How to Die: Punk Rock, Monasteries, and the Scandal of Discipleship

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined today by Joshua S. Porter. And he's written a new book, How to Die, Chaos, Morality, and the Scandal of Christian Discipleship. He's also a pastor at a church in Vancouver, Washington, not Vancouver, Canada, but Vancouver, Washington. And so we're going to be talking about his new book, which is forthcoming. It's in presale right now. But I'm interested to have this conversation. I love the title. I love the cover. Very cool. And so, Josh, man, thanks for coming on the show. Oh, dude, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Hey, you've got kind of an interesting story, and I thought it'd be cool to start out just getting to know you a little bit, let the audience get to know you a little bit. So talk a little bit about your background and how you transition from where you were to now being a pastor. Well, I came of age in the rural Deep South, and kind of, you know, you grow up saying, I'm from Savannah, Georgia. It's not really true. It's just the nearest city that anyone recognizes, you know. Been there, yeah. Yeah. So I actually grew up on a dirt road in a small town and in a kind of, I don't mean to make generalizing overstatements, but this, I think it's fair to say, it was a kind of conservative fundamentalist Christian environment raised by Christians, wonderful people, and grew up around wonderful people that were also Christians. But the kind of air of the environment was, you know, hyper nationalistic militarism, you know, all these things that now we think of as, you know, ugly attributes of what people might describe as evangelical. That was just the environment in which I was raised. I didn't know of any other thing. And then I was kind of wired for rebellion to a fault. You know, I don't like homogeneity. I don't like tradition for tradition's sake, or at least I didn't as a young person growing up in the deep South. And so at some point I discovered punk rock music and punk rock culture, which was like finding a needle in a haystack in rural Georgia. But it was like lightning in a bottle. It was something about the ethos of punk rock really spoke to me and as a Christian, not as a someone yet trying to defy or jettison my upbringing. But that was met with a lot of like, hey, you know, and we started, me and my friends started a band and wanted to, you know, dress in a certain way, listen to certain kinds of music. And this was also during the like eighties and nineties, the kind of satanic panic culture of the devil is in popular culture. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. So I did, I did start a band and I spent, geez, almost 20 years traveling, releasing records. And during that period, traveling as a musician and releasing records as a Christian musicians, went through all the same kind of transforming faith process that anyone who's serious about following Jesus has to endure at some point where I had brought in my rebellion against my upbringing, which was like, oh, these are phony Christians and nothing about this. And I, you know, I've, I've uncovered authentic Christianity, you know, like as a 19 year old or something like that. And, you know, at some point you realize that a lot of what you thought that you had figured out was incorrect. And a lot of what I had been taught maybe wasn't the best, but rather than kind of pushing me out of Christianity and the church or into some kind of like, you know, new spiritual hybrid that I made up for myself by cobbling together different pieces of different faith traditions. Maybe ironically, I was kind of pushed deeper into orthodoxy or, you know, like the historic Christian tradition, yada, yada, yada, met a girl, started a family, moved to the Pacific Northwest. And I think all in all, the punchline is that I have my story seems like it's going to end one way and then it ends with me being a pastor instead. Yeah. When you wrote a little bit, cause you have a previous book, Death to Deconstruction, right? Yeah. And so, you know, you, it sounds like you. I think you, like me, I was sort of, I think we're about the same age. Maybe I'm a little older than you are, but I think my deconstruction happened without me ever knowing what to call it. Right. I would actually call what I did reconstructing just pure construction because, you know, early on in my faith, I was kind of rejecting everything and saying, I don't, I'm not sure I buy any of this at all, but I wasn't really raised. I was raised in a Lutheran church, but I wasn't saved until college. And so by the time I hit that, I didn't have anything to deconstruct. I was just sort of like trying to figure out what parts of this I liked and what parts of it I didn't and slowly having those interests sort of sanctified by Christ. And so it does sound like you went through a little bit of that sort of same process of, Hey, let me try to get rid of some of this cultural dross that's been clinging onto my Christianity and find that pure kernel of what really is orthodoxy, what really is faith. Yeah. I think that like, unlike many of my peers, I was always deeply concerned for what I would like to have known to be the authentic way of Jesus. And I know that that sounds like a pretentious thing to say as if like, no, no one else has it. I'm the only one who has it. I just recognized the inevitability of, you know, human brokenness and that, of course, there were things about the church tradition in which I was raised that I could identify even now in humility as like, well, I'm not sure if that was consistent, you know, with the historic way of Jesus. But then now I can see that there were many things about my upbringing that were beautifully consistent with the way of Jesus. And that too was a bit of a kick in the pants because I would have much