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In this episode John and Gregg investigate how (and how much) we see God as being involved in our lives, and how the perspectives on Christianity that we’ve been discussing / proposing differ from much of typical evangelical Christianity.

John mentions Wayne Jacobson’s The Jesus Lens, which walks through both the Old and New Testament.  John wonders what to make of the new explanations Wayne gives and the new perspectives and understandings that he and Gregg have been delving into. Gregg wonders if John is coming to an equilibrium between the Christian messages of his upbringing and this new content.

John notes that he almost feels that these new perspectives are “too good to be true,” in that this new sense of Christianity does not turn on angst, duty, and brute force.  John particularly values how these perspectives remove the excess mystery from being a Christian and relating with God, whereas his experience is that churches often use “mystery” to keep people from asking questions that they don’t want to have to try to answer.
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In this episode John compares grace and love.  Specifically, John contrasts a listener’s story and Gregg’s story (both being fairly radical departures from the Christian norm) with his own path of not overtly departing from these norms.  John’s epiphany is that the message of love makes far more sense than the message of grace (to him), because grace seems to begin with the notion that someone is horrible.

Gregg notes that grace implies a jarring sense of contrast with what one believes one deserves and so grace seems to show up better in relief, against a backdrop of wrongs committed.  So Gregg contrasts grace and love: experiencing God’s grace is typically framed as receiving what one does not deserve, but Gregg’s experience of receiving God’s love was receiving what he needed but considered to be impossible.  So the upshot is that if one sees oneself as being thoroughly undeserving of God’s love (God’s love is nonsensical to that person), they will necessarily experience God’s love first as grace.  But the pardon and gift implicit in grace find their source in God’s love–they are an expression of love.

Ultimately then, in Gregg’s view, the purpose of grace is to habituate us to being in a love relationship with God: first to accepting God’s love for us as love (so that we may see ourselves as deserving of God’s love), second to be able to give that love back (so that we see ourselves as capable–capable of being rightly related to God, to ourselves, and to others).
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This episode starts with John thinking more about topic of justice from the things Gregg shared in Episode #5. Gregg takes issue with John’s assertion that we’d all be better of if we all assumed other people were always doing the best that they can. Gregg wonders exactly what that means, especially when the stakes are very high.

John observes that some Christians are very focused on the idea that one day God’s justice will reign on the earth. Gregg sees this preoccupation as problematic and the easy way out. Gregg relates to his own orientation–that God loves him furiously. As a result, for example, Gregg is not focused on wishing justice for the wrongs previously done to him by his father.

Gregg observes how in the story of Job that God doesn’t respond to any of Job’s questions, but instead responds with God’s self. In the same way Gregg has experienced God showing up for him in a way that is real and meaningful and as a result he doesn’t need God to set past wrongs straight.
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