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The sixteenth episode of the Broadening the Narrative podcast is out now! You can listen to the episode "Healing from Church Hurt with Jordan Lukens" for the Broadening the Narrative podcast by clicking on any of the hyperlinked platforms below. A transcript of the episode is included below as well.
In this episode of Broadening the Narrative, I talked with Jordan Lukens to discuss healing from church hurt. Jordan was a worship leader in an evangelical church. He shared about his ongoing healing, his journey through deconstruction, and his desire to reconstruct a faith that loves people as they want to be loved. I hope that if you know and love me you can engage with the Broadening the Narrative blog, social media accounts, and podcast, as well as any recommended resources. Then, you can share with people who know and love you, and little by little, person by person, we can broaden the narrative.
#broadeningthenarrativepodcast #podcast #newpodcast #podcastsofinstagram #healingfromchurchhurt #churchhurt #healing #heal #spiritualabuse #religioustrauma #evolvingfaith #exvangelical #deconstruction #faithreconstruction #faith #hope #love #loveyourneighbor #erronthesideoflove #thereisnolawagainstlove #empathy #equality #humanity #boundaries #mentalhealth #community #seekjustice #justice #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative
Transcript
4 clock ticks
“It’s past time to broaden the narrative” (said by Sequana Murray)
Intro Music
Introduction: Hello and welcome to another episode of Broadening the Narrative. This is a podcast where I talk to some of my favorite people who have broadened the narrative for me. I'm your host, Nicki Pappas, and I'm so glad you're here.
Transition Music
First Segment
Nicki: On today's episode of Broadening the Narrative, I am joined by my dear friend Jordan Lukens to discuss healing from church hurt. Before we begin, I want to say that Jordan is one of my favorite people because he’s one of the few men in the circles that I’ve been a part of the past decade who’s treated me like a human being. He’s always looked me in the eye and engaged me in conversation. And one time when he preached a sermon at the church we were a part of, he reached out to me to ask for my thoughts and insights into the text. And I want to thank Danielle, who is married to Jordan. She never once treated me like a threat to her relationship with Jordan. These types of behavior are rare, and we could do a whole podcast episode just on that. But I did want to take the time to thank Jordan for seeing me, valuing me, and truly honoring me. So thank you, Jordan. I'm really excited to get to talk with you and glad you agreed to come onto the show.
Jordan: Oh, well, thanks, Nicki. I am very just moved by your words and thank you for valuing my voice as well and just giving me an opportunity to talk about my story. Yeah. Thanks.
Nicki: Yeah. I mean, I know we kind of have talked about this before, but like how in our circles, like men and women, it's weird to be friends with each other, but I'm just like, I'm just so happy when I get to talk to Jordan. So I'm really happy to get to talk with you. So.
Jordan: Well the feeling is mutual.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, let's jump in. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?
Jordan: Sure. So, I am 30 years old and I am married to Danielle, like Nicki already said, and we have one almost one year old. I grew up in the Southeast. I've always lived in the Southeast, and I kind of grew up as a conservative, evangelical Christian in a Southern Baptist church. And yeah, that's kind of a little bit of my backstory. I like a lot of different things. I'm a big theology nerd, but I'm also just a nerd in general. So I like video games and movies and fantasy and disc golf. I like all the, just if it's nerdy, like I like it full stop. So yeah, that's a little bit about me.
Nicki: Awesome. Well, with your background being in the Southeast and being part of conservative evangelicalism, what was the narrative that you were taught, whether implicitly or explicitly about Godde, yourself, and other people?
Jordan: I mean, I guess I could start by just saying that the, one of the nice things about conservative Christianity is that it's very explicit all the time. So like there wasn't a ton of implicit teachings that I like learned underneath the surface. A lot of it was very just like, “This is the way it is.” But you know, in terms of what I was taught about God, people, and myself, I think to start with God, I was taught in a lot of ways rightfully so that he was a loving father. And so that was like very foundational to my understanding. But he was also like a suffering savior, but then I was also taught that like he created a place called hell and that he sent the majority of people there, you know, for things they did wrong. And I guess that moves on to people, which I was taught from a very young age that people were not good in their core being. They start out, you start out not good. And I was also taught about myself that kind of same thing that, right, like that I had reasons to be ashamed. And I think some of that tracked, like, I think I was a selfish child, like a lot of, a lot of kids grow up selfishly and especially if you're, you know, well off and all that kind of stuff. And so I definitely could see that narrative fitting with my life. And so I just, like, I was like, “Oh, this is how the world works.” And yeah, so basically God was good. People were bad. And because I was people, I was bad, and I knew how bad I was. Right, cause I could point to all the things I'd done wrong in my life. So that's kinda like the ground level. I was taught pretty explicitly that like Jesus died for my sins and so that I could be forgiven of all that stuff. But yeah, I mean it was mostly explicit in terms of the things I was taught.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, I'm curious, two things. One, do you still use gendered language for Godde, he, and consider God father exclusively?
Jordan: Yeah. That's a really good question. I think in some ways because I am and was raised and brought up in like a Christian, specifically conservative Christian tradition, the image that comes to me when I think of a good God is still primarily father. And I think that's just like an internal bias that I have, you know, like I just associate like, you know, a good father figure with God or like a close friend in Jesus kind of thing. I really like the idea of just God as even a different type of being than we are. Right. Like that we can't contain within human terms. I like that idea. God is kind of ground of being rather than like a being, but I think my bias is God still, God is father. That's just like one of my favorite thinkers and philosophers, Peter Rollins, he says, you know, you don't always like, you know what you'd like to believe, but you don't always know exactly what you actually believe. And I think it's just like, it's just like a really honest perspective of just like, I'd like to believe X, Y, Z, but you know, like for example, I'd like to believe that maybe there's not a hell or something like that, but if I'm on my deathbed and I pray for God to save me from hell, well then I probably believe in hell. Even if like my whole life, I was like, “Oh, I don't really believe. I don't think hell is a real thing. I don't think you know, that that's what the Bible is saying,” or, you know, so I think it's kind of the same thing. It's just, you know, maybe I'd like to conceive of God in these higher ways or different ways or whatever, but I think I just do conceive of him right now. And that's just like a point of growth for me. You know.
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Second Segment
Nicki: My second question to you in light of what you shared about the narrative you were taught is what do you think it does to us to view ourselves and others primarily as bad?
Jordan: Yeah. I mean, to me, I think it's an, it seems like it'd be a Christian perspective right? To be like, you know, no one is, no one does good, not one, to quote straight from the scripture. But like to say that everybody starts out bad is Genesis three. It's not Genesis one. My favorite, one of my favorite teachers, Richard Rohr, says that a lot. It's like Genesis three, if you start at Genesis three, everybody's bad from the get-go. But like the book starts at Genesis one and it was very good, you know? And I just feel like if you start with man is an inherently evil, then what you inherit as like a, as a Christian perspective is primarily a worldview of fear. Like I started out eternally in the negative with God and if I don't get right with him, I'll spend the rest of eternity getting tortured, like for my depravity or whatever. And so the primary motivator for myself, and tons of people I knew and know that like got saved, was fear. Like that was the primary thing. It was just like, I don't want to die and like live this eternity of pain. And then that becomes the outlook for everything else. It's like, well, now I have like, I need to make sure that, like the world becomes a sinking ship, right, that like, we just have to save everybody. And if we don't, then they're gone too. And their blood is on our hands and it's just this like crazy bloodbath of a worldview that ends up just burning everybody out, you know? And like kind of brings the hell that we're like, like afraid of to the present day, you know? Like, we're like, we're worried about everybody going to hell all the time, but like, we'd also don't know how to tell them or when we do, they don't want it, and then our closest loved ones, it's just like this whole thing. So yeah, I'm kind of rambling at this point, but like, I think for me, it's that, that's what it does. It creates a primary worldview of fear rather than love. And I feel like, you know, there's a lot of biblical evidence for Christians being the ones who are against fear. Like that fear is the enemy. That fear is not a primary hermeneutic for us to operate within. But love is, and what does the Bible say about love other than it casts out fear, perfect love casts out fear. And so it's just like, I think when you start with we're all inherently sinful and evil, it just paints a worldview of fear.
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Third Segment
Nicki: Yeah. So being so entrenched in this worldview, in the narrative you were living in, what prompted you to begin having that broadened?
Jordan: I thought about this question a lot because I think before, we've talked about this before, and I think I've kind of said, “Oh, you know, I had this, I went to worship school with some people who really opened things up for me.” And, you know, I think that that was definitely like an inflection point where my horizons were broadened by people I trusted. But the more I really think about this question, I think actually one of the things that I've been learning and thinking about in terms of my own journey is that it's kind of baked into in some weird ways conservative Christianity, this idea like pay close attention. Like that was one of the things that I was explicitly taught, you know, pay really close attention to the scripture, like value the scripture, hold high the scripture like this, just, and one of my youth pastors would say, “Bring your Bible to church. Bring your Bible to youth group because I could be lying to you. I could be getting this thing completely wrong and you need to read it for yourself.” And I remember being in college and having a professor in theology and in hermeneutics saying the same thing, like, “I don't want to indoctrinate you. I want you to become a theologian. Like don't just drink from the faucet, like learn how to think for yourself and interpret this book and value this book and really get to the core of it.” And I think for me, if I'm just honest, I'm not like a rebel trying to go outside the lines. I'm not, you know, I didn't like go to this school and be like, “Oh, these guys have it.” You know, I think I just have always from a young age, for whatever reason, it's kind of wired into me, like I want to get right. There's something in me that wants to make, I want to, I want to be a true believer, you know, like I care about the truth of the thing. And that's why that community meant so much to me for so many years. Cause it was like, that's what they're about. And so I think for me, actually, the narrative was always broadening because it was about always learning more about God. Right. It was always about coming closer to who he is and who, and yeah. So I think it's, I've always been trying to expand my view of who God is and get it right. You know, and obviously I haven't got it right all the time, but, and I've had a lot of help along the way, but I think, you know, for me, it's that, that's what following Jesus is. It's constantly saying I'm not equipped enough in and of myself or in and of my circumstances to have the lock on this thing, you know, like, and if I think that I probably have an issue with pride and I've definitely been in a lot of those places in my life. Right. For many years I was definitely exactly what I don't want to be.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, could you talk a little bit more about your worship school experience?
Jordan: Totally. I think that's probably where it became the most tangible, because growing up in Southern Baptist world, you, if you're paying close attention in that world, you know exactly what to say and you know exactly the right doctrines and beliefs to herald and the ones to not talk about so much, you know, how to like, you know, how to get around in that world. And I just remember showing up at worship school, which was this, it was really just this group of people that were from all kinds of different faith backgrounds in terms of the, all still within Christianity, but just like, I mean, we had Methodists and Presbyterians and Southern Baptist and like we had Episcopals, which I grew up thinking, like thinking and being taught that Episcopals were basically not Christians, you know? So like we had all of these people and at the helm was one of my favorite teachers and worship leaders, Aaron Keyes, who kind of started in a conservative, slightly charismatic, but mostly conservative Christian realm. And he cared a lot about the Bible. He knew a lot about the Bible and when he led worship, he just spoke Bible. And so I trusted that because I was like, this lines up, you know, this guy, he knows the Bible well, I can trust him. His songs are, you know, they're just scripturally sound. And that was in an era when a lot of, there wasn't a lot of scripture in songs. And so it was like, I felt like I could trust him. And when I got there, you know, my indoctrination didn't work, you know, like I could say the right things, and it just like, it didn't, it didn't satisfy them in the same way. And they were, they'd be like, “Well, maybe, you know, but have you read this or have you checked this out?” And, you know, and they would challenge us to read books that we disagreed with. It was like, this is an idea that I never heard before. I’m 20 something, 22, 23. And until that moment, it was, you only read these authors. You only read the people within these circles cause the other guys are getting it wrong and you don't want to be exposed to that. And so they, but these guys at this worship school had this idea of the universe of Christian thought in which they basically said, like, there are all these people out in the world that love Jesus and are doing his work probably much more fervently than I am. And they think differently about God than I do and theology than I do. And why would I not listen to them? And that was a very compelling argument to me. I was like, you know, that's right. Like, like Jesus may not care about works to come to salvation, but he sure prepared them. And it's like, if there's these people out there doing them, you know, caring for the sick and the poor and the homeless, and they have ideas about God that are different than mine, like why wouldn't I listen to them? Cause I'm not doing those things, like I have something to learn from them and that's really what cracked things open in an immense way, I think. Yeah. I can talk more about that. There's a lot of things that they did that were, you know, you could tell, they weren't just towing the party line. They were really trying to get to the core of what the Bible was saying. And they were really doing their homework on it too. I mean, there were so many good resources. They were well-studied, they knew the opposing views to what they held and it was just, it seemed like every issue that they approached, they approached it with a critical mind thinking about all the angles and, you know, are we closest to the original meaning of the text here? And I valued that, you know? So yeah.
Nicki: Yeah. I was thinking about how the scriptures that are used about, well you don't want to be deceived, you know, and so many scriptures are lifted out and put on us to keep us from reading dissenting viewpoints within the Christian faith, but to be at a place where that wasn't the case seems to really have accelerated maybe your process that you were already on. But when along the way, did, you know, something has to change and how did you know that?
Jordan: For myself, like I was a worship leader at a church that valued that ministry highly in such a way that I had a lot of autonomy to make my own decisions as long as they didn't break specific theological guidelines. And I think I realized that things needed to start changing for me when I felt convicted that this particular person was gifted and called and able and ordained, you know, for ministry in this church, like ready to go, had everything they need to be more than a gift and like a tertiary theological issue would keep them from doing that. Mainly had to do with women in ministry. And that was something I ran into in worship leading just way too much, you know, where there are these incredibly gifted women worship leaders who, it wasn't just their voices or their musical ability, it was their ability to lead and speak like this true word and kind of usher the presence of God into a place. And they weren't allowed to do that, you know, and that really bugged me. And on top of that, I think I started to notice that our towing the party line, in terms of like just sticking to these authors, to these principles, to this very rigid system of theological like belief was driving people away from our church, people that I was close to, people that, and it wasn't just people that were my friends, like these were people who were doing things, you know, a lot of church life is people just showing up on Sunday and not like giving a rip, you know, like it's people that go to community group, they go on Sunday morning, and then they, you know, but the people that were leaving were people that were like actionable in the kingdom of God, like they were doing things that mattered for God's kingdom in terms of like the basics and beyond that. And it was those people that we were hemorrhaging and losing. And so I think it was a combination of those two things where I was like, “Okay, I can't, and I can't let the gifts of, you know, different people in the church flourish like I want them to, like, I can't give them a platform to allow that, and at the same time, people not in my area of ministry are leaving for just seemingly no reason.” And obviously there was a reason, but that's kind of when I realized, like, I can't just, this can't just be like a cool thing that I listen to in podcasts like when I'm at my other job, right. Like this can't just be something that's in the world of my head anymore, but I didn't really know how to reconcile that either because I, it was the only thing I knew how to do was work at a Southern Baptist church and, you know, challenging some of these lines were detrimental or would put my job like in jeopardy. So yeah, I wasn't, I knew things needed change, but I didn't know how to do that.
Nicki: Yeah. I'm curious, where do you think you would be now if you hadn't taken action based on what you were learning?
Jordan: Yeah. I mean, I think the obvious answer is still right where I was, you know, right. Like, I think it's, in some ways it's easier, right, to just live within those boundaries and to just, you know, to just have a comfortable, like, valued position in the small community that you're a part of. And I mean, I did that for years. Right. Like I knew, oh, if you play the hymn that is really dense theologically, they're going to love you for it. You know? And if you play the songs that are really wordy, they're going to love you for it. You know? Cause that's that kind of community that is there. And if you don't challenge where they are, then they are just going to feel really safe around you and they're going to value you, you know? And so I think I would probably still be there. You know, I, was a worship leader for 10 years and it's a really good gig, you know, like it's not hard work and you get a lot of praise and you have a lot of power in the community that you're in and it's not, yeah, it's an easy, in a lot of ways it's an easy job. So, yeah, I don't think, I think I would be right where I was. And I think in a lot of ways I would be fine. Right. You know, I would still have my community. I would still have the, I would still be seen as somebody who really understands and knows, you know. I'd be right in the middle of the fold of the community.
Nicki: So as you've stepped out of those boundaries, what has it been like for you broadening the narratives you were taught about so many different things?
Jordan: In many ways, freeing, right, like for the first time to just be able to say, “I don't need the validation of this community to stand on in terms of my relationship with God or my value as a person.” And I think that's one of the biggest things, but that also comes at the cost of, in just the day to day and the, there's still a lot of loss, you know, and it's not easy. Like, I from a very young age, I knew I'm going to be a worship leader. This is my calling. And I really enjoy like finding those songs that speak to the moment and, you know, I'll just never get to do that again in the same way, and so it's like, I lost that. There's a lot of loss, too, in terms of like community. It's almost like you just, you get knocked off of whatever notch you were at with different people. So it's like, if you were close friends with people that are still in this group, you might still be friends, but you're not close friends anymore. And then if you were friends with somebody in that, you know, X, Y, Z group, you get knocked to acquaintance and so on, and from acquaintance to enemy and so on and so forth. And so it's like this just weird estrangement that happens. And it, I don't even blame the community for that. Like, I was a part of that community for years and participated in that way of life, you know, when other people left. So I get it, but it is, it hasn't been easy, but it has been freeing, which I think is part of what being a Christian is supposed to be.
Transition Music
Fourth Segment
Nicki: I can definitely affirm your gifts for leading in worship. And it was such a delight to be led in worship by you for so long. So I like, I want to hold your story and grieve with you the loss that I know you're experiencing, that you have experienced.
Jordan: Thanks for saying that, Nicki.
Nicki: Yeah. So I sent you a podcast episode from the Church Hurts podcast, and it was called “Naming Spiritual Abuse,” and KJ Ramsey was the guest on the episode. So I wanted to read a part of that to you and ask a question to you about it. Yeah.
Jordan: Go for it.
Nicki: So KJ Ramsey explained what's meant by spiritual abuse is what we often call church hurt. And she said, “I find it incredibly important to introduce the term spiritual abuse so that we can see and name rightly what happens to our whole selves in systems that treat people more like products or objects than people...Abuse in general, I believe, is any diminishment of personhood that happens in relationship. I don’t think most pastors or leaders would say they see people as products, but what happens is that we become so fixated on growth and so locked into rhythms of rushing, hurrying, that we can’t actually as leaders be present with our people in a way that honors their humanity.” So I sent that to you, and we talked about it, and you said you were still processing what you went through being part of a system that could maybe improve in these ways. So how have you been processing your experiences in the church now after listening?
Jordan: I'll just start by saying like, I suffered from church hurt, you know, and you might call it spiritual abuse. But when I think about the broader context of like, if you're a minister in a church context and you start having some of these doubts like I was having in terms of just like, maybe there's more than just Southern Baptist Christianity, maybe, you know, I can still believe that like, Jesus is Lord, but maybe I believe something different about all of these other things, but, and there's a sense that like, if you go off on that path and you're a minister, well, say goodbye to like your livelihood, say goodbye to, you know, your community, say goodbye to all of these things. And so I think there was like a long time where I suffered from like, just like paranoia of like, “Oh, what if, you know, what if my pastor sees this podcast on my computer? Or like, what if, you know, what if I can't tow the line anymore, or like hold my tongue about this issue, like what is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to my family?” And because of that, I think, you know, like if leaders in our previous church context were listening, they'd be like, “What is he talking about? Like, he didn't suffer at all,” you know. And I think that's like, that's a fair perspective for them to think, because I couldn't talk about it, you know, like I couldn't bring it up with them cause they're the ones that could have, that would have ended things. And ultimately, you know, if I had not decided to walk away, they would have ended it, you know, and I knew as much. And we started out the whole thing with that understanding, it’s like these are the things that matter to us. As long as we're in agreement, everything is okay. And in that way, the system of the church I feel like is abusive because it requires people to hold a party line, hold a specific set of beliefs. And if they doubt, like, we'll say up and down the pulpit, like all day long, like it's okay to have doubts. We'll say it in our groups that we meet together in, that it's okay to have doubts, but there's always this nagging, like, this like addendum of, but you better come back and you better come back to believe exactly the right way, or there's really at that point, then you're kind of wandering outside the fold and you need to be like disciplined back into the fold or whatever, like you need to come back to right belief. And so the church becomes this like big brother policing of, “Do you believe the thing?” And it is no longer a community that is there to like build up one another in love when you're genuinely trying to seek out who God is. So I mean, I think that to be fair, like if I wasn't in a leadership position at our church, it would have been maybe a little bit different, but I just think that, you know, for church leaders and lay people alike, that the system of the church is just, it's abusive if you are, if you stray even close to the edges of what kind of define the community in terms of belief.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, as I read that one part about, you know, abuse in general is any diminishment of personhood that happens in relationship, and I think about if you have to fit into this box to be a part of this community, then that takes away the agency of people and infringes on their God-given right to their own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions, and it’s really an invasion of their boundaries to say that to someone. And then you brought up like, you know, the system, and it's like, I think any system that puts power into the hands of people who then can act on that to excommunicate someone is dangerous because even the most well-intentioned people, if they've set up a system and they want to maintain that, then they're going to see anything that dissents from that as a threat and an attack, and under the guise of, “I want to protect the sheep,” it really becomes about protecting the system.
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like just to go back to the beginning a little bit, like this is another one of those unfortunate side effects of the fear-based worldview, right? This is like the primary lens of the leadership is protect the people from hell, like protect the people from fiery damnation because, you know, and if it comes down to this one person over here is way outside the lines, and, you know, we love them and we're concerned for them, but like, if it's them against, that one person against the rest of the flock that they like, then they could drag down with them or whatever, like, sorry, man, like, you know, just it's, we're picking them. Which is ironic, right, because of Jesus' parable about the one and the 99, but, you know, but that's, it's like an unfortunate side effect of fear. It's just like, it hits at every level, you know, and I mean, I think too, I definitely played into that system of abuse, right, like I'm complicit in, I mean, I remember there being staff meetings where we, I mean, we just constantly talked about, like, we didn't have enough people to serve and the conversation was always around how we could get bodies to serve, you know, and that's just like such raw objectification of people. And, you know, and I was a part of that. So I can't say that, you know, I wasn't complicit with, you know, my silence, but also my participation. But that doesn't mean either that I wasn't like affected by it negatively myself, you know, so yeah, it's yeah.
Nicki: Yeah. And I would say I helped maintain the system, too, for a long time. And I just think, again, what does it do to us as people to look at someone else and say you're no longer a part of the fold and what does that communicate to the hurting sheep that you can no longer fellowship with us, and yeah, how antithetical to the gospel of grace and to the Jesus who draws near to the suffering, right, because people who are doubting and who are hurting, don't need us kicking them out while they're hurting. That just seems-
Jordan: Right. Well, and to be, you know, I mean, in some ways, like to be fair to them, it's like that church context would probably say like, “Oh no, like we totally agree with that. Like, if you're hurting, if you're doubting for whatever, like be here,” you just can't be in leadership and be there. Right. And to me, like, I get how on one level that makes sense, and that's like, yeah, if you're the leader, you don't want to be in this like toxic place or this like just this broken, messed up place or whatever. But like that would seem to make common sense, and you could probably even proof text some New Testament to like, to prove that point or whatever. But, you know, to me, it's like the overarching narrative of the story of the Bible is that those who are not equipped or able to lead are the ones who God chooses and calls to lead. You know, it's the weak that are supposed to be the ones leading. And it's that upside down kingdom narrative that is so revolutionary to like our understanding and our worldview and whatever. And so yeah, I just, it didn't square with me. Like if I'm in your eyes in a weak place, you know, label it in whatever way you want to, whether it's theologically, like emotionally, mentally, like ablely, like just with my gifts then, like that should qualify me, you know, not disqualify me, but it did like, it disqualified me it from, in their eyes, because I didn't, I no longer was strong in their eyes. So it's just, it's a weird, and when you're in it, you totally understand it. And it, everything makes sense, you know.
Nicki: Yeah. I love how you brought up, like, you can go grab Bible verses to prove this point, but I think of the late Rachel Held Evans and how she talked about, you can go to the Bible and find verses to use as weapons against people, or you can go and you can find balm to bring for healing for people. So it's like, how do you want to use the Bible or what we call the Bible? And then it gets into this whole, what is the Bible? And are we trying to make it be something that the writers weren't even trying to make it be, which is a whole other conversation. But when you mentioned, like, just being, if you're in leadership and you're in a place where you're having all these doubts and therefore then you can't do X, Y, and Z if it's known, I, it makes me think about in that same episode of the Church Hurts podcast, when Josh McLemore said, “If you make a misstep [when you work in a toxic church environment], it’s not just that you’ll lose your job, [if you’re working there], it’s that you’ll lose your community, that supposedly should be the thing you can lean on.” And so you alluded to this already, but could you talk more about how you relate to that statement?
Jordan: I literally had never done anything in my life as an adult other than work in church ministry in Southern Baptist churches. So it was like the only thing that I could conceivably do to provide for my family was this. And so it was like, this is a major piece of that that would be lost if I, you know, if I was to follow through with my convictions, but it's, but yeah, but that's kind of an aside to just say that you don't lose your community immediately when you're in a position like I was and you leave because everybody kind of sugarcoats it to make it feel better on both ends. Right? Like if you're not really close to the conflict of what caused the loss of, you know, us at the church, then everybody kind of talks about it like it was, “Oh, it was a minor difference of opinion. It was just, you know, they were, they're going to be moving on.” It's just these kind of weird, like just niceties of you just kind of say it so that everybody can feel better and move on. And so in a lot of ways, like a lot of these people are still close friends and things like that and theological decisions and convictions that I had, they weren't like tangible to that community. Right. It was just like, “Oh, Jordan has to leave.” That was the most tangible piece of it. And more recently we have taken some steps in terms of ministry that have caused people to see how stark a difference in belief we have. And that's really where the loss has come, and it's almost a year after we left the church. So, you know, we have some really close friends who are, who have been good to us, who were, who we love, and they couldn't find anybody to marry them. And they're, you know, they're a gay couple. And everything that I can read is that this is my calling, and so we did that, and that was really the moment. It was like there were a lot of little moments that built up to this, but that was kind of the moment where we felt the door shut from that previous community of just absolute, from before it was like, “Oh, well, he’s in a different place in Christianity, and he’s kind of, you know, he can’t be here anymore in leadership because we’re pretty conservative, and we get that,” but, and it went from that of like, “Well, Jordan’s outside the church, but he’s still like a friend and around,” and it moved to, you know, this kind of implicit like, “Jordan is outside the fold of Christianity.” And that might sound like something that’s not that big of a deal to somebody like me or people like us where we are kind of outside of the fold in a lot of ways, but the way that it plays out in real life is just that people don’t talk to you, you know, or you get whispers that people are concerned about you, but they don’t come, and they don’t want to talk to you, you know, and they definitely don’t want to hang out with you anymore, and the even harder part about it is like you don’t even know who they are. You don’t even know who it is. You just know that nobody is, and maybe you reach out, and, you know, somebody, maybe you don’t hear anything back. It’s just a weird kind of, there’s these certain things that it’s like if you make an actionable decision on this theological difference, like you’re out, you know. It’s like three strikes in one, you’re out. So it has not been easy on us to say the least, even though it’s like we would make the same decisions over again, you know, in a heartbeat, for the people that we are supporting and for like the reasons that we want to follow Jesus, like we think it’s right, you know, the right thing to do, but yeah, it’s definitely, you do, you lose pretty much everything that you had. It’s a whole different life now for us, so, and you guys understand that.
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Fifth Segment
Jordan: Oh, well, thanks, Nicki. I am very just moved by your words and thank you for valuing my voice as well and just giving me an opportunity to talk about my story. Yeah. Thanks.
Nicki: Yeah. I mean, I know we kind of have talked about this before, but like how in our circles, like men and women, it's weird to be friends with each other, but I'm just like, I'm just so happy when I get to talk to Jordan. So I'm really happy to get to talk with you. So.
Jordan: Well the feeling is mutual.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, let's jump in. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?
Jordan: Sure. So, I am 30 years old and I am married to Danielle, like Nicki already said, and we have one almost one year old. I grew up in the Southeast. I've always lived in the Southeast, and I kind of grew up as a conservative, evangelical Christian in a Southern Baptist church. And yeah, that's kind of a little bit of my backstory. I like a lot of different things. I'm a big theology nerd, but I'm also just a nerd in general. So I like video games and movies and fantasy and disc golf. I like all the, just if it's nerdy, like I like it full stop. So yeah, that's a little bit about me.
Nicki: Awesome. Well, with your background being in the Southeast and being part of conservative evangelicalism, what was the narrative that you were taught, whether implicitly or explicitly about Godde, yourself, and other people?