preferred to been able to say like, these people were corrupt. This tradition was corrupt. So they're gone. Yeah. And instead, what you learn, certainly in retrospect, but definitely in, you know, like leading a church is that people are terrifically complicated. And some of the people that I would have very much liked to have dismissed also taught me really important things about the way of Jesus. And that doesn't, you know, discredit the things that they taught, but it also doesn't give permission to the bad things they taught. And the same is true of me as well. So, yeah, I knew that there was, even as like an avid reader of the New Testament, I always liked the scriptures a ton, you know, like even from an artistic perspective or an aesthetic perspective, it was like, this book is bizarre and it's insane. And it has all the things that I really like about a work of art. And so, you know, I've grew up reading the Bible happily from a young age rather than, you know, like begrudgingly. And so, you know, you spend enough time with that thing and you're reading all this stuff about just the teachings of Jesus. And you're like, oh man, I'm not sure that we're doing this. And that's what I wanted to be like. Well, what does it mean to do it? Like, you know, and then as soon as you even dip your toes in the waters of biblical theology or just biblical interpretation in general, you realize, well, there's some things that are as plain as I thought they might be. And then there are other things that are really complex and evoke different interpretations across different traditions. And that's okay. You know, like a great work of art, you make your peace with those things. You learn to kind of hone in on certain things. But yeah, by the time that I was like in a place where I wanted to, like I loved the, I spent a long time not loving the church and then came back to profound love for the church when I arrived in the Pacific Northwest. So by the time, like I was in, you know, seminary and all that stuff, I was convinced that I wanted to follow Jesus. But even in that place where I'm like, oh, I think I have a relatively decent working. I have systematic theologies. I have all these different things that I believe about ecclesiology, the way the church should work, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, you spend years in seminary and you're like, okay, so half of this was wrong or half of this is changing. And that's okay. But it's changing within, you know, like the Christian tradition rather than

Outside of it. Right. Yeah. It's all occurring within the confines of that orthodoxy. Yeah. So when you think about the new book, how to die, does it emerge from sort of your pastoral practice, from your experiences across your lifetime? Like what motivated you to write the book? Was there, you know, any particular impetus or just a, you know, sort of a deep desire to dive into this topic? Yeah. I mean, there's, we're kind of two components that made the book. One of them was practical, and the other one was kind of selfish. The practical piece was if you write a book called Death of Deconstruction and you get, you know, half the readers mad at you and half the readers saying, Hooray, you know. And then you start to have conversations with people who are either in a place that is similar to a place I was at a point in my, you know, spiritual formation, or they've gone through it. And the question that I got almost constantly in conversation, whether people were offended or just, you know, kind of asking questions, open minded, or they were in agreement, the question was like, okay, well then, how do you be a Christian? You know what I mean? Because in that book, Death of Deconstruction, there is a lot of predictable, like, okay, so here are some of the things that contribute to a spirit of deconstruction, and here's where I think that there are not necessarily answers, because that's a really tidy thing to say, but a different way of thinking about orthodoxy. And people were asking, okay, great, well, you know, Christianity, especially American Christianity, is in this really precarious position in which what we used to refer to as, or still might refer to as evangelicalism, is now like almost completely political term in the minds of many. And people who are raised within evangelicalism and state Christianity, I mean, many of them are looking for different expressions of the Christian tradition. They're going to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, or because they want something rooted in history and not kind of like the modern megachurch movement. And then there are other people who are like, okay, well, I'm getting a lot of like, no, that's not it, no, that's not it, what is it? You know, and what is within the, because the book goes on and on about orthodoxy and what I call like a accommodating countryside of orthodoxy, where there are different expressions and traditions, but there's the shared agreement of like, well, but this is what we believe within this space. And people are like, well, what is it and how do you do it? So part of it was like, you know, people ask me, is there a book? Do you got a book? You know? And I'm like, no, I don't. I have like a stack of amazing books, you know, that together make up this amazing. You could read these. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I really don't want to. And as soon as you put like, I don't know, Dallas Willard in there or something, people are like, oh my God, how long is this gonna take, you know? Right. So part of it was like, I wish there was, I wish there was just like a little manual that didn't like anchor itself in one niche perspective per se, but it was just more like, this is just the story of Christianity. It's easy to read. It's, and it's not going to obviously resolve every single little question, but it'll give you like a, that's, that's the story. So I sat down to write that book, but it just kept coming out boring. So then the selfish motivation was, I was like, I wonder if you could do this as Flannery O'Connor. I wonder if you could do this book without any like traditional discourse, you know, like the way that most Christian nonfiction, including my Christian nonfiction is often structured. Like everyone talks about a biblical theology of art and it's totally essay style, you know, hopefully not too boring, but that's, that's usually how we go about those things. And I was like, what if you could do it all as like narrative and like kind of more free flowing prose? And would a publisher let me get away with this? You know? And then that's what came out. So. That's cool. Yeah. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. I think that's actually really good because, you know, there's only, I think we need the differing sort of expressions of this. Like there's nothing wrong with reiterating something in a different way in order to get the point across. And so, yeah, I was reading through, you know, the information that was sent to me and it said you divided the book into three major sections. So it was Ruiner, The Harrowing of Hell, and The Manual of Disciplines is the three major sections of the book, which I just love that you didn't, now the Manual of Disciplines has a little bit of a, you know, an old school Christian flavor to it, I suppose. But, you know, Ruiner and even The Harrowing of Hell doesn't really have that sort of, even if it has a traditional ring, it's such an old school traditional ring that people aren't, like those aren't things that people are, they're not rolling off the people, the tips of people's tongues today. And so maybe talk through each of those sections and what you were trying to convey in each of them, or if as you're writing those sections, what you're really trying to give people is just an impression, almost like an anchoring story that helps them, that will help them adapt their own life to this way of dying. Yeah. Well, you know, the, before I was, I was writing and I was outlining, and like I said, I kept, I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels, writing a bunch of stuff and go, oh, this is awesome. It's so helpful. And then reading it back and being like, this is boring. And it already exists in books and better, you know what I mean? And I was like, ah, I can't find the angle. And then at some point the image came to my mind because I was, I was, I'm a, you know, like a Protestant Christian pastor in 2025 in a city that if you came to our church, it probably resembles a lot of, you know, non-denominational Protestant Christian churches in America. And I'm told, I'm happy with that. But I was reading a lot of, you know, data, very old, you know, mystic theologians, Catholic theologians, monks, desert fathers, that kind of stuff. And the flavor of their writing is so wildly different that in fact, you know, you spend enough time reading these digestible works, even a work that sounds so, you know, pretentious like the sayings of the desert fathers is like a, it's actually a pretty digestible work. You know, it doesn't take you that long to read and it's, it's at times light in terms of readability in terms of it's like depth, theological depth. It's obviously profound. But I was like, man, we don't write like this at all anymore. And so I spent a lot of the writing, the drafting of the book at, you know, a monastery an hour and a half from my house. I would go there every month and spend a day and, and I was like, oh, well, what if the book was something like, you know, someone was renovating at the monastery and a panel fell out of the wall and this, this journal was in there. You know what I mean? Because if you read these kinds of writings, even more modern, like a Henry Nowlin or, you know, these kind of writers sound a lot different than writers within the kind of modern Christian non-fiction genre. And I was like, what if it's, what if it was like that? What if it was a little more open to creative possibilities, just in terms of style and structure. So then I was having a blast, but it's just, it can go anywhere. And, and, you know, I wanted it to be something that was a little more self-contained and like clear. And so the three sections came from a place of being like, what, what do I have to do to tell the story of Christianity succinctly in a way that's like, oh, well, how do you be a Christian or what does it mean to be a Christian? Try this book. You know what I mean? Whether you've been following Jesus for a long time, brand new to Jesus, try this book. And I thought like, well, you have to do a lot with the meta-narrative of the Bible. You have to like tell the story of the Bible. And then the canon within the canon, you have to do

practical like, and then when you live into this new reality of the kingdom, here's the kinds of things that happen, you know. So that third section, the manual of disciplines, which is, it is the most kind of like, it's the closest to what you might find on, you know, Christian nonfiction. And I keep saying that like it's a bad thing. I write it too, so it's not a bad thing. I just was trying to do something. No, no, no. Yeah, I totally get it. That manual of disciplines is the closest thing to like traditional discourse that you get in the book. But I, you know, I grappled with it because I think that, and I've been participating in what later we'll probably describe as like the, you know, new spiritual formation movement or the new spiritual discipline movement that was began probably by thinkers like Dallas Willard and then, you know, snowballed by, you know, my friend John Mark Comer, who's written extensively about that and other writers, you know, kind of in that peer group. I've been a part of it as a pastor as well. But now, you know, like any big movement, you're seeing the fruit of it and all the wonderful things that a unique focus on spiritual formation and by way of practices does. But then you also start to see the inevitable weaknesses. It's not like it's a surprise. We know that there's going to be something in this that is imperfect. So I didn't want to like accidentally veer into Christian self-help territory. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that for all the wonderful writing on spiritual formation through the lens of practice that has been instrumental in my own discipleship, and I know has been so helpful for so many people. I think that there is a danger, like any niche focus and like an emphasis, there's a danger in like inadvertently creating the Christian version of modern self-help. And it's like, you know, now prayer is a cold plunge. That kind of thing. Right. Just do these morning routines. Intermittent fasting counts as fasting. Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect example. So I wanted it all to feel from the same work, even if it's like, oh if this thing fell out of the wall in a monastery and it maybe it took this guy years of journaling to get it out, but there's a clear trajectory for it. It's the story of the Bible, the teaching of the master, the practices of the master. And those are like, and then you got to stop somewhere. Stop. That's it. Yeah, yeah. So when you think about, number one, I think that's a really interesting approach and helpful approach because I do agree, as much as we've gained from a lot of these movements, and you could say the spiritual formation movement, you could say any movement within theology, you're going to gain a lot, but an overemphasis on that very particular thing is also going to become problematic because it's not a big enough tent really to hold everything that we need to be holding together in Christian community. And so I appreciate that word. And I think doing something a little bit different, getting people to reorient their focus is really crucial. I'm wondering how you think about this idea of dying to self. So I've always come at that through the lens of like a Rene Girard, mimetic desire, imitation of Christ, setting aside our own desires and picking up the desires of Christ, like those kinds of ideas, plus a Middle Testament guy. So there's just a lot there, you know, within the dynamics of obedience and what obedience actually does to reorient us toward a fear of the Lord that I've tended to focus on. How do you approach that death to self? Like what's your framework for that, either conceptually or the way you sort of talk about in the book? Well, you know, the great quote that is used as an epigraph at the beginning of the book, the Bonhoeffer quote that everyone loves so much, and when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. I think that the way that Bonhoeffer paraphrases Jesus, you know, like take up, take up your cross and because the modern Christian consciousness has become sort of desensitized to crucifixion imagery, understandably so. The scandal of the statement, take up your cross is lost. And so Bonhoeffer, just with a phrase kind of spins it or rephrases the same exact sentiment, like when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. That has been for me like a banner statement. And I don't mean like, oh, I've lived faithfully by this word, but like over the journey of my discipleship, something that I've puzzled over and hated and loved and loved the sound of, but not loved the practice of, you know, all those things. And I'm with you. I think that like it encompasses so much of what it means to be like relationally united to the triune God in When Christ Calls a Man, he bids him come and die. And there's something about it that offends our sensibility, but there's also something about it that for me is romantic and inspiring, like, because we're, we are being invited into something, but we are being asked to sacrifice so much. So all those things that you mentioned about, like, you know, like laying down the will or the desires or the flesh, even so that you can, like, you know, in Paul's language, imbibe the mind of Christ or so that the spirit could beautify the will. All these theological concepts that in essence capture what it means for us to be reoriented to the triune God, you know, for, for whom we were always intended. But in phrasing that's so stark and striking, quite frankly, that I think that, you know, and that's just where aesthetically, that's where I go. I like, I like titles that are a bit like, wait, what? You know? And it was funny because the, when we were shopping the book, my agent was like, somebody's going to ask you to change this title, just so you know. And I was like, no, dang it. We got to be able to keep that title. And the wonderful people at David C. Cook, they were like, oh yeah, it's probably fine. And then a little bit ways into it. They're like, I don't know, can we? Can we soften it somewhat. But then, you know, eventually through the same exact conversation, they're like, no, you know what? I think it's, it's consistent with the contents of the book. It makes a lot. And it, of course, it's consistent with the call of Jesus. It's just the idea of like, you don't want to alienate more than you invite. And I think that the way that Jesus presents his own apprenticeship is often those two things in tandem. Like there's an alienating spirit to it. It seems to me intentionally alienating, but also like inviting at the same time, the juxtaposition of the two things and the way that Jesus calls people and then kind of like puts before them a cost. And sometimes the cost, depending on the person seems outrageous. And then other times it's, you know, the cost seems smaller and then it gets bigger. The more, the more