April 30, 2024 • 54 mins
With the breakdown of institutions and denominations, faltering also are the credentialing methods for pastors and clergy. In this conversation, Jonathan Foster joins the show to talk about Open Table Network, a clergy network that provides credentialing and support for pastors, chaplains, and counselors who have been excluded or marginalized by their faith traditions. With culture moving away from "big tent" institutions to affinity groups, Foster acknowledges the dangers of such but emphasizes the importance of local missional communities and empowering individuals rather than building centralized institutions. He also discusses the trend of denominations splintering and sees the value in smaller, more localized groups. The conversation explores the complexities of ministry credentialing and the challenges faced by spiritual leaders in the current age. It also delves into the theme of grief and the experiences of those who have transitioned out of traditional denominations.
Jonathan is the partner of one, father of three, author, podcaster, lowercase t-theologian with some degrees, founder of lovehaiti.org, and a lover of mountains (oh, and colorado school of mines) and in general, a solvem probler extraordinaire. Find out more at jonathanfosteronline.com
Previous Episode with Jonathan:
https://futurechristian.podbean.com/e/jonathan-foster-on-the-path-of-reconstruction/
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Future Christian Team:
Loren Richmond Jr. – Host & Executive Producer
Martha Tatarnic – Guest Host / Co-Host
Paul Romig–Leavitt – