111. What conservatives get wrong about deconstruction and progressive Christianity

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Tim & April Show

Episode 111 – "What Conservatives Get Wrong About Deconstruction and Progressive Christianity"

Date: May 12, 2026
Hosts: Tim Whitaker & April Ajoy
Podcast Network: The New Evangelicals

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Episode Overview

Tim and April dive into a real-time reaction and critique of Alisa Childers’ arguments against progressive Christianity, especially as presented in her interview on the "Provoke and Inspire" podcast and in her books. This episode unpacks repeated conservative mischaracterizations of deconstruction and progressive Christianity, explores the ongoing reluctance of conservative figures to dialogue directly with progressive Christians, and highlights the personal, theological, and ethical evolution of those within the deconstruction movement. The hosts emphasize the need for a faith rooted in justice, inclusion, and love—pushing back against dogmatic gatekeeping and the conflation of theology with right-wing politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Conservative Gatekeeping & Refusal to Engage

• Tim & April’s Frustration: They repeatedly express frustration at conservative influencers (Alisa Childers, Tim Barnett, Amy Main, others) who critique progressive Christians but refuse invitations to dialogue in good faith ([03:31], [06:03]).
• Tim: “If you really believe that you have truth on your side, why are you afraid to talk to me?” ([06:03])

2. Defining Progressive Christianity

• Alisa Childers’ Argument: Claims progressive Christianity keeps “progressing” along with culture, constantly changing its beliefs ([11:35], [12:48]).
• Tim’s Response: Points out that Christianity as a whole has always evolved (e.g., Protestant Reformation, changing biblical canons), and progressive Christianity’s perceived “changes” are no different ([13:01], [13:50], [14:00]).
  • Tim: “There really is no monolithic Christianity. All right, let's keep going.” ([12:31])
  • April: “If the church had never changed from its first organized church, we would all be Catholic.” ([14:30])

3. Ethics, Politics, and Theology

• The “Triangle” Model: Childers lumps theology, ethics, and politics into defining progressive Christianity, alleging central beliefs include denying original sin, wrath, atonement, and hell, plus supporting marriage equality and holding ‘critical social justice’ views ([16:24]-[18:34]).
• April: Critiques the hyper-focus on sexual ethics as the conservative metric for morality, while ignoring biblical priorities such as the treatment of immigrants, the poor, or issues like gun violence ([19:56]).
• Tim: “If you don't believe these views...you're automatically outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity. That's just not the case.” ([17:06])

4. Politics as the Root of Theology?

• Childers’ Claim: Progressive Christians start with left-wing politics, which shapes their theology, versus conservatives who start theologically ([21:29]-[21:58]).
• Hosts’ Rebuttal: Both Tim and April push back, sharing their own journeys—how deep dives into Jesus’ teaching drove their political evolution, not vice versa ([24:30]-[25:05]).
  • April: “My shift to progressivism 100% came from…reading the gospels objectively.” ([24:30])
  • Tim: “My change was not political, it was theological.” ([25:59])

5. Faith, Works, and ‘License’

• Childers’ Critique: Accuses progressives of promoting a ‘works-based gospel’ centered on activism, not sin and redemption ([27:32]).
• Hosts’ Response: Tim distinguishes progressive views of following Jesus as about embodying love and justice, not earning salvation, and calls out a conservative ‘bait and switch’ where certain works (e.g., voting Democrat) suddenly disqualify people ([29:57]).
  • April: “He [Jesus] emphasizes far more how to live…he focuses very little on making sure you believe the exact right things.” ([28:09])

6. Queer Inclusion and Harmful Theologies

• Childers: Argues that affirming LGBTQ+ identities is about misplaced compassion, ignoring that “true love sometimes means difficult truths” ([33:37]-[34:49]).
• Hosts Counter: Use real-life examples and psychological evidence to show how non-affirming theology produces harm, increases risk of self-harm among queer people, and constitutes genuine intolerance ([35:39]-[36:54]).
  • Tim: “We have data that will show…Ali Sucky [sic] actually hurts queer people…if that is true, then your truth is hurting people.” ([35:39])
  • April: “It would be like someone coming up to me and saying that because I have natural red hair…that’s an abomination that I need to change about myself.” ([53:01])

7. Persecution Narrative

• Childers’ Example: Claims conservative Christian kids are “persecuted” for believing in traditional marriage ([37:11]-[38:21]).
• Hosts’ Critique: Compare this to historic defenses of racism in Christianity, argue the backlash comes from pushing ideology onto others, not personal beliefs ([38:46]-[40:15]).
  • Tim: “If students were telling black students they didn’t belong but said they loved them, no one would buy that. It’s a racist position.” ([38:46])

8. Weaponizing ‘Tolerance’ and Co-opting Victimhood

• Childers/Interviewer's Argument: Progressive tolerance paradoxically excludes conservatives, creating “the intolerance of tolerance” ([56:48]-[57:26]).
• Hosts’ Response: Tolerance by definition cannot tolerate the intolerant, especially when those beliefs lead to actual oppression ([57:54]-[61:10]).
  • Tim: “How could we tolerate what wants intolerance? It’s impossible.” ([61:08])

9. The Bible, Inerrancy, and Progressive Faith

• Childers: Charges that progressives “don’t really think the Bible is authoritative,” making their views incompatible with Christianity ([74:00]-[75:53]).
• Tim and April: Affirm the human authorship and evolving interpretation of Scripture, challenge the myth of inerrancy, highlight polyphonic nature of the text ([74:30]-[75:16]).
  • April: “And it is objectively not inerrant. Objectively, just factually not inerrant.” ([75:09])
  • Tim: “All of us are picking and choosing how we interpret and what we apply. This should not be controversial.” ([76:41])

10. Devil/Satan as Progressive Mastermind

• Childers’ Rhetoric: Suggests the “devil” (with a ‘PhD in theology’) deceives progressives into thinking they are redeeming Christianity ([78:28]-[79:04]).
• Hosts’ Sarcasm: Lampoon this idea by flipping the logic, suggesting that by Childers’ own criteria, Satan would be more likely to crown Trump as God’s chosen leader ([80:51]-[81:55]).
  • April: “If Satan was actually going to infiltrate Christianity, he'd convince the masses that a billionaire playboy...was chosen by God.” ([80:51])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tim: "If you really believe that you have truth on your side, why are you afraid to talk to me?"
  —[06:03]

• April: "Not everyone has the same theology in a progressive Christian tent."
  —[12:05]

• Tim: "There really is no monolithic Christianity."
  —[12:31]

• April (Satirical): "The most hateful thing you can do is try to out-love God."
  —[04:58]

• Tim: "It's the same thing here…our MAGA neighbors, right? We want our MAGA neighbors to have access to affordable healthcare…They do not want the same thing for our queer neighbors, our immigrant neighbor, our progressive neighbor. So we're automatically at odds."
  —[59:57]

• April: "If the Bible did condemn homosexuality as we understand it today, I still wouldn’t listen to it…the Bible condones slavery."
  —[45:14]

• April: "Now that I'm queer-affirming…in hindsight I never loved gay people [before]…what they're doing is hateful. Because when you tell someone that their entire existence and being is an abomination, that is dehumanizing to its core."
  —[52:07]

• Tim: "The devil’s not that dumb…he’s got a PhD in theology…"
  —[02:05], [78:29]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:31] – [07:00]: Conservative influencers avoid dialogue, personal stories with Amy Main.
• [11:35] – [15:20]: Breaking down Childers’ evolving definition of progressive Christianity; history of Christian change.
• [18:34] – [20:27]: ‘Critical social justice’ accusation; critique of how sexual ethics dominate conservative Christianity’s view of morality.
• [21:29] – [25:05]: Challenge to the idea that progressives lead with politics instead of theology—personal testimonies from both hosts.
• [27:32] – [29:57]: The works vs. faith canard; conservative ‘bait and switch’ on works and salvation.
• [33:37] – [36:54]: The emotional and psychological harms of non-affirming theology, especially for queer people.
• [38:46] – [40:15]: The “persecution” narrative; comparing queer exclusion rhetoric to racism/segregation defense.
• [53:01] – [54:29]: Consequences of dehumanizing theology, using personal analogies.
• [74:30] – [75:53]: Deep breakdown on the myth of biblical inerrancy and the interpretative process.
• [78:28] – [81:55]: Satirizing the “Satan has a PhD” line and reversing its logic onto conservative evangelicals’ Trump support.

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Takeaways

• The binary narrative that progressive Christianity is just secular leftism with a “Christian” hat is strongly challenged by personal stories and theological reflection.
• Conservative leaders like Alisa Childers use shifting definitions and rhetorical devices (devil, persecution, intolerance of tolerance) to shore up their own orthodoxy and to exclude difference within Christianity.
• Tim and April call for honest, evidence-based dialogue and for reclaiming Christian traditions rooted in love and justice—even while acknowledging the limitations, contradictions, and historical evolution within Christian belief and practice.
• The weaponization of intolerance and selective biblical literalism, especially on LGBTQ+ issues, is exposed as both psychologically harmful and theologically shallow.
• DECONSTRUCTION—a key theme—is better characterized as a faith-renewing and justice-seeking movement, not as a nefarious, relativistic departure from authentic Christianity.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[April Ajoy]

You're listening to a new evangelicals production, The Tim and April show, where we unravel faith, politics and culture.

[Tim Whitaker]

What's up, friends? Welcome back to the show. I am Tim Whitaker.

[April Ajoy]

I'm April Ajoy.

[Tim Whitaker]

Today we're gonna be doing a response video to, I would argue, maybe one of our oldest nemesis, Alisa Childers.

[April Ajoy]

Why would you say that?

