The Cosmic Christ and Concrete Jesus (with Kevin Sweeney) | Ep. 49
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Jeremy: [00:00:00] Today on the podcast, we have our first ever repeat guest. Took us 49 episodes to get here, but we're here. I have invited back a friend and he has been on the episode before. He was on episode 22. Today we're gonna revisit with my friend Kevin Sweeney, and he's got a new book coming out. And as we were talking, I thought this would be great.
Let's do another episode where we just explored the ideas in this book. In case you hadn't listened or watched Episode 22, you need a refresher. Kevin has written two other books in addition to the one that's coming out now, the making of a Mystic, and the Joy of Letting Go. He's done a number of things over the years, and now he is currently a chaplain for hospice care and he's loving that and he gets into that a little bit in this episode.
He lives in Honolulu with his wife, Christine, and their two kids. True. And McKayla, I. And he's got an intriguing book that [00:01:00] really is going to offer what I refer to lovingly as the deep end of the pool for Christians to, to experience a better way forward, a deeper way forward with Jesus in maybe some ways that are new to you or, or some traditions that you don't have a lot of experience with.
You're gonna get a lot out of this episode and even more if you dive into Kevin's book. So this is. Episode 49, the Cosmic Christ and Concrete Jesus.
I have never shared this with anybody publicly. There's so many things happen in this conversation right now, thousand years from now, people are gonna be looking at this podcast saying, so this was the breakthrough. If this was SportsCenter, that would be like such a hot take. Skip Bales would've no idea.
Stephen A. Smith would've no idea what to say. You drop that down. That is so good. The joke I always say is like, how'd you learn so much? You gotta drink a lot. The power of food and beverage to [00:02:00] lubricate an environment, resistance to change is hurting the church. I'm not in the camp that God has a penis or a vagina or a body at all.
I mean, the camp to God is at Universal spirit. This is the strangest podcast that I've been on. I don't even know what to do. I'm kind of geeked up about this wine. So this is my second glass and it delivers a little more of a punch than I expected. So if I get a little loopy, it's your fault. You tell me to drink and I just show up.
I'll also say as a confession, I am a lightweight, so I've had like three sips of this wine and I'm already feeling it, so this is fun. You've uncovered the mystery, you've exposed the formula. You've just duct taped together a number of things that aren't normally hanging out together, and I'm here for it.
We're gonna sit down a table, we're gonna have a glass of wine and some food, and we're gonna talk about the beauty of Jesus. Thank you for the, the hospitality that this particular podcast. Provides folks like myself and I know others to, to be curious around their faith [00:03:00] practices. I really appreciate this venue, what you're doing.
It is fun, and yet you dig into the deep stuff. I've heard about your podcast for a long time, and I love that you're a pastor and that you explore the world of faith through wine that's very unique. I will never forget the first time I bought a bottle of wine. By myself, which was yesterday. If you're familiar with Drunk History, I thought it's like drunk theology, so I, oh, I got a little spicy there.
It's the peach wine early. The wine is, here we are. Here we are. Beer, we are, no, it's wine. Jeremy. By the way, drinking this Pinot Grigio at three o'clock in the afternoon is making me even more direct in my communication than I normally would be. I know why you have your guest drink wine. Makes sense now.
Yeah, I get it. A little bit of liquid courage. You really unleash the beast. I think you've got a good podcast throwing the wine bit in there. That's nice, doesn't it? Cabernet and Prey. Yeah.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Well, [00:04:00] welcome back to the show, Kevin.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: I am here. I thought there would be like three or four more words after that.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: No, that's it. that. those are, those are the
words I've got for you.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: no, man. It's good to be back. Dude. I appreciate you bringing me on for the second time. I don't take these opportunities for granted, you know, when you put something you love out into the world. So man, I'm, I'm grateful for this.
Thanks, Jeremy.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: you're the first one. You're, you're breaking some new wine
skins in for us. We've never had a
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Hello. Nice.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Alright, well, last time on our episode, I couldn't get you to actually drink wine. You made some lame excuse about time zones and It was.
too early And, you had to surf, as I recall, so I could only get a, a kombucha.
I think it was a hard kombucha out of you maybe. But this time, my, my terms with you were like, look, I'll bring you back on, but we're doing this for real. You actually have to get a real wine. So I'm excited today. [00:05:00] He's, he said he's got a real wine, so we're, we're gonna
be, we're gonna be enjoying that together.
Here's what I'm drinking in honor of you, my man.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: hello.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: This is the King Maui.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Ooh. Nice.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Marlboro, and that is the most famous wine region in New Zealand. And King Maui is named after the mythical Polynesian demigod whose stories are all over Pacific cultures such as the Maori, which is New Zealand. Hawaiian our guest today,
Samoan and Tahitian mythology. So for all of
you
Moana fans out there, this is a wine named after Maui and it is a gorgeous, very light colored Souvignon Blanc is a white wine, and I love so many, um, blancs from New Zealand. That's my go-to [00:06:00] because of the acidity. This acidity is so great.
It just is like a party in your mouth. So you get that, you get citrus notes, you get New Zealand has like a grassy edge to it that's just really nice as well. And then also gets on like grapefruit, some lime, and it's warming up in Arizona. And I thought today was a good day to drink this and I'm, I'm enjoying this, this one, this one's hitting outta the gate.
So that's what I got. Kevin, what are you drinking with us today?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Nice. I got a, you know what's called a Michael David joint. Nothing fancy, but it's a style of wine that from what I'm around, people don't always drink, but it's one of my favorite styles of red and it's a petite Syrah.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Hmm.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Those are one of my favorite styles of red. You know, it has some of that fruity forward, like blackberry ish type of thing, but still has like, just enough spice and richness.
So I, I love petite straws. It's one of my things. So yeah, just something, something I like, you know, something, I, I committed to the pod. I went [00:07:00] full, full send full commit wine at 10:17 AM in the morning. And I got a, I do have a long day ahead, so we will see how well I recover from this. Not, 'cause like I told you before, I'm not the best day drinker.
Not 'cause I get super buzzed, but it just makes me tired and it's hard for me to overcome it. So hopefully my interactions and things throughout the day will, will get me back up. And if not, when I'm less present to my kids and more glued to the couch and be like, well there's a guy named Jeremy if you have a problem with him.
He forced me. So we're not playing two square in the house because Jeremy, this was, I had conditions for, interview today.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: that, that might be the, the most intense guilt trip we've had on the
episode or on the pod as well.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Coming in hot, dude.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: that was the thing of beauty right there. You just laid that, laid that on with multiple layers to that.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah, that was, well, that was on the spot, but it was, it was well thought out very quickly.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: [00:08:00] Imagining you as a hospital chaplain this afternoon, a couple glasses of wine in Does, does bring a smile to my face. So
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: hmm.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: I
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah. Well,
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: it like I should be sad, but it really just makes me kind of happy for you.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: yeah. Yeah. And for, for, for clarity, I'm actually not a, you probably, you probably know this, but I'm not a chaplain for hospital specifically, like for hospice.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Oh, hot space.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Just 'cause like I go in and out, I might go to hospitals, but I go to houses and senior care centers. It all depends on where the people are. 'cause hospital chaplain is, has its own versions of complexity, but it's usually tied to a location.
Whereas mine is more like I go to patients wherever they are. And my commitment was very specifically to hospice as opposed to just like a hospital, you know? But yeah. Yeah. I, I love it, man. It's great.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: So you like to roam,
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: I do, I am. It just
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: contain you, Kevin.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: seriously, dude, it's [00:09:00] a story of my life. It's, I feel like. In certain movies, like a personal contractor, which in the movies is probably more like an assassin or like killers.
But in my case, like I'm going to like lovingly care for people, but I still have the identification. I drive around, I get to listen to what music I want. Then I pop in and do something and I drive again. And I actually like that fits my personality and my way of relating to people very well. So it's cool.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Yeah, hospice, chaplain and assassin are closely related.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: They're both very connected to death, except I'm trying to love people as best as I can on the way out, and they're trying to end their life immediately, you know? So there
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: connected to death.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: but different, you know, I'm trying to love people, they're trying to end people. So, but when we hop back in our cars and go to the next thing, that's like the connecting point for me is the mysterious nature of then we roam again, you know?
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Yeah, that's beautiful. That has nothing to to do with [00:10:00] what we're talking about today, but this is a beautiful setup just
to get to know you
more.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Of
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: enjoy this. Okay, because this is your second time on the pod, I'm gonna skip a lot of the normal questions because I've already asked you those, and our listeners can go back to episode 22 if they'd like to hear those. But I do have a new one I wanna get your take on so that we can build our comparison list on, on who's answering this question. So here's, here's the new question. Which member of church history would you trust to pick out a bottle of wine for you? And who would you not trust?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Hmm. Oh, which number of church history for a bottle of wine and who would I not trust? Hmm. I would definitely. If I, if it was to trust, I would definitely have to go for people, some, somewhere, people in monasteries. I
have to trust those guys. They got, they got the [00:11:00] time. You know, maybe, you know what, maybe I'd have to go back to some obscure like Desert fathers and mothers.
'cause if they're in the desert and they're really trying to unplug from the empire at that time, you know, there's gotta be some, some good stuff to drink out there, you know, to do that. So I'm gonna go for a blanket. The Desert Fathers and Mothers of the fourth century, third century in row. When people were first going outside, who would I not trust?
Um, probably any Baptist preacher from the last 30 years.
Oh man. Because one. They either have a, a, a lack of familiar familiarity with them, or two, they might have a lot of familiarity, but they can't talk about it publicly. You know how familiar they are. So I just, that would be tough for me.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Okay, I like that.
Well done. That
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah. So I'm going not [00:12:00] individuals, I'm going more for collectives of
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: You're
going for specific groups. in, in time. You, You, you, dated both of those, so I
appreciate that. We'll, we'll allow
it.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Take me to the desert. Take me outside. There's good things going on. Put me in the heart of the empire and system. My start to get allergic. I start to itch. I'm like, I can't trust what's being said here.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: That's great. All right, well your new book is, is Intriguing and I, I don't recall reading a book like this and so I like what you do here and I think it, it takes a little explanation for someone who hasn't read it or seen necessarily what you're doing. So I'm gonna unpack a few quotes that I think will get us there to allow you to explain the premise.
And then I've got some more just kind of general quotes that I loved that I'd love to hear you vamp on.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: mm.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: You're primarily talking about two aspects of God in this book. And this is in the title, but the cosmic Christ and the concrete [00:13:00] Jesus. And you go back and forth with these two images. He had a quote that I thought captured. How you see both of these really? Well, you say this, Christ is the ground.
Jesus is the guide. Christ is the terrain of everything. Jesus is the map. Christ is the fullness of God. Jesus is the face of God. Christ is that which holds all things together, draws humanity forward, fills everything and remains the universal drive that guides our own individual evolution and the evolution of the universe itself. So how, in a nutshell, how do you see these two aspects of the, the, the Christ in this way and then Jesus in this way?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah. I think a part of it is holding together the classic, the real classic philosophical, like the relationship of the universal in the particular, you know, between that which holds together and sustains all things, you know, as this, as you know, who we [00:14:00] refer to as God, you know, most of the time this eternal unfolding ever present, animating, sustaining reality.
You know, whose deepest dimension is defined by love. So there's that which is available and accessible to all people and at all times. Who's this? And also the engine driving all this forward. That's great. What does that have to do with Jesus? Or does that have to do with the concrete person at a particular place in time?
So this book's about the relationship between that eternal and cosmic reality that, you know, people call the cosmic Christ and I do too. And the concreteness of this liberating Jesus I inherited from the black prophetic tradition. You know, how do we hold together the direct experience of Christ, which liberates us personally and the invitation of the concrete Jesus to work for liberation, which happens on a concrete level.
So the book is really getting at how those are connected [00:15:00] and all types of things that come from that. You know, why I ended up where I was, you know, how I hold that together, why I think beliefs aren't as important as other people do when it comes to embodying the fullness of the way of Jesus. So, yeah, there's many ways.
I think what you said is really central when you start to compare it. You know, I also say. Jesus is concrete and historical, and Christ is cosmic and eternal. So I'm like, Jesus is when the flow, this eternal flow took on form, when the substance became structure and when the universal power of everything became a specific person.
And the writer, Michael Dowd, he has this great quote where he says Jesus' reality with a personality. So I'm trying to hold together this cosmic yes to everything which we can all surrender to, and yet this invitation of the concrete Jesus to work for justice and liberation and compassion in the concreteness of our own lives, in our own world.
Yeah.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Wow, [00:16:00]
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah. Come on now.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: that was a lot. That was good. People are like, wow, this guy's, this guy's really smart. So why, I mean, let's, so if someone's just hearing this idea for the first time and they're like, okay, are you saying there's more than one Jesus? Like, I'm trying to think of like, what would someone who's just approaching this idea maybe for the first time, that might sound a little weird, right.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I have, I, I, somewhere in the book, I basically say there's moments where people use the word Jesus, and it doesn't fully make sense to me, even as a Christian and actually makes me uncomfortable. You know, like there's these funny moments where people use the name of Jesus and I'm like, I get what they're saying, but I don't know if that actually works right there.
So, for example, like I have many examples of this in the book, but like, your [00:17:00] people are praying, you're at some religious gathering and someone's like, you know, Jesus, I just want to thank you for today. And I say, huh, okay. So Jesus gave you this day of, of Jesus, of Nazareth. The historical person, Jesus, who lived in the ancient near East first century, is somehow responsible for today happening.
So in Genesis one, which you know, for me is a form of a poem to make cosmic sense of things and the people time and place, like, do you imagine it was like a 33-year-old Jesus who said, let there be light that echoed to all of eternity. You know, like, because like if someone's thanking God or thanking spirit or thanking Christ for the day, that makes sense to me.
But when someone thinks Jesus, I just say, I don't know if that actually works right there. Right Is, is that the right way to name that? Creating sustaining power? You're talking about God work? Sure, but Jesus doesn't work there for me. You know, and there's many [00:18:00] moments like that. Someone's like, I just want to really get away today and just really be with Jesus.
You know, like some, something like that. And I say, that's an interesting idea, just a little getaway with Jesus of Nazareth. What does that, what does that mean? Right? Like are you spending time with the translucent Jesus, we see helping Ronald Reagan sign the Constitution in those hilarious memes. Is it like a ghost Jesus, right By you, you know, who's helping you the same way Help Ronald Reagan.
If someone said, I'm gonna get away and be intentionally present to God. Of course. Consciously experiencing your true self in Christ. Yes. Like awareness and awakening with the spirit. Yes. But to spend time with Jesus. So to me, of course there's not multiple Jesuses, but Jesus is the concrete embodiment of that which is eternal and existed before and beyond.
The person of Jesus who lived, died and resurrected, you know, 2000 [00:19:00] years ago. So it's really. Trying to find a way to hold together that which is universal, the presence of God, which is all pervasive, ubiquitous, and everywhere at all times. And the actual concrete expression of the historical Jesus that is there.
So are they connected? Of course. You know, is Jesus the embodiment of the eternal? Absolutely. But to then say, when I don't think everything you can say about the Christ, you could say Jesus as a, as a direct one-to-one thing, you know? So having our sacred imaginations hold together, the eternal and the universal, and the concrete and historical and how we do that in our own lives is not the point of the book, but it's through the book naturally of how I make sense of things in my own life.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Yeah, that's well said. I, I got to that part in the book and I did. I did get a little like, huh, I think this is me because I, when I pray a lot, I do pray to Jesus and [00:20:00] then as I read that, I was like, okay, I totally understand what you're saying. And it would probably be more accurate to pray to the Christ, right, to the I I'm not praying to Jesus of Nazareth, although I would say, you know, there are definitely moments, I'm a big cph prayer, imaginative prayer person where you do envision the literal, you know, Jesus of Nazareth, Nazareth as the expression that we've seen in the concrete form, um, to meet me in that moment.
So that I was kind of thinking like CPH prayer might be the, the merging of those two entities in one experience, right? Where it's like I'm connecting to the eternal version of this as I've seen it displayed in the Jesus of Nazareth version of that. Does that make sense?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah, it does. And I think that as a spiritual, as an imaginative, spiritual practice, if it helps you interface with and connect with and be in tune with God. That's awesome. You know, for me, prayer and spiritual practices are all fingers pointing to the moon. They're all [00:21:00] aids in contemplation of the divine.
So if imagining an actual embodied Jesus in my, in my mind, actually helps me in the di in the sacred dialogue, feel heard and feel seen, that's fantastic. But I would just say that's more of a, you know, an imaginative spiritual practice. You know, that makes sense. 'cause the incarnation is this interfacing of the divine and humanity of spirit and matter.
So it makes sense for people to do that. For me, I've never done that really. A part of that's just my own personal experience. Like my first experience of God was not directly through a sermon about Jesus and it really didn't have anything to do with Jesus. It was just 'cause I didn't have those categories yet.
Really, it was just a direct experience of love, of light, of affirmation. Like that was my experience of God initially. So from the inception of my faith, I didn't primarily interface with the [00:22:00] universal, un, sort of mysterious, endlessly unknowable presence of the divine through a biblical story or a person of Jesus.
So it just feels more naturally for me to connect with God without Jesus as a medium, to be honest. So I think if that's helpful for people, great. But like on a literal level, or depending on how people say that, when they're praying to like you and your friends, I'm in Hawaii, right? So we see beautiful sunsets all the time.
If we're sitting there and you know the person next to me. Has some sort of like experience of grace. This unity of all things this deep, everything's gonna be okay. Like the gift only finally slowed down and experience beauty, the whatever, however we take that. But if they were to turn to me and be like, you know, in that moment I just really, really experienced Jesus, I would just kind of smile to myself and be like, not how I would say it.
That doesn't actually make sense to me theologically, but I also wouldn't say anything 'cause I know what they're saying. [00:23:00] God connection, Christ, the loving grace, like it's all the same thing. But I think Jesus, for me, would not be the most accurate way to explain what just happened. You know, that which you're saying was all fully present in and true about Jesus as the incarnation mode of God.
Great. But you just experienced Jesus in his sunset. Like again, translucent Jesus with his arm around if, if imagining that helps you. That's fantastic, but in a literal sense, that doesn't, wouldn't make sense to me in how I understand the presence of Christ as a universal force and the concreteness of Jesus as a person at the time.
Yeah.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Y you don't really get into this in the book or I didn't, I didn't notice if you did, but one of the questions I had when I was reading it is it almost seems like you are, are comparing the, the cosmic Christ more to the role we would traditionally think of with the Holy Spirit.
So more of this overarching kind of universal, eternal, you know, aspect of [00:24:00] God that. I think people might have said like the Holy Spirit was in dwelling inside of Christ, whereas you might say the cosmic Christ was in dwelling
inside of Jesus. You know? Do you think there's,
there's some similarities there, or how would you distinguish between the cosmic Christ and then our understanding of the Spirit? I
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: I think the, the, the idea of the cosmic nature of the Christ would include. The spirit as an indwelling force, but would also transcend it and be more, you know, that's a fascinating thing right in the Bible, like, you know, the Apostle Paul speaks of Jesus ascending in order to fill the entire universe, right?
Something's filling the entire universe. Or second Corinthians four, six, he writes about the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. So God's glory is in the face of Jesus Christ, right? Like Colossians one, one of my favorite parts of scripture, he exists before all things and all things are held together in him.
You know, the writer of [00:25:00] Hebrews says, the sun is the light of God's glory and the imprint of God's being. So the biblical writers are talking about that which is embedded within everything, filling the entire universe, existing before all things, holding all things together, right? It's this mysterious, so the indwelling spirit, I say yes and much more.
The same force that is dwelling within you is the same force that somehow sustains and holds all of the universe together and is the eternal word and is the sustaining force for all of matter itself. You know? So it's that, and it's every, that's why Richard Roar says Christ is another name for everything.
You know, it, it's all those things like the, like it's all very poetic when you talk about it. You try to get at the reality of it, but it's the infinite embedded within the finite, and it's also the reality of the finite. Where we are is always existing within the infinite, you know, it's the universal presence that is born within us.[00:26:00]
But remains beyond us and keeps all things bound and is the sacred engine that drives the evolution of the universe. It's everything, right? It's sort of like the animating force and the depth of everything within you holding creation together before all things. It is that cosmic matrix that we would normally, and I think almost anytime you say Christ, you can say, God, I just think the cosmic Christ gets at the link between God and Jesus as well.
We can say God, but I think the cosmic Christ holds together this universal force and the personhood of Jesus and the inextricable link between those two. That's why I more specifically say Christ for it. So it's, it's all those things, you know? It's. It's the relationship and the book's about the relationship between the cosmic Christ and how it relates to the historical Jesus and why for me, the mystics have given me a vision of the cosmic Christ and how the black prophetic tradition has given me a, a real [00:27:00] clear vision of the concrete and liberating Jesus.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Okay, so let's explore that more. You, you merge these two traditions together and you have a, you have a quote that I thought was, was great. It's a little bit longer, but I, I think this is, this is Well, said. I, You said conventional Christianity told me the cross was an atoning sacrifice that reconciled humanity to God.
Okay, so that's part one Part two, the mystics expanded my vision of the cross as the affirmation of life that is present in every form of death. Part three. And the black prophetic tradition taught me that the cross was Jesus's ultimate identification with the marginalized, a challenge to systemic injustice and a divine confrontation with oppressive systems. And then you say, I think I'm gonna go stick with the second two, right? Like, I'll give up the Christianity, the conventional Christianity, and the atoning sacrifice out of all that. So you do a really, really good job and a really interesting parallel here of [00:28:00] bringing these two faith traditions together that I don't think I've ever seen brought together the way you do. What caused you to want these two, and how did you kind of see this as like a perfect marriage?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Well, I, one thing I've observed, and it's an interpretation, and I may be wrong, people can feel free to disagree with me on this, but I think one of the differences between how I just naturally write. Compared to how I see others, right? I'm thinking specifically like Christian author folks, you know, who are in our kind of atmosphere is, most people write what they're learning or what they've learned.
You know, like, 'cause that makes sense. Usually we're talking about, we're asking questions and we're wrestling with whatever's at the growing edge of where we are. 'cause if we're on a path, we're thinking about what's in front of us. We're thinking about what? Like what are we saying yes to? What are we saying no to?
Like if we were going through a force, it's like this [00:29:00] tree in front. This is our focus. So you've resonate with people who are also wrestling with what you're wrestling with. That's natural. We all do that. But what happens in publishing is once someone starts to see, see something, and they get all excited about it, that's what they're writing about.
And I'm like. They're writing about it because they're starting to learn it, but they have not fully lived it. And become that and directly realize that for themselves, that is not the same thing. To learn something and to live it out is different. To learn new information and to go through the long journey of integrating all of that into your embodied existence are different parts of the journey.
So I'm like, oh. 'cause I can be around people and be like, oh, that was just something you wrote. 'cause when I'm around you, I don't feel that same energy. You're not striking. And, and it, and again, I'm not trying to like, I'm not trying to like diss somebody, but I'm like, your behavior, like the performative existence in front of me is betraying that, which I've heard you talk about or write, you know, it's like a performative contradiction.
[00:30:00] And that's not a judgment, it's just an an interpretation. And so for me, I'm like. That's not how I write. I don't write about what I'm learning right now. I write about that which I have become over 10, 15, 20 years. And a part of that's just my personality. I'm an Enneagram five. Our greatest fear is incompetence.
So I don't wanna say things about things I just learned. 'cause if you ask me a million questions, I don't have the answers yet. And I'm scared to be exposed, like that's just a part of my personality. I'm gonna wait until I really know something and in this case, wait till I really realize something and become that.
So the reason why I say all that is that this is just my own journey, the mystics and the cosmic crisis. My first experience of God is direct embodied knowing. And when I first read the mystics, I'm like, they are speaking in native tongue. I have known, they see what I see. These are my people, these are my brothers and sisters.
I get, they just, they just shaped me and, and [00:31:00] teach me and connect with me in a way other people can't. And the black prophetic tradition wasn't something I'm like, Hey, let's just let me learn about black theology. It was like, no. I went to school. I took an intro to black theology class in 2010. That blew my mind.
It was one of like the, the best professor, Dr. Ralphie Watkins, who became a friend and a mentor, but it was just every lecture was spell binding. I was like, how have we not seen this before? Once you see it, you can't unsee the theme of liberation. It was the most, one of the most exciting things I've ever seen.
Kind of like when people first read NT Write and you're like, this new creation, this is it. You know, it's like a version of that. And. That class and I started focusing on black and womanist theology in school and focusing all my studies on it 'cause I'm like, they are opening my eyes to see dimensions of the gospel and [00:32:00] dimensions of the actual life and embodied ministry of Jesus that I've never seen before.
That for me completely changes how I orient myself in this world. This is the most amazing thing I've seen. And so for the black prophetic tradition to give me this vision of this concrete and liberating Jesus who identifies with the marginalized whose, whose ministry is defined by his solidarity with the oppressed.
Once I saw that I could never unseed and shaped everything for me of how I think about following Jesus as a path not believing in Jesus, but following Jesus as an embodied path and way of life. This is the Jesus that I see. And so for me, it's, it wasn't like a creative clever, I'm like, this is how I actually hold things together.
This is why I can still call myself a Christian despite everything I've read and all the critiques and everything I've left. I'm like this all a, a, a faith beyond belief [00:33:00] that's based on embodiment and experience and not abstract beliefs about God. This is why this all feels very natural and organic for me, and these are the traditions that have been my primary guides to do that. Yeah.
Yeah.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: You also talk a lot about, in, in contrast to the cosmic Christ and the conquer, Jesus, you talk about abstract white Jesus, and I love, I love that phrase, one of the lines you say is the abstract white Jesus focused on saving us from hell renders us almost completely indifferent to the systemic evil causing the suffering of people. Today.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Mm-hmm.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Talk a little bit more. What, what is this abstract white Jesus? Because I think it's, it's sadly become the norm in a lot of evangelicalism today.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah, not everybody's always aware, but there is an abstract white Jesus that has our churches and places truly in a choke hold. [00:34:00] And, you know, you know, and in the book I'll say things like, you know, Jesus tends to, so let's get a familiarity right with this abstract white Jesus, right? As an imaginative exercise, this Jesus tends to side with those in power.
He's mostly apolitical. And the crazy thing is he miraculously transforms all radical social acts in the gospels into cute little nuggets of wisdom for our individual lives today. Right. It's the guy who's been completely extracted from his social and political context in ancient Palestine who somehow has become a mascot for white Christian nationalism in the us.
Like and I, in the book, I'm like, you know who I'm talking about? Like he's not a big fan of the poor. He has virtually nothing to say about oppression. He seems to be very concerned with suburban folks not feeling uncomfortable during sermons, and he is mostly concerned with eternal salvation or personal piety.
This is an abstract white Jesus, and I would argue an abstract white Jesus. In the [00:35:00] creeds that the only thing this abstract white Jesus asks of you is for you to have abstract beliefs about him. Do you believe in the creeds? The creeds, while I believe are extremely helpful for the history of Christianity, 'cause I'm a great appreciator and believer in the great tradition of Christianity, capital G, capital T.
Going all the way back to the early churches, these Stanley, how says to become a Christian is to jump on a moving train. And I really take that seriously. Like this is well before the us. This is well before all this. And I appreciate those great traditions and the creeds are a very important part of that.
But Kelly Brown Douglas, the great woman is Theologian, really opened my eyes to that in her book, the Black Christ. And what's Faith got to do with it? 'cause she's like, the creeds are totally metaphysical and abstract and say nothing about [00:36:00] the earthy and body Jesus. So you can be a Christian if being a Christian means being able to affirm the creeds and be a white Christian Nationalist, you can be a Christian based on the creeds and have slaves and not think there's anything wrong with it, or be indifferent or not care about the poor and really have not follow Jesus.
