It's time for Reverend Ryan™ to share his story!
In this episode, Ryan talks about being from Northern Ireland, growing up in the church as a pastor's kid, and unexpectedly finding his way to becoming a pastor himself. The guys explore his journey in and out of various church traditions and discuss important differences between Landon's background in American Evangelicalism and Ryan's background in the Anglican Church.
To join the discussion, visit us on Instagram @meaninginthemiddlepod or in our Meaning in the Middle Facebook group.
Cheers!
[00:01:22] Ryan: Cheers. Cheers.
[00:01:32] Ryan: Welcome everyone to the meaning in the middle podcast. My name is Ryan and I am a Christian pastor and I'm sitting here with my best friend in the entire world land in Pontius. It convinced a
[00:01:46] Landon: bless his soul. Yeah. So in our last episode, I talked a little bit about my story. I gave a bit of my background coming from.
[00:01:57] Landon: A kind of Christian tradition, [00:02:00] the way I was raised, moving into where I am now, an atheist,my process now piecing things back together today is the Reverend Ryan's turn. so we're going to do the same thing for Ryan. We're just going to try to give all of you as our listeners, both of our listeners.
[00:02:17] Landon: We're going to try to give you guys a little backstory and who Ryan is, so that as we kinda move forward into some of these different topics and ideas that you have a bit of a starting point for where each of us is coming from.
[00:02:30] Ryan: You're ready. yeah, I'm ready. Let's do it.
[00:02:32] Landon: Take us to the beginning.
[00:02:34] Landon: Well,
[00:02:34] I was born in Northern Ireland, which a little bit of background, because I think it does play a good bit into my story. the island of Ireland has two countries on it. and that's a relatively recent thing. So that's only dating back just about a hundred years now. and Ireland historically had been occupied by the British for a couple of hundred years prior.
[00:02:54] and then in the twenties, there was a little bit of a civil strife, a rebellion against the British. [00:03:00] And one of the solutions that came out of that was that, the six counties that were in the Northern part of the island would remain part of great Britain. and the 26 counties in the south became the independent country that we now known as the Republic of Ireland.
[00:03:13] Ryan: And a lot of that was along religious divides that the north was a bit more evenly split between Protestants who would have come over from Scotland and England. And the south was pretty solidly cast. so I grew up in a country that, you know, at that point. And so we're talking, I was born in 1984, mid eighties, had experienced a couple of decades of what we call the troubles, which was, not full on war, but definitely there was a lot of terrorism and strife and,division between Protestants who tend to be loyal to, to the English crown, and then Catholics who, would largely have a desire for a reunified Ireland, like a single Ireland.
[00:03:56] and so that's the kind of space that I was born into. And my [00:04:00] dad is, or an ordained pastor or priest in the church of Ireland, which is the angle of. church in the country. so I was actually born into the Christian faith kind ofa lot, like you were,substantially different expression of it in attitude and point of orientation and whatnot.
[00:04:17] Ryan: And, in, 1989, it was actually just the day as we're recording. This is September. So this past week was 32 year anniversary of us being in this country. So September of 89, we moved to the United States. We moved to Michigan. when my parents got married, they always thought maybe they would become missionaries and they thought maybe we'd go to Africa or whatever.
[00:04:35] Ryan: And then, in 88 we didn't exchange with a Presbyterian minister in Pocomoke. For a summer. So we moved into their house, my dad preached to his church and then they moved into our house and preached at my dad's church. This was in Belfast at the time. So it was like the
[00:04:50] Landon: holiday, but for pastors,
[00:04:51] Ryan: yeah, it's a cheap way, it's like a cheap working holiday, basically.
[00:04:55] Ryan: Yeah. Nice. when you don't make much money, you look for any way that you can work, do a work around. [00:05:00] So after that, my parents felt called here and, I still don't exactly know how, but they, we experienced Maryland and then we moved to Michigan, I guess they was start with the letter M I don't know, not really the same America, but again, Northern Ireland is like one of the smallest countries in Europe.
[00:05:16] Ryan: And then we moved to one of the largest countries in the world. So we were,in a kind of small town, Southeast Michigan,here, the Anglican church has called the Episcopal church. If anybody's familiar with that, the Episcopal church, that was what we were part of. and then halfway through my ninth grade year, we moved to Northern Virginia, just outside of DC.
[00:05:36] Ryan: And my dad was positioned at another church there. and that was a place where I really, the interesting thing about being a pastor's kid and being the oldest is you're just by default the one. So you sing the, and well, yeah, you sing the solos in the choir and you're the first acolyte.
[00:05:52] Ryan: So you're the one like, going up in the robes and lighting the candles and you learn how to read the Bible in public. How
[00:05:59] Landon: [00:06:00] was all of that for you? default responsibility.
[00:06:02] Ryan: Yeah. So one, I think one of the big things about my cultural orientation is the idea of duty and obligate.
[00:06:12] So I don't think I thought about it. It was well, of course you do this,
[00:06:17] Landon: how very non-American of you. I know. Right? it's definitely not manifest destiny, forge your own path. It was like, well, this is, yeah, this is what you do. Yeah. I really liked a lot of it genuinely.
[00:06:27] Ryan: Like I, I liked church life. I was raised quite literally in the church building. That was our play area. and I loved the idea of being able to approach the altar and light candles and participate in a lot of the sacred symbols that we had in our tradition. I don't, I wouldn't say that I necessarily understood them at all, but I mean, and that's something that we'll come to as a big part of my story was like participating in things before I could intellectually understand them was part in process of me coming to understand them.
[00:06:59] Ryan: So [00:07:00] it wasn't this I've examined this idea. And then I made a decision. It was like I was taking part in, in things, before I knew them. So I was baptized when I was a month old, and that's very normal in our tradition. Like you're baptized as an infant if you're born into the church.
[00:07:15] Ryan: And it means something a little bit different than it would to evangelical what baptism is. I was coming up and taking communion maybe before I quote unquote. Got it. But it was something that you're participating in regardless of whether or not you get it. So for the most part, I think I, I was pretty well adjusted to it.
[00:07:32] Ryan: I think there was, there was certain things it's you have to sing the solo in. do remember that Christmas song where you go through all the different animals and sing their perspectives.
[00:07:41] Landon: No. Why don't you give us a run at it? Oh boy, we're going back. Like 30 hours actually, like we said, different expressions.
[00:07:49] Ryan: Yeah. There was like the song that we would always sing, the P the pageant each year. And,he's had to be like, Joseph, that was my job. but yeah, I mean, I honestly didn't, I didn't mind it. it's funny because there's always [00:08:00] these stereotypes of either pastors, kids are like total hell raisers and just rebel against everything and ride motorcycles and kids, missionary
[00:08:08] Landon: kids for some people have a
[00:08:09] Ryan: similar.
[00:08:10] Ryan: Yeah, exactly. and then the other side was, you remember, like on the Simpsons, rod and Todd Flanders, like Ned Flanders kids. Yeah. honestly, I was in the middle. I mean, I
[00:08:18] Landon: wasn't allowed to watch the Simpsons growing up
[00:08:20] Ryan: nor was I a podcast on that. I remember the first time you watched it and you're like, wait, this is it.
[00:08:26] Landon: Yeah. There's yeah. You somehow exaggerate everything you can't do into some amazing thing you're missing out on. Yeah. You think
[00:08:34] Ryan: that's fine. I remember this is getting ahead a little bit, but I remember in high school, There was these two brothers that lived in our neighborhood, that rode our bus and they both had long hair and then wore black Jean CO's and iron maiden t-shirts.