[Tim Whitaker]

Alisa has been on the war path against progressive Christianity for years now. She was one of the biggest people when the whole deconstruction explosion happened. And, you know, I started tne and you were doing your stuff, Elisa was one of the people out there who was like, progressive Christianity is a false gospel. She wrote a whole book about it. And then her and another friend of hers, Tim Barnett, wrote this book. It's called the Deconstruction of what It Is, why It's Destructive and How to Respond. And you can see I tabbed it.

[April Ajoy]

I have a feeling it doesn't actually tell you what it is, honestly.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, I mean, I have covered that book extensively on the YouTubes and the podcast. So people can go. The archives defined it. I was not very impressed. Look, it's frankly, it's a fundamentalist approach to deconstruction, right? So if we don't think, if we don't think that the English Protestant Bible is inerrant, if we don't believe in penal substitutionary atonement, we are just her heretics and progressives that should be taken seriously. That's kind of the general thesis, you know. And so anyway, so she did an interview on a person's podcast channel, what Provoke and Inspire. And the title of the video that caught my attention, it's called Alisa Childers Exposes what Progressive Christianity Actually Teaches. And I thought, you know, that's so interesting because I've offered to talk to Elisa many times on the podcast and she refuses to talk to me, but has no problem answering that question on behalf of us progressive Christians. So I figured, why not watch it, see how far we can get into the video and respond accordingly.

[April Ajoy]

Oh, my gosh, that really is like them, though. I feel like the amount of people. This happens so many times too. Like when Beecher came out non binary, there were so many people that we knew, like in our extended family or just like people we used to be close to in the church world and had drifted that, like, were talking about us and we could, we heard it, it all got back to us and like, they would send us, like there was one guy in particular that sent Beecher a message that Was like, hey, man, just want you to know that, you know, God loves you and you know you're on the wrong path and blah, blah, blah. And then be was so nice back and was just like, hey, great to hear from you. From you in a decade.

[Tim Whitaker]

Hope all is well.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah. I'm like, listen, you know, I would love to talk to you more about how I landed here and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, well, you know, I don't. I don't need to. Da, da, da. And he's like, well, you know what? Even better, you know, April and I made a podcast about our whole story. And you can just. You can literally just listen to it if you want to, if you're curious at all. And you just want to hear, like, where we're coming from because we're still Christian and blah, blah, blah. And this dude said. And he was a pastor, because of course he was. This dude said he doesn't have time to listen to podcasts.

[Tim Whitaker]

Of course not. Of course not. Am I allowed to name drop? Can we name drop on this podcast, please?

[April Ajoy]

Go ahead, Go ahead.

[Tim Whitaker]

So I, April, you and I have been doing this for a long time, both as individuals and with Tim and April and with tne, and I have. I have encountered several creators, one of which is named Amy Main on Instagram. And Amy loves to shout from her Instagram some of the most ignorant things imaginable. But what people don't know is that Amy and I have been talking for years in the DMs. I have almost been on my hands and knees pleading with her to come on the podcast, have a good faith conversation with me. I offered to give her the recording ahead of time. She can approve the recording before I post it, and she will not talk to me, but she will keep lobbing bombs from Instagram. And it got to a point the other day because she was talking about this person who's.

[April Ajoy]

She went after my comment also.

[Tim Whitaker]

She went after your comment? Yes, but it was in the context of an Instagram creator called Niza Powers, who is a trans woman who got saved and found fundamentalism and started to detransition, but then eventually realized that she's who she is and is now retransitioning. So all the people who started following her, like, like Amy, are like, na come back to the faith kind of thing. Right. So in the context of that, she responded to one of your comments, and then I. I put like a sarcastic little the Shore Jan, you know, gif underneath one of her posts.

[April Ajoy]

She said in that video, it's hilarious to me. I literally, I'm. I'm probably going to make a sketch on it if I can find the time, because it was true. It is one of the wildest things I've heard. She said the most hateful thing you can do is to try to out

[Tim Whitaker]

love God, which is wild. What? And, and by the way, if we're going off of the God of the Bible, there's several portrayals of God in the Bible that are not very loving. Like, I don't know, God commanding genocide. I mean, I'm just saying, like, you know, there's, there's quite different portrayals of God in the Bible. But I digress. So I left that comment and she DM me and said, is this productive? And I said, honestly, Amy, I've attempted so many times to talk to you in good faith, and at this point, I'm going to call you out on your BS and that comment, by the way, my gif of the sh. Jan gif is so, it's so, it's so minimal. It's, it's a little sarcastic. J. So, so, long story short, eventually she sends me an audio message and she says, you know, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to talk to you on, you know, publicly, yada, yada, yada. And I just told her, I said, look, Amy, the reason why you're not doing this, because she accused me of not of not wanting to seek truth and having a hard heart. I said, you are just projecting. You're projecting all of your stuff onto me. And frankly, you're just afraid because you know that if we have a good faith conversation, your dogma will not be able to be held up against data, and we left it there. But I'm, I say that because I'm so tired of so many of these conservative Christian influencer types refusing to engage with the people that they think are so terrible. Like, if you really believe that you have truth on your side, why are you afraid to talk to me? Why are you afraid to talk to anyone on these podcasts? There's so many of these creators. Amy's one, Alicia Childers. Tim Barnett won't talk to me. Dr. Crenshaw won't talk to me. Josh Howerton won't talk to me. I know for a fact he says, he, he says he doesn't want to legitimize my platform by having me on his show. These people are just cowards, man. They're such cowards. It drives me crazy. That was Unplanned that conversation, but here we are.

[April Ajoy]

I think we had that pent up a little bit.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. Thanks for listening, friends. So, hey, if you're just watching on YouTube, make sure to like and subscribe. If you're listening on podcasts, you know, download the show, subscribe to the show, comment and rate, whatever. But I want to get into this. This conversation. It's about 45 minutes long, so I'm not sure if we'll get through the whole thing today, but I just think it's worth. April, you and I have not done a theology episode in a minute. We usually do more political. Political commentary lately, so I think we should dust out the old theology chops and see if we still got em.

[April Ajoy]

So, I mean, we did just do a sword drill, so.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's true. And I won fairly barely. That's true, brother. Okay, I'm gonna do. Yeah, one. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, here we go. You ready?

[April Ajoy]

So ready. Do you know who.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Why did they not just abandon the name?

[April Ajoy]

Do you know anything about who this is? I don't know who this is.

[Tim Whitaker]

From the recording. I think he used to be a progressive Christian. Now he's not. But definitely conservative dude is what I gathered. So, okay, this. This is the trailer for this. This is the beginning intro. Here we go.

[April Ajoy]

Okay.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Why do they not just abandon the name Christian altogether?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Because the devil's not that dumb. The devil's a better theologian than anybody. He's got a PhD in theology. If he can convince people that they're the better version of Christianity, that they're actually saving Christianity from itself. These fundamentalists have hijacked Christianity, but we're going to rescue Christianity.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

This is.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, stop. The devil has a PhD in theology. least it does. He though, like, is that biblical?

[April Ajoy]

It's so interesting too, because they will take the fact that they can quote scripture as proof of their being good Christians, but progressives who also can quote scripture, they'll be like, well, Satan knows scripture too. I'm like, okay, well, then it doesn't work for your argument.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's what I don't get, because she just said too. Wait, wait, what did she say a second ago? I. I want to make sure I capture it. It's so like, have you looked in the mirror?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Theology. If he can convince people that they're the better version of Christianity, that if.

[Tim Whitaker]

If he can convince people that they're the better version of Christianity. Elisa, your entire platform is arguing that you have the true corner on Christianity. Like, what are the devil's Tricking you, Elisa. What if his PhD in theology is deceiving you? No. Impossible. It's just us stupid progressive Christians that are. Are under the devil's thumb, apparently. Okay, let's keep going.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Now helps people find solid ground in their faith. If you've ever wondered whether your faith is actually true or just inherited, this conversation will help you think. Clearly challenge what you believe and build your faith on something that will last.

[Tim Whitaker]

Provoke it.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So I don't know if you saw the James Talarico interview on Joe Rogan, but he's a Texas state representative and a Christian. He spoke a lot about the Bible and Jesus, but very much from a progressive Christian perspective.

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm sorry, I don't know how James Salarico quoting the words of Jesus and saying we should apply these teachings of loving our neighbor and taking care of the poor and the orphan is somehow automatically a progressive view. I mean, it's just reading the red letters and applying them.

[April Ajoy]

I tell you what, these people have James Talarico derangement syndrome.

[Tim Whitaker]

Totally. It's crazy. I mean, he's so nice. He's like, maybe the billionaires shouldn't be able to pillage the middle class because Jesus did not like the rich. Which is true. He told the rich to repent and sell all their stuff, and they're like, wow, look at this crazy progressive Christian who's. Who's. Who's under the rule of Satan, who has a PhD in theology. I just don't understand.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And as someone who in some ways emerged from this movement, who now spends a lot of time writing and thinking

[Tim Whitaker]

about it, see, that's him.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I thought we could start all the way back at the beginning and just ask the most basic question. What is progressive Christianity? Is it God honoring? Is it biblical? And how should we think about it as followers of Jesus?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Yeah, great question. And interesting. I actually hadn't sat down to listen to the full thing there, but from what I've heard about it and clips that I've seen, and I would say, yes, Talarico squarely represents progressive Christianity. And ultimately, you know, my definition that I've offered on this has kind of changed over the years. Cause in the beginning, I was trying to really characterize it by its beliefs, and then I realized, but they changed so much. Like the beliefs change so often, and that became difficult.

[Tim Whitaker]

So I. I think we should pause here. I. I don't think. Look, April, you and I, we're not going to claim to be, like, you know, the experts on whatever you want to call progressive Christianity. Because it is, it is a pretty big tent. But I wouldn't say that the beliefs change all the time. I mean, certainly my beliefs have changed, but they've changed more towards an inclusive, justice oriented way. And those things haven't changed at all and probably won't change because I think that there are better ways of living. So I don't know, I just find that kind of.

