A New Kind of Faith with Brian Recker

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Description

Today, Heather McG and Brian Recker explore their shared experiences growing up in fundamentalist Christianity and the journey of deconstructing their faith. While Heather became and atheist, Brian has forged the path to a kinder, more universal faith. They discuss the challenges of navigating identity, shame, and the impact of evangelicalism on their lives. Brian shares his personal journey of leaving the pastorate, the struggles of divorce, and the importance of finding a supportive community. They also delve into the intersection of spirituality and politics, emphasizing the need for love and compassion in faith practices.

About Brian Recker

Brian Recker, M.Div, is a public theologian, speaker, and writer on Christian spirituality without exclusionary dogma. The son of a Baptist preacher and an alum of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University, he spent eight years as an evangelical pastor before deconstructing his faith to find a more inclusive spirituality. He now speaks about following Jesus without fear of hell on his popular Instagram account and his Substack, Beloved. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has four children as well as a rescue pup named Maev. He is also the author of Hell Bent, scheduled for release in Fall 2025.

Transcript

Heather McG (00:41)

All right, hi everyone. My guest today is Brian Recker. Brian is a former pastor and author of a new book that will be coming out this fall called Hell Bent, which covers a lot of the things we're gonna talk about today. I'm really excited to talk to Brian because we have a lot in common. Most obviously, perhaps the fact that we both grew up in fundamentalist Christianity, slightly different flavors. We were mostly homeschooled and I think it's fair to say we were a bit sheltered as children,

Then we grew up and the wheels started to fall off a little bit or to shake. And at earliest they did for me. I'm excited for us to talk today because my experience with Christianity pushed me to become non-religious even though I do believe in life's deeper meaning. And Brian, you're Christian but have a different frame of reference for your faith now. So I think this will be really great. We both went through a lot of the same things, learned a lot of lessons and ended up in somewhat different spots.

And so Brian, can you start off by sharing a little bit about how you experienced Christianity growing up and what tips you to begin to reevaluate?

Brian Recker (01:39)

Hmm. Yeah, so like you mentioned, I was raised as an independent fundamental Baptist. My dad is still a fundamentalist pastor in New York City, actually, which is like a little different that he's preaching fundamentalist, know, King James only, you know, rock and roll even like the kind of fundamentalists where like, you know, Steven Curtis Chapman or Chris Tomlin, like that kind of stuff was liberal. We weren't allowed to have even Christian rock like in our church. It was like piano only.

Heather McG (01:59)

Yes.

Brian Recker (02:04)

Anything was kind of worldly. So yeah, very sheltered, homeschooled. And none of that was really very attractive to me. I always said like I didn't want to be a pastor when people would ask me as a kid, you know, as a PK. Because yeah, I felt that the way that I was sheltered, like I felt it. I felt sheltered. I felt like I don't really like how sheltered I was. And so when I went to college and I went to a fundamentalist college that my parents wanted me to go to, Bob Jones,

But I did begin to kind of branch out outside of fundamentalism, but I did it safely by stepping into evangelicalism, which is basically fundamentalism with better vibes. That's literally all it is. They believe the same things, but you can wear jeans to church and you can listen to Christian rock and be kind of cool. You can have a tattoo, maybe even an occasional beer. You know, at the time I listened to figures like Mark Driscoll.

who notoriously said a curse word every now and then even from the pulpit, which I thought was really cool and edgy. And so that was like my first step of deconstruction was letting go a lot of these cultural trappings of this sort of sheltered vibe. But I think I was nervous to really question some of the core assumptions that I was handed, which really did hold up my whole worldview, like my personal depravity and my need to be...

rescued from this debt of sin that hung over my head that was gonna send me to hell and those sorts of things. And really, even though evangelicalism, pretty much, they emphasize grace and love and mercy on Sunday mornings. Like if you go to an evangelical church, you're probably not gonna get hit with a fire and brimstone sermon, but it's that same underlying narrative is running the show. And it took me a little while to realize that

the foundations were actually wrong in my spirituality. It wasn't just the sort of surface trappings.

Heather McG (03:49)

Well, and two, I think it's such a good point. I don't know if you saw the Hillsong documentary that came out a couple years ago, it's all about this exactly. And sometimes, you know, in looking back, I feel like evangelicalism was like a rebrand. It was almost like a marketing thing because yes, the pastor started coming out and they looked cool, they talked cool. It was like making Christianity cool, but the root of it was still the same. That part hadn't changed. And I think that's pretty interesting.