Jordan: I mean, I guess I could start by just saying that the, one of the nice things about conservative Christianity is that it's very explicit all the time. So like there wasn't a ton of implicit teachings that I like learned underneath the surface. A lot of it was very just like, “This is the way it is.” But you know, in terms of what I was taught about God, people, and myself, I think to start with God, I was taught in a lot of ways rightfully so that he was a loving father. And so that was like very foundational to my understanding. But he was also like a suffering savior, but then I was also taught that like he created a place called hell and that he sent the majority of people there, you know, for things they did wrong. And I guess that moves on to people, which I was taught from a very young age that people were not good in their core being. They start out, you start out not good. And I was also taught about myself that kind of same thing that, right, like that I had reasons to be ashamed. And I think some of that tracked, like, I think I was a selfish child, like a lot of, a lot of kids grow up selfishly and especially if you're, you know, well off and all that kind of stuff. And so I definitely could see that narrative fitting with my life. And so I just, like, I was like, “Oh, this is how the world works.” And yeah, so basically God was good. People were bad. And because I was people, I was bad, and I knew how bad I was. Right, cause I could point to all the things I'd done wrong in my life. So that's kinda like the ground level. I was taught pretty explicitly that like Jesus died for my sins and so that I could be forgiven of all that stuff. But yeah, I mean it was mostly explicit in terms of the things I was taught.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, I'm curious, two things. One, do you still use gendered language for Godde, he, and consider God father exclusively?
Jordan: Yeah. That's a really good question. I think in some ways because I am and was raised and brought up in like a Christian, specifically conservative Christian tradition, the image that comes to me when I think of a good God is still primarily father. And I think that's just like an internal bias that I have, you know, like I just associate like, you know, a good father figure with God or like a close friend in Jesus kind of thing. I really like the idea of just God as even a different type of being than we are. Right. Like that we can't contain within human terms. I like that idea. God is kind of ground of being rather than like a being, but I think my bias is God still, God is father. That's just like one of my favorite thinkers and philosophers, Peter Rollins, he says, you know, you don't always like, you know what you'd like to believe, but you don't always know exactly what you actually believe. And I think it's just like, it's just like a really honest perspective of just like, I'd like to believe X, Y, Z, but you know, like for example, I'd like to believe that maybe there's not a hell or something like that, but if I'm on my deathbed and I pray for God to save me from hell, well then I probably believe in hell. Even if like my whole life, I was like, “Oh, I don't really believe. I don't think hell is a real thing. I don't think you know, that that's what the Bible is saying,” or, you know, so I think it's kind of the same thing. It's just, you know, maybe I'd like to conceive of God in these higher ways or different ways or whatever, but I think I just do conceive of him right now. And that's just like a point of growth for me. You know.
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Second Segment
Nicki: My second question to you in light of what you shared about the narrative you were taught is what do you think it does to us to view ourselves and others primarily as bad?
Jordan: Yeah. I mean, to me, I think it's an, it seems like it'd be a Christian perspective right? To be like, you know, no one is, no one does good, not one, to quote straight from the scripture. But like to say that everybody starts out bad is Genesis three. It's not Genesis one. My favorite, one of my favorite teachers, Richard Rohr, says that a lot. It's like Genesis three, if you start at Genesis three, everybody's bad from the get-go. But like the book starts at Genesis one and it was very good, you know? And I just feel like if you start with man is an inherently evil, then what you inherit as like a, as a Christian perspective is primarily a worldview of fear. Like I started out eternally in the negative with God and if I don't get right with him, I'll spend the rest of eternity getting tortured, like for my depravity or whatever. And so the primary motivator for myself, and tons of people I knew and know that like got saved, was fear. Like that was the primary thing. It was just like, I don't want to die and like live this eternity of pain. And then that becomes the outlook for everything else. It's like, well, now I have like, I need to make sure that, like the world becomes a sinking ship, right, that like, we just have to save everybody. And if we don't, then they're gone too. And their blood is on our hands and it's just this like crazy bloodbath of a worldview that ends up just burning everybody out, you know? And like kind of brings the hell that we're like, like afraid of to the present day, you know? Like, we're like, we're worried about everybody going to hell all the time, but like, we'd also don't know how to tell them or when we do, they don't want it, and then our closest loved ones, it's just like this whole thing. So yeah, I'm kind of rambling at this point, but like, I think for me, it's that, that's what it does. It creates a primary worldview of fear rather than love. And I feel like, you know, there's a lot of biblical evidence for Christians being the ones who are against fear. Like that fear is the enemy. That fear is not a primary hermeneutic for us to operate within. But love is, and what does the Bible say about love other than it casts out fear, perfect love casts out fear. And so it's just like, I think when you start with we're all inherently sinful and evil, it just paints a worldview of fear.
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Third Segment
Nicki: Yeah. So being so entrenched in this worldview, in the narrative you were living in, what prompted you to begin having that broadened?
Jordan: I thought about this question a lot because I think before, we've talked about this before, and I think I've kind of said, “Oh, you know, I had this, I went to worship school with some people who really opened things up for me.” And, you know, I think that that was definitely like an inflection point where my horizons were broadened by people I trusted. But the more I really think about this question, I think actually one of the things that I've been learning and thinking about in terms of my own journey is that it's kind of baked into in some weird ways conservative Christianity, this idea like pay close attention. Like that was one of the things that I was explicitly taught, you know, pay really close attention to the scripture, like value the scripture, hold high the scripture like this, just, and one of my youth pastors would say, “Bring your Bible to church. Bring your Bible to youth group because I could be lying to you. I could be getting this thing completely wrong and you need to read it for yourself.” And I remember being in college and having a professor in theology and in hermeneutics saying the same thing, like, “I don't want to indoctrinate you. I want you to become a theologian. Like don't just drink from the faucet, like learn how to think for yourself and interpret this book and value this book and really get to the core of it.” And I think for me, if I'm just honest, I'm not like a rebel trying to go outside the lines. I'm not, you know, I didn't like go to this school and be like, “Oh, these guys have it.” You know, I think I just have always from a young age, for whatever reason, it's kind of wired into me, like I want to get right. There's something in me that wants to make, I want to, I want to be a true believer, you know, like I care about the truth of the thing. And that's why that community meant so much to me for so many years. Cause it was like, that's what they're about. And so I think for me, actually, the narrative was always broadening because it was about always learning more about God. Right. It was always about coming closer to who he is and who, and yeah. So I think it's, I've always been trying to expand my view of who God is and get it right. You know, and obviously I haven't got it right all the time, but, and I've had a lot of help along the way, but I think, you know, for me, it's that, that's what following Jesus is. It's constantly saying I'm not equipped enough in and of myself or in and of my circumstances to have the lock on this thing, you know, like, and if I think that I probably have an issue with pride and I've definitely been in a lot of those places in my life. Right. For many years I was definitely exactly what I don't want to be.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, could you talk a little bit more about your worship school experience?
Jordan: Totally. I think that's probably where it became the most tangible, because growing up in Southern Baptist world, you, if you're paying close attention in that world, you know exactly what to say and you know exactly the right doctrines and beliefs to herald and the ones to not talk about so much, you know, how to like, you know, how to get around in that world. And I just remember showing up at worship school, which was this, it was really just this group of people that were from all kinds of different faith backgrounds in terms of the, all still within Christianity, but just like, I mean, we had Methodists and Presbyterians and Southern Baptist and like we had Episcopals, which I grew up thinking, like thinking and being taught that Episcopals were basically not Christians, you know? So like we had all of these people and at the helm was one of my favorite teachers and worship leaders, Aaron Keyes, who kind of started in a conservative, slightly charismatic, but mostly conservative Christian realm. And he cared a lot about the Bible. He knew a lot about the Bible and when he led worship, he just spoke Bible. And so I trusted that because I was like, this lines up, you know, this guy, he knows the Bible well, I can trust him. His songs are, you know, they're just scripturally sound. And that was in an era when a lot of, there wasn't a lot of scripture in songs. And so it was like, I felt like I could trust him. And when I got there, you know, my indoctrination didn't work, you know, like I could say the right things, and it just like, it didn't, it didn't satisfy them in the same way. And they were, they'd be like, “Well, maybe, you know, but have you read this or have you checked this out?” And, you know, and they would challenge us to read books that we disagreed with. It was like, this is an idea that I never heard before. I’m 20 something, 22, 23. And until that moment, it was, you only read these authors. You only read the people within these circles cause the other guys are getting it wrong and you don't want to be exposed to that. And so they, but these guys at this worship school had this idea of the universe of Christian thought in which they basically said, like, there are all these people out in the world that love Jesus and are doing his work probably much more fervently than I am. And they think differently about God than I do and theology than I do. And why would I not listen to them? And that was a very compelling argument to me. I was like, you know, that's right. Like, like Jesus may not care about works to come to salvation, but he sure prepared them. And it's like, if there's these people out there doing them, you know, caring for the sick and the poor and the homeless, and they have ideas about God that are different than mine, like why wouldn't I listen to them? Cause I'm not doing those things, like I have something to learn from them and that's really what cracked things open in an immense way, I think. Yeah. I can talk more about that. There's a lot of things that they did that were, you know, you could tell, they weren't just towing the party line. They were really trying to get to the core of what the Bible was saying. And they were really doing their homework on it too. I mean, there were so many good resources. They were well-studied, they knew the opposing views to what they held and it was just, it seemed like every issue that they approached, they approached it with a critical mind thinking about all the angles and, you know, are we closest to the original meaning of the text here? And I valued that, you know? So yeah.
Nicki: Yeah. I was thinking about how the scriptures that are used about, well you don't want to be deceived, you know, and so many scriptures are lifted out and put on us to keep us from reading dissenting viewpoints within the Christian faith, but to be at a place where that wasn't the case seems to really have accelerated maybe your process that you were already on. But when along the way, did, you know, something has to change and how did you know that?