[00:08:46] Ryan: And if you know anything about iron maiden, they have this like character, his name's Eddie, and he's like a zombie type character. And I remember watching these kids, this is before I was into metal and I'm like, oh my gosh, iron maid must be like the [00:09:00] darkest, heaviest, most evil thing you've ever heard.
[00:09:03] Ryan: And then my freshman year of college, I heard iron maid and I'm like, this is the greatest music I've ever heard. Why did I get into this earlier? So
[00:09:10] Landon: coming from that Anglican tradition. So in my background, that sort of stuff out of bounds got the like demonic label. Oh really? Yeah. Like even though it wasn't, yeah, it . Wasn't always put in those one of the guests are concerned now charismatic terms, but it was that sort of.
[00:09:35] Landon: That is evil that has an evil origin and you don't want to be exposed to it because it was like, which I think is a pretty comments or evangelical ideas. It's like idea of contamination. Okay. And which is weird sometimes to balance with the actual idea of evangelism. Cause it's seems like by default you have some [00:10:00] sense of exposure needed there to engage with someone.
[00:10:03] yeah. Just random question. How was that frame, how was that explained to you that you're not allowed to watch that or you're not allowed to wear that
[00:10:09] Ryan: t-shirt or listening to that? It was, it was, it was never really heavily imposed on us, honestly. I think,our parents really valued,Being disciplined and we were limited to like an hour of television a day or whatever, like some of those things, but it really wasn't, there was no, sense of this is demonic.
[00:10:27] Ryan: It was just more of we want you guys to be focusing on something more wholesome.
[00:10:31] Landon: Yeah. And to be fair, if either of my parents are listening to this podcast, my parents didn't play that card, the demonic card often, I think they would probably have given it more of that positive topspin.
[00:10:44] Landon: This is an edifying.
[00:10:45] Ryan: I don't remember. I don't remember a single thing being presented as this is demonic. Like I know for some people, I'm like a hair too old for the Harry Potter phenomenon, but my brother Scott was like, right at the right age, he read the books and all this. And yeah, [00:11:00] the whole thing of well, they're practicing witchcraft and everything.
[00:11:02] Ryan: It's like we read the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. like the idea of like at what's happening, there was none of that. Really. it was very much, I would say more of a moralistic argument than it was any kind of like extra spiritual thing.
[00:11:15] Landon: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you moved to the states, you're in Michigan.
[00:11:20] Landon: Yeah. You have this context of being very involved in the church. Now you referenced being in high school and having these, musical tastes pulling you in different ways or kind of whatever, like subculture you weren't at the time sort of what was that period like? Yeah. In regards
[00:11:34] Ryan: to that church.
[00:11:35] Ryan: So being Anglican or Episcopalian, you have no illusions that you are the dominant force in Christianity, which I think is really key. because a lot of times when I talk to people who grew up in a capital E evangelical context, so we have Anglicanism is interesting because there's an eventual.
[00:11:56] Ryan: Angle to some of it, it's a very broad, faith, like being [00:12:00] Anglican means like to be of the church of England. So it's, the denomination is defined by a location. and so in that, there's, what we would call Anglo-Catholic, which is very high church smells and bells, thees, and thous kind of thing.
[00:12:13] Ryan: There's evangelical, attitudes, which should be more properly understood within Anglicanism is there's more like low church. There is the emphasis on personal relationship and that's where my parents would more solidly find themselves if anybody's familiar with the alpha course that comes out of like an evangelical Anglican tradition.
[00:12:31] there's a good space for the kind of charismatic element to it. So it's really quite a wide tradition. and we always used to joke about it being like basically diet Catholic. It's like Catholicism without merit. Worship in it. which I always found ironic as I began to understand more of my cultural context coming from Northern Ireland, that there was like this tremendous kind of religious, political strife between two traditions.
[00:12:54] Ryan: That really don't seem that far apart. It's not like it was like this ultra charismatic [00:13:00] expression and then Catholicism, it's we're, we use a lot of the same words and dad's still wearing pretty similar robes and all
[00:13:07] Landon: that stuff, Yeah. I mean, it was the political, you kind ofreferenced like Protestants were more and more sort of allegiance to the crown in a sense.
[00:13:18] Landon: And then the Catholics were more for an independent Ireland. Yeah. Was that kind of the real undercurrent thing? And then the sort of the religious differences were the piece on how much of that felt motivated by to your point by actual religious differences and more like political.
[00:13:39] Landon: Differences in disguise. I mean maybe, yeah, maybe you can't really even separate those two
[00:13:43] Ryan: things perfectly. It's really hard to separate them so that the joke would go, someone approaches you in the street and they say, are you a Catholic or Protestant? And you say, well, I'm an atheist. And they say, okay, but are you a Catholic atheist or you're Protestant?
[00:13:55] Ryan: Anything because it by and large has become an [00:14:00] ethnicity. So it doesn't have anything to do with what you believe, unfortunately, because it's so tied into a sense of identity and specifically political identity tribalism. Yeah. it really is a tribalism and it's a binary, which I think is set me up uniquely in a couple of different ways where me I'll talk about this later in my story.
[00:14:18] Ryan: But like the being an immigrant sets me up very differently to understand orientation to groups and tribes and coming from a country where there's a very strong black and white binary that has led to. It makes me very wary when I begin to see that in a culture like we have in the states now, so there's a couple of things I think are important to understand in my background where it's yeah, we've seen this film before and it doesn't go so well that has really given me a different perspective of what's happening in the church in America.
[00:14:54] so coming back, like this idea that we're not the dominant expression of Christianity, like [00:15:00] when I, when we lived in Michigan, especially like in Virginia where we S like, that was the first move to the south, even though it's not like solid, deep south, like most people are like, Southern Baptist or these kinds of things.
[00:15:13] and, it was interesting interacting with people. And I led a Christian fellowship at, my high school with a gal who was Baptist. And so there was some like interesting discussions there, but that's where we really It was learning how to lead Bible studies and some of these things, and then like in our youth group, like I could bang out three chords on the guitar.
[00:15:31] Ryan: So I was in the rotation of kids trying to lead us in worship or whatever, being a pastor's kid, there's always a certain expectation that you have the right answer. but it wasn't, again, even in that,I remember learning from somebody else about like sword drills, which for those of you that maybe don't know is like, how quickly can you get to Bible verse in your little Bible or whatever.
[00:15:52] so it wasn't necessarily growing up like that. but I think like part of the Anglican tradition, there's two things that I think are really [00:16:00] key. Number one is that it's a liturgically based, well, I'll just say three things. It's a liturgically based Christian denomination, which means that we use prescribed prayers.
[00:16:11] Ryan: Consistent from week to week. So you're learning how to pray and all the prayers are rooted in scripture. If you're following your calendar, you're following calendar. But even week to week, the prayers are the same prayers. So there's a prayer of confession. There's prayers of intercession. There are prayers when we're preparing ourselves to come to the table.
[00:16:31] Ryan: So you learn how to you actually, literally it is wired my brain to know how to pray. And it's very, it's very poetic. The language is really precise and it's it's almost like teaching you theology as you're praying it. And which I found out later when I started to like work with a lot of people that came from like non-denominational world, but they didn't know how to pray.