[April Ajoy]

And I just, I think there's a little bit of projection here too, because they would assume that all conservative Christians believe the exact same things because that's what they're taught. You know, like, they're like the narcissists of Christianity. So I think they're projecting that onto progressive Christianity. And I just think there's too many different, like, I don't know how to explain it, but not everyone has the same theology in a progressive Christian tent.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, yeah, arguably no one has the same theology. I bet even Alyssa Childers, in this podcast host, if they got down into it, would have some differences of theology on different issues. So there really is no monolithic Christianity. All right, let's keep going.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

The way that I'm comfortable summarizing progressive Christianity is really, it's just the idea that Christianity itself is progressing. So it's adapting along with the world. It's progressing. It's constantly changing.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, pause. But that is true. I mean, the Protestant Reformation was a huge change in Christianity. The Catholic Church wanted to kill Martin Luther. They wanted to literally kill him. So I don't know, I feel like, I don't think it's. If we're going to call that progressive, fine. But Christianity has changed over the millennia, from the early Church to Constantine, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Charismatic, Reformed. I mean, like, just, just look around. Your, your, your, your own eyeballs and cognitive faculties can confirm that Christianity is different depending on where you are and what, in what point in history you are, in what cultural context, it's different. True.

[April Ajoy]

Couldn't you even go further back to, like, Galileo? Wasn't he branded a heretic because he said the world was round or the earth was round? Yes, they branded him a heretic.

[Tim Whitaker]

I, I, you know, one of the biggest mirages in my opinion of people, of what people like Elisa are, is that they're trying to tell you that there was always one Christianity, always from the beginning, and it never changed. And anyone who changed it was a heretic. But that just ignores the reality. Even the Church, the Council of Nicaea, made some big changes. They were arguing what's gonna be heresy, what's not Gonna be heresy. People, culture, time changes, period. That's not progressive, that's just reality.

[April Ajoy]

Elisa, if the church had never changed from its like, first official organized church, we would all be Catholic.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes. And we wouldn't have the English Protestant Bible. Like even more guys, even the Bible has changed over time. The Apocrypha used to be in the Protestant Bible. Now it's not anymore. Like, things change. I don't know why this is so controversial. It's just observation. It's just telling you. I mean, Elisa will tell you that truth in her definition is that which corresponds to reality. Okay? The reality is the Christian faith has changed and evolved and today there are thousands of schisms and sex inside of it, different rooms in the house, so to speak, that all exist. That's a reality. It's gonna be a long one. I can feel it.

[April Ajoy]

Progressive Christians in general, if you are, if you are more progressive, you tend to be more open minded and open to learning new information and open to changing wrong beliefs you previously held.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right. Do you know why? Because we realize that the world's bigger than us. Like the world is bigger than just our little, you know, finite worldview. It's bigger. There are people outside of it that exist. So adjust accordingly.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Aggressive Christianity that I wrote my book about in 2019, it's still very relevant, but it's, it's, it's a bit of a different animal today as it has progressed, as it's changed and adapted. So I think that possibly the most, you know, high level, 30,000 foot definition would just be. It's the idea that Christianity itself is progressing now.

[Tim Whitaker]

How?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

I've kind of worked that out over the past couple of years.

[Tim Whitaker]

Just one more point. We used to burn heretics at the stake. We don't anymore. I'm happy for that progress. Just saying, Elisa, you know, like, yes,

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

in the beginning I was trying to just define it theologically and I realized that I was leaving some really kind of gaping holes in the definition. So I kind of see it like a triangle today. So there's the theological point of the triangle, there's the ethical and cultural point of the triangle, and then there's the political point of the triangle. And they really all work together to make up this triangle. And so with the theology you have, generally speaking, a denial of things like inherent sinfulness of humanity, the wrath of God, the, the sacrificial atonement of Jesus, the reality of hell, things like that.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, let's.

[April Ajoy]

The reality of hell, the word reality is doing a lot of heavy Lifting there.

[Tim Whitaker]

So Elisa holds the penal substitutionary atonement theology, arguably is one of the most recent theologies around the death and resurrection of Christ. There are many other theologies that are Christian oriented, like, for example, healing atonement is a big one that I really aspire to or really believe in. And so Elisa has already narrowed Christianity into. If you don't believe these views about either, you know, man being inherently sinful, or if you don't believe that Jesus paid a debt for you, you're automatically outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity. That's just not the case. I'm sorry, that's just not the case. Eastern Orthodox folks, Catholics, many Protestants don't hold those views, period. So it's just kind of frustrating to watch her pigeonhole, you know, that we're automatically progressive because we don't fit into her fundamentalist ideals of what it means to be a Christian. It's crazy, right?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Then if you go to the ethical point of the triangle, you have a denial that marriage is between one man and one woman and any sexual activity outside of that is sinful. You have an. An adoption of like what, what we might call critical social justice, and I'm careful with that term because obviously the Bible commands us to do justice. But critical social justice is a different thing that usually contradicts biblical justice. So you kind of have that on the ethical and cultural angle.

[Tim Whitaker]

No explanation, just terms. What are you talking about here, Lisa? What are you talking about?

[April Ajoy]

So you can make this argument with the points of the triangle with conservative Christianity, like the way that conservative ideology, like they. They conflate their political ideology with their theology. All like, that's why we have Christian nationalism is because of the way conservative evangelicals have co opted identity politics.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes. I think what people need to keep in mind is that Alisa can't see that she is also a goldfish swimming in water. Like, she thinks that you and I are tainted by cultural and worldly ideologies. Like what she thinks is critical justice. Right. But her understanding of the Bible is just untainted by the world. Just straight biblical logic. When in reality she's also following certain systems of modernism and fundamentalism and hermeneutics that have been invented by people with certain worldviews. And so I. Yeah, sure, sure, Alisa. I use critical social justice to help interpret what the Bible says. Okay. Like, we all do that. We all use different worldviews and we bring them to the text as we interpret what we think the Bible is saying, which is why there are so many different Denominations today all arguing over what the Bible actually says.

[April Ajoy]

Also, I love how her one example for ethics is marriage between a man and a woman. Like, not the human one man and one woman, humane treatment of immigrants in our country, or bombing elementary schools, or, you know, gun reform or all these other terrible things that happen in our country, like all this violence. No, the reason progressives are bad is because they have terrible ethics when it comes to consenting adult marriage.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right. And. And you know, all the times in the Bible where polygamy is clearly talked about and never condemned. Like, for example, when God tells David that he gave him Saul's wives and that and that he would have given him more. That part we could just ignore because the Bible is clear. Everyone, marriage is between one man and one woman for life. Like, again, just read the Bible. At least his own worldview doesn't even jive with what's inside the text, which is, again, I just think so interesting to observe.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

And then on the political angle, it's just going to be very left wing politically. And interestingly, the reason I think that's important to note is that there was some sociological research that was done, I think even since we talked last, that analyzed the beliefs of conservative Christians and progressive Christians. And one of the things this study concluded was that progressive Christians begin with their politics and then their ethics and their theology kind of flowed downstream from their politics. So politics is hugely central for progressive Christians.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Why would you say that is?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

So I think for every Christian, how you interact politically, you should do that from a biblical place. Right. So in fact, what was interesting about this study is that what it discovered is that for conservative Christians, they start with their theology and then their political views and activism or whatever they might do flows downstream from the theology. So ultimately, both are political. And I'm not saying that's. You know, I actually think Christians should be political from a biblical perspective. So it's.

[Tim Whitaker]

Do you want to, do you want to respond to that?

[April Ajoy]

That is just such bs Conservatives absolutely. Start from their politics and trickle down. They are republic. The idea I was raised in this world. You were told in order to be a good Christian, you had to vote Republican and that Republicans were the Christian party. And you literally, like you almost craft a theology based around your conservative politics. Look at what, look at what MAGA does today and the way they bend over backwards to find ways biblically to support Donald Trump. I.

[Tim Whitaker]

So this comes from this book. I actually read it. I own it. It's called One Faith. It's called One Faith no longer By George Yancey and Ashley Kozik. I actually interviewed George Yancey years ago. This book is older. It came out in what was, I think, 2,000, maybe 20. So it's kind of before, like, a lot of, like, like, like the big Trump stuff really popped up. But I do want to point out that when I interviewed George, he. And it's been a long time, but he essentially told me that, like, the way some people have represented this data. Like what, how, like how Elisa talked about it really isn't the full picture either way, though. I just don't know how you look around today at this moment in America. You look around at all of these preachers and these prophets and these pastors declaring the. That God has chosen Trump, that God, that Trump is a Cyrus figure. Trump himself depicting himself as Jesus Christ. I don't know how you look at that and go, man, these progressives are political first, theological second. And if that's the case, then that just shows how bankrupt their theology is. If you're starting from a theological viewpoint first, that you think is biblical, and the outpouring of that advocates for policies where our immigrant neighbors are being kidnapped, where kids are being killed in schools due to gun violence, where Trump in the White House is enriching himself on the backs of the working class, then your theology is really horrible. It's actually quite an indictment on you, Elisa, for how bad your biblical theology is. I don't know how you read the words of Jesus or how you read James 5 or much of the prophets and come away with, you know what? We need a country that looks more like Trumpism because the Bible says so. Like what?

[April Ajoy]

And I just. I just want to. From a very anecdotal perspective, from my own experience as someone who was very conservative, who is now progressive.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

My shift to progressivism 100% came from. I'm going to read the gospels of Jesus myself, objectively, to see what this says, because I was very confused how so many conservatives around me, my fellow evangelicals, were supporting Donald Trump and were claiming that true Christians had to do it and were saying scripture out of context, like King Cyrus and all this stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no. Okay, I'm going to read the words of Jesus for myself. And I did. And let me tell you, they scream progressive like what?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes. Yes, you're right,

[April Ajoy]

because I was following the teachings of Jesus. Hey, everyone, Melinda Hale here, executive director of the New Evangelicals. Thanks for listening to our podcast. I just wanted to take a minute to personally invite you to be a

[Tim Whitaker]

part of our community.