that they get into the journey of following Jesus. I just, again, in keeping with, and if you're reading not even just ancient, but writers across different traditions and certainly more ancient writers, this idea of the death of self or, you know, like putting aside the false self. If you prefer that language was so less terrifying to them, you know, to them, it was like, you know, written on their heart. It's like such a central idea of so much writing about authentic discipleship that, and, you know, Three big words on the cover of a book that say how to die. It's kind of like, to me aesthetically speaking, it's kind of awesome. We, I have a feeling, so when you think about the way we generally do this, like part of the carry across, you know, where I think you're right, we're desensitized to that symbology because many of us probably think about, you know, the little gold cross we're going to wear around our neck. Right. And there's the cross. So God has been in some sense, and I think the language you use in the book is domesticated. We've tamed him down to a point where the way I would phrase it is he's become supplemental to us. In other words, he's a really great guy to have around in case you get in a pinch. But for most of this, I'm really determining my own course. Right. This is a, you know, a perfect way to articulate how not to die to self. And so, and so talk a little bit about what you mean by the domestication of God and how that fits within this framework of How to die. Well, I mean, I think you said it beautifully. It's this, the way of Jesus, even for so many sincere and well-meaning disciples of Jesus or would-be disciple of disciples of Jesus carries that same kind of, I hesitate to say like country club Christianity in which I was raised, where, you know, the Christian worldview

Of course, of course, we're Christians, and so we subscribe to these certain tenets of belief that we might check on a box unless we don't like them. And then we either don't talk about them, or we just outright say, no, that can't be it. But by and large, it's no different than the fact that, you know, I'm a golfer. It's an aspect of my life. I'm not actually a golfer, but someone might say, I'm a golfer. It's an aspect of my life. I do it sometimes. And maybe they even love it very much, and it colors a lot of their conversation. But, you know, it's like one aspect, one attribute among many in the pantheon of my interests and the things that are important to me. And it's not always because people are so faithless and so disobedient. It's that we are surrounded on all sides by an environment of distraction, an environment that does not lend itself to what I call in the book, the religious imagination, meaning we're being taught all the time, whether we realize consciously or not, that the religious worldview is a superstitious worldview and that, you know, things like miracles don't happen and God is not actually talking to you. And we don't, as Christians, necessarily receive that as truth, but it is like kind of a pressure that's on us all the time. And the way of Jesus and the historic tradition of Christianity doesn't just say, like, oh, well, you know, that's not true. You kind of got to fight against that. It's more like, that's the superstition. The superstition is that miracles don't happen. God doesn't speak to people. It's an illusion. It's not reality. Reality is like God's presence and his active participation in the story of the universe and, you know, like that you belong to the same story that begins with, in the beginning, God created and that you were designed with intention and purpose by God. And so, you know, you were never meant to relate to God in some supplemental way. You were meant to relate to God as the thing. And that doesn't mean that, like, God removes from you, you know, the things, the superficial things of your life. Like, I think that, you know, God doesn't like scowl that, you know, I like to read novels or watch movies, that kind of, he's like, oh, how dare you spend time on something that's not me? It's more like, but God is present and active in all these things, you know, and you learn to, like someone like a brother Lawrence, like, understand all of your life as unfolding within the presence of God and in relationship to God. And when that, I'm not saying this is something I've nailed by any stretch of the imaginations, but when that begins to occur to you, it obviously shapes the way that you understand everything in your life and not just as a secondary consideration, but as like the person I relate to is an image bearer of God and my responsibility to them as a disciple of Jesus, the, you know, like art and entertainment or my time, my hobby, all these things are like, what does it mean to carry out life as someone who's like an embodied disciple of Jesus, not just as like, oh, I have spiritual practices I do in the morning and they help me, you know, have a better day. But as someone who's like living into the reality of God as this wild, untamable person, not a concept, not a distant kind of theoretical idea, but as a real relational being and allowing for the fact that, I would argue, the fact that there are things about God that just simply do not bend to our whims and expectations or desires, you know? And so God is often much, or I would, you know, probably almost always much, much better than we gave him credit for or expected him to be. But sometimes the awareness or learning that God is better than we thought he was going to be isn't a warm, fluffy. Sometimes it's devastating. And sometimes it comes as conviction of sin, or sometimes it comes as like the demolishing of a worldview. And that too is beautiful, you know? So, I mean, like you open this book and even in the first little prologue, I'm going on about all this stuff because I feel like, you know, you're