[00:16:52] Ryan: They don't want to exercise their anxieties out loud and hope that maybe there's somebody out there listening, but they didn't know how to pray. don't get me
[00:16:58] Landon: started.
[00:16:59] number [00:17:00] two, scripture reading is public and it's on. So every single Sunday, there's an old Testament reading. There's a Psalm, which would be, we would read responsively back and forth with whomever is leading.
[00:17:14] Ryan: There's a new Testament reading and there's a gospel. The gospel is always last. You always stand for the gospel. And then the sermon is a little bit shorter. And it's usually on one of those readings, and there's a three-year cycle on the calendar. So you read all of the gospels over the course of three years, but you're always reading all the scriptures.
[00:17:32] and so you get a really robust exposure to the whole of the Bible, as opposed to what happens a lot of times in evangelical or non-denominational spaces where it's you pick and choose whatever the pastor is feeling like at that point. And then thirdly, it's sacramental, which means that. We were given a rich language of how to participate in the life of faith that goes beyond just listening to someone talk about the Bible and singing [00:18:00] songs.
[00:18:01] Ryan: So baptism is a big deal. Communion is a big deal. praying, like learning how to praise a big deal. So we had like more of an ecosystem maybe for some of those things. so after high school,okay, so there was this moment in the 10th grade, you had to like, that was when you had to figure out what you're going to be, according to your guidance, counselor, whatever you and your entire life, and you better not mess it up.
[00:18:21] Ryan: And I was of that generation in the fourth grade where they were like, you better learn how to write in cursive because you're gonna go to college someday. And if you try to just print, you will fail and you will be homeless. And you will die alone. And so you better learn to write cursive, right?
[00:18:40] Ryan: We're like, oh my gosh, I bet it six grading for poor people. Yeah. Then the sixth grade, they're like, this is a personal computer. learn how to type. And then you get there. You're like what happened to cursive? So I'm of that generation. so in the 10th grade, trying to figure out what I want to do, I love we were all raised with this idea, do something that matters.
[00:18:58] am I for the [00:19:00] record? My parents never pushed us to the ministry. There was no expectation for it at all. And I actually found out later, like they really didn't want any of us to do it because they knew the cost. And, there were 30 seconds in the 10th grade where I thought, what if I became a pastor?
[00:19:16] Ryan: And I went, nah, that's what Baptist kids do. Like we Anglicans, we don't just enter into the family business. And so I,I loved the idea of education. And I think I intuitively understood its value specifically the two, disciplines that I was attracted to her history and art. And I just got why we study those things.
[00:19:38] Ryan: And I found out later it's called cognitive development theory, which is essentially like whatever the, whatever the subject is, you're learning is secondary. that's just the avenue to learning how to be formed as a person, and to be able to contribute to society to the tribe. So I, I loved art.
[00:19:56] Ryan: I loved my art classes and I really saw how a lot of my friends who were like [00:20:00] the standouts, the freaks, like they didn't fit in elsewhere. Maybe even had disability disciplinary problems. Like art was the, that was the place where they felt like they belonged. And then I'm like, oh, I want to create that kind of space.
[00:20:11] Ryan: So I decided I wanted to be an art teacher. so began the. my 12th grade year there was like, some, matrix on the internet, which like you type in what you're looking for. And it pops up a bunch of colleges and Flagler college and St. Augustine, it was like number 25 on the list.
[00:20:26] Ryan: It had an actual art education degree, which wasn't a common thing. Usually it's get an education degree minor in art or the other way around, this was a five-year program. Cause it was almost like a double major. It was in Florida. I had never really considered coming here. it was pegged the most, valuable, like the most valuable.
[00:20:45] private college in the Southeast or something like was pretty affordable. It was the same cost as what it would've been for me to go to a state college in Virginia. So I just like that day, I was just like, boom, I'm just going to go there. Like I just made the decision well, which is very much a part of my personality.
[00:20:59] Ryan: I think [00:21:00] I have
[00:21:00] Landon: not.
[00:21:02] Ryan: Yeah. So my mom and I came down for a weekend and if you've ever been to St. Augustine, you've seen Flagler college, like it's gorgeous. it's a beautiful campus and there's 1700 kids when I started. So I started at Flagler art education. never changed colleges, never changed majors.
[00:21:19] Ryan: And, I remember that first semester waking up one Sunday and going, I don't have to go to church today if I don't want. There's nobody to tell me, because when you're a pastor's kids, of course you go to church. Sure. Yeah. And of course you sit in the front row and you better be saying, like these, and again, none of it was implicit.
[00:21:37] Ryan: It was just like, there's just this, you just pick it up in the air. there's this expectation on you? And it was really liberating, I think. and I had been to like a couple churches with some friends that I had made that first year. And it just all felt really wishy-washy and blah, like it was my first exposure to like non-denominational churches or Baptist churches or whatever.
[00:21:56] Ryan: So it was really liberating to not have to go to church anymore. [00:22:00] And, and so that became, one Sunday to the next Sunday to like a year and a half of just not investing. And it w it wasn't like a season of activate theism or anything. I wasn't like this grand declaration, but it was just like, I just tuned out.
[00:22:14] Ryan: I didn't have to do it anymore. And that felt really good until. And, I remember that there was a couple crises that were happening in some friend's lives of mine. And I remember this one guy who was a year younger than me coming to my dorm and he like sat in this chair and he was just like really pouring his heart out.
[00:22:31] Ryan: And I felt like I didn't have anything to offer because I recognized oh, I feel pretty dried out too. I don't have anything to speak into your life. And so I felt this pull,I, man, I need to get this sorted out. Like maybe it's been nice to like, not have to deal with it.
[00:22:49] can you talk a little more about yeah.
[00:22:52] Landon: What dried out meant to you? Yeah,
[00:22:54] Ryan: absolutely.
[00:22:58] Ryan: It's just one of, one of [00:23:00] the things that I've learned about the search for meaning is it's just easy to not search for it. And we take it for granted that there's this intrinsic desire in all of humanity to know who am I, where did I come from? Why am I here? And I believe on the deepest level, that's true. But I believe that a lot of us have just shut that down, because it's too much work because it's too scary.
[00:23:25] Ryan: We can't be bothered, whatever it is, there's different. and even maybe from season to season, I think I was in a season of yeah. Self discovery, like most anybody else. but my self discovery, I think in that was just very, immediate. It was about making friends and it was about figuring out what kind of music I like.
[00:23:45] Ryan: And, those sorts of things that when you're 17, 18, 19, like those are the things that you value. and so I think I was, I think I was distracted maybe from some of the larger questions. But eventually recognizing I think [00:24:00] I had been formed and this is one of the things I think is really neat about growing up in the faith, is that you're formed to almost take for granted that there's more than meets the eye.
[00:24:09] Ryan: I think even for you, it sounds like that was like, you were raised not too dissimilar to me, like life matters and there's more to it than just being functional or even here's one. I would say we probably both agree, like the goal of life is not to be happy. Like when either of us were raised, we'll just be happy, And I wasn't raised with just be sick, do something that you can be successful at. make lots of money, buy lots of stuff. Like it was just woven into me, like no life matters. And so do something with your life that matters. And I think that's why I chose the discipline that I did. But I think I got to a point where I did feel like, man, I think there is something more.