Jordan: For myself, like I was a worship leader at a church that valued that ministry highly in such a way that I had a lot of autonomy to make my own decisions as long as they didn't break specific theological guidelines. And I think I realized that things needed to start changing for me when I felt convicted that this particular person was gifted and called and able and ordained, you know, for ministry in this church, like ready to go, had everything they need to be more than a gift and like a tertiary theological issue would keep them from doing that. Mainly had to do with women in ministry. And that was something I ran into in worship leading just way too much, you know, where there are these incredibly gifted women worship leaders who, it wasn't just their voices or their musical ability, it was their ability to lead and speak like this true word and kind of usher the presence of God into a place. And they weren't allowed to do that, you know, and that really bugged me. And on top of that, I think I started to notice that our towing the party line, in terms of like just sticking to these authors, to these principles, to this very rigid system of theological like belief was driving people away from our church, people that I was close to, people that, and it wasn't just people that were my friends, like these were people who were doing things, you know, a lot of church life is people just showing up on Sunday and not like giving a rip, you know, like it's people that go to community group, they go on Sunday morning, and then they, you know, but the people that were leaving were people that were like actionable in the kingdom of God, like they were doing things that mattered for God's kingdom in terms of like the basics and beyond that. And it was those people that we were hemorrhaging and losing. And so I think it was a combination of those two things where I was like, “Okay, I can't, and I can't let the gifts of, you know, different people in the church flourish like I want them to, like, I can't give them a platform to allow that, and at the same time, people not in my area of ministry are leaving for just seemingly no reason.” And obviously there was a reason, but that's kind of when I realized, like, I can't just, this can't just be like a cool thing that I listen to in podcasts like when I'm at my other job, right. Like this can't just be something that's in the world of my head anymore, but I didn't really know how to reconcile that either because I, it was the only thing I knew how to do was work at a Southern Baptist church and, you know, challenging some of these lines were detrimental or would put my job like in jeopardy. So yeah, I wasn't, I knew things needed change, but I didn't know how to do that.
Nicki: Yeah. I'm curious, where do you think you would be now if you hadn't taken action based on what you were learning?
Jordan: Yeah. I mean, I think the obvious answer is still right where I was, you know, right. Like, I think it's, in some ways it's easier, right, to just live within those boundaries and to just, you know, to just have a comfortable, like, valued position in the small community that you're a part of. And I mean, I did that for years. Right. Like I knew, oh, if you play the hymn that is really dense theologically, they're going to love you for it. You know? And if you play the songs that are really wordy, they're going to love you for it. You know? Cause that's that kind of community that is there. And if you don't challenge where they are, then they are just going to feel really safe around you and they're going to value you, you know? And so I think I would probably still be there. You know, I, was a worship leader for 10 years and it's a really good gig, you know, like it's not hard work and you get a lot of praise and you have a lot of power in the community that you're in and it's not, yeah, it's an easy, in a lot of ways it's an easy job. So, yeah, I don't think, I think I would be right where I was. And I think in a lot of ways I would be fine. Right. You know, I would still have my community. I would still have the, I would still be seen as somebody who really understands and knows, you know. I'd be right in the middle of the fold of the community.
Nicki: So as you've stepped out of those boundaries, what has it been like for you broadening the narratives you were taught about so many different things?
Jordan: In many ways, freeing, right, like for the first time to just be able to say, “I don't need the validation of this community to stand on in terms of my relationship with God or my value as a person.” And I think that's one of the biggest things, but that also comes at the cost of, in just the day to day and the, there's still a lot of loss, you know, and it's not easy. Like, I from a very young age, I knew I'm going to be a worship leader. This is my calling. And I really enjoy like finding those songs that speak to the moment and, you know, I'll just never get to do that again in the same way, and so it's like, I lost that. There's a lot of loss, too, in terms of like community. It's almost like you just, you get knocked off of whatever notch you were at with different people. So it's like, if you were close friends with people that are still in this group, you might still be friends, but you're not close friends anymore. And then if you were friends with somebody in that, you know, X, Y, Z group, you get knocked to acquaintance and so on, and from acquaintance to enemy and so on and so forth. And so it's like this just weird estrangement that happens. And it, I don't even blame the community for that. Like, I was a part of that community for years and participated in that way of life, you know, when other people left. So I get it, but it is, it hasn't been easy, but it has been freeing, which I think is part of what being a Christian is supposed to be.
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Fourth Segment
Nicki: I can definitely affirm your gifts for leading in worship. And it was such a delight to be led in worship by you for so long. So I like, I want to hold your story and grieve with you the loss that I know you're experiencing, that you have experienced.
Jordan: Thanks for saying that, Nicki.
Nicki: Yeah. So I sent you a podcast episode from the Church Hurts podcast, and it was called “Naming Spiritual Abuse,” and KJ Ramsey was the guest on the episode. So I wanted to read a part of that to you and ask a question to you about it. Yeah.
Jordan: Go for it.
Nicki: So KJ Ramsey explained what's meant by spiritual abuse is what we often call church hurt. And she said, “I find it incredibly important to introduce the term spiritual abuse so that we can see and name rightly what happens to our whole selves in systems that treat people more like products or objects than people...Abuse in general, I believe, is any diminishment of personhood that happens in relationship. I don’t think most pastors or leaders would say they see people as products, but what happens is that we become so fixated on growth and so locked into rhythms of rushing, hurrying, that we can’t actually as leaders be present with our people in a way that honors their humanity.” So I sent that to you, and we talked about it, and you said you were still processing what you went through being part of a system that could maybe improve in these ways. So how have you been processing your experiences in the church now after listening?
Jordan: I'll just start by saying like, I suffered from church hurt, you know, and you might call it spiritual abuse. But when I think about the broader context of like, if you're a minister in a church context and you start having some of these doubts like I was having in terms of just like, maybe there's more than just Southern Baptist Christianity, maybe, you know, I can still believe that like, Jesus is Lord, but maybe I believe something different about all of these other things, but, and there's a sense that like, if you go off on that path and you're a minister, well, say goodbye to like your livelihood, say goodbye to, you know, your community, say goodbye to all of these things. And so I think there was like a long time where I suffered from like, just like paranoia of like, “Oh, what if, you know, what if my pastor sees this podcast on my computer? Or like, what if, you know, what if I can't tow the line anymore, or like hold my tongue about this issue, like what is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to my family?” And because of that, I think, you know, like if leaders in our previous church context were listening, they'd be like, “What is he talking about? Like, he didn't suffer at all,” you know. And I think that's like, that's a fair perspective for them to think, because I couldn't talk about it, you know, like I couldn't bring it up with them cause they're the ones that could have, that would have ended things. And ultimately, you know, if I had not decided to walk away, they would have ended it, you know, and I knew as much. And we started out the whole thing with that understanding, it’s like these are the things that matter to us. As long as we're in agreement, everything is okay. And in that way, the system of the church I feel like is abusive because it requires people to hold a party line, hold a specific set of beliefs. And if they doubt, like, we'll say up and down the pulpit, like all day long, like it's okay to have doubts. We'll say it in our groups that we meet together in, that it's okay to have doubts, but there's always this nagging, like, this like addendum of, but you better come back and you better come back to believe exactly the right way, or there's really at that point, then you're kind of wandering outside the fold and you need to be like disciplined back into the fold or whatever, like you need to come back to right belief. And so the church becomes this like big brother policing of, “Do you believe the thing?” And it is no longer a community that is there to like build up one another in love when you're genuinely trying to seek out who God is. So I mean, I think that to be fair, like if I wasn't in a leadership position at our church, it would have been maybe a little bit different, but I just think that, you know, for church leaders and lay people alike, that the system of the church is just, it's abusive if you are, if you stray even close to the edges of what kind of define the community in terms of belief.
Nicki: Yeah. Well, as I read that one part about, you know, abuse in general is any diminishment of personhood that happens in relationship, and I think about if you have to fit into this box to be a part of this community, then that takes away the agency of people and infringes on their God-given right to their own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions, and it’s really an invasion of their boundaries to say that to someone. And then you brought up like, you know, the system, and it's like, I think any system that puts power into the hands of people who then can act on that to excommunicate someone is dangerous because even the most well-intentioned people, if they've set up a system and they want to maintain that, then they're going to see anything that dissents from that as a threat and an attack, and under the guise of, “I want to protect the sheep,” it really becomes about protecting the system.
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like just to go back to the beginning a little bit, like this is another one of those unfortunate side effects of the fear-based worldview, right? This is like the primary lens of the leadership is protect the people from hell, like protect the people from fiery damnation because, you know, and if it comes down to this one person over here is way outside the lines, and, you know, we love them and we're concerned for them, but like, if it's them against, that one person against the rest of the flock that they like, then they could drag down with them or whatever, like, sorry, man, like, you know, just it's, we're picking them. Which is ironic, right, because of Jesus' parable about the one and the 99, but, you know, but that's, it's like an unfortunate side effect of fear. It's just like, it hits at every level, you know, and I mean, I think too, I definitely played into that system of abuse, right, like I'm complicit in, I mean, I remember there being staff meetings where we, I mean, we just constantly talked about, like, we didn't have enough people to serve and the conversation was always around how we could get bodies to serve, you know, and that's just like such raw objectification of people. And, you know, and I was a part of that. So I can't say that, you know, I wasn't complicit with, you know, my silence, but also my participation. But that doesn't mean either that I wasn't like affected by it negatively myself, you know, so yeah, it's yeah.
Nicki: Yeah. And I would say I helped maintain the system, too, for a long time. And I just think, again, what does it do to us as people to look at someone else and say you're no longer a part of the fold and what does that communicate to the hurting sheep that you can no longer fellowship with us, and yeah, how antithetical to the gospel of grace and to the Jesus who draws near to the suffering, right, because people who are doubting and who are hurting, don't need us kicking them out while they're hurting. That just seems-
Jordan: Right. Well, and to be, you know, I mean, in some ways, like to be fair to them, it's like that church context would probably say like, “Oh no, like we totally agree with that. Like, if you're hurting, if you're doubting for whatever, like be here,” you just can't be in leadership and be there. Right. And to me, like, I get how on one level that makes sense, and that's like, yeah, if you're the leader, you don't want to be in this like toxic place or this like just this broken, messed up place or whatever. But like that would seem to make common sense, and you could probably even proof text some New Testament to like, to prove that point or whatever. But, you know, to me, it's like the overarching narrative of the story of the Bible is that those who are not equipped or able to lead are the ones who God chooses and calls to lead. You know, it's the weak that are supposed to be the ones leading. And it's that upside down kingdom narrative that is so revolutionary to like our understanding and our worldview and whatever. And so yeah, I just, it didn't square with me. Like if I'm in your eyes in a weak place, you know, label it in whatever way you want to, whether it's theologically, like emotionally, mentally, like ablely, like just with my gifts then, like that should qualify me, you know, not disqualify me, but it did like, it disqualified me it from, in their eyes, because I didn't, I no longer was strong in their eyes. So it's just, it's a weird, and when you're in it, you totally understand it. And it, everything makes sense, you know.