inviting someone into something that's not like a, hey, listen, you go to church, but I found this niche thing that we've all overlooked and it's going to change your life. And more like, this is devastating. The stuff in here is devastating. It has been for me. Rightly considered, it will be for you because it's not a story I made up, you know what I mean? Yeah. The domestication of God. It has sort of a claim on us, whether we want to admit that or not. And so domesticating it sort of makes it seem like it lives on our terms. The story, God, lives on our terms when really we're always living on God's terms. We just don't always see it that way. And so it's, I think, I'm wondering what you think about this. The starkness of the analogy to death, and I'll use that phrase. I don't know whether it's really accurate, but this, you know, you have physical death. Now you have sort of a spiritual death or a dying to an old self, right? It's a very stark contrast because what you're doing is you're saying there was this, now that's completely gone and now you're doing this. There's no bridge between those two, right? A gray area where we're sort of like, well, you've stepped into the new life, but you're still living the old life and that's okay. Right? It's very stark imagery. And I'm wondering if we just haven't lost some of the, I wonder why this narrative or why the death language seems so powerful. I wonder if why the death imagery seems so powerful is that it is so stark and it doesn't leave us room to negotiate anything. In other words, if we grasp this idea that we're supposed to die to Christ, there isn't much else left there for us to go. Well, yeah, I'm dying to Christ, but I could keep, you know, the rest of this stuff around. So, you know, it's part of the reason that you sort of moved in this direction. Was it, was it a, I don't want to say a shock factor, but a return to a true polarization, a black and white, right? That sometimes it feels like we're missing as we live our Christian life today. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty? More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Yeah, I think that a lot of kind of modern pastoral Christian thinking and teaching, and I'm lumping myself in with this 100% is honestly, intentionally or unintentionally, probably unintentionally catered to the idea of domesticating God because, you know, like we as pastors, you know, myself, we are participating in a shared communal life and people. But people come in on a weekly basis and they expect to be taught something from the scriptures by the pastor in this, in our case, me. And so you fall into this pattern of like, here's the information I have for you this week, apply it how you will, and I'll see you next week. And it's mostly just because this is the rhythm, the relational rhythm of church. And our church is small, so it's a little bit easier to remember that like, oh, I actually know all these people and they know me and I do see them throughout the week, a lot of them. So there's that veil is a little thinner. But I think that, you know, it seems to me that because there's all these obvious reasons that a lot of people a lot smarter than me have written about at length. But because, you know, the West is hyper individualistic, especially America is hyper individualistic. And the scriptures are written through a collectivist lens in which like the identity of the cult, the identity of like the tribe or the group or the family is regarded above the like identity of the, you know, the little individual within. And that does not compute. And not for me, not for modern Americans. We're like, well, no, like my highest good is the priority of my life, not that, not the greater good of like the group, you know. So it's hard for us to get around and into an individualistic lens. And because of that, we hear language about death to self.

And we worry, I would argue, incorrectly, that God's intention is to like eradiate everything that makes us uniquely us and to transform us into some kind of automaton that serves a little more purpose outside of obeying rules. But then, you know, that's just not the story of the Bible at all. In fact, like the stuff that makes you uniquely you is like, God made that stuff up. He designed you with intent. Now, of course, you're broken, so even the stuff that makes you uniquely you is bent out of shape and toward the, you know, self-destruction and the, you know, like the vandalism of God's creation for more on this, see all of human history. But the stuff that makes you, you, is like that's the artistry of God. So God's intention in like, you know, or the call of Jesus to take up your cross isn't like, I'm going to wipe your personality and turn you into a drone. And even if we don't use that kind of language, I think that there's an apprehension in our hearts because we're like, but I don't want to die to myself. And by that, we mean like, where do I go? You know, that beautiful language from John the Baptist, like, well, he has to become more, I have to become less. We're like, oh man, where do I go? Like, but the truth is that like, in being united to Christ, you become more you, not less you. You know, yeah, the stuff that God designed to be you is like set free to flourish the way it was designed to flourish. But it can only happen through the taking up of the cross because left to our own devices, we take the stuff that makes us uniquely us and we'd spin out of control with it and we use it to hurt ourselves and hurt other people. And yeah, we can do some good stuff, but also lots of bad stuff. And so we buy into the, you know, the lie, and it's a very old lie, the oldest lie that's like, well, you know, I'm just worried God's not, he doesn't know what my greatest good is. Like, I know what's my greatest good, so I'll hold on to these things. And so