Brian Recker (04:16)

Kind of ironically now, I would say in America, the cooler the pastor looks, the more likely it is that they have bad, kind of punishing fundamentalist theology, actually, because now it's the mainline churches that have become more affirming of queer people and have begun to question things like eternal conscious torment. So like the Episcopals, the Methodists.

the Lutheran Church, which have like a more formal liturgy, which might seem more traditional on the surface, but actually like have a more affirming and life-giving message. Whereas the evangelicals with their skinny jeans and you know, they're kind of fancy hats or whatever they're wearing these days. Like they're gonna be, like they'll sound good. Like they'll sound like a motivational speaker in their sound bites and in their Sunday morning clips. But if a queer person tries to, you know, go into leadership or something, they'll be told like, no, you're living in sin.

and that sort of thing.

Heather McG (05:07)

Yeah, that's so true. My mom is still a woman of faith and she, you know, our whole family left evangelicalism at a certain point, everyone in different directions. But I would say we all had in the end, a negative experience with our church. But my mom still goes to church and is a woman of faith. And she went back to an Episcopal church, which is how she grew up. And that's exactly what she says. said, you know, I know it looks so old school and traditional, but I feel more loved and welcomed here. I feel like.

Brian Recker (05:26)

So cool.

Heather McG (05:34)

You know, because I have a lot of brothers and sisters and several of them are trans, who are gay, we are different ethnicities and they're, you my mom has said, you know, my kids are much more welcome there than they ever were at the big mega church that we used to go to.

Brian Recker (05:46)

That's so great that your

mom has been able to be on that journey with you. I love that for you.

Heather McG (05:50)

Yeah,

yeah, it's been really great. Now there's a phrase, so Brian has a great sub stack where he talks about all of these things as well, and there was a quote that you used on there that I thought was really meaningful. You said, feel that I used to be on the wrong side of Jesus. Can you say more about what you meant?

Brian Recker (06:05)

So, yeah, I think that one of the problems with evangelicalism and fundamentalist Christianity is it makes it all about believing the right things about Jesus and not so much about living the way Jesus lived. And so I don't think I really learned the spirituality of Jesus, I learned a religion about Jesus. And when I, like I said, became evangelical,

I think there was still some part of me that was searching, that was trying to figure it out. After all, I was told from before my memory begins, I was told that my sins deserved hell and this whole narrative of salvation that was needed. That was like such a core thing that it was hard to uproot that. And so I think there was some sense of feeling like I needed to be safe and I needed to know what was right because I wanted my salvation secured.

And so after I became an evangelical, that thing where I was like, I'll never be a pastor like my dad, that actually shifted. And I actually, because my knowledge at that point, my knowledge level was so high, I had read so much Bible. And at that point, I had begun to really dive into theology because I was trying to figure it out. I was attracted to being a pastor. And so I became an evangelical pastor in my early 20s. And for a long time,

You know, for several years, really worked for me. I felt like I was doing good. I tried to emphasize the love and the mercy bits, but I was always still rubbed the wrong way by this underlying story of damnation and hell and punishment that God, ultimately God's posture towards us is one of, I'm going to have to punish you unless you're in this right category.

And so I felt this sense because of that, that like my job was to convert people, which always also rubbed me the wrong way, because then it was really hard to love people right where they are and accept them right where they are, which it seems like that's what Jesus did. But how can you do that if who they are is going to send them to hell, right? So it took me some time and really the shattering for me was in 2015, 2016 with the ascension of Donald Trump. I owe Trump a great debt in the sense that

Watching my parents and not only my fundamentalist parents, but also most of the evangelicals that I was in fellowship with, watching them line up in support of Donald Trump was such a awakening moment for me. It made me realize that I was literally lining up all of my beliefs in line with people that did not have any moral discernment. All of a sudden I was like, wait a second.

I know, there's one thing I know. I know Trump is a bad dude. if I'm not, you know, I'm not the smartest, most politically savvy person, but I can see that, that that is wrong. That is immoral. That is not a good direction for our country. And if none of those people can see that, what else, what else are they wrong about? And am I crazy that I have just bought into this whole system that is being pushed by people who couldn't even see through Donald Trump? So in some sense, watching them support Trump gave me permission to rethink.

everything that they taught me. And also recognize that some of the ways where I was feeling, I was always uncomfortable with that sense that, we have to convert people to Christianity. That never made me feel good, but I always thought that was a deficiency in me and in my spirituality. Like, if only I was more courageous and bold like my dad who could just get into a conversation with somebody and ask them, hey, do you know where you're going if you would die today? Like, I would see him do that and I would think to myself, wow, I could never do that. Man, he must be more spiritual than me.

In reality, I now see that is a really alienating way to live your life. You can't enter into a relationship of mutuality and love and acceptance like that. You're just pushing your shit on everyone all the time. And all of a sudden I had permission to realize I actually wasn't the problem. My intuition was right that actually I can question a lot of these things. And so I entered a season of deep questioning and hell was the first thing on the chopping block for me. And so while I was still a pastor,

I began to kind of deeply deconstruct the doctrine of hell. And yeah, that was kind of, it put me in an uncomfortable place because there was some stuff in our statement of faith about hell that I began to disagree with. And so I had some conversations with the other pastors about it. And it's interesting, there's different issues that are like line in the sand issues. Hell is one of them, but queer people is even more so. And even though was questioning hell at the time, I knew that I could not question queer affirmation or I would have to quit. I'd have to lose my job.