[00:24:48] Ryan: And I haven't been tending to that part of my own desire. Like I tucked that away for season, which I probably needed to do honestly. but it just became time when I recognized [00:25:00] in my interconnectedness to people in college, because I think that's the place where friends start to become family. when you're in home middle school, high school, your friends are your friends, your families, your family, like you have a point of origin, but when you're out on your own, you need to create that point of origin.
[00:25:18] Ryan: And so my friendships were becoming more vital. And when I started to allow my heart to be effected by the people that I was building, those kinds of relationships with, it was like, man, I want to be able to show up better. Yeah. And I feel like I don't have that, but I feel like I don't only have to have that for myself.
[00:25:33] Ryan: So it bounced back onto me. So that's what I mean by that sense of like feeling dried up. So that began a process of well, let's figure it out. So what do we do? Okay. We go and we'll find a church community. And so I started going back to church again, it was the same thing.
[00:25:49] Ryan: Like I went to some churches and I'm like, this is so we sing some songs. Somebody gives a little Ted talk in the middle of that. Like [00:26:00] vaguely references the book
[00:26:01] Landon: to you to concerts the Ted talk. I know
[00:26:05] Ryan: I did, man. I think it's being Anglican is also to be cynical. Maybe. I don't know. I feel like my Orthodox brothers are like, maybe worse out of the bridge is a bunch of angry nerds and I love them for it, but yeah.
[00:26:15] so I ended up after six months finding this little church in my neighborhood in Lincolnville, which is a historically black neighborhood in St. Augustine little church. super diverse, like all ages, except for college, ironically. a lot of black, white, and so on. And the pastor he was from Trinidad orig.
[00:26:35] he had moved to England when he was 16. He had, done some things in the private sector, became an Anglican priest later, got married and they moved over to the states and he was here. So it was neat because not only did I feel like I received my tradition back, like I know these prayers, I know this process of of doing faith.
[00:26:53] but because there was a British tinge to it, it felt even more home. And they really welcomed me in and they were so excited to have [00:27:00] a college student present in their community. They like little kids and 95 year old people have been at church the whole, our whole lives, and I just ate it up and it was neat because I felt like, oh, I'm choosing this now.
[00:27:11] and in retrospect, it actually, I feel like really blessed the way that I was raised in a good way. Like that sense of no, you, this is what you do. Like Sundays, you go to church, like that's a non-negotiable. So I think interestingly enough, A huge part of my story. There was a deemphasis on like I'm making this choice.
[00:27:33] there was never a point in my life where I was asked to make a decision for Jesus. Hm. man, that's
[00:27:38] Landon: crazy. Yeah. That's like the whole ballgame, the way I grew up, it was like, yeah, everything's about that. And everything's about going out to get other people to do that.
[00:27:49] Ryan: And I think that's interesting and it was actually, it was odd for me to learn the other process. Not that we didn't have, I had seen it in other people, maybe they weren't [00:28:00] Christian and they came to our church and dad baptized an adult or a teenager, whatever. But we certainly never rebaptized to people.
[00:28:08] Ryan: Like there, wasn't the Bible camp, like call altar call and like you got baptized every summer or whatever. and there was never, I don't remember a, praying the sinner's prayer. That wasn't really a thing. Like I think my parents sat me down and taught me how to pray and like to talk to Jesus.
[00:28:23] Ryan: But like dad would, one of the funny things about being a pastor's kid is you end up being the, like the anecdote in sermons, which is horrible. Cause now I know you've been the anecdote it's but he would tell this story that I would always cringe at where like I came to him at four or five and I'm like, daddy is Jesus like Superman.
[00:28:45] Ryan: And that was my understanding at for sure. But I grew up into the idea of God. Like I never knew a time where God wasn't present on some level, conceptually, experientially, whatever. [00:29:00] As I grew, my understanding of God also grew. So for me it was very much a progression. There's not a lot of pins that I can put in my timeline of oh, this was the thing.
[00:29:09] Ryan: There was a moment when, I remember at some youth retreat where I like throughout my limp biscuit and corn CDs, like that, I just re burned them and they've discovered Napster and Limewire. but it was always there. It was becoming more tangible or like the way like I was, there was what I would believe was changing, like was being solidified.
[00:29:35] Ryan: I don't even know if that's the right language for it, but also the way in which I hold it, like my experience of it or whatever it was. Yeah.
[00:29:41] Landon: It's interesting. I'm such a kind of fascinating contrast between how we were taught to be postured yeah. In the face, because. Deconstruction, subsequent deconversion even using that term.
[00:29:59] Landon: Something [00:30:00] like deconversion right. comes out of a tradition, that places all of the weight on belief. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. we're going to pack this in later episodes, but evangelicalism, I think for a lot of people, even broader culture is defined by its propositional claims.
[00:30:21] So it's the atheist debating, the young earth creation scientist or, and they're debating like, did Noah's flood really happen or right. So they're having those kinds of conflicts. So it's all intellectual. It's all about. Like you said ascending to that sort of intellectual belief or and making that sort of per personal declaration of belief, I think for you, it's interesting to hear that difference.
[00:30:54] Landon: And it's more about participation and all the emphasis is not on you as an [00:31:00] individual.
[00:31:01] Ryan: Oh, very much. So that was, again, one of the things that I began to encounter in other people was like, the way that we do prayer and Bible is that you begin from the place of God and then you move steadily into the individual.
[00:31:20] Ryan: So like even reading the scriptures, it's what is the, like the truth of who God is? What does that mean for creation? What does that mean for the church? Universal? What does that mean for my local community? And then finally, what does that mean for me? When I started to engage with evangelicals and it was like, the Bible is I open it, I read it.
[00:31:39] Ryan: And I immediately jumped what does that mean for me? And I, then the thing of what's the takeaway, what's the thing that I can apply to my life this week. Yeah. And, I mean, we'll get to this later in my story, when I started pastoring here and people were asking for like vision, this kind of thing, I just had no idea what they're talking about.
[00:31:57] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:31:57] yeah, I think there's this,[00:32:00]
[00:32:01] Landon: it back to that, there is this huge difference in, I think we even see it in art. I know recently we were both listening to this guy. Jonathan Pancho is an Orthodox Christian who talks a lot about symbolism and he's big into iconography and he carves these symbols and icons and stuff, and there's so much baked into the tradition.
[00:32:28] Landon: Of all of that. And he made this interesting point about how a lot of like Christian art, those artists will never be, will rarely be the world famous artists, because it's not about individual expression, It's about participating and being a new kind of iteration of an old tradition. And I think the evangelical church in large part, and I think [00:33:00] in my experience as well, it has tried to play that same game.
[00:33:04] Landon: So I was, yeah, I got the message a lot growing up about, we should be the best at blank because we're in relationship with the creator of the universe. We should be the most creative. We should be the best artists. We should be the most successful businesspeople. So there was this, we should be winning.
[00:33:25] Landon: Personal game because we have this like secret weapons, so to speak. And so I think what's interesting, just another one of these contrast is like,
[00:33:38] Landon: for you, it wasn't that question of vision, or even talking about, the YouTube concert in the Ted talk. these are like personal expressions. I think in the tradition I come from and a lot of churches in America, I think that people are probably familiar with have that sort of [00:34:00] same tone to it.
[00:34:01] Landon: And I think that when, again, like we've said, we're going to touch on that these ideas later, but I think they're, so I think that's such a big difference. That's such a key, I mean, that foundational shift of it's not a. My expression of my own ideas, as much as my participation in this sort of long history
[00:34:22] Ryan: of, I think that's really what we would maybe term as like a sacramental worldview.