You can just believe in the creeds, you know, 'cause they don't say anything. There's no liberation or love or forgiveness or caring for your neighbor. None of that's in there. It's all metaphysical and abstract. And so that abstract, Jesus cannot, it doesn't have anything to say to the reality of injustice, doesn't have anything to say to the way in which systems are leveraged against entire groups of people.
And, and also leveraged to benefit other groups of people, namely like folks who look like you and I. And so that Jesus doesn't have anything important or concrete to say to [00:37:00] that. But when you're for white folks and when you're in places of privilege and power, that's enough. Because if you don't need liberate, if you don't need social, political, and economic liberation for, for, in order to thrive, you don't need a Jesus that liberates you.
You need a Jesus who's like, you're safe. You're okay. Don't upset the powers that be and we're all gonna be fine.
That's not enough. That's exactly, that's not enough for people who are being crushed. That doesn't work for people who are on the underside of power. And so to contrast that, there is a concrete and liberating Jesus that has been proclaimed by the black prophetic Christian tradition in the United States of America for a very long time, and even before it was in an academic setting through James Cone, MLK, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B.
Wells, Harriet Tubman. These are people who have been embodying this liberating Jesus for a very, very long time before it was codified in [00:38:00] any academic setting. And this is a Jesus like. The one, the thing I take from Kelly Brown Douglas the most was she says, Jesus earthly ministry was defined by his identification with a marginalized and his solidarity with the oppressed.
That, for me, unlocks something of what it means to follow a concrete Jesus in our time in ways nothing else has. How? What does it look like to identify with the marginalized in my neighborhood, in my state, and in our country, what does it look like to be in solidarity with the oppressed? So this liberating Jesus when we see a news story or oppressed briefing, huh?
Does my ego naturally want to side with those in power, or does it say no? The truth always comes from the bottom. Does it make me antagonistic towards the poor naturally and be like, no. Like why are they causing problems? Like the collective evangelical response to social and political situations is usually to identify with [00:39:00] those in power.
It just disgusted me to be totally honest. It, it's repulsive when I'm like the Jesus impulse is to actually identify with those on the bottom and to like, when Cornell West says truth is to let suffering speak, you don't get truth from the top. They don't care about truth. It's about power. You get truth from places, from people who have never had access to it.
'cause all they have left is the truth in those moments, you know? So for me it's, that's a big different mode of being, of how we orient ourselves as citizens, as human beings, as Christians, is who do I naturally side with? Who am I naturally like, ugh, like those poor people again, just let us be, you know, like those types of things where white people are very disgusted, you know, with like people making noise.
And I am like, no. The Jesus impulse, the liberating Jesus impulse is always to identify with the marginalized and to be in solidarity. So my, that, my starting point is those are very different [00:40:00] versions of Jesus and they're very easy to spot, you know, in communities and with individuals.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: And I just love that you gave a phrase, you know, that's so easy to remember, the abstract white Jesus, you know?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah. Man is
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: just encourage,
yeah. You know, to anyone listening to this right now, it's like, you know, and the next time you hear a sermon in church, just ask yourself like, which version of Jesus are you hearing?
You know, and is it that Jesus that makes people feel comfortable and safe, and is the endorser of all that you want to be true? Or is it the
Jesus
that, you know, like Kevin's articulating is ushering In some other reality that that might feel very foreign at that moment, but there's, there's gonna be truth there. I think that's so cool.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: 19, in 1976, the Reverend Jesse Jackson did this article or interview for Christianity Today. I tell a story in the book, and he, but he's basically, he's talking about the difference between Billy Graham and MLK,
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: such a great quote, by the way. I [00:41:00]
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: oh my gosh, yeah. I, I don't have, I don't have it pulled up, but like, but for me, he on a, that's the particular MLK and Billy Graham.
But he is getting at the universal, like a bigger thing of like the abstract white Jesus and the liberating Jesus. And he's like, you know, if Billy Graham was alive back then, he would've preached to the slaves in Egypt and sent them back to slavery. He would've saved their souls and sent them back to the same economic and political political situation that was crushing them.
'cause that's what the abstract why Jesus does, is not concerned about oppression. And he is, like, MLK would've preached to their souls like he did, you know, for a personal form of liberation. But then he would've taken them, liberated them, and led them to Canaan. Right? Like that gets at what we're talking about right now.
Is Billy Graham bad? No. 'cause if you're working for pe, like individual salvation, individual liberation is important. We all want freedom. We all want joy. That's a good thing. So I'm not saying it's bad in and of itself, it's just not enough.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: [00:42:00] Hmm.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: It doesn't go all the way to connect the personal with the political, the experiential with the economic, et cetera.
So black and woman of theologians weren't saying everything's wrong over there, but they're saying is there's something there that's probably, I'm, I'm, I'm adding this to it, you know, but like personal is great, but that's not what this was all about. It begins in the personal and extends to a much broader political, cultural, political and then larger like cosmic thing.
So we. If people have not been, the people who have not been in need of liberation are probably not gonna be the ones who lead us all to liberation. 'cause they don't have that guttural cry for it. I don't have that in the same way other people have. I learned to listen. I try to be an ally. I try to join the fight, but I don't know what it's like to grow up in a place where you are in need of those other forms of liberation, just for the sake of surviving and [00:43:00] thriving.
I don't have that. I didn't have that experience. I listened to people who have had that, you know, so those other voices from the margins have the capacity to not deny our old experience of Jesus, but to deepen it and expand it, and to help us keep going.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: I love it. The, the abstract white Jesus is a very flimsy version of Jesus. And if that's
all you have, there's, there's a lot more out there that, that you can
experience. Okay, so let's go. Handful of quotes that I just thought. These are bangers just let you, let you unpack them. You say you can have a direct experience of God without having the right beliefs about God or even believing in God. I love this one.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Oh man, that's a good one. I [00:44:00] like that. You know, I was in doing a podcast yesterday with two people who consider themselves to be like ex Christians. And when I kept saying stuff about, it's not about beliefs and about experience, and I was saying so many things and they, they were genuinely like, this is making me rethink, like just the label I call myself.
She was like, I feel, it was essentially like, I feel like, I don't know if I'm a Christian, but Kevin's insisting that I am still, even though I don't believe. I was like, yeah, that's great. I was like, you're, you don't think it, but like I think you are, you know?
Um.
Yes. I think that's an important thing, that you can have a direct experience of God without having the quote unquote right beliefs about God and usually the religiously approved beliefs about God based on your tradition.
And man, I think that is a great form of respect and reverence I have for God of why I say that. You know, Paul's [00:45:00] defining moment on Damascus was a direct experience of the resurrected Christ, and Paul was the most religious, you know, Paul's experience was not going from non-religious to religious. It was going from religious in a particular way to, oh, I actually had everything wrong, and eventually changing his beliefs about God because of the experience of God.
And what a liberating thing to think as a, especially when we think about deconstruction and change, it's like I. Dogma does not disqualify you or qualify you from love doctrine and whether or not you can agree with every doctrine of the confessional church doesn't determine the depth of your experience of God and your own of being and your own awareness.
What a great gift and what a strange view of God who withholds himself based on us having a correct understanding of him. That is not how love works. That's why in the book I see somewhere like, [00:46:00] does Jesus always need the credit whenever we experience something good? Do you think he's that egocentric and self-centered and No, that sounds more like us.
Okay. Of course, we're just projecting our views of humanity on the God like we've always done, but you know, you don't need an, a completely accurate map to be very familiar with the terrain of life. You know, I, I. I tell a story in the book or there's a group of friends going to some waterfall in Hawaii and while they're on their way there, they've never been there.
I'm making some details up 'cause I kind of forget it. But one friend is like fully hyper-focused on the map. Like, oh my gosh guys, we gotta go left and we're not, we're not supposed to go up. You're supposed to go up the stairs and not the cliff right there. And whatever he's saying. And he's so worried about the map that he's not experiencing like the joy of having his feet on the ground in this new mud he's never seen.
And seeing his friends have joy and seeing new floral and seeing new flowers, et cetera. [00:47:00] And then when they finally get to the waterfall, the one of his friends just grabs the map from him and runs and jumps into the waterfall. And then the first guy's like, dude my map. And the second guy's like, you don't need the map, we're already here.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: I love that line.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: That's what we're doing. Like the experience of the Christ of love of Grace. It is a direct. These are not about directions to the ocean. This is being in the ocean. You don't need a map to be in the ocean if you stumbled there, got driven there. You don't need to understand the salt and water ratio and the science, the chemical makeup of salt water to be in the ocean.
That is a great invitation for us. You know, when it comes to, I don't know what I believe about God, but can you experience being loved? 'cause that's still here. I don't know what I think about the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Well, can you let go and practice enough humility to allow yourself to be healed?
This is the work of the Christ. This is the work of God. No matter what you think [00:48:00] about Jesus right now, or you're wrestling with these things that says nothing about the presence of love. And I push that further of even if you don't believe in God, right? I. Some people are wrestling with their beliefs about God.
I think you can experience God even if you don't believe in God. So, and I thought about this when I was pastoring, you know, years and years ago. I'm like, let's say I preach a sermon, right? You're a Christian, you're in the church. I preach some sermon. Who knows what biblical source I'm drawing from. But the point I'm making is sometimes you walk what feels like to the edge of a cliff in your life, but you take a leap of faith.
You trust God enough to step off of that cliff and to trust that a bridge to the future will be built along the way. That is not having all the information and trusting. We all have to do that sometimes to take risks. If you hear that as a Christian, you're like, yes, I've heard the biblical stories. I've seen God do it.
I've heard those stories in my friends. I'm a Christian. I believe in God. I trust in God. I take that leap and God carries me to a different [00:49:00] future. What a great thing. But I would argue. Sometimes for a person who's not a Christian, doesn't know if they believe in God, but if they walk to those same edges of a cliff in their life and who knows even what's motivating them to take those great risks in life, if they take a risk in the same way, that same spirit that carry you through to your future will also carry them through to theirs.
So they might not believe in God, but they are having, they are. There is an experience of the unfolding of the spirit in their life that is carrying them through. What a great gift. You know, someone who doesn't believe in God. Finally chooses the ownership of their life, the confronting of their pain to, sorry.
There's, we're having things talk in our building. Our elevator shut down today. I'm on the 37th floor. Our
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: are you okay?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: sec. I'm fine. I mean, [00:50:00] I got a glass of wine. I already walked up those stairs, but I literally had to walk down like 30 flights of stairs, go to the gym and walk up 30 flights of stairs to come back.
It was an extra cardio workout I didn't need. They're basically just telling us it's okay,
But so for that person who might not have conscious beliefs about God, when they choose to take that risk, God also carries them through.
God is also with them. Or even in experiential sense, if for whatever the reasons are, even without Christian symbols, even without the Christian narrative, even without trusting in God, a person finally faces a pain that's within them, opens their heart practices acceptance, and choose to let go and forgive the same spirit that will carry me through when I choose to face my own pain is the same spirit that will sustain them and do that for them there.
So I think that's offering a real generosity to the spirit in this world. Allowing God to be at [00:51:00] work in all times and in all places. If God is, if all things exist in him and God is sustaining all things like Colossians one says, and that's true for everybody at all times. So I think that opens us all up and everybody, there's a democratic universal accessibility to love and to the spirit and to the Christ at all times no matter.
And I want that for everybody. I don't need you to believe like me, to, I want you to be free and I want you to be whole. I don't always care what name you give to that.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: I thought that.
whole section was so good and what stood out to me as I read it is if you don't agree with what you're saying, you do not think that God operates like this. It really is a petty looking God. You know this God that's very insecure, very, you know, egotistical. Like, no, you didn't
do it right.
You didn't think right. You didn't,
you know, and
so because of that, I'm not going to do X, Y, and Z for you. And you just go like, is that really the fullness of who we think God is? Like [00:52:00] that? Is that
picture what we really think embodies God and I, I would hope most Christians will go, well, no, I don't think that embodies God. Well then the argument you're making here is the logical next step then to
say
it doesn't really matter what you believe. God is still who God is, and God's going to be loved to you regardless.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: hmm. Yeah, I asked those questions in the book. I'm like, the presence of God is present with or without the name of Jesus. There's nothing in the person of Jesus that puts on display and egocentric immature reality that always needs personal credit for life. And hopefully as we grow, we need less and less of that too.
You know, following the path and. The fullness of life can be experienced in any moment regardless of what you believe about God. I really believe that, you know, like [00:53:00] anybody at any time can awaken to it and be embraced by the miracle of what is 'cause. If not, that's what you were getting at. That's the section of the book.
Like what are we saying? Does God withhold himself from people based on what they currently think about him? Is there a lack of love present to a person because the name of Jesus is absent from them is awakening and enlightenment and liberation limited to people who passed an orthodoxy test from the church.
That is petty like what you were saying. And that does, that doesn't, I don't see that in Jesus at all and I, I've never experienced anything like that with God. You know? And the with withholding is our own ego response to usually being hurt or be feeling small. There's no withholding. Like that to me is one of the ultimate, we talk about the good news.
There's like. Even that, that image and revelation of like the, the God who, who knocks at the door of your heart. Right. You know, we see, I think in Revelation three, you [00:54:00] know someone, if you knock at a door, you don't know if the answer that's in a, you're in a vulnerable state. I'm vulnerable if I knock wanting with the desire to come in not knowing if you'll love me.
I'm vulnerable. I'm in a place of weakness. And the God who perpetually knocks is the God who perpetually is present enough to be vulnerable enough to continue to move in whenever we allow him. Man, what? That is the good news. That is the, that is the good news of whenever, this is so much of my approach to pastoring in the past and my relationship with people.
When Jesus says, you know, those who have eyes, let them see. And there's a zen saying, when the student's ready, the teacher appears we can embody that for others. 'cause the spirit perpetually does that for us. For everybody at all times. And not because you finally said Jesus, Jesus is a map that can help you see that with more clarity and hopefully help you trust that.
