean, that would have been disastrous for you to give up. Yeah. Oh, I, I absolutely, I would have just lived a life of, like, and sadness and, yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you kept going. And you're about to be a dad, right? Yes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's really exciting. Are you? Okay. So how has this changed you? Has it changed your perspective? I, I took a bunch of science courses on like zoology and biology right before my wife got pregnant and study, like how fetuses development stuff. And when I shared that with, yeah, I was doing it for teaching credential, but it was such good timing because pairing it with like what I learned from there with like my overall ethic of love and like this new way of seeing stuff. I have been just so overjoyed and felt the presence of God in that developing child so clearly and have been so like overwhelmed with kind of like that, like, as much as a human being can, like zooming out to the cosmic scale and zooming back in and looking at everything. Just wow, this is a new life. This is a new soul with a mind of nearly infinite capacity. And I can't even understand a millionth of how their body functions. It's amazing. It's amazing that they can even stay alive for one moment and that they could develop and thinking about the mystery of existence and life and development. And then not just that. Just all in the first nine months of this little beings development, but then thinking about him. Yeah, holding him, wow, his life after that, whatever it looks like, it's been overwhelming and absolutely the happiest I've ever been. And I'm grateful for all of the stuff that's come before because all of that prepared me for this and like actually care about the child in a real way. Oh, I love this. You are in for a treat. I'm telling you, my four kids are just such a blessing. I mean, for lack of a better term, that's literally they bring me so much joy and they always have. And holding them the first time, I mean, it's almost like you leave your body. You can't believe it. It's so cool. So I'm really excited for you and your wife. Congratulations. Thank you. I can't wait to hear about it and see pictures. Oh, yeah. I'll put pictures in there. Well, Pierce, thank you so much. I'm going to put all the links to find you and a little more. If you have something about your book that you want to share, I'll put that in the notes pages as well. Yeah, thank you for everything, for your vulnerability, for your openness today. And I just want you know, I honor your journey, Pierce, and thank you for sharing it with us today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me and a great conversation. [MUSIC] [MUSIC PLAYING]