Nicki: Yeah. I love how you brought up, like, you can go grab Bible verses to prove this point, but I think of the late Rachel Held Evans and how she talked about, you can go to the Bible and find verses to use as weapons against people, or you can go and you can find balm to bring for healing for people. So it's like, how do you want to use the Bible or what we call the Bible? And then it gets into this whole, what is the Bible? And are we trying to make it be something that the writers weren't even trying to make it be, which is a whole other conversation. But when you mentioned, like, just being, if you're in leadership and you're in a place where you're having all these doubts and therefore then you can't do X, Y, and Z if it's known, I, it makes me think about in that same episode of the Church Hurts podcast, when Josh McLemore said, “If you make a misstep [when you work in a toxic church environment], it’s not just that you’ll lose your job, [if you’re working there], it’s that you’ll lose your community, that supposedly should be the thing you can lean on.” And so you alluded to this already, but could you talk more about how you relate to that statement?
Jordan: I literally had never done anything in my life as an adult other than work in church ministry in Southern Baptist churches. So it was like the only thing that I could conceivably do to provide for my family was this. And so it was like, this is a major piece of that that would be lost if I, you know, if I was to follow through with my convictions, but it's, but yeah, but that's kind of an aside to just say that you don't lose your community immediately when you're in a position like I was and you leave because everybody kind of sugarcoats it to make it feel better on both ends. Right? Like if you're not really close to the conflict of what caused the loss of, you know, us at the church, then everybody kind of talks about it like it was, “Oh, it was a minor difference of opinion. It was just, you know, they were, they're going to be moving on.” It's just these kind of weird, like just niceties of you just kind of say it so that everybody can feel better and move on. And so in a lot of ways, like a lot of these people are still close friends and things like that and theological decisions and convictions that I had, they weren't like tangible to that community. Right. It was just like, “Oh, Jordan has to leave.” That was the most tangible piece of it. And more recently we have taken some steps in terms of ministry that have caused people to see how stark a difference in belief we have. And that's really where the loss has come, and it's almost a year after we left the church. So, you know, we have some really close friends who are, who have been good to us, who were, who we love, and they couldn't find anybody to marry them. And they're, you know, they're a gay couple. And everything that I can read is that this is my calling, and so we did that, and that was really the moment. It was like there were a lot of little moments that built up to this, but that was kind of the moment where we felt the door shut from that previous community of just absolute, from before it was like, “Oh, well, he’s in a different place in Christianity, and he’s kind of, you know, he can’t be here anymore in leadership because we’re pretty conservative, and we get that,” but, and it went from that of like, “Well, Jordan’s outside the church, but he’s still like a friend and around,” and it moved to, you know, this kind of implicit like, “Jordan is outside the fold of Christianity.” And that might sound like something that’s not that big of a deal to somebody like me or people like us where we are kind of outside of the fold in a lot of ways, but the way that it plays out in real life is just that people don’t talk to you, you know, or you get whispers that people are concerned about you, but they don’t come, and they don’t want to talk to you, you know, and they definitely don’t want to hang out with you anymore, and the even harder part about it is like you don’t even know who they are. You don’t even know who it is. You just know that nobody is, and maybe you reach out, and, you know, somebody, maybe you don’t hear anything back. It’s just a weird kind of, there’s these certain things that it’s like if you make an actionable decision on this theological difference, like you’re out, you know. It’s like three strikes in one, you’re out. So it has not been easy on us to say the least, even though it’s like we would make the same decisions over again, you know, in a heartbeat, for the people that we are supporting and for like the reasons that we want to follow Jesus, like we think it’s right, you know, the right thing to do, but yeah, it’s definitely, you do, you lose pretty much everything that you had. It’s a whole different life now for us, so, and you guys understand that.
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Fifth Segment
Nicki: You wouldn’t change it, but there’s still the pain that comes with being misunderstood or having people think things about you that are damaging to your personhood.
Jordan: Yeah, no absolutely, yeah. I mean, I guess this mirrors into the next question a little bit, but I think that’s the hardest part about it. It’s like for me, I’m actually an introvert, so not seeing people, like kind of whatever, you know, and we’re in a pandemic anyway, so it’s like how much of it is that, but to me, I think the part that hurts the most and is the part that keeps me up at night and sometimes like I just kind of simmer in anger about is that there are all these people I know that used to know, it was like if they knew one thing about Jordan, it was that he really cared to know deeply who God was, and it’s like, “We don’t know where that Jordan went, and like we’re mourning the loss of him,” and I’m right here, you know, like I am still that exact same person like I was talking about at the beginning who just wants to get as close to who God is as I possibly can, and I just want, I literally just want to follow what Jesus said the greatest two commandments were, which is to love God with all your heart and to love people, and it seems like experientially from the scriptures the best way to love God is just to love everybody the way that they would want to be loved, and, you know, like I just feel like it’s very simple in that way, and I think that’s what hurts the most is like, I told Danielle a couple of weeks ago, because, you know, you know that pandemic life’s not easy. On top of that, we’re coming out of a couple of years of all of this that we’ve been talking about, and I was just kind of admitting that I’m just not okay. And she was kind of letting me open up about that, and I was just like, “I feel so hurt because I feel like I am trying to follow Jesus so fervently and everyone is thinking just the exact opposite of that,” you know, it’s just like, I feel so angry because all of these are just nominally following, they’re just drinking from the tap of whatever has been given to them, and they’re not like reading it for themselves, they’re not even following their own rules for, you know, interpreting the Bible, and I’m over here trying as hard as I can to follow like the letter of the law in terms of how you do hermeneutics and how you make sure that you're like reading a passage in its right context, and it’s like all of these things, and I think that’s just what hurts is that people don’t see that I still care about the same thing as they claim to care about, and I, and that I think from being inside the fold for so long I know that when you’re inside the fold and somebody starts to act in the ways that we’ve acted and believe the things that we’ve believed, you believe that those people don’t want to be a part of you anymore. They think, “Oh, they believe differently than me. They don’t want to be with me anymore or part of us anymore,” and that’s just not true. If anything, like I want to be in close community with all the people at the church community that we’ve left, but because of, I don’t know if it’s fear or if it’s just like a group-think or it’s just this weird like safety net that happens in communities like that, the group as a whole just like, they do not want to be with us, and I don’t think they even like register that consciously, but that’s just what happens.
Nicki: It’s very interesting to think about the fruit of what we believe and as you’re saying, “Man, I just want to love Godde and love people well as they would want to be loved.”
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Sixth Segment
Jordan: I just like, they come out with all these crazy like ways to ostracize and condemn people for a couple of verses in the Bible that include a word that was only transliterated, I think that’s the right word, into it like in what the twentieth century, the nineteenth century, so, yeah, I could harp on that for a long time. There’s a lot of good people who know a lot more than me about why it’s just completely not Christ-like to abandon and, what’s the word I’m looking for, excommunicate, to shun the LGBTQ community. It’s just, it’s the exact opposite of the way of Jesus.
Nicki: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well to talk more about the church hurt, I was thinking about when you transitioned out of being a worship leader, and you texted me and our friend Danielle, and you asked us for resources on enemy love because you said you were finding you had a lot of resentment at times toward our former place of worship. And you said it was the first time in a long time you felt like you had enemies. And after we responded to you, you said you thought you were angry for the sake of others, but you were realizing your agency was violated in a pretty immense way and held hostage by the fear of not having a job, so all of this goes a lot deeper than “my friends were hurt by the church.” So you at that time were hurting deeply, and you’re still healing. So what has helped you in this ongoing healing from church hurt?
Jordan: Yeah, that, man, that quote, like I mean I read over the questions before we talked and like, but just hearing you say it, it’s like remembering, oh yeah, and there’s echoes of that in this conversation already I guess, but just, man, yeah, I was, and like I said before, I mean, I don’t know that any one person caused it. Certainly a lot of people contributed to it as a whole. But things that have helped me heal? Well, I mean I guess I would start by saying I’m not healed. I think in some ways, and you can attest, that like in some ways these are wounds that are always open. That, you know, they heal in some ways in time, but they’re always there, you know, and they kind of always come back. But, you know, I would say for me there’s a lot of things. To find the voices of Jesus, just as they are accessible to me from, you know, friends like you, like when I reached out to you guys and you had so many just encouraging and valuable things to say and continue to, and just to, I mean we live in an age where you can, the access to resources is just incredible, so I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I really find the contemplative way that Richard Rohr and so many others like, oh what’s his name, Brian McLaren and those folks have like gone down of just transcending and including, valuing everything about what has led you to this point and not dismissing, I mean that’s something, that’s like a basic lesson that I’m really trying to learn. I mean you could hear probably a lot of resentment still from this conversation and everything that we went through, but trying to lean in to learn to value that time for what it provided, the good that it provided and the lessons that the bad provided, right, and yeah, to not see, to try and learn to love my enemies to the point where they’re not, and so those are some things along with the contemplative practice, you know. There’s a lot of things you can do there, but for me in a lot of ways it’s been trying to do self-care, so Enneagram stuff helps with that and just like understanding who I am, but also just now that I’m not a church leader, I can honor some of the things about myself that were seen as detrimental to like a church leader. So it’s like we grew up in this context where video games were just like this like wasteful, childish, I mean I could go on, just like so many things about just this one form of entertainment.
Nicki: Right, not football. Football was fine.