Yes. But even without the map, when some, when anytime someone opens their heart, it's almost like it is the, [00:55:00] it is the job title. It is the defining marker of the spirit to move in whenever somebody's open, the spirit's always moving in wherever there's openings. I love that man that that's, that's it for me.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: So when I read that section, I thought of a scene from the Chronicles in Narnia where the, the kids are saying goodbye to Alan. I think it's like for the last time, this might be in the, the seventh book. And you know, they're like, we'll never see you again. 'cause you know, you don't, you don't live in our world and. Alan's like, yes I do. And they're like, well, how do we know you there? And you know, he says, well, you have to learn my name there. I'm known by a different name there. And this, this idea that it's not Alan the Lion, you know, that was just what you had connected with. But God is bigger than that. And now you have to go figure out how to recognize that same God in your world.
And I just thought of that scene when I was reading because it's
like, Yeah, we do get
so caught up on the form, or it has to be this way. [00:56:00] And it is a very small view of who God is and you're inviting us to go. No, God's much bigger than that.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The, you know, a, in that section that, around there, there's a wisdom teacher, a Ashanti. He wrote a book called Like The Mystic Revolutionary, Jesus. He's like a inner spiritual teacher, more like a Buddhist, but he wrote a book about Jesus, which I find to be really fascinating. But in the book, he has this quote where he talks about the energetic signature of Christ, like Christ has signed his name through the presence of his energy everywhere in this world.
So you're, we can't look for oslan, you know? We can't look for Jesus in the same way you could if you were there present to him, but you are looking for the same essence, energy, divine presence, call it what you want. That was fully present in. And as him is also present in and as, I don't know, I guess we have to discover [00:57:00] that together around us at all times.
And that's one of my deep theological convictions about the incarnation. Thinking about the incarnation of Jesus is okay, fullness of spirit and matter. Yes, God and humanity. Yes. You know, heaven and earth. Yes. All in one place. And the sneaky thing about mystics is mystics. Don't look at that and deny it mystics.
Look at that in Jesus and say, yes, the incarnation is true there in Jesus. It's also true everywhere else at all times.
That was an incarnation of Jesus in a time and place. But the Christ is the incarnation of that same God in all in time and space. Every moment is an in now. Every moment is an incarnation moment.
The same substance of the fullness of whatever was present in Jesus at that time, I believe was fully present in our created world at all [00:58:00] times. This is the incarnation, you know that which was true. There is true here. Resurrection's. True there. It's true here. Death, not having the last words. True there.
It's true everywhere. This is the, that was an icon that sort of explodes and now says it's everywhere. You know, this is a story that was true in, in here and this person. It's a story that keeps on going. So I think to be a Christian is to have your eyes open, to recognize the energetic signature of Christ, the presence of God, the fullness of Christ.
Everywhere at all times arising within conversations like this. When you finally slow down enough to be like, man, me and my partner, my wife, my husband, we've been in a long journey. What an amazing thing that is, right? And you're like, whoa. Like this can still bring tears to my eye sometimes. Wow, my kids are growing up.
What an amazing thing it is to watch them grow. You know, I can walk and [00:59:00] breathe and be like, dude, I can re, I can recenter myself into what is in these moments, you know? And I think that Incar incarnation now is based on how aware we are of, and how in tune we are with the energetic signature of Christ, which is everywhere at all times.
But that's the good news, you know? Now,
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: What an adventure.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: seriously, dude, I really think that,
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Yeah, no, I mean, like, it's exciting. Okay. You have a phrase that, that you taught me in this, and you give a definition of it. The phrase is spiritual bypassing. You say the
psychotherapist,
John Wellwood defines spiritual bypassing as spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional, unfinished business to shore up a shaky sense of self or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks. Talk to us more. This is an [01:00:00] intriguing idea to me. Talk to us more. Unfinished business to shore up a
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah. You know, I start that section and I say, you know, and this is true for a lot of our experience in churches, but I say it's easier to get pumped up than it is to actually grow up. Everyone wants to get pumped up. You know, one of the things I do with my kids when my wife's not in there, she probably doesn't want to hear the yelling, but when we're in my car and I'm driving home, my kids are six and eight is I turn on the song, we will rock you.
At full blast. And we
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: that's your jam.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: it. And we scream it. I just introduced my kids to the eighties bangers.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: There we go.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: and we just get pumped. You know, we just laugh and make up words and yell, like literally we're yelling in the car. And I'm like, so much of conventional church culture in the United States is defined by victory, triumph, and winning.
Right? Think of like the sermons. You know, like, like I think about, I'm not that familiar with Christian music, but I know there's a song. It's like, I wanna see a victory or something [01:01:00] like that. And I remember back in the day in Old Hillsong United, like, shout out to God with the voice of triumph. Shout out like all these songs, right?
Um, okay, so it's victory. You wanna win. And that's a good, and it's a natural thing. I totally get that. But you know. Is the nature of this commonly proclaimed victory and all these sermons made of the same substance and safety of what's truly available to us in Christ. You know, it's the gospel of winning, the gospel of victory, the Gospel of America.
It sounds like to me, you know, a lot less like pride Jesus. But the mystics have a different take on this, and that builds into the section you're talking about. Like, why would Richard Rohr say Christianity is about learning how to lose? What a fun, that's, that's not a gospel of victory. You know, my, the great medieval Spanish mystic, my Eckhart says, no one gets as much of God as those who are thoroughly dead.
You know, Jesus also pretty big name, [01:02:00] you know, says, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. The cross in the moment wasn't a victory. The cross was a symbol of him getting crushed by an empire and him losing and him dying. It wasn't a victory in and of itself.
When you get to the bypassing part, I'm like so much of this victory language and so much of sermons to me is a form of spiritual bypassing. Right? And the quote you just said about, you know, shoring up a shaky self to belittle basic needs is, I think spiritual bypassing is like, don't feel your pain.
Just sing your way through it. You're not really hurt, you're not really depressed. Let's just sing louder. Let's just do this. And that is extremely emotionally irresponsible and psychologically damaging because you're not asking people to go in and through their pain. You're actually asking them to go around it or to jump over it, or fungi jump over it, or whatever's exciting in the time.
[01:03:00] That's not how real healing works in the second half of our life. The one thing that's in like the last thing leaders learn how to do is learn how to face their shadow
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Hmm.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: ever do. And I would argue, most don't. Because now we're not in the language of victory. You're like facing the losses, facing the pain, feeling your way through it, accepting bad things happen.
Accepting the world isn't the way you thought it was. Accepting relationships don't always work like this is when, when Roar says Christianity's about learning how to lose. That's much of what the real healing probably feels like because spiritual bypassing the person who can't let you be fully present to your pain and wants you to go around it, that is born out of an insecure self that does not believe they have the internal resources to withstand their own pain and their own suffering.
They've been [01:04:00] sidestepping it. They've been jumping, jumping over forever. They dress up in religious language and tell you it's God's about victory.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Mm.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: You know, like this insecure self preaches to entire groups of people all the time. It gives them, this is what I write in the book. It gives them the gospel of denial and avoidance through confident cliches and glib answers.
The wisdom teacher does not ask you to go around your pain and always invites you into it and says, no, no, no. You can be carried through the pain. It's not denying death. It's resurrection, which is the embrace of death
and
winning and victory are parts of the gospel, but they're very particular forms of winning and victory that only happen on the other side of death and crucifixion not going around it.
