97: Talking Church with Dan Dailey

In this episode John and Gregg welcome Dan Dailey, author of the blog post that’s been the subject of the last two podcasts–Episode 96 and Episode 95. Dan’s posts, The Sin of Forsaking Fellowship, is here: https://danieldailey.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/the-sin-of-forsaking-fellowship/ .

John and Gregg talk with Dan to get a better sense of the intentions behind his blog post with the goal of giving him “a fair hearing” regarding his perspective on church and church-going. This after speculating in previous episodes about Dan’s situation and motives. They’re grateful for Dan’s willingness to dialogue and the opportunity to talk with him firsthand.

John and Gregg both look forward to the listener feedback on this episode.

96: Evangelizing a Church?

95: Obligated Church Attendance?

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In this episode John and Gregg discuss a blog post entitled “The Sin of Forsaking Fellowship,” by Dan Dailey, first raised in the Untangling Christianity private Facebook group. John wonders about a comment that Gregg left on the blog post.

Gregg explains that he was struck by what he saw as a crucial contradiction at the beginning of the post. For example, the author both appears to be writing from a personal perspective and has made a rather drastic choice for a Christian (to “quit going to church . . . permanently”), yet the author claims that his reasons for making this decision are not relevant to the post. Gregg explains that he finds this misleading (because his reasons for leaving church surely are relevant to the post!) and so wanted the author to know that this approach created distrust for Gregg.

So Gregg underscores that knowing why someone holds a particular perspective, especially where it appears to deviate radically from accepted norms, is essential to understanding the perspective (and perhaps, being persuaded by it). Particularly, the idea of being a Christian but permanently leaving the church is extremely uncommon and so Gregg wants to have information about why this decision was made and why this might be a good decision for others (which Gregg believes the post is advocating).

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94: Do Your Own Work

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In this episode John and Greg to discuss a recent discussion John had with his parents around NT Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. While discussing the first chapters, John referred to some ideas Gregg has put forth.

John was surprised when his father suggested that, “It’s great that Gregg has those ideas, but you have to figure out your own ideas here.” The idea being that John needs to do his own study of the Bible. As the discussion continued, John realized that his father’s knowledge and proficiency regarding the Bible was quite pronounced. From this, John wondered: Can one become this proficient if the impetus for doing so is simply duty and obligation?

In other words, John speculates that his father’s reason for becoming so familiar with the Bible is because he wanted to and questions whether someone could become so proficient driven only by obligation or duty.

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93: The Eagle Circles Again