[April Ajoy]

At tne, we're creating space for people of faith who care about justice, compassion and living out the teachings of Jesus

[Tim Whitaker]

in real, tangible ways.

[April Ajoy]

As a nonprofit organization, not only do

[Tim Whitaker]

we offer thought provoking podcasts, but on our new app and online platform TNE Connect, we offer free educational resources, additional content and a space to connect with

[April Ajoy]

like minded people for meaningful conversations and encouragement.

[Tim Whitaker]

So if what we're doing has been

[April Ajoy]

helpful to you, if you've learned something, felt, seen or been challenged to grow,

[Tim Whitaker]

head over to thenewevangelicals.com to join TNE Connect or make a donation.

[April Ajoy]

You can.

[Tim Whitaker]

Your support means the world to us. Thanks for being a part of the movement. I I shared my I I did a YouTube video on my on my personal channel sharing my whole story front to back and what I say over and over again was that my change was not political, it was theological. How do you read love your neighbor as yourself and then watch pundits denigrate George Floyd and watch your pastor re share what those pundits are saying? And how is that supposed to square? Like again, love your neighbor as yourself does not equate to George Floyd deserved it does not equate to don't wear a mask because of tyranny. Like these were not political for me at all. They were incredibly theological. So I completely agree with you. For many of us who deconstructed, it was not about politics. And again, notice how Elisa doesn't cite the study at all. She doesn't define her terms, she just says things and lets her audience fill in the blanks. Very frustrating.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Intertwined on both, but it's the starting point that was different. So for progressives it began with left wing politics and then they kind of tried to fit their theology into that, whereas for conservatives they tried to fit their politics into what they had already decided theologically.

[April Ajoy]

So I yeah, I want to say I tried to fit my conservative politics into my theology for years and it became exhausting because it on both.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

But it's the starting point that was different. So for progressives it began with politics and then they kind of tried to fit their theology into that, whereas for conservatives they tried to fit into the old Christian ban.

[April Ajoy]

I still have a Zoe Girl CD somewhere.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

They kill and I'm just, you know, kind of guessing on this. But if you are denying the sin and redemption narrative arc of the gospel, you're not going to just let that hang in a vacuum. You're going to put something in its place. And so for Progressive Christians. It becomes very work spaced. It becomes about political activism, it becomes about social justice activism. And that's.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh my God, April, we're not gonna make that. We're not gonna make it through. We're just not. Oh my God. I.

[April Ajoy]

Okay, can I just say for me.

[Tim Whitaker]

Go ahead.

[April Ajoy]

And I would love to explain this, but I get asked a lot like, well, what do you believe now?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April Ajoy]

And I do have beliefs, and they're still Christian.

[Tim Whitaker]

What? No way.

[April Ajoy]

I probably would fall more into like, universal reconcilia. I don't believe in eternal conscious torment of hell. But here's the thing. At the end of the day, I have no fricking clue what happens when we die. And neither does Elisa, and neither do you, Tim, and neither does anybody.

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm a man. I know everything.

[April Ajoy]

Nobody knows. Like, legitimately you can say that you know that you know that you know that you know, but you actually do not know until you die and experience whatever may come after the fact. None of us know. And I came to. To the conclusion that I am not a better person because I believe in this atonement belief system versus this atonement belief system. Like, it's an intangible. It's all up here. What matters way more in the here and now is how I live out those beliefs, how I treat my neighbor. If I'm making my community a better place, if I'm actually standing up for the marginalized and using my privilege and to fight for those who can't fight for themselves. To me that matters far more. And Jesus, like, even talked about, like, bringing heaven to earth. Like, I don't, I don't know. To me, like that actually matters. Loving your neighbor. And when you look at the actually the actual teachings of Jesus, he's not. He. He emphasizes far more how to live, what to do, how to treat other people. He focuses very little on make sure you believe the exact right things. And as long as you believe the exact right things, it doesn't really matter what you do. That's not Jesus, like, at all.

[Tim Whitaker]

Jesus says, many will say, lord, Lord, did we not do these things? Only those who do the will of the Father unto the kingdom do the will of the Father will enter the kingdom. I think it's worth highlighting here because you're totally right, April. This is though kind of a bait and switch. And you know this because what happens in this kind of world is that they'll tell you it's not a workspace salvation until you advocate for the wrong people group or you Advocate for the wrong policies, then all of a sudden your works absolutely matter. Right? I mean, isn't it Ali Stuckey or Megan Basham who will tell you you really can't be a Democrat and be a Christian? So if I'm a Christian, but I vote Democrat, that work is automatically disqualifying of my entire salvific destiny. Right? So it's the same thing here. Like Elisa will tell you, she's trying to. What she's trying to do is she's trying to make it seem like people like you and me are dependent upon our salvation based on our works. But our paradigm is completely different. Completely different. We don't have that kind of worldview at all. We're not looking at, at Works vs Grace. We believe that the invitation to follow Christ necessitates that we become like Christ and we do what he did. Those teachings show that we are faithfully following in the way of Jesus. Elisa wants to try and point out that we're a works based whatever movement or something like that. That's not the case. It is actually the conservative Christians who will bait and switch you, they will tell you there's nothing you can do to earn God's love. He loves you right now. Just receive Christ into your heart. He'll forgive you. And the second you do the wrong thing, the second you say the wrong word, or if you smoke a cigarette, or if you watch the wrong movie, or if, God forbid, you vote for the wrong person suddenly, well, the fruit of your life doesn't show that you actually believe what you said. And you know that because we, we've both been there. We have both been there. Right? Yeah, but. Okay, okay, Elisa, continue on thing.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

So I think that you're not just going to float in a vacuum without some sort of a cause. And so I think it's the cause that gets put in the place of the sin and redemption story of, of the gospel.

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm sorry, I. I have to push back on this too. I believe in sin, of redemption. We have different views of what sin is. Fundamentalism sees sin as inherently individualistic. It's what I do to someone else. But sin is bigger than that. It's also, as Paul says, powers and principalities. Right? There are systems that are broken by sin, that make things crooked, that make things unjust, unfair. And America is built on a very crooked system of supremacy. So I agree that sin exists, of course I believe in redemption, of course. But my view of that doesn't look like walking down an aisle to pray a prayer as an individual and thinking, therefore, everything is okay, I'm more aware of the systems that have been put in place that still linger today that are affecting people disproportionately. But for Elisa, that's automatically social justice.

[April Ajoy]

And that's bad for some reason, apparently,

[Tim Whitaker]

even though the Bible talks about systems all the time. So, God, this is annoying, but I'm glad we're doing it. April

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

or this conversation started, I was, I was preparing and praying and I felt this sense of conviction that with everything that I approach, but especially with this, I want to have a broken heart. For those who either have people in their lives who are. This is how they identify, or maybe someone listening is listening to a James Talario going, what's the problem? Yeah, it sounds great. Why, why are we resistant to this? And so with sort of a brokenhearted stance, what's the most charitable way to interpret someone who's motivated to want to go down this road?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, tell us.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Well, yeah, I mean, progressives are often very motivated because of compassion and empathy and things like that. And what ends up happening, though is empathy or compassion ends up becoming weaponized and used. And I'm not saying that everybody who falls for this is guilty of, you know, this nefarious kind of plot, but what happens is like, for example, just if you take the topic of homosexuality, right, that's a hot button topic. That's one that is just. There's a lot of shouting across the aisle on that one. And I think the most charitable way to say it is that both sides are motivated by truth and compassion. But it's just what on the left hand side of it, the progressive side of it, it's what feels more compassionate is just acceptance and affirmation. Whereas on the other side of it, biblical Christians are saying no. The most loving thing is sometimes to say something difficult and to say no, I can't actually affirm this because love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. And so you kind of have like these, these opposite sides that are, that are motivated, hopefully out of truth and compassion, but sometimes it can be misplaced. So, like,

[Tim Whitaker]

I don't know what to say to that.

[April Ajoy]

I just want to also point out it was very subtle and quick. But the way she said, she talked about progressives affirming homosexuality as opposed to biblical Christians, that is such a dog whistle for, honestly, Christian nationalism, where you look, where you just. It's just narcissistic that your identity, like the way you believe only is what is biblical when in reality there is no one biblical worldview because there are several different worldviews within the text that you can pick and choose because it contradicts itself, because the Bible itself progresses from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament.

[Tim Whitaker]

One thing we have to one bubble we need to pop is this ridiculous myth that somehow Elisa and her tribe are motivated by truth and logic and us progressives are just a bunch of emotional basket cases just led by our emotions of empathy. Two things. Number one, psychologically, all of us are driven by our emotions first and then our faculties, especially our rational ones, tend to follow. That's number one. Humans do this. Number two, we do have data that will tell you that folks who affirm or who attend non affirming churches have a higher risk of self harm who are queer than not. We have data that will show that the theology of Alisa Childers and Ali Sucky actually hurts queer people. Like they actually become at war with themselves and their risk of harmful thoughts or harmful actions all go up. So if that is true, then your truth is hurting people. I don't understand that. That doesn't make any sense.