[00:34:27] Ryan: So this is it's us, it's the Catholics. It's the Orthodox Lutherans Methodist a little bit. And it would be like this. Like I think the scriptures are great example. I think evangelicals tend to have this attitude of our job is to interpret the scriptures, right? that's what we're doing.
[00:34:42] we're presented with the scripture and we're, it's our job to interpret it so that the preceding assumption is I have the tools to be able to figure out what this means. And then I have the tools to apply it to my life for us because of that way that we read the scriptures [00:35:00] and remember that cause there's four readings and then all of our liturgical player prayers, you can go line by line and attach them to scripture.
[00:35:08] Ryan: So you're just praying scriptures constantly. It's the other way round. It's not, how do I interpret the scripture is how does this scripture interpret me? And so that's the sacramental worldview is God is when we talk about God as the ground of all being and is the source. And so I am being interpreted by this thing that God is waiting to be revealed.
[00:35:31] Ryan: The God is already present. So whether it's like at the table, like for us, the main event, isn't the sermon it's coming to the Lord's table. That's the thing that we're working. Like the sermon is only pointing towards that moment. That event of entering into the presence of God and literally receiving the presence of God in a way that it transforms and interprets me and who I am so baked into it is the sense of being given over to.
[00:35:59] Ryan: And so I [00:36:00] think like for you and I like one of the most pivotal moments for me personally, it was like, it was two years ago. You asked me, you said, why do you believe. And I said, because I've given myself over to it and then an hour later I texted you and I go, actually, that's not right. It's because I have been given over to it.
[00:36:23] Ryan: And I think I've recognized, like even in my life, like in those moments of know, like year and a half where I was just like outside of the church and not practicing my faith in any real, tangible way, or even now,at this recording, it's a Sunday this morning when I was preaching, I was just half joking, well, I'm an atheist 30% of the time.
[00:36:38] Ryan: You know what I mean? Like when you look at the tangible reality of my life,
[00:36:41] Landon: people love it. When you say that,
[00:36:45] Ryan: love it. That's how you get people to trust you. but so I of course like push up against the definitions and the. the, that presentation of reality, like I'm not saying it's an easy track, but [00:37:00] there's a fun, there's a foundational posture of,maybe giftedness,to be, have given over to something to receive it as a gift.
[00:37:07] Ryan: There's something inherently deeper, more profound, larger, farther than my own understanding that I'm caught up in that. And so in the Anglican tradition, we call that mystery. So we pray about this. Therefore we declared the mystery of faith. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ has come again. but everything in my tradition, it starts with the reality of Christ and then it filters out from there and not the least important bit by any means.
[00:37:34] Ryan: But the last bit of it is okay, what does this do for me personally?
[00:37:37] Landon: Okay. So you. We'll jump back to your timeline. So you got involved with church again. Yup. You were teaching art at
[00:37:47] a
[00:37:47] Ryan: time? Well, that was still, I was still in art school, but yeah. Oh, sorry. yeah. during that time, started a band with some friends.
[00:37:53] actually I had some like minor success and a little bit of buzz and the like humblebrag. Yeah. The Christian [00:38:00] tangent indie market. Yeah. And, so I graduated, in 2006 day after I graduated, we hit the road and started touring that lasted six months because it's really hard to go from being friends that are in a band to being business partners.
[00:38:13] Ryan: And, and that was really hard, because I'd stake my claim on that. And and you'll appreciate this. this would be more of an evangelical, charismatic posture. I was like, Lord, if I get to be a professional music. I'll give you the rest of my life. I'll do whatever you want me to do.
[00:38:29] Landon: I've sold my soul to the Lord many times.
[00:38:32] Ryan: Yes. And, I got to be a professional musician for six months. Yeah. And it was like, well damn. Okay. So I flailed for a little bit after that I was substitute teaching at the time. I was like living in this like efficiency suite, like 150 square foot. One room sounds nice.
[00:38:53] Ryan: Sweet.
[00:38:54] Landon: Oh my gosh. It's
[00:38:54] Ryan: everything. It sounds like I was not even studio. It's not even a studio. studios are official and I was [00:39:00] lonely. I'd gone through a really bad breakup at the time. disoriented, substitute teaching to make ends meet, but it wasn't making much money. I was drinking more than I was comfortable with at that point.
[00:39:09] Ryan: So I'm like 22. And I remember praying this prayer and just being like, Lord, I don't even know what, like a clean slate is. I could get that. that's what I want. And so that summer of 2007, there was a job came up at the school that I had done my internship at. And, the teacher there, he reached out, he's apply for this.
[00:39:29] Ryan: This would be great. I didn't get it. So just started subbing again. started applying out like out of state. Like I was like, if I'm going to move out, like I'm not going to get a job in St. Augustine. I don't want to live in like small town. I want to like, experience something bigger. So I applied to a Chicago, Nashville, Atlanta, some places that I knew, some people.
[00:39:46] Ryan: And, I got a call in October of 2007. This was an art teaching job in Nashville. And it was at the time to go into it here, but it was a very quick like job offer interview, [00:40:00] acceptance, move to Nashville all within the span of five days. So I moved in with a friend of mine who'd lived there. So all these places, like I want to know at least a couple people, so I can get rooted.
[00:40:09] Ryan: And the friend that I, she ended up having a spare room, I moved in with her. She's do you want to come into church with me tonight? I said, sure. So we go to the anchor fellowship, which is a vineyard church. So vineyard is charismatic renewal. So in the seventies, something happened in this country where all these like hippie kids started to like, be really taken up with the Jesus story.
[00:40:29] Ryan: And then all these like Catholic and Episcopalian priests were like, ah, we need to pay attention to what's happening on the beach. And it was this weird mishmash and this really neat thing. Like you, you probably know vineyard songs and Maranatha songs, like all these worship songs that came out of that era.
[00:40:44] Ryan: Yeah, for sure. so I went to that church that night and I kinda decided pretty quickly, like this is going to be a place not too dissimilar to you. Moving to Orlando was like, I need community. So I was like, this is it. And it was neat because it was a bunch of young. People who were subculture. So it's like punk [00:41:00] hardcore hip hop, like a lot of what I had picked up in college and they were really, desirous of living in relationship with the spirit of Jesus.
[00:41:09] Ryan: They pursuing the charismatic gifts, but they were also so interested in, what I would say is like a post denominational attitude of if it leads us deeper into the faith, we want it. So they were already reaching out into other traditions in a way that I think the previous generation probably wouldn't want to.
[00:41:25] Ryan: And that was actually, we were a bit of a black sheep in the vineyard movement because the guys that like were 20 year old hippies in the 1970s who came to the Lord in these revivals, they were still in charge. So well, we just, we should just do it the way we've been doing it. Yeah, but have you ever seen an, like an Orthodox icon?
[00:41:43] Ryan: It's cool. Yeah. You've ever done a liturgical prayer. It's kinda neat. So there was already like a seat at the table for me, which was really cool. And they welcomed me in with some of my tradition. And, I remember in those first couple of months, so our pastor, Josh, who was the founding pastor, he formed the church out of rebellion.