yes, to answer your question, like, I would love to recapture the kind of like fearlessness with which Christians have throughout history written about dying to self and the gestures that they have taken to die to self. I mean, one of the reasons that I wrote in a monastery is like I sit outside on a bench and I watch these, you know, the brothers going backward and forward throughout the day. And even that, you know, I don't think that God has called me to the life of a monastery, but there's some that I recognize in them the practice of the way of Jesus. I'm like, these guys, like for them, that was like, I'm going to go live in this place. And, you know, like all my life is like work and pray. And that is a kind of dying, you know what I mean? And so what's my dying? It's not less than that. It's just a different expression of that. It's almost why, I mean, when you're talking about that, I think of different passages like Paul talking about how he's going to be adaptable so he can become a Jew to the Jew and a Gentile to the Gentiles. And, you know, for the sake of their salvation, he can become those things. And it suggests that there's this flexibility between different ways of living that are still expressions, appropriate expressions of faithful living, of conforming to the image of Christ. And so it doesn't mean when we conform to the image of Christ that we're all have to grow beards and wear sandals and togas and those kinds of things. And the other passage that came to mind is just the metaphor of the body that Paul uses where you have an eye, you have an ear, you have a hand, you have a foot. These things can't be the same structure because in order to function well and serve the body well, they have to look different. They have to be anatomically unique, physiologically unique. And that's part of, I think, what he's emphasizing there is, hey, you're all unique, but you're all one. And we're all serving the same thing. We're just doing that in very different ways. You know, you wouldn't want to, you know, people can do it, I suppose, but you wouldn't want to eat with your feet. It's a much more challenging thing to do, you know. There are just those different aspects. And so those are the passages that come to mind as you talk through that. It is that adaptability. It's not a single vision of what it is to conform to the image of Christ that all of us have to, you know, sort of conform to. Like you say, we don't all have to become monks or nuns or whatever, but we do all have to conform to the image of Christ. Yes, and it's not less. We're not conforming less. We're conforming according to the call of Christ on our lives. And I even think about like the paradigm of marriage, for example, which this is a very difficult pill for the modern imagination to swallow, which is that marriage is good. God made it up. And with there can be a lot of beauty and even like a certain expression of the love of Christ that happens uniquely through the, you know, the paradigm of marriage or the microcommunity of marriage. And yet, you know, like that's it, not everyone's going to do it and not everyone should do it. And that there is just as much of a God appointment over the call to celibacy or chastity, you know, again, borrowing images from monks and nuns or just singleness. And, you know, to go back to Paul is, you know, like, Oh, not for everybody, not for everybody. And it doesn't mean that like, oh, okay, well married, married people are, are more embodied in their humanity or they know something that people who aren't married don't. It's just never been the story of the Bible that there's this, Oh, there's this one unique venue to really realize your, you know, spiritual formation. It's just not true. And in fact, some people will be called away from that paradigm. Some people might be invited into that paradigm and for some people it's probably like, eh, either, either one, you could do either one and realize your spiritual formation. But the, the idea that we have in church is often, you know, like, well, people who are married, they're uniquely mature or they have something that married people don't have. Yeah. And you could make an argument from Paul that the opposite could be true, that, you know, he's uniquely freed up in his ministry because he's not married. And then the narrative outside of the church is also like, well, you're only fully realized as a human being if you can express, you know, romance and sexuality. And that's just not the story of the Bible either. So it's that same idea that like, well, no one's dying any less than anyone else. We're just dying in different ways and we all have different appointments to our own death. And, and because it's easy for us to like look across the aisle at someone else and say, well, what the heck? They don't have to die nearly as much as I do. And it's like, well, you know, the invitation is why does Jesus ask one guy to give up all his money and stuff, but then doesn't say that to other people. It seemed appropriate for this guy. Maybe it was inappropriate for someone else. And you find that a lot within the ministry of Jesus that they are unique. Like, well, why the heck can't this guy go back and have a funeral for his dad? It seems outrageous, but you know, I think that it's in, it's here for a reason. It was said for a reason. And that same thing happens to us where one guy can't go back, but another's life looks different. One guy or gal gets married. Someone else doesn't. It's not less dying. It's just different dying. Yeah. And do you find, uh, we're running toward the end of the show, so I'll, I'll ask this. I'll make this the final question, but we've talked a lot about dying to self sort of on that individual level. And I'm wondering what you think about, you know, you talked a lot about the churches you grew up in and sort of this collective