And so that was actually one of the last things. It all has to do with power and politics and keeping the hierarchy in order. So, yeah, ultimately, the sort of final moment for me was 2020 for a pastor.

Sunday's always coming, you're always working on that next sermon, you're dealing with stuff in the community. And so while a lot of this stuff was in the back burner, like chugging away in my brain, it took that when the brakes were hit in 2020 and we stopped meeting, all of a sudden I caught my breath and I allowed a lot of the things that had been marinating in me over the last few years began to really catch up in my soul where I began to realize I can't keep doing this. I'm dealing with a lot of cognitive dissonance.

and I'm out of alignment with myself, I'm not in integrity. And I also began to feel like there are questions that I haven't even permitted myself to ask because I'm still under this institutional pressure. And so I ended up putting my resignation in 2020 and then, you know, it was just been a continued journey. And in that journey, I really put everything on the table. I was open to deconverting and saying I'm not a Christian anymore. But in that process, I never have found any reason why Jesus,

Heather McG (11:01)

you

you

you

Brian Recker (11:22)

needs to be rejected. And so a lot of my work for me has been saying, okay, I'm actually moving closer to what I think Jesus was doing and the spirituality of Jesus, even though a lot of what has come out of Christianity, especially evangelical and American Christianity, I've had to reject.

Heather McG (11:37)

Well, yeah, I do see there is a difference between what church says and the spirituality of Jesus. Sometimes they're the same, quite often they're different. Something you said earlier, I was just thinking about that, because I think that's an experience a lot of post-evangelical people have of you reach a moment where you're like, wait, how did I get here? You look around and you're like, this doesn't feel right. This is pushing me too far.

And something that I reflect on now as an adult looking back on growing up in evangelicalism is I think to a large degree it trained me not to trust myself, not to listen to my heart. I must be wrong. There must be something wrong with me. I'm not devoted enough. I'm not, you know, there's a whole term, be a good Christian. Maybe I'm not a good enough Christian. There's something in your book that made me, I laughed out loud when I read it about how you said something like,

I think I got saved 347 times. And I think that fear and anxiety is quite common among evangelicals. Maybe I'm not really saved. I need to redevote to Jesus. And it's just so much anxiety, so much stress, so much disassociation from yourself for a lot of people. I'm not going to say it's everyone, but for a lot of people. But yeah, I had a moment like that as well where I was sitting in church and a lot of things I'd been having trouble with, one of them being their stance on being gay.

And in my heart I was like, I don't understand why this is bad. You know, like I just, didn't get it. And I was like, is there something I don't understand? I don't get it. And as I got older, I became stronger in myself. But then one day I was sitting listening to a sermon and the pastor used a slur, a racial slur from the pulpit. And I was like, that's it, I'm done. You know, that was like my point that like, I can't, I can't do this. But what I do think is interesting is that it is a long road.

for a lot of people. think people outside of evangelicalism, it's hard for them to understand because I mean, it is a little bit ridiculous. I get that. But when you grow up in it, that fear of hell, that fear of not being saved, that fear of not being a good Christian, of not listening to yourself is so deeply ingrained. I really think it's deprogramming. Yeah.

Brian Recker (13:37)

Well, it's explicit. I was told

explicitly, my heart is desperately wicked. Do not follow your heart. Specifically, even Disney movies like Pocahontas or Moulin or Tarzan that say follow your heart in the song lyrics. I remember my dad literally saying, okay, I don't know about these movies or if we watch these movies, we have to watch them with discernment because there's some really damaging messages in here that encourage you to follow your heart and you're not supposed to do that. I was like, okay.

noted. And that's not just like bad theology. It doesn't just affect us personally in our inability to listen to ourselves. It also has an institutional purpose. Because if you're not able to trust your heart, if you're not able to follow your heart or your own conscience or listen to that feeling inside that says something's off here, then what are you left with? You have to listen to your authorities. You have to listen to the patriarchal authority who's telling you,

Well, you just have to trust the Bible. But when they're saying trust the Bible, what they're really saying is trust my interpretation of the Bible and don't listen to any part of you that might disagree with that. Because, you know, some people say, well, you know, what if your heart's wrong? You can't trust your heart. But if you can't trust yourself, what do you have? You're going to be an absolute victim of anybody who says, well, trust me. And the worst people will take advantage of that.