Jordan: Oh sure, yeah. So there’s a billion examples of things that are ok for men in the church to be interested in and enjoy, but like that was, a lot of things I mentioned about myself in the beginning are some of those things. It’s like these are, I mean these are acceptable because you know God’s grace and dadada, but they’re really not the best, and so I kind of had to suppress a lot of that in myself, and just kind of honoring, you know, hey, I like this stuff, is I think is something, you know, the Sleeping at Last Enneagram song, it makes me cry every time I hear it, but in the, for the 9 he says, “I’ve been less than half myself for more than half my life.” And so for a lot of, like that’s kind of how I frame my now, it’s like I’m at the beginning of trying to live into my whole self, and so like that’s kind of the guiding light for me is just like how do I live into my whole self now because I had to suppress so much of it, you know, when I was in this other context. And I think that’s the path towards healing is the path towards wholeness. So, yeah.
Nicki: I love that, and I love that you are pursuing what you love and becoming more of who you are at your core and as you grow in that, it not only -
Jordan: Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.
Nicki: No, I was going to say it not only helps you flourish, but then it spills over to you being able to help others around you flourish as well.
Jordan: Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I was going to say before, sorry I interrupted you, I was just going to say also allowing my voice to be heard, it sounds kind of funky as like a cis white straight guy, but like, you know, in a church context, especially when you’re the number 2 and you’re a worship leader, it’s all about like making sure everybody’s ok and everybody’s cool, and so you can’t ever get angry and you can’t ever say really what’s on your mind in like terms of politically or just otherwise. Like you have to really be very, which is easy for a 9 in a lot of ways, but I think one of the first steps towards healing was to name a lot of the injustice that I was, that I kept silent about and was made to keep silent about, and some people really didn’t approve of the way that I did that, and I’m sure I didn’t do it perfectly or with perfect love or grace at all times, but it was part of my journey towards health to be able to say, “These things are wrong, and at least for the people on my social media and in my immediate circles, they need to know that it’s wrong and that I think it’s wrong, and I’m not gonna be silent about it, and I’m not gonna be particularly roundabout about it, either. I’m gonna be direct, and you know, I’m gonna do a little fighting because I haven’t ever been able to. So, anyway, I think that’s, you know, if you are in a place where you’ve been hushed for so many years to let it out and speak is important. It’s an important piece to heal, so.
Nicki: Yeah, you’re definitely cultivating that 8 wing.
Jordan: Oh yeah, totally.
Nicki: Oh, sorry.
Jordan: No that’s the 8 wing fight.
Nicki: Oh yeah, yeah. Well did you want to add anything about how you handle situations where you and your evolving faith are misunderstood and criticized as you mentioned being more vocal about that now and how that’s led to some conversations or some messages?
Jordan: Yeah, I mean I’ll just say that I think I have a lot of growing to do, and that if I’m really trying to think about the best way to handle those situations, they would be to be approached about those kinds of situations, you know, with love and understanding and patience. I’ll say that that’s not always how I’ve approached them. In some ways, I do think that if I’m supposed to try and be like Jesus, there was a specific way that Jesus dealt with a particular type of person, which was like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, people that were trying to play gotcha, people that were not interested in learning anything, he was not very nice to. And so, you know, a lot of people would say like, “How does that square with enemy love and loving your enemies?” and stuff like that, but I feel like Jesus was doing the most loving thing he could have when he just like called them straight out, you know, he didn’t let them BS about anything. He just, he kind of laid into the Pharisees and Sadducees, and he was mean, like I don’t think you can say he was anything other than mean when he was calling them white-washed tombs and snakes and, you know, he was just, so, I don’t know that I’ve gone that far with anybody, but I’m trying to figure out how do I balance this call to be a loving person, to be kind and patient and to understand that like I was in this place and I was completely belligerent with people who are like me now, but to also try to honor that way as well that Jesus was like not interested in like messing around with people who were trying to troll him, you know, which there’s plenty of these days, so, the answer in short is I don’t know but try to walk the line between love and justice.
Nicki: Yeah, well a few more questions here. What advice do you have for others who are broadening the narratives they were taught?
Jordan: Yeah, I mean, I hope I’ve iterated it here but just like don’t stop. It’s a very biblical idea to think that you will never stop learning about who God is, and, you know, so don’t ever settle on your understanding and don’t ever believe that there’s a person who is beneath you in terms of their ability to teach you something about God, and that goes for me, too. I think there’s still a lot of things that people in my previous community could teach me about God, you know, that, or remind me about God that I forgot, you know. And there’s plenty of people, I mean there’s just a world of people out there that have all been placed in my path to teach me, so I think that’s my biggest piece of advice is never stop being a learner because God is, you know, infinite, and the journey of uncovering more and more is everything.
Nicki: Yeah, so what’s your hope for people as the narrative is broadened for you?
Jordan: Yeah, well, I think my hope is, I mean, on a, from a selfish perspective is that people would see, you know, that I deeply value still everything that they knew me for, and, but for them, you know, for people, everyone really, like my hope is that we would come to a more realized, tangible kingdom of God, you know, where the things that Jesus said were coming and the way in which he taught to live become manifest, like become actionable in the world, that there’s like equality and there’s justice for everyone, that people more often give of themselves than try to take for themselves, and, you know, that we’re willing to lay down our lives for each other, you know, all of these things, that’s my hope, you know. My favorite teacher Richard Rohr says that it’s more than likely that we’re still in the infancy of the church because the fruit is still just very little, but you know, we believe and we hope that the kingdom is come and is coming, and so it’s just gonna take a lot longer than we ever expected, so that’s my hope.
Nicki: Yeah. Well you mentioned being a cishet white man, so what’s one action that you can commit to in order to bring your hope to fruition?
Jordan: Yeah, I mean if I could just couch everything in terms of some of like the current climate of things, like in terms of like what our nation’s going through with race and continued inequality against Black people and colored people, and even like how we’ve talked about the LGBTQ community being just on the fence in terms of all of that stuff, I learned a valuable lesson through some close friends that it’s not my, it’s not necessarily my calling to always be out on the front trying to debate every last person that has it wrong because I tried that and then I burnt out and then I, there was this period where I wasn’t saying anything or being helpful at all or doing anything actionable, you know, to contribute to the situation because I was burnt out from these stupid conversations with people that were never gonna get it. And so, you know, I think for me, I’ve had a great opportunity to talk for way too long here, but for me, the step is probably to just do a lot more listening and to do a lot more supporting of people who are not like me, you know. Voices like mine have been valued for pretty much since the dawn of time, right, so like, so I would not know or understand or have the life that I have without people who are different than me, and so I think it’s my turn to step back and to not be a leader but to be a follower now, so.
Nicki: Yeah, well thank you for sharing about this and -
Jordan: Totally.
Nicki: - and thank you for coming on the show and sharing your journey with us, and I’m just very grateful for you and for your friendship.
Jordan: Well, like I said, the feeling is 100% mutual. Super thankful for you and Stephen and just the role that you guys have played in our life post-evangelical Christianity.
Jordan: Yeah, no absolutely, yeah. I mean, I guess this mirrors into the next question a little bit, but I think that’s the hardest part about it. It’s like for me, I’m actually an introvert, so not seeing people, like kind of whatever, you know, and we’re in a pandemic anyway, so it’s like how much of it is that, but to me, I think the part that hurts the most and is the part that keeps me up at night and sometimes like I just kind of simmer in anger about is that there are all these people I know that used to know, it was like if they knew one thing about Jordan, it was that he really cared to know deeply who God was, and it’s like, “We don’t know where that Jordan went, and like we’re mourning the loss of him,” and I’m right here, you know, like I am still that exact same person like I was talking about at the beginning who just wants to get as close to who God is as I possibly can, and I just want, I literally just want to follow what Jesus said the greatest two commandments were, which is to love God with all your heart and to love people, and it seems like experientially from the scriptures the best way to love God is just to love everybody the way that they would want to be loved, and, you know, like I just feel like it’s very simple in that way, and I think that’s what hurts the most is like, I told Danielle a couple of weeks ago, because, you know, you know that pandemic life’s not easy. On top of that, we’re coming out of a couple of years of all of this that we’ve been talking about, and I was just kind of admitting that I’m just not okay. And she was kind of letting me open up about that, and I was just like, “I feel so hurt because I feel like I am trying to follow Jesus so fervently and everyone is thinking just the exact opposite of that,” you know, it’s just like, I feel so angry because all of these are just nominally following, they’re just drinking from the tap of whatever has been given to them, and they’re not like reading it for themselves, they’re not even following their own rules for, you know, interpreting the Bible, and I’m over here trying as hard as I can to follow like the letter of the law in terms of how you do hermeneutics and how you make sure that you're like reading a passage in its right context, and it’s like all of these things, and I think that’s just what hurts is that people don’t see that I still care about the same thing as they claim to care about, and I, and that I think from being inside the fold for so long I know that when you’re inside the fold and somebody starts to act in the ways that we’ve acted and believe the things that we’ve believed, you believe that those people don’t want to be a part of you anymore. They think, “Oh, they believe differently than me. They don’t want to be with me anymore or part of us anymore,” and that’s just not true. If anything, like I want to be in close community with all the people at the church community that we’ve left, but because of, I don’t know if it’s fear or if it’s just like a group-think or it’s just this weird like safety net that happens in communities like that, the group as a whole just like, they do not want to be with us, and I don’t think they even like register that consciously, but that’s just what happens.
Nicki: It’s very interesting to think about the fruit of what we believe and as you’re saying, “Man, I just want to love Godde and love people well as they would want to be loved.”
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Sixth Segment
Jordan: I just like, they come out with all these crazy like ways to ostracize and condemn people for a couple of verses in the Bible that include a word that was only transliterated, I think that’s the right word, into it like in what the twentieth century, the nineteenth century, so, yeah, I could harp on that for a long time. There’s a lot of good people who know a lot more than me about why it’s just completely not Christ-like to abandon and, what’s the word I’m looking for, excommunicate, to shun the LGBTQ community. It’s just, it’s the exact opposite of the way of Jesus.