The gospel of spiritual bypassing would say, would take Jesus off of the cross and you would never need resurrection. 'cause we'd be on a [01:05:00] high the whole time. Like when Peter, you know, when Jesus says, get behind me, say, and Peter cannot accept that a part of being the Messiah is integrating death. His expectations were for a gospel of victory.
And Jesus is like, no, this is headed to a whole different place. It is
victory, but not like what you think. It is winning, but not the shape of the other way Your ego wants. It is wholeness, but not through avoidance, through going in and through it. And that's always the path, always. You can't escape that.
Integrating your shadow, facing your pain. This is the real work, especially into the second half of our lives of growing, and I think the gospel gives us the path. It literally is right there. It shows us the way and invites us to embody the way and says, God will carry you through the way. Like it's all right there.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: I love it. There's, there's so much in this book [01:06:00] that I think. This is so meaningful, so valuable. And you know, you, you talk a lot this, this spiritual bypassing. I just thought that that's, that's a harder way to go than most Christians do. Most churches do. But it's a better way. And you know, I, I think when you read these ideas and you see that, and you see the invitation in front of you, and we all have journeys of, of stuff and you know, things that we need to work through and face. And there.
are those of us who do the work and say, Hey, I will face it. I will stare that down long enough to see what the cosmic Christ wants to teach me through it. And then, you know, there's many of us that go, I, I don't want to, that's too painful. And one of the things that intrigued me too, as you end the book, you, you did this, I, I don't remember what you called it, it was like the epilogue or outro or something, but you like do this whole thing about your own ego that I thought that was like, I. A very intriguing way to close out this book of like, oh, by the [01:07:00] way, you know, basically like I got ego issues and I've tried to work through 'em, but they're still there and I'm aware they're there. You know, and it was just like this
really gut honest, like you practicing what you preach.
And
I just think all of this is, is really powerful, Kevin and I, I am excited for more people to be exposed to these ideas, to experience God in this way and to emerge out of it with some healing and some, some pretty fundamental growth.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: hmm. Yeah, I wrote, I started writing this so long ago, so I haven't really been in the book like the material for a long time, to be honest. But I always write the outro like right before the last manuscript's done. And I'm at an interesting part of my life at 40 where when, when we closed the church down, I was like 38 ish.
There was like some opportunities kind of ahead afterwards. I'm like, whoa. Like there's this new thing I'm doing. It's based outta New York. There could be like big funding. This is like everything I've ever wanted. It [01:08:00] puts me in front of people in cool places, and this is all like, whoa, this is like leading leaders.
This is like everything I've ever wanted. And when it essentially fell through, like it was a very heartbreaking thing to be honest. But just those moments, like when Roar talks about transformation comes through great love and great suffering, when, when the rugs really pulled out from underneath you, you know, real suffering hits the, the knobs and all the volume of like your little ego desires that are still there.
The things you want and the things that don't, aren't essential and don't matter. They get shut down. Like if your kids get sick, like I don't give a shit about anything else. I'm not thinking about what that per, it doesn't matter. It's all, everything goes mute except what's essential and what you love.
And this did that for me in a, in a special way where I'm like. If I were to do this project, is it objectively good? Absolutely. Are there parts of my voice that come out? Yes. It's so, it's good, but I'm like, but also there's still this little part of my [01:09:00] ego that says, well, if I'm a part of this group of people, cool, progressive Christian people, whatever people I think are, you know, whatever.
Like that makes me special. That makes me cool. That makes me different. You know, I, that makes me, it was about attention as a kid in an elevated way. And
I was like, yeah, that is a big part of the driving force for this and I don't want to do that anymore. And what's so fascinating about hospice work, and I've, me and my wife have talked about this a lot. I'm like, hospice work gives me everything I want to do. Pastorally. I. Without any of the other attention my ego would want publicly being present to people, caring for people, um, you know, using my voice to care for people, leading with connection, [01:10:00] all these different things.
Truly seeing people, which to me, hospice work is for me is primarily about seeing people in the same way God sees us. But in those moments, like nobody cares, doesn't do anything for a platform, you don't get anything from it, et cetera, et cetera. I'm like, that's why I tell people hospice work right now is in mutual seeing of God, seeing people through and as me and God seeing me through and as these people.
'cause when I'm there with them and the volume knobs are all turned down, I'm like, this is what matters. So it was weird. I literally was ending my church and building up to like take off and now I'm like, I'm kind of think I'm done with public Christianity for now. And I just wanna go back again to the embodied part of following Jesus.
I'm like, if it's not embo for me right now in my season, if it's not embodied local and connected, I have very little desire for it. You know, I had enough energy to do all the podcasts for the book, but I'm just [01:11:00] like, I'm kind of tired of talking about this right now. And I just want to be present to people where I am.
And I don't know what that means for my future. And I don't know if I'll, I don't know if I'll ever write again. I don't know if I'll ever do anything public again after this. I really don't. But for the first time, I was like, I, I wanna feel what it's like to like, just be a regular person for a while and not be like, what's the next thing I'm building?
And I'm the next thing I'm creating. And like, I need time away from that to be like, well, there's another chance to be like, this is enough. Right? The Christ being seen, being loved and loving, there's like, isn't, isn't that why you, isn't that why you felt called to be a pastor? Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's return to that.
See what happens. So it's a, it's a very weird place to be in, but it's like all those things in life, you know, you wrestle with things, you resist things, you don't fully let go of things. But when you do, you're like, oh yeah, now I feel more connected and more aligned than I ever did. Why was I resisting that?
Which was getting in the way of my life. Oh yeah. 'cause that's what [01:12:00] we do when we're scared, you know? So, yeah, it's, I'm ending the book by being like, I'm tired of talking about religion, but here's my book. Let me talk about it a little longer to sell some copies.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: And then I gotta go do some podcasts for it.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah. You end the book by saying you don't wanna talk about it.
I'm like, yes. But that was suspended for four months until the book comes out.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: That's amazing. Okay, so is, is it officially out? What's the publication date?
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Comes out May 6th.
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: Okay, So
May 6th, I.
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: . So it's either on pre-order, depending on when this is released or not, it's available. Amazon. Great place. You know, giving stars short reviews, even like this was cool. Always helps authors, you know, and algorithms and relationships with publishers or whoever.
So, yeah, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, great places to get it. And yeah, it's, it's something I'm very proud of. 'cause I'm like, this is accurate of how I am, this is what holds my life together. This is why I make sense of all this. This is why I'm still a Christian. That's why [01:13:00] I love this is why this path is still the path I give my life to even post congregation.
No, this is everything to me and this is how it makes sense to me. Yeah,
jeremy_1_04-24-2025_131445: I love it. Well, Kevin, thank you for taking the time to talk about something you didn't want to talk about with us today. You did it and you drink wine. You, you are a trooper, and now the rest of your day is set up well, and I, I, I love these ideas. I think there's a lot here that is an invitation for growth and I'm excited for more people to discover it.
So thanks friend, for,
for all your work and for taking the time with us today,
kevin_1_04-24-2025_101446: Yeah, thanks Jeremy. This is great.