[00:41:59] Ryan: Cause he got [00:42:00] kicked out of the vineyard church, the local vineyard, great way to start a church. And he got kicked out of Bible college. Like he's a good old boy from Southern Virginia, like covered in tattoos and everything. And he gets up one Sunday and he goes, I'm going to be honest with y'all. I don't even know what I'm gonna talk about.
[00:42:14] Ryan: So I'm just going to talk until the holy spirit gives me something and I'm like,no. There's like a church calendar.
[00:42:18] he never went so far as this one. You've probably seen this where like someone's preaching and then they look to the upper right of the room and they go, huh? Yes. Okay. Do you ever witness that one or
[00:42:30] Landon: just spoke to me? I'm going to change course here
[00:42:34] Ryan: for sure. There's this funny? Yeah, there's funny.
[00:42:36] Ryan: Like I would say liturgy in the charismatic church where it's whatever plans you have by default, God is a God of chaos. And it's going to ask you to throw out your plans. And so you throw out your plan so often that it actually becomes a liturgy like you expect, right? So there's this weird little, like that's
[00:42:50] Landon: the sign of like authenticity.
[00:42:52] Ryan: Yes, exactly. It's this weird sacrament of we create plans with the expectation that when it comes Sunday, those plants are going to be [00:43:00] destroyed. Which is but anyway, it was so offensive to me that I knew it was where I needed. And in that season, I felt like the Lord said to me, this, I, you have this solid foundation of theology from your, from this Anglican tradition, but now I want you to experience something.
[00:43:17] Ryan: And here was this group of people that were really pursuing like an actual life of the spirit and wanting to make a difference in the world and do justice, so after six months, so I'm teaching in this inner city school started in with this community group. Six months later, the pastor comes to one of our groups and he's Lord told me you're supposed to lead this.
[00:43:33] Ryan: Wow. Okay. all So I start leading this community group. It becomes of a house church after three years, that launches as an independent, house church, or like connected to the mother church, whatever. But I didn't feel called to do that. I felt like I was the stay with the mother church.
[00:43:46] Ryan: And so my co-leader, he launched that, he's now a Satanist, and was feeling really. lost in that season. I really loved what I did with the church. And, so this is, the end of 2010 school year, may of 2010. and I [00:44:00] met with my pastor and I was, I just broke down. I was like, I feel like I'm compromising who I am everyday just to get through the school day.
[00:44:06] every morning at 6:30 AM being pushed by some kid with a big fuck you in a middle finger. that's how I started every day for three years. And I was young. I started when I was 23 and I was really naive. I didn't feel like I was well-prepared for inner city teaching. There was no budget.
[00:44:22] Ryan: Like it was really hard. So I said, I feel like I'm compromising who I am everyday just to survive. But when I do, like, when I lead a Bible study, when I help lead worship, when I do think it's not that I just feel happy. Like I feel whole, I feel complete. And so he told me, he said, well, he said, I've known prophetically for awhile that you weren't going to teach for much.
[00:44:44] Ryan: And so we'd had a conversation with the staff about five months before this are us talking. And he said, I want to, I have this vision to start this ministry school. I want to get somebody like Ryan to do it. Cause I wanted to be more academically minded. So he offered me the job on the spot. Of course.
[00:44:58] Ryan: Yeah. It was very, that would be a total vineyard [00:45:00] move.
[00:45:01] Landon: How prophetic
[00:45:02] Ryan: of him? Well, yeah. Yeah. it's very much like on the spur of the moment and we had this, like the associate pastor that took over, like we had this moment where he apologized on behalf of the community of there was this kind of untaught culture, like yeah.
[00:45:18] Ryan: Everybody serves Jesus, but when you're really serious, you'll work for absolutely no money for the church. You've probably got about 10 years before you just burn out entirely. So good luck. Yeah.
[00:45:28] Landon: That's I mean, even gelical church too, that's a very common sort of exit a stories. Yeah. I was a commodity.
[00:45:38] Landon: I was like an unpaid yeah. Surfing sort of thing, and,
[00:45:42] Ryan: and you've never ever asked for what you're worth because that's ego, right? Yeah. It's
[00:45:47] Landon: just, it's built into the yeah. So the whole narrative of your participation and stuff. And I think, yeah, a lot of people have that burnt out. I got [00:46:00] treated that was my value to bring to the table set up chairs or something.
[00:46:03] Yeah.
[00:46:03] Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. So I took a month and a half,talk to some older wiser people. And then I felt yeah, I think this is the invitation. So I just gotten tenured as a teacher. I quit call my folks. they were not happy. My mom's screamed at me on the phone, hung up on me and we didn't talk for two weeks because for them, it was again, coming from our tradition.
[00:46:25] Ryan: Well, if you feel called to ministry, you should go to seminary and then you become like an associate pastor or a youth pastor, and you work your way into it. And I was like, I know that's a thing. Like I don't have any problem with that. I just don't know if that's what I'm called to, but on a deeper level,and very,it was very valid.
[00:46:42] Ryan: I actually really respect this about my parents. They just knew what it cost and how hard it is to do this work because you're, you're elbows deep in the pain of the world. Yeah.
[00:46:52] Landon: people should know Ryan's mother is a wonderfully fiery Irish woman. She does not [00:47:00] withhold her
[00:47:01] Ryan: full opinion.
[00:47:02] Ryan: No. and it was deep care for us. And the ironic thing was five months before this, my brother Scott, who had a good job, 401k working communications, quit his job, moved to Hugo. So it was a very difficult year for the Adams family. so I started this ministry school,patterned after why I'm a little bit, it was like 14 week like the DTS model a little bit, discipleship training school.
[00:47:25] Ryan: Oh yes. Sorry. We're seeking insight lingo. and I really loved it. I really did. We had students come from, it was small, it was intimate. We had students call them from all over the country, lot of different backgrounds. and I, man, I played jazz. Like I made it up as I went along and I felt again, I had this like solid theological foundation from the way that I grew up and a practical foundation from the church that I was immersed in at the time.
[00:47:51] but it was really worth figuring out like what works and what matters, what needs to be addressed specifically for our generation. So I did that for three years. And [00:48:00] during that time, I reconnected with a friend of mine from my band years, he was in a band that we were on the same label. They were also Florida based and we had toured together and he had ended up working for status as the discipleship pastor.
[00:48:12] Ryan: His name was Tom Gustafson, the best human being on the planet. And Tom and I connected because we entered into ministry at the same time. And we just call each other periodically and be like, this is weird. Isn't this weird. Yeah, this is weird. And the summer of 2011, he invited me to come down to Orlando for a couple of years to teach like a super condensed version of some of the work that I was doing in Nashville.
[00:48:33] Ryan: So it came down to, from her, this, you remember this? I did not attend, but we didn't. I don't think we actually met. So this was at status 2011. I met a few people that are really good friends. Now I met Cole and, Scott, John, David, Emily, some these people that we know and, in the S in, 2013, may of 2013, I came back through flu.
[00:48:53] Ryan: And I was passing through town and I went out for a drink with our friend Cole that night, who at the [00:49:00] time was pastoring the transition from status to city. Beautiful. Cause the guy who was pastoring at the time moved on to the things, Cole was the creative director. He's holding the space and I'd asked him like, okay, I've watched the transition from far.
[00:49:14] Ryan: It looks great. How has it actually been? And he said, well, I feel like I've done a decent job, but it's not my skillset. I know it's not what I'm ultimately called to. So I want you to move here and take my job. And I might, have, Cole, like in this personality, you're like 100%, that's a shout out to the coal.
