Episode Details

One of our listeners tells his story of chipping away at Christian ideas, only to find a faith that feels more Christian.

This week and next, we’re going to hear the life stories of two more people who grew up in a Fundamentalist / Evangelical world, but embarked on a journey with which our listeners are very familiar: one that is strewn with baggage, rejected ideas, and old theologies.  Those who’ve walked this path will all say that when you reach the end, you feel like you’ve lost it all … only to find that you hold a faith that looks completely different from the one you started with … but which feels more Christian.

Today, our guest will be one of our listeners who walked that journey while being the pastor of a very Fundie/Evangelical church: John James Kirkwood.

We heard a bit about the kind of Evangelical faith that was handed to John in his childhood, and how he essentially ran away from that in his teen years.  But the story really begins when this Prodigal Son returns home and begins pastoral work at his father’s church.  For twenty years!

At first, he tried to build a persona that might be best described as a cross between Ravi Zacharias (before the scandal) and Rush Lumbaugh.  He wrote a very conservative column, hosted a radio show and became very vocal about politics.  His views morphed into Christian Nationalism: he was often reacting against perceived abominations (like boycotting Target because they don’t say Merry Christmas) … gun rights were sacred … the US was the new Israel.

That changed when Donald Trump first became President.  The reception given by the Religious Right started some very unsettling questions for John.  He started to read some books (the first tell-tale sign of that “slippery slope”) and listening to speakers on the forbidden list (like Bart Ehrmann), particularly in the areas of Creation/Evolution, and the origin of the Bible.  One night, after slamming shut Francis Collins’ book the Language of God, he said to his wife “I can’t believe I’ve been wrong al