Heather McG (14:49)

And I think we've seen that in terms of leadership, because there is a, I think there are a lot of really wonderful pastors out there and really wonderful leaders that they really are trying to make the world a better place. But then it also unfortunately attracts the shadow side of people that I think are in it with wrong intentions. And they have a lot of power because they're in charge. Now for you,

Brian Recker (15:08)

absolutely. I've

kind of always thought like everybody who chooses to be a pastor, including myself, at some level, you're like a low level exhibitionist or something. Like you want to be seen, you like to be the guy, you want to be up there. I get it. I think that, you know, we just got to our kinks. Like those guys are in denial. Like they try to make it all about Jesus. Like you just want to be up in front of people, man. You'd like to be the guy in charge.

Heather McG (15:24)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yes, for

Now for you, when you decided to resign your position from being a pastor, I know that kicked off a few years for you that were a really big transition for you full of endings. How did that feel for you? I know you had intended to be a pastor the rest of your life. You went through a divorce, a series of really big endings. What did that feel like for you? How did you manage all of those things?

Brian Recker (15:53)

with a lot of anxiety and therapy. It was really, really, it was a very hard time that I, you know, I think sometimes like, what do I regret? And I guess I don't regret anything because I really am happy with who I am right now. But boy, I don't ever want to live through that again. When I left, there was a feeling of liberation.

You know, as a pastor, pastors are under a spot, like there's a spotlight on you, you're under a microscope, you can't really be yourself. I mean, even in progressive circles, I know progressive pastors who like, they're definitely able to be more themselves maybe than conservative pastors. But even then, we put these certain expectations on our spiritual leaders that we don't really let them be whole persons, you know? So it felt really great that I could just be a guy, which was really nice. But I also was like, I didn't know how to do that.

and I, so I found so much identity in, that position as a pastor. It was like who I was. It's what gave my life purpose and meaning. And from a young age, I was told that like, we're all supposed to be on mission for Jesus, like doing the great commission. Like that's our whole thing. And even though I was never good at evangelism, converting people, well, I became a pastor. So that kind of checks the box there. I'm doing the Lord's work. And so was like, okay, now I'm not doing the Lord's work. I don't even know what that looks like anymore.

Who am I? What is this for? A lot of that was just very confusing for me. And I also lost my community because we moved away when I stepped down because I didn't want to be... It's a small town we were in, Beaufort, North Carolina, and run into church people at the grocery store. I just wanted to be able to change and become who I was, not under that microscope. But we lost our circle of friends. And then when I started being more vocal about my support for queer people,

even to a greater extent, those people who were my friends put further distance. The church that I was a part of sent out an email about me that I was like a false teacher. They took my sermons down and that sort of thing, which was not really surprising to me. That was about a year after I left, I did that. It took me a little time to get to that place of courage. But I knew that that would come. And so I lost my community. Like you said, my marriage ultimately fell apart.

in our course of deconstruction without going into too much detail because it's her story as well. I think my former spouse was also dealing with the fact that most of her choices were made for her by patriarchal authorities and she never really even got the chance to think about what she wanted in life. And finding out that I was not part of that or at least that she wanted space to reevaluate that was really challenging as well.

So all this stuff was just ripped away from me. And I didn't ever, I wasn't prepared. Nobody taught me how to let go of things. I was not prepared for failure in my spirituality. I think the spirituality that I was given was very much up and to the right, this journey of sanctification and spiritual growth. It was growth oriented. And that's not actually the way of Jesus.

The way of Jesus is like a way of descent. Death and resurrection is the pattern of spirituality in Jesus. And so it was like the first time that I was experiencing the kind of death of all kinds of things that my ego was clinging to, whether it be my identity as a pastor, as a husband. And it was pretty, yeah, it was devastating and I was really angry and sad. I had all kinds of emotions that I was dealing with.

But then what I learned in that was like none of those things were who I really was. And I realized too that I hadn't ever really sat with who I really was separate from those identity markers. And so I think most of us who, know, those deaths, those failures, they can do one of two things. Because I know guys who have gone through divorce that are actually like pieces of shit and like their divorces made them worse. Like, so that does happen. Like, it's not like your failures automatically make you better.

I think that your failures can drive you to bitterness. But if we like make space for what I would call the spirit, but honestly, you could call it just self-reflection and to allow, to grieve, I allowed myself to grieve and I still honestly catch myself grieving aspects of the life that I thought I was going to have, you know?

Heather McG (19:39)

you

Brian Recker (19:48)

That was the hardest thing. When you get divorced and all that happening at once, losing my role as a pastor, my role as a husband, it wasn't just like I lost her or I lost that job. I lost my whole vision for my future, like what I thought it was gonna look like, which is like, poof, up in smoke. And that left me really rudderless. Like, well, what's it gonna look like? And I wanted to know. I wanted that security, that safety of knowing what my future was gonna look like, and it wasn't gonna be provided for me. That's not something that I was gonna have.