[April Ajoy]

Not to mention the way they talk about queer people saying they have demons, they're abominations, like basically really dehumanizing this entire group of people also leads to violence against those people.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes, yes, 100%. So yeah. God, this is just. I'm still waiting for, what is the problem here? Like, why should, why should people like Elisa approach us with a broken heart for advocating for James Talarico Christianity? I'm still waiting for.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Here's an example to put flesh on this.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh, good.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

You know, when I was in high school, if I believed that marriage was between one man and one woman, and let's say I told my friends I'm saving myself for marriage, they might have thought I was a goody two shoes. They might have thought, oh, she's old fashioned. But for kids today, like Christian kids that are going to, for example, like a public school, for them to hold that view, they're not just being told, oh, you're a goody two shoes or whatever, they're actually being told you are a harmful person. That's you're actually actively hurting people just because you believe that. And I can totally imagine, especially for a young person, like how confusing that would be because their heart genuinely does love their gay friends.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, I'm gonna. All right, you want to go? You go ahead. I haven't yet.

[April Ajoy]

Well, okay, I was just going to say go ahead.

[Tim Whitaker]

April.

[April Ajoy]

Playing the Persecution card. Because there's a difference between having that belief. Literally nobody cares what you believe and what you do with your own life.

[Tim Whitaker]

No one cares.

[April Ajoy]

What we do care about is you telling everybody else that they have to do what you're doing.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly.

[April Ajoy]

And saying, if you're not going to save yourself, then you're going to go to hell, and you're disgusting. Or, you know, being super judgmental. Like, it's. It's literally what they accuse all queer people of. Of, like shoving it down their throats, which is just ridiculous. That they have one pride parade a year and they're shoving it down their throats. But the. But conservative evangelicals actually do that.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, 100%. You're right. I was gonna say if. If there were students in school who were telling black students that they don't agree that they should be allowed to be in the same school with them, but they still love them, no one would buy that. No one would think, oh, that that's a loving position. No, that's a racist position. That's a bad position. And by the way, many Christians have advocated for those. Those positions in the name of God. And their kids believed it in schools. Okay? Jim Crow. The Jim Crow south was full of Christians advocating for this. Hopefully, Elisa would think, well, they were wrong. They were unloving. But they would say, no, no, no, Elisa, we're just telling the truth. And guess what? Like, the Bible says, we can't rejoice in evil. So you can weaponize all the logic and all the points of Elisa towards a different situation, and all of a sudden, it becomes very clear how hateful the position is. But for Elisa, because it's queer people, it's okay. And like you said, April, I would not care at all where Lisa thought if she was just yapping behind a microphone saying her thing. But she's part of a movement that is actively working to erase the rights of queer people in this country. She's part of a movement that is trying to overturn Obergefell. She's part of a movement that is introducing legislation in all 50 states to reduce the rights of our queer neighbors point blank. That is the problem. That's the problem. Oh, God, it's so infuriating. And then you're right to play the persecution card. What? Are you kidding me? You really. Oh, the ones who are punching down are the ones who are all of a sudden persecuted. Give me a break.

[April Ajoy]

Right? And then, like, they dare. They come and punch you in the face. And if that person, like, doesn't like, them back. They're like, oh, I'm just being persecuted for my faith. Like, no, you just punch them in the face. Like, what are you talking about?

[Tim Whitaker]

Ah.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

And they're like, well, I guess the way that I love them is to affirm them and accept this about them because they're buying into the cultural lie that your sexuality is the core of who you are. It's your identity. I mean, that's very much what our culture wants to tell people.

[Tim Whitaker]

No, it isn't. And it's people like you who can't stop talking about gay people. Like, the people who are most obsessed with queer people are straight, conservative politicians and pundits. Like, they are obsessed with genitals. They're obsessed with what? They're obsessed with what? With what bathroom trans people use. They're obsessed with what gay people do in their bedroom. They have to try and outlaw it. They're the ones who are obsessed with this stuff. You're obsessed, right? Oh, my God. Like, I. I never talk about queer people unless I'm doing this kind of content, because they talk about it saying, oh, well, then I think there's. No offense, but there's no rainbows in my house. Like, I don't think about this stuff at all. Besides, of course, affirming my queer neighbor. And then I do this content. I gotta talk about this for an hour and a half because Elisa can't stop talking about gay people.

[April Ajoy]

Oh, it is so annoying whenever they bring up, like, the ethics and, like, the bad fruit of progressives. It's literally that we affirm queer people.

[Tim Whitaker]

No. Like, wow, that's it. We love our queer neighbor and support their right to life in the pursuit of happiness. You know, like, life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness. Wow.

[April Ajoy]

Well, and it goes back to what I said earlier when we were talking about Amy Maine when she said that trying to out love God is the most hateful thing you can do. They believe that, like, they somehow have twisted the idea that genuinely just loving a queer person and not trying to change them, not being in relationship with them with an ulterior motive, which is what every single conservative evangelical is doing.

[Tim Whitaker]

Y.

[April Ajoy]

That. That is somehow evil. Not the most hateful thing you can do. Right? Not killing somebody.

[Tim Whitaker]

No. No.

[April Ajoy]

Not ripping children away from their immigrant parents and throwing them in an inhumane detention center.

[Tim Whitaker]

Hateful.

[April Ajoy]

No. Not. Not the genocide happening in Gaza.

[Tim Whitaker]

Nope, definitely not.

[April Ajoy]

Not bombing elementary schools. Like, that's not the most hateful thing. The most hateful thing you can do is to love queer people too.

[Tim Whitaker]

Much what there are. If, if you think that the Bible talks about homosexuality, there are about five to six verses in the entire Bible that mention it. And there are thousands of verses to talk about how we treat the poor and the widow and the orphan. And for some reason, Alisa Childers and her crew have gaslit millions of Americans to, to believe and have. Have convinced them that the Bible is obsessed with gay people. Out of everything.

[April Ajoy]

Right. Like, even if you weren't never talked

[Tim Whitaker]

about, even if you were to use that the fundamentalist framework of what the Bible says, it's so not really talked about at all in the scripture. Jesus never talks about it, but there's so many clear condemnations of the rich and powerful. Yet Elisa has openly said that she voted for Trump, the billionaire who's trying to sue our own government for $10 billion, who has enriched himself by the tune of three to four billion dollars as president. But no, all the verses about the rich and the mighty and the people who store up more treasures for themselves on earth and how bad that is, those don't count here. It's just all that matters is the biblical view on biblical marriage.

[April Ajoy]

And I don't know if she's ever actually said this, but I know she runs in circles with people who believed you had to vote for Donald Trump as a Christian.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, for sure.

[April Ajoy]

That was the only Christian option.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh yeah, she's done. She's done public events with Ali Stuckey before. Who believes that 100.

[April Ajoy]

And can I just say too, just from a theological perspective, a lot of times they'll use Sodom and Gomorrah that as like this got you against homosexuality. But it's not talking about homosexuality. And in Ezekiel it says the sin of your sister Sodom was that they were inhospitable and did not take care of the poor and needy. It doesn't say anything about sexuality. And our concept of what sexuality is today and orientation is not mentioned whatsoever in the scripture. And in fact, there's a whole documentary called 1946 that talks about how the word homosexuality was not actually put into any biblical text until the year 1946. Because what it's talking about, if you actually take in cultural context of the scripture, is a power dynamic is, is it's really promoting a patriarchal like the, like the status of men in that culture. That was what was being condemned. When it talks about gay sex and it's specifically talking about men doesn't mention women.

[Tim Whitaker]

Can I ask you something that might make some of our followers maybe a little uncomfortable Please. I don't care if the Bible did condemn homosexuality as we understand it today. I still wouldn't listen to it. The Bible condones slavery. Paul tells slaves to obey their masters. That's a pretty clear verse. I disagree with Paul. Sorry. If someone's enslaved today, I think you shouldn't obey your master. You should probably try and get free. And how can we help free you? And by the way, that's the same argument that happened when we were fighting over slavery in this country. Right. The slavery apologist would say, show me in the Bible where it condemns slavery. It doesn't. And so I think also, like, we can't fall into the trap of playing the game of the fundamentalists where we're trying to pillage through the Bible to justify our positions. I'm not saying that the Bible isn't a book of wisdom or that there isn't. Themes are clear. I think that there are. But even if the Bible was like homosexuality, if Paul was like homosexuality is wrong, I would disagree with Paul. Sorry. Science, evidence, data, you know, studies have shown the opposite of that. And so I go with that. I'm just saying. Just saying.

[April Ajoy]

Well, I mean, and I do think that is fair because I, like when my brother came out to me as gay, I had been taught, based on my fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture, that in order to be gay you had to either have a demon or be influenced by a demon of some sort. There was a demon, demonic influence involved. And that every single gay person chose to be gay out of rebellion to God. And when my brother came out to me bawling and I was the first person that he told me, he was 26 and he had known since middle school and had begged God and cried himself to sleep, asking God to make him straight, not understanding why he was like that, didn't want it at all. Like was a preacher's kid, just like I was. We went to church multiple times a week and God didn't make him straight. I knew immediately that what I believed was wrong because I came face to face with something that directly contradicted what I was taught was true.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly. I had someone in my life very similar, who I knew. Prayed every time we prayed, fasted for years and tried the same thing. And when he told me his story, he's not married and they have kids and he's healthier than ever. Same thing. Begged God to take it away. Begged God to turn him straight. It didn't happen. And when embodiment happens like that, dogma gets erased very quickly because to your point, you're like, wait, something. I know my brother. I've seen him. Right. I know. I know that if he could not. If he could be healed from this affliction, he would have by now. So obviously something is wrong. Right? Yeah, no, great point. All right, let's keep going.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

And so if you don't affirm that, then you're actually, like, dehumanizing that person. That's the message that's being sent. So, I mean, I think that a lot of people are probably motivated out of genuine compassion, but they've been told that's the only acceptable way to love someone is to affirm and celebrate, you know, their choices. And so I think that.

[Tim Whitaker]

Thank you. Not a choice.

[April Ajoy]

Thank you.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Yeah, I mean, it's not difficult to see the draw of that. It's not difficult to see the draw of rejecting the idea of hell. Right. Because if you love people. And it would be much more wonderful, I think, for all of us to think nobody's gonna go there. And so it feels more loving to reject that.