[00:49:31] Ryan: And then second day he goes, tell me right now why you would say no, we just said again, so him, so we start talking about it that night. The next morning we talk about it a little bit. And long story short, like I get back to Nashville, talk to my staff about it through that summer. Which is a discernment process that come down and meet the elders, like a teach for a Sunday.
[00:49:52] Ryan: They formally offered me mid July of 2013. I accepted. And then August 2nd, I moved here [00:50:00] and then I began pastoring this church and colon, I co pastored for a couple of years. And then he moved on to do what he's doing now, which is totally awesome. And then I was like, the guy, people always come up to me like, so are you like the lead pastor?
[00:50:12] Ryan: I'm like, no, you're looking at it like this is it. It's me. I'm all the pastors. I'm all the pastors, but the knee, I think the cool thing about what I've been able to do now is I love Richard Rohr has this phrase when he talks about like our spiritual journeys, it's include and transcend where he says, like in many ways, we think like I'm leaving this part of my journey behind and I'm moving into this totally different thing.
[00:50:36] Ryan: He says an actuality, at least what we should do, if not what we do subconsciously. You bring along with you, all of these different iterations of who you've been and what you've believed. And, and if you're doing the work right, you chew up the meat and spit out the bone. so for me, it's like being from the cradle Anglican entering into the charismatic vineyard expression of the [00:51:00] charismatic church was a little bit different than what a lot of people would probably know now.
[00:51:04] Ryan: And then pastoring here and naturally being someone who is a bit of a synthesizer. And again, I think this comes from number one, being an immigrant. So I always had to learn how to adapt to different spaces and number two, being Anglican and recognizing like I'm not the dominant seat of the table. So how do I listen to other traditions and other journeys and expressions and find ultimately what are the things that bring me closer to God and almost like developing a theory of.
[00:51:33] Ryan: That's a little bit post denominational. So being able to lead this church over the past four years out of that place where it's if it leads us to God, like we're going to do that. and not feel like we're bound to one particular expression of Christianity, and in doing so redeeming a lot of the, the stories that we find in the community.
[00:51:51] Ryan: Yeah.
[00:51:52] Landon: Well still I think one thing you've done well is yeah, you do that, we've thrown the word [00:52:00] around a lot back when I was working in the church about like exploration. Yeah. I think doing strike, trying to strike that balance between exploration and that sort of anchoring in yeah.
[00:52:13] Landon: Which I know has been a struggle or frustration even of yours at times where people are coming to you wanting that well, what's your personal expression? Kind of thing we talked about before, right? what's your stance on blank or what's the church's position on this topic, whatever.
[00:52:32] Landon: And I think even in our own conversations, I have naturally been coming at this sort of deconstructing evangelicalism in a lot of ways. And asking you particular questions over the years, I think have felt like the wrong question to you at times, or at least the question that you didn't inherently understand.
[00:52:59] Or [00:53:00] understand how to inhabit. I think one thing that's been interesting about our engagement is that, and probably a part of the reason we're still close friends and are doing this podcast is that I think your ability to create space. Does invite people to engage. Even someone like me, who's now an atheist,
[00:53:29] Landon: our conversations have always felt more productive or it's been harder for me.
[00:53:39] Landon: I want to always make like an intellectual argument and make a point. And even at times of an attempted to like corner you in the sense of saying okay, but what's your intellectual belief about blank. And you're very often pushing, that's not the point or that's not how I think about that thing or [00:54:00] not that you don't answer that question.
[00:54:01] Landon: It's not that you're like, I don't wanna make it sound like you're evasive of the sort of questions, but there is this difference in tradition that I think. Even for myself and this kind of arc from when I spoke about last episode, atheism towards humanism or reconstructing or rebuilding like positive belief structure.
[00:54:25] Landon: I think you've played a really big part in allowing religious ideas to play in that process in a way that probably wouldn't have happened otherwise. Cause I think someone who comes through my track, the you need, it's really easy to I don't, it's a leave behind that sort of evangelical approach to things that sort of propositional, I think.
[00:54:57] Landon: This is my bias speaking. I think those [00:55:00] arguments are like too easy to win for someone who's not a believer because that's, and this is like weird. These are weird points for me to make as an unbeliever, but that's not the position they're supposed to be taking. That's not the right emphasis. Maybe is a better way to say it.
[00:55:17] yeah. Yeah. And so then, like you present a Christianity that's not easy to dismiss in that same way, because I think you don't because of your tie to tradition and to symbolism and like openhandedness, we've talked about, I think you present a version of Christianity. That's more, that's both like more substantive substance substantive, but that's also.
[00:55:54] Landon: More fluid. And it's a weird, it's weird. I think for me as [00:56:00] someone who's an evangelical and maybe for people listening, it's hard to understand how those two things fit together. But I think for me, I've come to I'm circling back in a way our Christian listeners are perking up, not circling back in that way.
[00:56:20] Landon: Certainly back in the sense that I have a real, I have a real respect still and a renewed respect, even for Christianity and for religion in general, I think largely because of you and the way that you navigate those spaces and the types of ideas that you bring to the table, because it, I want to play that right or wrong intellectual game a lot.
[00:56:46] Landon: And I think you do a good job. So challenging. Well, maybe think about this bigger picture or this kind of take the sort of Socratic route of just asking a difficult question instead, or and I think [00:57:00] that's what I think has made our friendship and our dialogue. So interesting. What fingers crossed is going to make this podcast interesting is that we can both come from these different spaces, but engaged in these ideas without needing these like early kind of oh, well that's a deal breaker, or this is a non-negotiable or that's a whatever, you
[00:57:18] Ryan: know.
[00:57:18] Ryan: Well, I think two things it's very easy to be beat up on evangelical. To the point where I don't even really find it that interesting
[00:57:28] Landon: anymore. We're not going to shit on that for the rest of this, all these episodes.
[00:57:32] and secondly, I think it's really easy to beat up on the deconstructionist thing too, for the same, for the exact same reasons, because they're actually mirror images of each other.
[00:57:41] Ryan: And for me, it's like the boldest thing is to like, if you're going to deconstruct go way down deep. Cause I do think a lot of people beat up on, I did the math one time, which is a thing like only like you and Aaron funk would appreciate it. I remember talking to some people and they were like, well, we're gonna, we're gonna [00:58:00] leave the church.
[00:58:00] Ryan: It's not city beautiful church. We're leaving the Western church now for me, it what you're saying. I'm like, I don't understand what that means. Like what, how are you holding so many things to make that kind of decision? Cause for me, isn't my understanding. Salvation is like to be a Christian is to be part of the church.
[00:58:20] Ryan: Okay. Which isn't the same thing as an institution? Yeah. 5 0 1 C three, but it's on the deepest level. Salvation is to be rescued into the people of God. and so if you're leaving the Western church, what does that mean? Well, the only choice is the Eastern church. You can't not be part of the church, you know what I mean?
[00:58:36] Ryan: Like that kinda thing. And, it's like those kinds of little engagements that I've had where I think so two things to what you're saying about me and I think that's like high praise. I really appreciate that. Number one, I'm super conflict avoidant. So I instinctually,
[00:58:52] Landon: oh my God. I'm like, you're not getting out of this conversation.