Nicki: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well to talk more about the church hurt, I was thinking about when you transitioned out of being a worship leader, and you texted me and our friend Danielle, and you asked us for resources on enemy love because you said you were finding you had a lot of resentment at times toward our former place of worship. And you said it was the first time in a long time you felt like you had enemies. And after we responded to you, you said you thought you were angry for the sake of others, but you were realizing your agency was violated in a pretty immense way and held hostage by the fear of not having a job, so all of this goes a lot deeper than “my friends were hurt by the church.” So you at that time were hurting deeply, and you’re still healing. So what has helped you in this ongoing healing from church hurt?
Jordan: Yeah, that, man, that quote, like I mean I read over the questions before we talked and like, but just hearing you say it, it’s like remembering, oh yeah, and there’s echoes of that in this conversation already I guess, but just, man, yeah, I was, and like I said before, I mean, I don’t know that any one person caused it. Certainly a lot of people contributed to it as a whole. But things that have helped me heal? Well, I mean I guess I would start by saying I’m not healed. I think in some ways, and you can attest, that like in some ways these are wounds that are always open. That, you know, they heal in some ways in time, but they’re always there, you know, and they kind of always come back. But, you know, I would say for me there’s a lot of things. To find the voices of Jesus, just as they are accessible to me from, you know, friends like you, like when I reached out to you guys and you had so many just encouraging and valuable things to say and continue to, and just to, I mean we live in an age where you can, the access to resources is just incredible, so I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I really find the contemplative way that Richard Rohr and so many others like, oh what’s his name, Brian McLaren and those folks have like gone down of just transcending and including, valuing everything about what has led you to this point and not dismissing, I mean that’s something, that’s like a basic lesson that I’m really trying to learn. I mean you could hear probably a lot of resentment still from this conversation and everything that we went through, but trying to lean in to learn to value that time for what it provided, the good that it provided and the lessons that the bad provided, right, and yeah, to not see, to try and learn to love my enemies to the point where they’re not, and so those are some things along with the contemplative practice, you know. There’s a lot of things you can do there, but for me in a lot of ways it’s been trying to do self-care, so Enneagram stuff helps with that and just like understanding who I am, but also just now that I’m not a church leader, I can honor some of the things about myself that were seen as detrimental to like a church leader. So it’s like we grew up in this context where video games were just like this like wasteful, childish, I mean I could go on, just like so many things about just this one form of entertainment.
Nicki: Right, not football. Football was fine.
Jordan: Oh sure, yeah. So there’s a billion examples of things that are ok for men in the church to be interested in and enjoy, but like that was, a lot of things I mentioned about myself in the beginning are some of those things. It’s like these are, I mean these are acceptable because you know God’s grace and dadada, but they’re really not the best, and so I kind of had to suppress a lot of that in myself, and just kind of honoring, you know, hey, I like this stuff, is I think is something, you know, the Sleeping at Last Enneagram song, it makes me cry every time I hear it, but in the, for the 9 he says, “I’ve been less than half myself for more than half my life.” And so for a lot of, like that’s kind of how I frame my now, it’s like I’m at the beginning of trying to live into my whole self, and so like that’s kind of the guiding light for me is just like how do I live into my whole self now because I had to suppress so much of it, you know, when I was in this other context. And I think that’s the path towards healing is the path towards wholeness. So, yeah.
Nicki: I love that, and I love that you are pursuing what you love and becoming more of who you are at your core and as you grow in that, it not only -
Jordan: Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.
Nicki: No, I was going to say it not only helps you flourish, but then it spills over to you being able to help others around you flourish as well.
Jordan: Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I was going to say before, sorry I interrupted you, I was just going to say also allowing my voice to be heard, it sounds kind of funky as like a cis white straight guy, but like, you know, in a church context, especially when you’re the number 2 and you’re a worship leader, it’s all about like making sure everybody’s ok and everybody’s cool, and so you can’t ever get angry and you can’t ever say really what’s on your mind in like terms of politically or just otherwise. Like you have to really be very, which is easy for a 9 in a lot of ways, but I think one of the first steps towards healing was to name a lot of the injustice that I was, that I kept silent about and was made to keep silent about, and some people really didn’t approve of the way that I did that, and I’m sure I didn’t do it perfectly or with perfect love or grace at all times, but it was part of my journey towards health to be able to say, “These things are wrong, and at least for the people on my social media and in my immediate circles, they need to know that it’s wrong and that I think it’s wrong, and I’m not gonna be silent about it, and I’m not gonna be particularly roundabout about it, either. I’m gonna be direct, and you know, I’m gonna do a little fighting because I haven’t ever been able to. So, anyway, I think that’s, you know, if you are in a place where you’ve been hushed for so many years to let it out and speak is important. It’s an important piece to heal, so.
Nicki: Yeah, you’re definitely cultivating that 8 wing.
Jordan: Oh yeah, totally.
Nicki: Oh, sorry.
Jordan: No that’s the 8 wing fight.
Nicki: Oh yeah, yeah. Well did you want to add anything about how you handle situations where you and your evolving faith are misunderstood and criticized as you mentioned being more vocal about that now and how that’s led to some conversations or some messages?
Jordan: Yeah, I mean I’ll just say that I think I have a lot of growing to do, and that if I’m really trying to think about the best way to handle those situations, they would be to be approached about those kinds of situations, you know, with love and understanding and patience. I’ll say that that’s not always how I’ve approached them. In some ways, I do think that if I’m supposed to try and be like Jesus, there was a specific way that Jesus dealt with a particular type of person, which was like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, people that were trying to play gotcha, people that were not interested in learning anything, he was not very nice to. And so, you know, a lot of people would say like, “How does that square with enemy love and loving your enemies?” and stuff like that, but I feel like Jesus was doing the most loving thing he could have when he just like called them straight out, you know, he didn’t let them BS about anything. He just, he kind of laid into the Pharisees and Sadducees, and he was mean, like I don’t think you can say he was anything other than mean when he was calling them white-washed tombs and snakes and, you know, he was just, so, I don’t know that I’ve gone that far with anybody, but I’m trying to figure out how do I balance this call to be a loving person, to be kind and patient and to understand that like I was in this place and I was completely belligerent with people who are like me now, but to also try to honor that way as well that Jesus was like not interested in like messing around with people who were trying to troll him, you know, which there’s plenty of these days, so, the answer in short is I don’t know but try to walk the line between love and justice.
Nicki: Yeah, well a few more questions here. What advice do you have for others who are broadening the narratives they were taught?
Jordan: Yeah, I mean, I hope I’ve iterated it here but just like don’t stop. It’s a very biblical idea to think that you will never stop learning about who God is, and, you know, so don’t ever settle on your understanding and don’t ever believe that there’s a person who is beneath you in terms of their ability to teach you something about God, and that goes for me, too. I think there’s still a lot of things that people in my previous community could teach me about God, you know, that, or remind me about God that I forgot, you know. And there’s plenty of people, I mean there’s just a world of people out there that have all been placed in my path to teach me, so I think that’s my biggest piece of advice is never stop being a learner because God is, you know, infinite, and the journey of uncovering more and more is everything.
Nicki: Yeah, so what’s your hope for people as the narrative is broadened for you?
Jordan: Yeah, well, I think my hope is, I mean, on a, from a selfish perspective is that people would see, you know, that I deeply value still everything that they knew me for, and, but for them, you know, for people, everyone really, like my hope is that we would come to a more realized, tangible kingdom of God, you know, where the things that Jesus said were coming and the way in which he taught to live become manifest, like become actionable in the world, that there’s like equality and there’s justice for everyone, that people more often give of themselves than try to take for themselves, and, you know, that we’re willing to lay down our lives for each other, you know, all of these things, that’s my hope, you know. My favorite teacher Richard Rohr says that it’s more than likely that we’re still in the infancy of the church because the fruit is still just very little, but you know, we believe and we hope that the kingdom is come and is coming, and so it’s just gonna take a lot longer than we ever expected, so that’s my hope.
Nicki: Yeah. Well you mentioned being a cishet white man, so what’s one action that you can commit to in order to bring your hope to fruition?
Jordan: Yeah, I mean if I could just couch everything in terms of some of like the current climate of things, like in terms of like what our nation’s going through with race and continued inequality against Black people and colored people, and even like how we’ve talked about the LGBTQ community being just on the fence in terms of all of that stuff, I learned a valuable lesson through some close friends that it’s not my, it’s not necessarily my calling to always be out on the front trying to debate every last person that has it wrong because I tried that and then I burnt out and then I, there was this period where I wasn’t saying anything or being helpful at all or doing anything actionable, you know, to contribute to the situation because I was burnt out from these stupid conversations with people that were never gonna get it. And so, you know, I think for me, I’ve had a great opportunity to talk for way too long here, but for me, the step is probably to just do a lot more listening and to do a lot more supporting of people who are not like me, you know. Voices like mine have been valued for pretty much since the dawn of time, right, so like, so I would not know or understand or have the life that I have without people who are different than me, and so I think it’s my turn to step back and to not be a leader but to be a follower now, so.
Nicki: Yeah, well thank you for sharing about this and -
Jordan: Totally.
Nicki: - and thank you for coming on the show and sharing your journey with us, and I’m just very grateful for you and for your friendship.
Jordan: Well, like I said, the feeling is 100% mutual. Super thankful for you and Stephen and just the role that you guys have played in our life post-evangelical Christianity.
Transition Music
Closing: I want to thank Sequana Murray for the voice clip she sent to me for the episode intro. You can purchase her music on Bandcamp at bandy17.bandcamp.com. Her music is available on most streaming services under the name Bandy. I also want to thank Jordan Lukens for his help with editing and Danielle Bolin for creating the episode graphic. Please subscribe and review the show, but only if you’re planning on leaving a 5-star review. Otherwise, you can just skip this part. You can access the Broadening the Narrative blog by visiting broadeningthenarrative.blogspot.com, and you can find the Broadening the Narrative page on Instagram by searching for @broadeningthenarrative and on Twitter by searching for @broadnarrative. I hope that if you know and love me you can engage with the Broadening the Narrative blog, social media accounts, and podcast, as well as any recommended resources. Then, you can share with people who know and love you, and little by little, person by person, we can broaden the narrative. Grace and peace, friends.
Outro Music
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