Anna’s Story | Interpreting Experience (117)

In this episode John and Gregg connect with long-time listener “Anna.”

Anna was the first Untangling Christianity listener to respond with feedback to John and Gregg and has been listening for over 2 years now. Anna explains how she was listening to many podcasts about Christianity at that time but responded to John and Gregg because she found them to be “approachable.”

Anna describes her own Christian situation as having had some remarkably intimate and compelling experiences of God’s presence, and yet finding other Christians unable (or unwilling) to accept that Anna’s experiences are valid.

More difficult still, Anna explains how these experiences have stopped, and how she longs to feel re-connected with God in this way (and lonely because of this absence).

Being Right Might be Wrong (116)

You’re Wrong Unless You Have the Right Emotional Response (115)

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In this episode John and Gregg discuss an open letter by Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. The letter concerns Dr. Piper’s response to a student who felt “victimized” by a sermon on 1 Cor 13, a chapter of the Bible devoted to explaining the nature of love.

(NB: Gregg has created two blog posts responding directly to this letter).

John sees similarities between this discussion and episode #108, where we discussed an article from The Atlantic magazine. John finds that the tenor of the letter is all too similar to the Christian perspectives that John experienced in his past, in that Dr. Piper clearly assumes that everything that the message that his staff (the minister or preacher) presented was completely correct and that the presentation was entirely appropriate. By consequence, if the student has an issue with the sermon then the problem is with the student (and his inability to understand or respond properly)!

As John summarizes, “Here’s the message, get on-board with it, and if you don’t agree with it there’s something wrong with you!” Everything is the responsibility of the other party and the authority figures (the university and / or its president) takes no responsibility
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The Christian Easy Button and Evil (114)

Do People Grapple with the Problem of Evil? (113)

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In this episode John and Gregg are again joined by John’s good friend Charlie, now from Portland OR. During this meeting

Following their previous discussion Gregg expresses his excitement about how Charlie experienced more self-awareness, a greater sense of connection with others, and a greater sense of connection with God through his time in San Francisco (where he was involved with Storyline, counseling and Bible study actually).

Gregg explains that he sees the three components as, at least in part, representing the three main orientations that are promoted in the Biblical text: understanding what / who God is, what / who we are as human beings, and how the two are best to relate to each other. In Gregg’s view, the result of cultivating these understandings is that people are better able to develop right relationship with God, with oneself, and with others.

Charlie notes how his focus was on his own personal story, and how this particular time in his life was unusually conducive to the connections that he was seeking. John suggests that one way of doing this would be having people on the podcast to tell their personal, “untangling” stories.
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