And I still don't have that. I still don't know what it looks like. My even career is like all, you know, it's all very much up in the air right now, what my future looks like relationally, job wise, all of it. And coming to accept that and recognizing that I'm not even owed that kind of security was tough. But I've come to decide, to learn that like, yeah, the growth that I needed was only going to happen through failure. I don't think I was ever going to come to the place of

And not to say I'm at arrived at some place of spiritual wholeness, but I am more integrated than I've ever been and I feel more authentic to myself than I've ever been. And there was no way in hell that that ever would have happened if I would have just continued down a path of everything working out right. Because you have to at some point like die and learn how to let go. I think all of us have to do that.

Heather McG (21:00)

I love that and I could not agree more. You know, I say I'm more myself today at the age of 46 than I've ever been. feel like whenever your life hits rock bottom, feel like it's possible for two things to be true at the same time. One, getting divorced is awful. Having that huge crisis of faith is awful. These big endings that happen in our life are so hard to go through.

It is also true that they are an opportunity to put the pieces back together in a new way, with new growth, with new strength and lessons. And it's kind of hard to talk about because I don't want to make it sound like divorce is awesome, because it's not. Getting divorced is terrible. Being divorced is great in my life. You know, having these like big hard things that happen. If you lose a family member, you experience death or a diagnosis, those things are awful.

It is also true that it changes the rest of your life. It changes you. It makes you, you know, like I know I'm more compassionate to people than I've ever been. I'm more myself. I am more willing to trust myself. No one's going to tell me what to believe at this point. I listen to my heart, but none of those things would have happened if I hadn't been through all of those endings and failures and really hard times. And I think that can be to your point. Sometimes people do become pieces of shit after.

And other people, they use it as a stepping stone for growth and to become stronger and to learn, to learn a lot about what you need to change in yourself to move on.

Brian Recker (22:23)

Totally.

Heather McG (22:23)

Now,

for one thing, and you kinda touched on this a little bit, but I think this is huge in evangelicalism, and I think honestly in deconstruct, this part of deconstruction I think is really hard for a lot of people, is shame. I know for me, shame was a huge part of my experience of evangelicalism. I felt ashamed for so many things. I saw it all around me. There was shame for anyone being gay, shame for being divorced, shame for not being white, shame for being a woman.

It's just everywhere. know, like I remember when I, you know, cause I grew up in purity culture and that is so deeply ingrained in evangelical circles, which for anyone who's not familiar, it really sets up girls as being the keeper of sexual purity. Boys can't help it. And so what that turns into, girls will get attacked or abused and somehow it's still their fault. And it's deeply ingrained. And I remember when I grew up and I decided to start becoming sexually active, I cried.

with, you know, and I had the most wonderful boyfriend, I cried every single time for years, because it is so deeply ingrained. And some of my friends who had the same experiences, they got married, cried all the time. And that shame is so harmful. Sorry, this is longest question ever. Can you kind of speak to your experience of shame and how you deconstructed that, because it is just pervasive, I think.

Brian Recker (23:33)

I it's real.

Yeah, I experienced that as well. like you mentioned, I think it's worse for women and also worse for queer people in the church, undoubtedly, because for queer people, they're told just like me, just like you, that any sexual activity outside of marriage is a sin. But at least when I did a men's group and we shared about our lust problems, I had the normal sin, right? Whereas...

I have some gay buddies who grew up in the church who literally in those same circles, they had so much shame about their sexual sins that they would make up the fact that they would say that they lusted after a girl or something just to fit in. They would literally like claim a sin that they didn't even commit in order to seem more normal. And so they had shame, not even for sin, but for the specific kind of sin that they were told that they had. Of course, I don't believe it as a sin at all. And so, yeah, what we did in evangelicalism is we told people they had a disease that they didn't have.

and then they had to drink our cure, you know, which actually gave them a real problem, which was the self-loathing. And for me, when I went through puberty, I remember like sitting in church and we would do communion. And like when my dad would talk about communion and talk about how, you know, don't drink the cup in an unworthy manner or you're drinking damnation on yourself. Like some people have gotten sick, some people have died.

because of this and I'm there like seven years old, like what have I done, right? But still feeling like really guilt and shameful. But then when I went through puberty, it was like I really had something to feel guilty about, like the thoughts that I had the night before or that I was in fear of eternal damnation over, which causes I think...

in any of us who grew up in that to kind of disassociate from our sexuality and to see it as an enemy of our spirituality. And so I really saw my budding sexuality as something that threatened my safety, my eternal security. literally the most, like those sexual desires could get me fucking burnt to an eternal crisp over that, right? And so that, you kind of hate it. I hated the fact that I...