[Tim Whitaker]

And so she's really boiling down. Complicated theologies. Many progressive Christians still affirm some understanding of hell. It's just the function of hell. You know, universal reconciliation views the fires of hell like a refiner's fire that kind of purifies people from all their sin annihilationist views, which, by the way, many conservative Christians around the world hold these views as well. It's not just progressive or not, but annihilationism is the idea that fire, that the fires of hell, essentially, it's when people forfeit the gift of eternal life, so the fires consume them and then they cease to exist. So this. This metaphor of fire in the Bible has been interpreted very differently. And that doesn't make someone progressive or conservative automatically. All we're doing is rejecting Elisa's fundamentalist understanding of eternal conscious torment. But for her to do that is to automatically be progressive, because it's not her.

[April Ajoy]

Which, to be clear, their belief of eternal conscious torment is that anybody who does not believe like they do.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right.

[April Ajoy]

Will go to hell and burn alive forever.

[Tim Whitaker]

Forever. Forever.

[April Ajoy]

Infinity.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes.

[April Ajoy]

No, stop. And we're talking like it doesn't matter how good of a person you were on earth. You just happen to believe the wrong things.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right.

[April Ajoy]

You're done. You just. If you were born, you deserve it.

[Tim Whitaker]

If you're born in Iran and you're a Muslim, too bad. So sad. You're going to burn for hell in hell forever. Which, by the way, how do you feel Burning if you don't have a body? I don't know. But, like, you know, there are just all these different questions that you have to answer, you know, but. Yes, exactly, exactly.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

A lot of times, it really can be motivated out of a genuine type of compassion, empathy, or, I think, misplaced love, misdefined love.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

It often is weaponized, as you said, and it's. It carries with it quite a militant, almost hateful spirit with it. I remember having a conversation at one of the big universities. I'm here in Minnesota, so it's the U of M, one of our big secular universities, and we were doing street interviews. I talked to a couple of guys, came up to me. They're very excited, like, oh, what are you guys doing out here? This is great. You know, I could tell by what they said and some of the things that they said that, you know, they were the LGBT lifestyle variety. And so I kind of reframe my question to them because I was going to talk about something that really wasn't relevant to that. And I brought up this idea of, can you love someone and not necessarily agree with everything about them? That was kind of the premise of my question. And as I started to ask that question, one of the two guys, it's like a light bulb went off in his head, like, oh, you're that kind of Christian. You're that kind of guy. And it turns out they were of the progressive Christian ilk. Definitely called themselves Christians. One of the two was definitely a little bit more calm and reasonable. The other one was just. I mean, it was like 2 inches from my face telling me that I'm causing trans kids to kill themselves, that I'm hateful, and was using even language like, repent, you need to repent of your hateful, et cetera, et cetera. And I just was sitting there, I was so struck by the idea that in the name of compassion and love, we turn that into this hateful, angry mission. And it just felt like there. There is a weird contradiction there, right? Where in the name of love, we almost become the very thing that we are claiming to be resisting.

[April Ajoy]

Can I just say.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes, you can. Go ahead.

[April Ajoy]

April Floor is fundamentals, conservative theology that they are pushing that you choose to be gay. People love that.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's a lifestyle.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, that is freaking hateful. I don't care how you dress it up. And I. And here's the thing. I actually believe that a lot of people that. That say these things are. Have convinced themselves that what they're doing is love because it's what their pastors tell them they have to convince themselves. But as someone who used to hold that belief and also convinced myself that it was truth in love, that I was loving the sinner but hating the sin, you don't. What other sin do we hate? Like, what other sin do these people go around hating the way that they hate queer sin? And I put that in quotes because here's the thing. Now that I'm actually queer affirming, I know in hindsight that I never loved gay people. Like, and I, I wish, I wish that every single conservative that pushes these talking points could feel what it feels like on this side for like one minute. So you can actually know what it feels like to actually love queer people because what they're doing is hateful. Because when you tell someone that their entire existence and being is an abomination that is dehumanizing to its core. It would be like someone coming up to me and saying that because I have natural red hair that I was born with, that I don't have any control over that that's an abomination that I need to change about myself, that I need to constantly dye my hair blonde in order to fit in, because that's what God actually wants for me. But in reality, at my roots, at my core, I am still a redhead pretending not to be. And, and when you live that way day in and day out and you're forcing people into closets to deny who they are, that is a soul crushing way to live. And it does lead to suicide and ideation and self harm. And it puts those people in danger of violent people who have convinced themselves that those people don't deserve to live because they are demonic and they are an abomination. And so yes, it is righteous anger that someone would get in your face and say that your theology is hateful, because it absolutely is.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, no, you're, I mean, no notes. You're 100% correct. They don't see it that way. And it's funny how he didn't like when someone got in his face. Yet when they get in people's faces, oh, I'm just telling you the truth in love. You know, when, when that person called him to repent, he didn't take it seriously. But when they call us to repent, we have to take them seriously also. It's a complete last thing I'll add to this. It's such a ignorant understanding of history. It was Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, that was telling people that AIDS was God's judgment and punishment on gay people that led to, in some cases, nurses not even taking care of gay men who had AIDS because of their judgment. It was Jerry falwell who blamed 911 on the gays and on the ACLU and on the feminists and the abortionists. The right wing movement has so many hateful actors inside of it who, by the way, not just with their lips, but with their actions, are working towards minimizing the rights of our queer neighbors. Of course they'd be angry. Wouldn't you? These are the same people, April, who get all up in arms at the thought that the Biden administration arrested some pro life activists who stormed an abortion clinic and hurt a nurse. They. They call Christian persecution because of that. But they're the ones swinging the bat right to the face of their queer neighbors. And when their career. And when their. When their queer neighbors are mad. Oh, guys, why are you so hateful? Whoa. Why are you so angry towards me? Because you're harming people. Your theology kills. You're the. Like you said, April, we know people, either in our. In our life, in our families, or not, who will tell you that when they were younger and told by their pastor that they were an abomination or that. Or that they were inherently broken, they had to wage war, spirit against their flesh, AKA their. Their sexual orientation. It caused such inner turmoil, many of them considered not being on this planet anymore. But this person is so ignorant and so brainwashed that he has the audacity to get. They get all offended when someone says, you're hurting me and people I know. And his response is, whoa, why are you so hostile, bro? Oh, my God. Like, it's. It's insufferable.

[April Ajoy]

They lack self awareness.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh, major, major.

[April Ajoy]

I just have to say this. There's something about his studio that feels like a hair salon.

[Tim Whitaker]

Maybe it's because he has nice thick hair.

[April Ajoy]

Maybe. I don't know. I just keep thinking. I don't know. I just. I keep thinking, is he in a hair salon? He's not, but it just looks like it.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

My friend Greg Kogel calls it the intolerance of tolerance.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

So it's the tolerance movement. But, you know, here's what I think.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right. Tolerant toleration has to be intolerant of intolerance. It has to be, because it's the antithesis of tolerance. Right. If we're tolerant. But you're not, that's a problem, because we're making room for you, but you're not making room for us, because what you believe says we can't, or gay people or whatever it is can't exist the way that you think they should be able to. So, yes, tolerance. The paradox is tolerance cannot be tolerant of intolerance. That defeats the whole purpose. Gosh, it's that. That's not a gotcha, Elisa. That's just how it works.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

People really need to understand about the movement of progressive Christianity. I mentioned that study that was done, another conclusion of that study, which really bears out in my research and my interactions with progressive Christians. And this is very important for people to understand in the mind of the progressive Christian, they actually felt more unity with an affinity for affection for people of other religions and even atheists than they did conservative Christians. So it was like they saw all of these other groups as being unified and like, we're on the same mission. We're together. But these conservative Christians over here are actually like, the enemy.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes, Elisa, you're right. You know why we don't have the same values. Me and Qasem Rashid, you know, who's a friend of the show and also a Muslim. Me and Andrew Seidel, also a friend of ours. Right, who's an atheist. We have the same shared values of life and love and justice for our neighbors and human flourishing.

[April Ajoy]

Human flourishing, yeah, Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

We can get there through different beliefs. Your belief system is crushing our neighbors. The belief system that made you vote for Trump and Maga is literally kidnapping immigrants and throwing them in concentration camps. So, yes, yes, I do see you as a much bigger enemy, so to speak, than I do. My Muslim neighbor who will agree with me on shared values of, hey, maybe we shouldn't be throwing immigrants in cages. Right? This is not. To me, this is not that controversial at all, because it's you, Elisa, who have betrayed your own values. It's you who read the teachings of Christ and go, yeah, but Maga is the way to go. I read Jesus and think, you know what, guys? The more kids we can deport, the better off our country is, because Christianity, it doesn't make any sense.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

And interestingly, my friend Melissa Doherty wrote a book about new thought, which has a lot of overlap with progressive Christianity. And so part of her research was visiting different progressive Christian churches. And then she would try to speak with the pastor or people at the church. And so one of the pastors that she spoke with after the service, a progressive pastor, you know, she asked him, do. Do you believe in tolerance and acceptance? And, oh, yes, absolutely. Do we tolerate? And she said, well, what about conservative Christians? And she said it was so interesting because his response was, like, visceral. He, like, stepped back and he was like, well, no, no, no, no, not. And he literally said, those are the bad guys. So that's what people have to understand is that in the movement of tolerance and acceptance and love and all of this, it's like. It's not for conservative Christians, though. That might.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, let me just give people an example that will pop this bubble really quick. If we're back in the 1950s or 1960s and there's a movement, there's MLK's civil rights movement, right? That's saying, hey, liberation for all, justice for all, equality for all. Right? And then Bob Jones, the founder of Bob Jones University, who believes that racism is God ordained and that the races are designed by God to stay separate. If he says, hey, guys, why aren't you tolerant of my beliefs? I think we all see why, right? We all see why the social justice movement or the civil rights movement wouldn't be tolerant of what Bob Jones wanted for America because he literally stands against everything that the civil rights movement stood for. It's the same thing here when you have a movement saying, hey, equality for all. April, you and I talked about this. Even our MAGA neighbors, right? We want our MAGA neighbors to have access to affordable health care. We want our MAGA neighbors kids to have access to quality schools and quality education. They do not want the same thing for our queer neighbors, for our immigrant neighbor, for our progressive neighbor. So we're. We're. We're automatically at odds. How could we tolerate what wants intolerance? It's impossible. It's impossible to do. This is not that complicated.