consciousness of Christianity that tends to develop in almost any community we're in. It's, it's sort of appropriate for it to develop, but then within that appropriateness, it can become problematic too. And so I'm wondering what are your thoughts on sort of that collective dying that we need to do, uh, allowing this sort of notion that one way of dying is quote unquote, better than another. Right. Because that's part of this dynamic as well, is I think part of the reason people are concerned about dying to self is that the prompting they're getting, the sort of the conviction, the way that the Holy Spirit is pushing them is leading them toward a way of dying that isn't anywhere near as celebrated within our Christian communities. And so it speaks to something that we are doing as a group of labeling something that is just different, better. Yes. Well, yeah, we, we love to do that. We love to take and celebrate stories and it's not always bad or wrong, but we love to take stories that are easily celebrated and celebrate them uniquely. You know, the person who seems like superficially is doing this incredible thing and maybe it is incredible, but we kind of elevate them above the person who starts an amazing justice nonprofit is not going to get, or they're going to get more fanfare than like the single mom surviving. Even if the single mom surviving is

there has this book, Domestic Monastery. This tiny little book you can read in one sitting that seems to me mostly written to mothers, but to parents in general. And it's the idea that parenting children, especially small children, is a spiritual formation pressure cooker if you allow the Spirit to do his work in that process. And he describes like the child pulling on the mom's leg as the monastery bell. That's like ding, you know, like you have now because for a monk, the monastery bell rings, stop what you're doing, you're going to afternoon prayer. And for the mom, it's like, you know, like her time is not her own. Her like wills and desires have to be like kind of subsumed into this purpose that it seems on the surface like a frustrating or superficial. And it's always the bell's always ringing, you know, but what better avenue is there to give up any hold of your time, your will, the idea that you have control over your day than to spend it with small children, honestly. And, and, you know, we, we can allow ourselves to not be beholden to that process, but if we are beholden to that process, and I think that's why he wrote this little book. It's like, you realize like, man, like, God is teaching me how much dying there is to do in my own life, in my own heart. And you realize, I mean, like nothing reveals your own selfishness like small children. Like, man, I just really wanted my own time, you know? And so, you know, like reading that and having the experience of kids, of course, but then, you know, being a part of a church community, small though it may be, where you realize like, oh man, I'm giving people these paradigms, like everybody needs to practice silence and solitude. And then looking out on a Sunday as I'm teaching this stuff and going like, there's the lady whose husband's, whose husband left her with her small children. She cannot do silence and solitude the way I'm teaching it, you know what I mean? And, and yet she has in her life an opportunity to embrace like giving up her own self and her own will in a way that arguably silence and solitude is not going to teach in this season of her life, you know what I mean? And so, you know, like learning that there is no one side. That's another thing that we've learned in the wake of, like it's not over or anything, but in the wake of the like new emphasis on formation through practice is that there's no one size fits all. You know, we, we think that, or for lack of an easier way to teach it, we're like, everybody do prayer like this. Everybody do, and maybe there's some generalizing things in there that make sense, but then you realize, like I said, this lady, she can't do silence and solitude, right? She's not going to take a weekend retreat. Right. And so what does it mean for her to embrace the dying that she's been given to fully realize who she is in the kingdom? And that makes it messier. It makes it more difficult. It makes it harder to give people a self-help manual, you know? And that's the thing that we attempt to embrace at the outset of formation is that my formation is not your formation. And yet we are on the same road of discipleship. So I don't get to reinvent it for myself, but I will be asked things that you will not be asked and vice versa. And yet they're both within the same big ask, which is, you know, come and follow me. Take, take up your cross and follow me. Josh, I love the topic. I love the way you've approached it. I like the creative emphasis. And so I'm looking forward to actually getting a copy and reading this book and really appreciate you writing it and the time you spent rethinking how to write it. I think that's a compelling aspect of the book. So thanks for being on the show. And it's just great to have you here and talk through these issues. So appreciate it. It was a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. We'll call it a day there and everybody take care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. I'm bestselling author John Seidel, and I'm the Christian who became an alcoholic, not the other way around. Through the power of Jesus, I got sober, and now I'm sharing both my story and the stories of others just like me, along with helpful interviews from trauma, faith, and addiction recovery experts. If you're a fan of messy sanctification and powerful stories, join me on the Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic podcast on Life Audio or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Let's get radically vulnerable.