Heather McG (25:33)

Literally.

Brian Recker (25:38)

had a sexual desire because it was a threat to me. And yet I also, of course, wanted to indulge in it because I was a boy going through puberty. And so was very confusing. And it almost was like, like I became two people. I had to like split myself in a sense. There was like, you know, the Brian that would, you know, do normal teenage boy things And then on Sunday, in order to feel safe, I had to kind of think of that as like a totally other person. Like that's not who I am.

This is me, I'm Sunday morning Brian now, know, faithful Brian. And so rather than being an integrated person, you're kind of a disassociated person, especially in regards to sex. And then how do you just put that back together when it's the time to put it together? You don't, typically. And so a lot of us that went through purity culture like that do struggle to be integrated in our sexuality.

You know, I didn't have the hardest time in my marriage with that. think women are given even greater degrees of shame and it's often even tougher for women. But it did hit me pretty hard when I started dating again after, you know, when I, yeah, like my very first sexual experience, you know, like over a decade or whatever with a new person after being married for that long was a very awkward and shame-ridden experience.

Heather McG (26:50)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Recker (26:52)

I didn't, in my head, I wasn't doing anything wrong, but in my body, I felt like I was doing something wrong. It was a perfectly wonderful, consensual situation. And yet I had like deep anxiety about it and shame afterwards over it. And I think that's just part of it. I've talked to some friends actually about this who are not, who don't have an evangelical background. And they were like, I've had experiences like that too. So I think sexual shame, it's not like the...

It's not like we as deconstructing evangelicals have a monopoly on sexual shame. think shame is something that humans experience and that can get put on us for any number of reasons in any number of ways. And I think that sex is one of the things that culturally we find ways to shame it. But I do think we did a special number on ourselves with some of the ways that we went about it in purity culture. And for me, I just had to move through it. I had to tell myself, okay, I might feel this way, but this is not.

actually rooted in reality. I'm not a bad person. I didn't do a bad thing. And so maybe I'll move a little slower next time because I have to give myself space to like feel, maybe I just need to move a little slower next time I'm learning lessons about myself and that sort of thing.

And I just had to keep talking to myself, I think, and remembering that. The thing about these beliefs, like they don't go away immediately or easily. And even when you change your mind, they live in your body. But one belief at a time, we just think new, you have to think new thoughts.

Heather McG (28:09)

I always think about it, it's like going to the gym. Because I think I used to be so impatient and I would actually put shame on myself. Like, why are you still thinking this way? You know this isn't how it is and you're just like, you using old thinking. And I would like get mad at myself. But eventually I've gotten to a place, I think of healing like going to the gym. It's like working a muscle that you are growing and getting stronger and healthier and at a certain point you get really good at it.

Brian Recker (28:18)

Right.

Heather McG (28:32)

you get to the place that you're trying to get to, but it takes time, it takes practice, and it's going to be imperfect for a long time until it gets to a place that feels good and feels right and you stop crying when you don't mean to be crying. Now we're getting kind of close to wrapping up here, but one thing I did want to make sure that we touch on, because to me, I think about this quite a bit, and it kind of goes back to rebranding Christianity. There's a new church that's cooler and we're more with it and on the surface are more inclusive.

Sometimes they actually are and sometimes they aren't. But something that I think about is when I think about the story of Jesus, he was actually incredibly politically active and he was very much fighting for the rights of women and children and the poor, which is not really how it's expressed these days, in my point of view. But something I think that's interesting with current modern day church is that some churches, may not actively support sexism, racism, or be openly against

LGBTQ plus rights, but they're not actively anti-racist. They're not actively anti-sexist. They're not fighting for those rights. And they're not a part of the, it's more like they're opting out. You know, they're like, I'm not going to do any harm, but I'm not going to get in there and try to make things better. What do you think about that?

Brian Recker (29:32)

totally.

Yeah.

Okay, this is actually great. I think about this a lot because it's funny, I critique Christian nationalists a lot. Like there are obviously within the Trump movement, a huge driver of his success is American Christianity. White evangelicalism is a political block. And many of these churches are very much actively mega Christians.

And those things are so intertwined that their vision for Christianity is very much a nationalistic. They're very intent that America is a Christian nation and they want to restore Christian values. And a lot of that has to do with anti-gay stuff and even, you know, strict borders, which is weird because most of those people coming in would probably identify as Christians. But anyway, like, yeah, they have a very specific political vision for the country that is intertwined with their Christianity. And so I critique Christian nationalism a lot. But one of the things that people will often point out

And they're right, I am also political. I do think that spirituality is political and that what we believe about God and even following Jesus does result in political action. So there are...

like a lot of Christians that would just want to stay out of it altogether. And that would say, you know, this isn't political. We should, you know, we should withdraw in that sense. But the difference is what's fueling that political vision. And for Christian nationalists and for most conservative Christians, what I've realized is that what's fueling their politics is not the flourishing of this world. It's the afterlife. A lot of it is engineered specifically

about bringing in the end of the world. And that's one reason they're very big in support for Israel, not because they even love Jewish people. I've literally heard some of these people say, well, we have to support Israel because in the end times, the nation state of Israel is integral to that. So they support that. In other words, for apocalyptic reasons. It has nothing to do with.

what is actually promoting flourishing and wholeness on this earth right now, it's like this sort of revelation driven vision of the apocalypse. And not only that, but a lot of their political action is also about acquiring power for Christianity.