[April Ajoy]

No, it is not.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's.

[April Ajoy]

I wonder if there were like, Christians like this back in the 1930s, because, remote reminder, overwhelmingly the German Evangelical church supported Hitler.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, yeah. Geez.

[April Ajoy]

And I don't think they would argue that we should be tolerant of Nazis.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right? Right. Who knows these days, honestly?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Yeah. Degree not.

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm not saying Elisa or this host. I'm saying other people in the space

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

on some of those topics, they're actually seen, like, we're seen as the bad guy. We're seen as the enemy. And so it's in fact another. Just one more little anecdotal thing is that many years ago on progressivechristianity.org, which is a website run by several different progressive Christians and lots of progressive thought leaders contribute articles and things to it, it used to have eight points that were definitional for progressive Christians. And in One of the points, it said something like, we are accepting of all groups, including. And they listed off different religions and sexual identities. And then they said, and conventional Christians, when they updated that statement a few years ago, they took out conventionalists. At least they were honest about it. Right? So yeah, there's, there's very much a, an antagonism toward, toward what they see as intolerant. But what they think they don't realize is that in doing that, they're also being intolerant.

[Tim Whitaker]

Remember guys, this is the same, this is the same person who wrote the book the Deconstruction of Christianity, what it is, why it's destructive and how to respond that attacks people who deconstruct their faith. Elisa wrote a book on progressive Christianity where she says that progressive Christians aren't real Christians. They have waged war on people who aren't like them on every single issue, whether it's abortion, it's being queer, it's immigration, it's being progressive Christian. And suddenly when people go, okay, fine, I guess you're the enemy. Oh, how intolerant are they? Aren't these guys so intolerant over here because you've waged more on everyone except for your own tribe? Elisa, this is what you do. Oh my God. I don't know how she doesn't see it. It's wild.

[April Ajoy]

I do want to just say, I do think there's some, there's some odd hope core happening because of how many people are making long form videos calling out progressive Christian. Like, to me, that's a good sign that progressive Christianity is becoming more mainstream. Because when I was growing up, I didn't even know that there was an option to be a progressive Christian. You know, like I was only taught one interpretation of scripture. I didn't know there were so many different other ways historically that are part of the ancient church too, to interpret the Bible. I just, I didn't even know it existed 100%. To me, it's actually a really good sign that they're getting their, you know, panties in a twist because there's so many progressive Christians. And even with the whole NISA thing that we talked about earlier, the amount of progressive Christians I saw going to bat for this trans woman in the comment section, I was like, oh, this, this has even increased since like 2020. When I first started deconstructing out loud. Like I was felt like I was just like a soul voice screaming, which I know I wasn't. There were some of us, but there were nowhere near the amount that there are Now. And so hopefully that's a good sign that the indoctrinational, like the indoctrination hold that so many conservatives have had for generations is maybe coming to a close.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. It's also why we do this work. So thank you for liking this video and subscribing to the channel. Wink.

[April Ajoy]

Hi, my name is Katie and I gladly support tne. My story of Christian fundamentalism is I

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

got involved to create order out of

[April Ajoy]

what was kind of a chaotic life. And I chose classical education for my children. I taught at a small classical school during COVID and what that took from

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

me was my joy and my delight.

[April Ajoy]

It led me to believe that I wasn't good the way that God made me.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

I was told that my cares, my

[April Ajoy]

passions, and my desires were not helpful at that school. And really they just were misguided. I have so much grace for them. But I left really disillusioned by who Jesus is. And then I found tne and just the. The humor, the insight, the intelligence that tne brings to people.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Exploring outside the basement of Christian fundamentalism

[April Ajoy]

is such a gift. And I hope that you will enjoy and support tne, too.

[Tim Whitaker]

All right, we got. Let's go a little bit longer, April. Maybe we'll do a part two because we're only about 15 minutes into a 45 minute long video. So I think it's worth responding to. I really think it is, because Elisa and these folks think that they have the corner on truth in the Bible and Jesus and Christianity, and they just don't. They are in a basement of fundamentalism and there is a way more beautiful world above ground.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And you can. Not to make this overly political, but you can hear the Marxist language of classifying the entire world through a lens of oppressor and oppressor.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh, my God, have you read exactly Exodus, bro? Have you read the Bible? Have you read the story of Exodus where God literally drowns the empire to free his oppressed people? Was. Was God working through a Marxist lens then? When Jesus says, I've come to bring good news to the poor and to liberate the oppressed, Was he a Marxist then? I mean, give me a freaking break. And by the way, Marx was right. If you read Marx and his critiques of capitalism and where it would lead, we are living in Marxist prophecies. Oh, my God, I am. No, I'm done trying to play footsies with, oh, well, I'm not a Marxist either. No, I like Marx. Marx has some great points that are worth considering, you know, and also Jesus was not Marxist.

[April Ajoy]

I don't think they could even define Marxism and say one more.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh my God, Marxism. Wow, we should have had a drink. So every time they say something like that, we can take a shot.

[April Ajoy]

You know, maybe. I actually have a friend, she was a professor at a conservative college we used to be associated with. She was a self proclaimed Marxist. Like she studied Marx and she called herself a Marxist and she was like the most vanilla mom that you ever would meet. Like wife mob. Like so. And she was just like, she's. Maybe we should have her on the show. She can actually give us, like, Marxism.

[Tim Whitaker]

Because I'm telling you that the little I've read about Marx and have learned, I'm like his. I'm not saying that I'm inherently like a sick, a fan of, of Karl Marx, but his critiques of capitalism and where unbridled crony corporate capitalism will lead has proven to be true over and over again in the American experiment. So. Oh, God, Wow. Marxism. Just gotta throw that word out there. Jeez.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

It almost would feel antithetical or logically inconsistent to say we tolerate all victims and the oppressors of those victims. In their mind, it would almost be that, right? It'd almost be saying, yeah, we tolerate all victims, but not the oppressors. And in their minds, why would you tolerate the oppressors? Because they're the one who have set this entire injustice in motion.

[Tim Whitaker]

Hey. Yes, yes, yes, Correct. You're right there, bud. You're right there. Now, I recommend reading Jamar Tisby's Color of Compromise and reading the Bible Told Them so by J. Russell Hawkins. So you can understand how white evangelicalism, historically in America has been on the oppressing side of all kinds of people groups, including black Americans. And then you can see the systems that they built over time, like redlining and many others that still have ripple effects today. Right? And then you're gonna understand exactly what we're talking about. So. Yes, yes. You're so close. Keep going.

[April Ajoy]

I also want to point out, I think they're actually saying, without saying, a huge reason why so many conservative fundamentalists won't deconstruct and like, refuse to actually have these conversations like we were talking about earlier, because when you're in that world, you've convinced yourself that you're the good guy and that what you're doing is actually good. You're on the side of God, you're on the side of righteousness. And when you come face to face with the realities of the harm that your theology has caused, you have to look yourself in the mirror and admit that you were the bad guy.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly right.

[April Ajoy]

And that can just be too tough a pill to swallow for so many people. They're getting so close to the point, but they're. What they're saying without realizing it is it's the reason that they won't actually have a dialogue with people that are

[Tim Whitaker]

progressive a hundred percent.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Here's. Okay, so here's a little something to that point as well, is that whole worldview of oppressed versus oppressor. What a lot of people do not understand is that the number one oppressor in that worldview is not even necessarily white people or Western civilization. It's Christians. Christians are seen in that worldview as the number one oppressor. And so that's why progressive Christianity seems like the redemptive version of Christianity to people that are caught up in that worldview. Like, you don't want to be the oppressor. Right. You want to redeem Christianity from the oppressors. And so that's what a lot of people see progressive Christianity as. They see it as a more loving version, a more enlightened and evolved version of this kind of fundamentalist, you know, thing that has oppressed the world.

[Tim Whitaker]

I mean, she ain't wrong. Colonization was done in the name of the Christian God. The doctrine of discovery was the Pope giving the colonizers the authority to kill whoever they wanted when they came to American shores. So, yes, there's definitely a legacy of Christian colonization. And I would also want Alisa to comment on the fact that people in her big ten evangelical world, like Doug Wilson, who are advocating to repeal the 19th Amendment, who are discipling people like Pete Hegseth who are bombing kids in Iran. I would just love to know, like, what she thinks about that. I would just love to ask Elisa these questions, like, help me understand. This is the world that you voted for. You voted for Trump. You wanted this world to happen. You have people inside of your ranks who want to take away your right to vote. There are people who think that you shouldn't even have a public platform, Alisa. And so, yeah, I would say that a lot of white Christian men in particular who have gained access to power are doing a lot of oppressing right now. And you're on the chopping block as well. You really are.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Love to know what she thinks about that. But, you know, hey, is what it is.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I think there are some believers, and I've been tempted to ask this myself, which is, why do they not just abandon the Name Christian altogether. I would say most progressive Christians live completely divorced from just the pure teachings of the Bible and instead create some sort of fictionalized version of Jesus in their minds and don't even really seem to care about the incongruence.

[Tim Whitaker]

What?

[April Ajoy]

I'm sorry,

[Tim Whitaker]

what? I'm sorry.

