Untangling Christianity Podcast

In evangelical Christian communities where self-deceit is prevalent, this dysfunction manifests as particular sets of expectations and codes of conduct that are tacitly created and act as “standards of faithfulness” for that community.  So whether similar to my previous examples or varied by type or degree, the creation of self-deceit based standards of faithfulness effects not […] The post Examples of self-deceit 3 (176) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

Having walked through one example, in the previous episode, of how an approach that is “self-deceit-aware” can reveal that a popular, evangelical belief is held because it is useful and self-serving, I want to analyze another, popular evangelical belief as well as several church situations, all using the same perspective of self-deceit. My second example […] The post Examples of Self-Deceit 2 (175) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In the context of evangelical Christianity, self-deceit functions to develop and maintain the “false consciousness” that key beliefs are held because they are true and that devotion to God, or piety (however flawed or imperfect) is the Christian’s main aim.  This false consciousness is a mask that we wear to obscure the real consciousness, which […] The post Examples of Self-Deceit 1 (174) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

This episode is in some ways the culmination of all of the previous episodes on “First Steps”—the point toward which they were all building. On the one hand, the content of this episode directly addresses the most problematic aspect of evangelical dysfunction: its seeming invisibility to those that participate in it.  On the other hand, […] The post Foundations 7: Introducing Self-Deceit (173) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

Module 6 of “First Steps” addresses the development of self-awareness in order to become “full selves” and thereby, for non-Christians to better evaluate the value of Christianity and for Christians to reach maturity in their faith.  Yet the notion of “self-awareness” immediately poses several challenges.  First, the term is often used without sufficient definition, making […] The post Foundations 6: Self-awareness and Experience (172) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

The Foundations of Flourishing program is designed to assist Christians to recognize and overcome the entrenched dysfunction within evangelical Christianity and to assist non-Christians to decipher and evaluate the accessible, ‘here and now’ value within Christianity.  This dual approach overcomes two related problems that, left unattended, create alienation between (and potentially within) each group. First, […] The post Foundations 5: Conceptual Toolbox (171) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

“. . . in key ways, the evangelical church is neither able to help those inside become truly “Christ-like” nor is it able effectively to persuade those outside that “Christ-likeness” is a valuable or viable way of being.  To put it in Christian terms, in my view the evangelical church essentially fails at both discipleship and […] The post Revamping Untangling Christianity (170) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

The intention of this episode, the fifth episode on the Foundations of Flourishing curriculum 1, was for it to be a “round-up” of the previous four podcasts with a goal of highlighting the most important or perhaps under-exposed aspects of the first half of the curriculum that they present. However, over the course of producing […] The post Why Evangelicalism Fails (169) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

This episode features content from module four of the “First Steps” curriculum, entitled: “Dialogue Skills: listening gently, speaking honestly.” Module four address a key skill for Christians, yet one this is mostly overlooked.  Specifically, as a religion eager to communicate its beliefs to outsiders—many of which are unreceptive and even hostile to these beliefs—it is […] The post Foundations 4: Communication is Key (168) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

This is the third in a series of eight to ten episodes explaining the first curriculum (called “First Steps”) in the Foundations of Flourishing teaching program. In this episode Gregg focuses on the double-task of understanding, or “inventorying,” personal beliefs and then assessing how much one values these beliefs (and why).  At first glance “inventory […] The post Foundations 3: Inventory-taking (167) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

This is the second in a series of eight to ten episodes explaining the first curriculum (called “First Steps”) in the Foundations of Flourishing teaching program. After last episode’s focus on the three negative elements that typically afflict evangelical churches (Legalism, Fear, Ignorance), here Gregg examines fear as the principal element that links legalism and […] The post Foundations 2: Understanding Fear (166) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

Legalism, fear, and ignorance: these three words represent tendencies and orientations that none of us would like to own up to, much less that Christians would want to admit to.  Sadly, however, the members of this trio are all too frequently cited by outsiders as reasons that Christians are phoney and that the Christian church […] The post Foundations 1: Legalism, Fear, Ignorance (165) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

This is the third of the three-episode series where Gregg offers his views on the Whitehorse Inn podcast, “Do all paths lead to God?”  Specifically, Gregg is replying to the claim that this podcast is an example of how Christians “engage well” with outsiders—how they engage thoughtfully, on point, and respectfully with non-Christians and interact with […] The post Christians Go Back to Kindergarten (164) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

This is the second episode in a three-part miniseries where Gregg offers his views on the Whitehorse Inn podcast, “Do all paths lead to God?”  Specifically, Gregg is replying to the claim that this podcast is an example of how Christians “engage well” with outsiders—how they engage thoughtfully, on point, and respectfully with non-Christians and […] The post Non-Christians Have “Reason Enough” (163) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode Gregg reviews an episode from the Whitehorse Inn podcast by Christian academician Michael Horton entitled: “Do all paths lead to God?” Gregg begins by noting that this podcast was offered in the Untangling Christianity Facebook group as an example of how Christians engage well with non-Christians (i.e., how Christians can engage thoughtfully, […] The post Fuzzy non-Christianity misrepresents non-Christians (162) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode Gregg returns to the notion of interpretation and its importance, particularly for Christians, given to the extent a central text—the Bible—informs and grounds their beliefs. Gregg explains that interpretation is a way of engaging with the world that we are always already doing.  This is so much the case that interpreting is […] The post Foggy Interpretation (161) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg follow-up to Episode #159, where they began discussing the process of letting go of what is old and familiar in favour of what is better, especially as it relates to Christian beliefs, beliefs about ourselves & our world, how we interact wit other information sources. Topics for today include […] The post The Lightning Round (160) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg consider Anna’s comments regarding the episode Problems with the Westminster Confession (155) and how they might respond to some of the situations that Anna is experiencing.  Anna writes: I think that each person lives their lives according to a unique narrative that belongs to them and them alone.  No […] The post Does Belief Have to Make Sense? (159) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode Gregg takes up John’s challenge of episode #157 to to lay out exactly what Gregg meant in #157 by explaining that we all seek to “occupying the narrator’s position” in our own lives, and particularly what he meant by the idea of narrative identity (and why he believes that this way of formulating […] The post Narrating, Not Writing Your Life (158) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this podcast John and Gregg team up to discuss the notion that Gregg raised in Episode #153, where he rejects the idea that we “write our own stories.” John finds the idea of writing one’s own story to be very important, to the point the we are “victims” if we do not.  Gregg wonders […] The post Do We Write Our Own Story? (157) appeared first on Untangling Christianity.