And really they want the power, they want power in the society as Christians because they want to convert people to Christianity. And a lot of that has to do simply with the fact that they think that their job on this side of eternity is to get as many people to convert to Christianity so that they don't go to hell. So most of what they do is about acquiring power for Christianity so that more people are converted, so that they don't go to hell and to bring about the end times. In other words, none of it is really about what leads to flourishing, wholeness, peace, health.

the beloved community in the here and now, it is really this apocalyptic vision. And so I believe that the politics of Jesus, when Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, and I talk about this in my book, Hell Bent, which is really about how Christianity is really, so much of what we have received in Christianity is really fueled by this vision of hell and punishment as opposed to a vision of flourishing for this life. But when Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God, that was not talking about heaven. That was

Jesus's way of talking about God's dream for the world. In other words, what would the world look like if love was in charge of the world? What Jesus talked about when he was talking about the kingdom of God, I think is really similar to what Martin Luther King was talking about when he talked about the beloved community. The beloved community, a world where we see that we have more in common than we have different, that we're all actually connected,

and that unless we realize that we all live in one world house, we're gonna have the suicide of this planet. It does not consider the flourishing of the world, which is why so many of these Christians, they don't even care about climate change. They say it's all gonna burn anyway. God's gonna end the world anyway. It's about the next life. So of course they don't care about climate change. They don't care about the flourishing of the planet.

So my politics, driven by the kingdom of God, is about the wholeness of this world on this side of eternity, in this life. Which means we don't just listen to Christians. For me, that means we should listen to experts. And so if the climate change people say, hey, we're destroying the planet, we should fucking listen to them.

Jesus was about people, not about religious rules. Jesus was constantly defying religious rules like the Sabbath, like the purity laws, like the food laws in order to accept and love the people in front of him. And for us as Christians, we should care more about people and flourishing than about religious laws. Christian nationalists care primarily about enforcing their vision for religion on people.

because they have an apocalyptic vision. So that's my two cents on the politics of Jesus. So I am very politically involved, I think, because politics is just about people. Some people, politics is like a dirty word for them. Cornel West said it best, he said, politics, it's love in public.

Heather McG (34:01)

Yeah.

Brian Recker (34:06)

You know, we're the richest country in the history of the world, and yet we are the most underinsured. People don't have health care, adequate health care in our country. And look around the world, all these other countries have universal health care. Maybe we should do something about that. Like, that's how love is inherently political. But for some reason, even though Jesus went around healing people and meeting real human needs, Christians in our country don't think universal health care is an important part of their Christian politics. They're more concerned with keeping people out of our country. That makes no sense.

Okay, I'm done with my rant.

Heather McG (34:36)

And

so much of it is about ego. This is also in your book talking about how, and I'm sure you were told this in church too, that Christians are special, more special than other people. And that I think part of this is there is a hesitation to admit when you're wrong. Then maybe we were wrong. Maybe there's nothing wrong with being gay. Maybe the planet is dying and maybe we should do something about

you know, politics have real impact on people's lives. And it's, it's to me, at least from what I've seen in the people around me growing up, so much of it was about ego. This is what it is. Do not question it. Even when, when new information comes in that might change the outcome, just ultimately rejecting it because there's no way we're wrong. God is infallible. And it just leads to going down this really far path that is really to me disappointing and

increasingly out of touch with reality. Now as we're wrapping up here, you know, I, we've talked a lot about like the things that didn't work for us, um, in evangelical Christianity for you. Now that you, you went through a big transition in your life, what would you say is the number one thing that your faith is based on?

Brian Recker (35:47)

I think that's what I want. I mean, that's what I would want it to be based on. You know, think that... Okay, one of my favorite quotes of all time is from Howard Thurman. said, you got to learn to listen to the sound of the genuine in yourself. And if you never learn to listen to the sound of the genuine in yourself, then you're going to live your whole life at the end of strings that other men pull.

And so my spirituality in many ways is trying to learn to listen to that sound of the genuine in myself, which I believe is love, because I believe that at the end of the day, like what Father Gregory Boyle says, that you are unshakably good. I believe that about you. I want to believe that about everybody. And that getting in touch with that love that's in there. When I talk to my kids about God, I try to say, hey, do you know that you can hear the voice of God?