[April Ajoy]

They just say stuff, man. Like I.

[Tim Whitaker]

Wasn't it Jesus who said to welcome the stranger? Wasn't it Jesus who said to love your enemy? Wasn't it Jesus who told the rich man that it's harder for him to enter the kingdom than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? Wasn't it Jesus who told the rich man to sell all of his possessions? Wasn't it Jesus? I mean, blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful.

[April Ajoy]

Like, lay down your weapons.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, lay down your weapons. Carry your cross. Turn the other cheek, you know, takers. Feed the hungry, heal the sick, liberate the oppressed. Like, help me understand.

[April Ajoy]

I'm a little Marxist.

[Tim Whitaker]

Sorry, my bad. Oppressed or oppressed like, I don't know, brother. My Bible is right here. We can go through it. And also, what teachings of the Bible. This is the, no pun intended, the fundamental flaw and fundamentalism, they flatten out the Bible. It's devoid of all context. They read Genesis with the same voice that they read Romans. Even though those books are totally different, constructed in different ways in different time periods by different people, they just flatten all that out. Right, so what teachings do. The teachings that tell people to go ahead and slaughter their neighboring country, like in, in. In the Hebrew Bible or the parts where Jesus says love your enemies? Like what. What's teaching are we going to take here? And how. How are we going to make that work? It's. It's not congruent God. Wow, it's shocking.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Why do you think the average progressive Christian doesn't just abandon the label altogether when it seems as if just a fair reading of our. Of the Bible would contradict most of their basic views?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

Well, I think partially that's because of how the Bible has been approached in progressive Christianity. It's like one little switch makes it to where you actually don't see the Bible as your inerrant authority.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

The Bible, and they might even use words like inspired or even authority to a certain extent. But in progressive Christianity, the Bible is viewed as a human book that was written about God.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, who's gonna tell her? I mean, it was written. It was actually written by humans.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. Elisa, this is gonna blow your mind. The Bible was not beamed down from heaven to your lap in English, in the Protestant flavor. Like a lot of people over arguably about a thousand years, many of them are anonymous. And editors have compiled our modern expression of the Protestant Bible, which is different than the Catholic Bible, which is different than the Eastern Orthodox Bible. So, yes, like, fact check. True.

[April Ajoy]

I'm not trying to mock her.

[Tim Whitaker]

I don't get it.

[April Ajoy]

And it is objectively not inerrant. Objectively, like, objectively just factually not inerrant.

[Tim Whitaker]

For those who are curious, there's a reason why the evangelical apologist world is never really part of, like, modern academic biblical scholarship. Because they're usually laughed out of the room for how they twist and contort the text to fit a presupposed dogma that the Bible must be inerrant. So, you know, Elisa will tell you that all she's doing is following the truth, when in reality, she has presuppositions about. About. About. About who God is, what the Bible should be. And then they use that to then fit the Bible and God into those categories. That's how it works. Wow. Okay, keep going. Elise, you're on a roll here.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

And so therefore it's not binding on you. It's not something that you have to submit to or bring yourself under its authority. The Bible is something that God can use. The Bible is something that can become inspiring to you depending on what you read. Some parts of the Bible, and I'm speaking as a progressive now, you know, some parts of the Bible might be viewed as more inspired than others, more authoritative than others. And it's really you. You and God together go on this journey to kind of discover what you think is true about it. What is

[Tim Whitaker]

the reason why I'm just kind of speechless is because obviously Elisa thinks the same thing. Elisa probably is wearing a shirt made of two different fabrics. She probably eats shellfish. She probably doesn't see those parts as authoritative to her life.

[April Ajoy]

I doubt she goes and sits in a tent whenever she's on her period

[Tim Whitaker]

for maybe she does, but unlikely. If I was a betting man, I bet a lot on does not do that. So again, like all of us, and Scott McKnight talks about this, and it sounds crass, but all of us are picking and choosing how we interpret and what parts we apply to our lives. This should not be controversial. Like, this is just. Just look, look, read the Bible and ask yourself, can you follow every single thing in an authoritative way? No, because some parts of the Bible are story, some are allegory, some are parts of history, some are Part fiction. Like there's different intent behind the different stories that we read in the Bible.

[April Ajoy]

Right. But the way that they wiggle their way out of that is they say, well, some verses are descriptive, yes. Meaning it's just describing laws that used to be. And some are prescriptive, meaning we, we follow those today. And literally the Bible doesn't make those distinctions. They make those distinctions.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly. And depending on the tradition that you're in, you're gonna have a different interpretation of the Bible. There are some people today in evangelicalism who believe that speaking in tongues is still relevant. Alisa would say, no, it's not.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah, they're very familiar. There's some people that think women need to cover their heads when they're in church.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yep, yep, yep. Anyway, okay, here we go about it.

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

What's going to help you? What's going to harm you? And so the whole way the Bible is framed in progressive Christianity sets you on a path to be able to see it that way. So to your question, why do they just not abandon it altogether? I guess, I mean, on a philosophical sort of, you know, 30,000 foot level. Cause the devil's not that dumb.

[April Ajoy]

Right?

[Guest Speaker/Expert]

The devil's a better theologian than anybody. He's got a PhD in theology. And so if he can convince people that they're the better version of Christianity, that they're actually saving Christianity from itself, that they're, you know, these, these fundamentalists have hijacked Christianity, but we're going to rescue Christianity. I mean, I can totally see why that's appealing. And also, if there's some sort of a sentimental connection with Jesus or with, you know, the Bible stories that you learned in church growing up, I can see why you actually see yourself as somebody who's redeeming Christianity.

[Tim Whitaker]

Why don't we pause here and end on this note for this part. 1.

[April Ajoy]

Can I just say, I think at like a 5,000 foot level, the reason why progressive Christians haven't abandoned Christianity is because we're still Christians.

[Tim Whitaker]

No, it can't be that we're Marxists

[April Ajoy]

because we still want, like, we still follow Jesus. What do you mean? That's it.

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm a very like, tangible, pragmatic person. So I'm just trying to think of, I'm trying to, I'm, I'm asking myself the question, how the devil, with his PhD in theology, has deceived millions of people into progressive Christianity. Like, okay, so I, let's say I'm a conservative Christian. I see what happens in 2016, 2020, all the things like, well, I don't get it, guys. Like, I don't think that this is congruent with, like, loving your neighborhood. And then I go, like on a deep dive and I listen to scholarship. Maybe like Bart Ehrman or Pete Ends or Angela Parker. All, all bona fide scholars who have done a lot of work understanding the Bible and the context in the world it comes from. And I guess because the devil is so smart, with his PhD in theology, he's infiltrated these academic schools to deceive almost everyone except for Elisa Childers and her tribe. So when I hear Pete ends talk about the Bible and his hours, and I mean thousands of hours of research and study and also love for the Bible, he's actually deceived by Satan, who has a better PhD than anyone else. And then I hear that, and now I'm also deceived. Like Satan deceived. Pete Ends. Is that how it works? Like, I, I like these little sound bites. Oh, the Satan. Satan's not that dumb. What is that? What are we talking about? Like, I need, I need the cause and effect of how this works. I don't understand Elisa.

[April Ajoy]

Like, what, what's wild to me is that if, if we, if I'm going to play the Satan card, right, which I'm not really someone to play this card, but let's just reverse it. I feel like if Satan was actually going to infiltrate Christianity, he would convince the masses that a billionaire playboy who is besties with a pedo, who demonizes poor people and immigrants and all the other people that God calls us to love, that he would convince the masses of Christians that that man is chosen by God and is here to save Christianity. Because let me tell you, the people that are pushing people away from Christianity more than anyone are conservative Christians. They profess Jesus with their mouth, but they actually support the most antichrist policies and belief systems that. That exist.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yep, yep. If Satan with his PhD brain was going to do that, it'd be quite the play. I mean, imagine being able to convince people who tell you that marriage is between one man and one woman, that the guy on his third marriage on the COVID of Playboy magazine and who also bragged about assaulting women is God's chosen anointed one to make America a more Christian nation. That would be quite, that would be quite the achievement for Satan to pull that off.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah. I mean, honestly, if there's one silver lining in Trump and like this evangelical support of Trump, it's that it's literally the ultimate trump card. Pun intended. Like any of them coming into our comment sections, trying to call saying we are so hateful because we love too much. What do you like? You voted for a rapist.

[Tim Whitaker]

And also a mean person. Like, he's a mean, vindictive bully who also, like you said, was best friends with Apeto, who's all over the Epstein files.

[April Ajoy]

Like, best case scenario, was just friends with them. And I should say adjudicated.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes.

[April Ajoy]

R word. I just said it, so just for reasons.

[Tim Whitaker]

All right, well, listen, we're going to pause here. We'll do a part two to this for sure. I think it's worth it. I would love. I mean, we would love to know what you think, friends. So make sure you leave a comment in the video below. If you're. If you're listening on podcast, thank you so much. Please consider sharing the episode. Also, reminder, we are going to be the in person soon. May 17th.

[April Ajoy]

It's a Sunday, so this Sunday,

[Tim Whitaker]

right? This Sunday we're gonna be in Sarasota, Florida, at Harvest Church doing a live podcast. And you are all invited. There's no cost, it's totally free, no ticket. Just show up. We would love to meet you, hang out with you, say hello. It's always nice meeting people in person. It's so much better than with a screen in between us. So come on out, hang out with us. It will be. I think it's just one service, but we'll be there doing our thing and I'm sure we'll figure out things to do later on as well. So. Yeah, make sure to show up.

[April Ajoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Sweet. Well, I am Tim Whitaker.

[April Ajoy]

And I'm April Lajoy.

[Tim Whitaker]

We'll see you soon.

[April Ajoy]

Bye,

[Tim Whitaker]

Sam.