[00:58:57] Landon: I will get you to answer this
[00:58:59] Ryan: there. There's going to be [00:59:00] moments on this podcast where there's major eye rolls and like refilling very uncommon. So I have a natural skill to get out of conflict by a rate of eating that's real. But the second thing, like the kind of mirror of that is like part of my personality is be able to perceive the thing behind the thing.
[00:59:20] Ryan: And yeah, there's there's, propositions that are made to me and I've learned over 11 years of ministry to hear the thing behind the thing go well, actually don't agree with the category and, well, yeah, I think we'll talk about this probably when we talk about more like the historical understanding of how we got to this point, but basically, we have the enlightenment, everybody graves, pretty good thing happened, put science at the center of understanding of reality puts the human being at the center of the interpretation of reality, as opposed to God.
[00:59:47] Ryan: That was just the assumption before Descartes. I think therefore I am right. And what happened with the church was that. Like the enlightenment movement said, here's how we determine what truth is. [01:00:00] And a lot of the church went, oh, shoot. Yeah. Okay. So he started playing, trying to fit their things within the confines of what had been described by the surrounding culture.
[01:00:12] Ryan: I made
[01:00:12] Landon: this argument on Instagram today. How did it go? You sent me a hand-clapping emoji. So I guess it was okay. Maybe I was clapping back,
[01:00:20] Ryan: but yeah, you're absolutely right. and it gets down to the point, like the specifics, for example,are you pro-life or are you pro-choice my God, like what a false stupid binary that is because as first of all, it's two different conversations.
[01:00:35] Ryan: So we're already set up that we can't even argue with one another intelligently or like actually figure out what we what's the thing beneath the thing, but anything, but the boundaries have already been set and it's you've got to play according. The rules that have already been established.
[01:00:48] Ryan: And I think, I bump into that a lot with people where it's well, they asked me these questions, like another similar one, you just intimated at a moment ago, someone in those in 2015, [01:01:00] met with me for coffee and said, what is city beautiful? Church's stance about the Supreme court ruling that legalizes gay marriage.
[01:01:09] Ryan: I was like, I don't have time to be issuing stances on every Supreme court ruling. Like what do you actually ask the bigger picture? But we're so it's so much the water that we swim in to assume well, of course it's like this and it's well, have you ever examined the water? So I think like part of the deconstruction thing, which I think is neat, cause I feel like you're on this journey too.
[01:01:30] Ryan: It's can you do deconstruct the thing beneath the thing? Because mathematically what I equated was like, if you take all Christians in the world, their population and like all humanity and then American critique. And then evangelical Christians and then white evangelical Christians. It's 1.6% of the world by population of Christians.
[01:01:48] Ryan: So the thing that a lot of people are deconstructing is such a small expression of Christianity today. Do you know the [01:02:00] average? Gosh, I can't remember if these are the things I wish we had researched before. We did say at the
[01:02:06] Landon: least it was not researched before these podcast
[01:02:08] Ryan: episodes. The average, like if you were to look at the mean Christian today, it's an African woman in her mid twenties.
[01:02:16] Ryan: That's the mean now you and I, we don't know that experience at all on several different levels, but we're just so con and again, I think it's another, one of the, like the kind of sad, byproducts of this,bastard, bastardized version of evangelicalism. Like I'm still at the center of my own.
[01:02:32] Ryan: Because we need, the gospel is Jesus died for my sin, so I can go to heaven when I die and everything about God serves me. And he's the giant ATM in the sky. Like I just assume like my personal experience is the whole thing. And I paint the whole thing with this one, big swatch. I feel blessed that I didn't grow up in a kind of Christian and it was like that it was like, here's the grand narrative that you fit into and you're precious and you're valuable, but you only find your context in the bigger thing.
[01:02:59] Ryan: Like you're being [01:03:00] interpreted by the story and you don't interpret the story.
[01:03:02] Landon: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So I think where we find ourselves is you started painting that arc from enlightenment and reformation or the reaction by some of the church, at least that many of us in our listeners are familiar with.
[01:03:22] I think that sort of narrowing of. The church, what the church brings to the table gave birth to what we would call like new atheism.
[01:03:34] Ryan: And isn't that interesting. They're really just, everything is a reaction to the movement before.
[01:03:39] So the church becomes some evangelical church in America becomes this kind of bastion of propositional statements and claims, right?
[01:03:51] Landon: How old is the earth? What happens when
[01:03:53] Ryan: you die? For sure. And there's 95 theses that you have to intellectually agree with,
[01:03:58] Landon: right? Yeah. And the whole [01:04:00] thing is about belief. So there's this already, this sort of like intellectual understanding sort of element to it, right? The response to that is what you call like new atheism, Which is, are these non-believing intellectuals, which then come back. That worldview on intellectual grounds, right? This is
[01:04:21] Ryan: because Hitchins
[01:04:23] Sam Harris, for sure. Yeah. Kraus. Yeah. these guys start picking that apart on intellectual grounds. Obviously I think they do a very good job of that.
[01:04:34] Landon: And that was a bit of my path, even through some of those arguments where we find ourselves now, as though is we're in this space that you and I have been discussing a lot that this kind of articulation we got from John , who's a cognitive scientist in Canada that he calls the meaning crisis.
[01:04:57] Landon: And I assume that's intuitive for a lot of [01:05:00] people. And, we talk a lot about like social media and how it's killing us and it's ruined community and whatever, but there is this kind of big picture of a lot of people searching for. For meaning and trying to figure out, okay, maybe this version of Christianity I was given or this version of secular philosophy, I was given whatever sort of fill in the blank is an answering these questions of meaning in the way that I feel like I needed it to, or I expected it to.
[01:05:31] Landon: And there are a lot of people asking questions and looking for that narrative to embody and to exist in, I think partly why we're seeing people throw themselves into political movements and the way that they are, and to occupy them in such a fundamentalist way on both sides of the spectrum.
[01:05:49] Landon: They're all making the same arguments in the same way, just about on different sides of issues, And I think what you and I have been doing is really trying to take a step back [01:06:00] and dig in with each other on those questions of, okay, what, how do we ground, especially if we disagree, how do we ground.
[01:06:08] Landon: Meaning and purpose, not that we have to come to total agreements on those things, but I think a lot of what we're trying to do with this podcast bringing our backstories to, to the current moment is we're trying to navigate this space to what feels like a cultural meaning vacuum in a sense.
[01:06:27] Landon: And we're trying to say, Hey, if we can come to the table and engage with each other and really try to get to the bottom, right? Like you said, the thing beneath the thing, Don't get distracted by the binaries of political movements or of these religious questions, whatever. But if we can just say there's more, there's common ground to be found.
[01:06:54] Landon: And I think where we don't agree and we don't find common ground, there are things to be learned. Yeah. And [01:07:00] so I think that I just want to. Paint that picture a little bit. Cause I think that's our jumping off point for the rest of these episodes. We're going to take a handful of topics from religion and philosophy.
[01:07:12] but our goal is not to pick controversial topics and talk about them as Christian and non-Christian, but to say let's take big foundational ideas like truth, or, we will take some specific things like the Bible or, but we're going to talk about knowledge and morality and these things and try to see if we can find the meaning in it and dig down and do that together.
[01:07:35] Landon: And so that's what we're doing. Welcome to the ride that is meaning in the middle. Let's cheers to
[01:07:45] Ryan: that. Cheers. Love
[01:07:47] Landon: you. Love you.
[01:07:52] Landon: So you guys next time.