And what I tell them is that the way that you listen to God is like, know how there's like a kind part in your heart? And like there's a part in your heart that's able to like really connect with people and empathize with people and see that goodness in them. Like that's God in you. I believe that that's the voice of God. And there's a lot that clouds it, you know, but getting in touch with the love that's there.

And some of us learn distorted forms of love. Like I was taught that God loved me, but God was going to punish me in hell for forever. And my parents said they loved me when they spanked me. And so I learned that love and punishment were intertwined. And so sometimes you have to shed these different things that are getting in the way of listening to that sound of the genuine, which is, I believe, the voice of love that's inside of us.

That's the mission. That's what spiritual growth is. That's what spiritual maturity is, is coming to that place of being integrated and able to hear that voice of God, that voice of love that I think is in us. So I'm not saying I get it perfectly every time, but I'm always trying to move closer and closer to love.

Heather McG (37:24)

For anyone who is sitting in a place of they feel disassociated or disassociation from their heart and what they're seeing in church and maybe they're doing some questioning, what would be your advice to someone who's sitting in an uncomfortable spot like that?

Brian Recker (37:39)

Well, I mean, it depends. First of all, I think get out of an environment that is telling you that you can't listen to yourself, just submit to authority, et cetera, et I think you need to remove yourself from that. And if you're under institutional pressure that's saying you have to be a certain way, I think sometimes you can't even hear yourself. Like I didn't hear myself fully until I quit. I had to quit my job because my salary was dependent on me continuing to believe these certain things and being in this structure. And so it was just making it too hard to hear. So I think you have to get

to a place where you can really be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself and then give yourself some time. Be patient with yourself. Give yourself time to grieve. I think that you're not going to hear yourself clearly if you're just really angry and bitter at what happened to you. I think that I'm not even downplaying that. That anger is real. You should feel that and be sad. Let the anger turn into sadness. Go through the stages of grief.

because something happened to you. It's likely that if you were in a conservative or a high control religious environment, you know, I don't want to throw the term abuse around too much. I'm not a therapist, but something like spiritual abuse possibly happened to you. And it's possible that a lot of your responses now to spirituality are going to be trauma responses.

And so you need to get some time alone. Alone with God is what maybe they would say, but honestly, alone with yourself and to actually even hear the voice of God because you've been told for so long that that old guy was God. The big punishing guy God that you got a vision for, which was really just an avatar for your pastor's bitterness or whatever. You've got to clear some of that out.

I think to get to a space where you can be really honest with yourself and allow yourself to go through the grief process would be the first thing. And then like get around people that love you for you. I think we all need people that are going to be with us regardless of if we change because we're really scared to change when changing means losing community. And so you need the kind of friends who are going to say, my God, you're different than you were a year ago. That's so interesting. Tell me more about who you're becoming. Like if you don't think that that's the posture that your friends would have towards you,

then you do, I'm not saying cut off all your friends, but find some friends that have that posture towards you because otherwise it's going to be really hard to change when our belonging is threatened, you know? So find some people that you can actually belong to and continue to evolve because all of life is change. Don't think you're going to land somewhere. Don't think that like, okay, now I'm out of the bad thing and okay, I'm going to land into the good thing and I've got my new set of beliefs. No, like give yourself freedom to be on a journey for the rest of your life. Give yourself that permission.

Heather McG (40:04)

and as you're talking funnily, you're making me think of a Bible verse that I think is applicable here. I think when you're going through it, it is hard to feel like you're ever going to get out of it. Whatever it is, divorce, leaving, you know, a religion that maybe is not for you anymore, all kinds of things. While you're going through it, you feel so hopeless.

Brian Recker (40:08)

Amen, sister.

Heather McG (40:26)

There's a Bible verse that says, it ends with, I have given you a hope and a future. And I think sometimes it sucks right now, but someday you'll look back and you're going to see how far you've come. And so I know when I was going through my divorce, I hung on to that thought. It's so hard right now, but in a couple of years, I'm just going to hang on to the hope that I have a future that's going to be good and I will get there with time.

Brian Recker (40:50)

Mm, it's really beautiful.

Heather McG (40:52)

All right, to close this out, I loved something that you shared actually on your sub stack and you said you live by this and I love this quote. And I was like, I'm gonna think about this From Frederick Beckner, resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing, which is what this show is all about.

how endings can lead us to something new and a new fresh beginning that's better. So I wanna thank you so much for being here. This can be a really tough subject to talk about, so I appreciate you being willing to come in and talk through all of this and the journey that you've been on with so much vulnerability. I appreciate it.

Brian Recker (41:21)

Thanks for having me, Heather.

Heather McG (41:22)

Thanks, y'all.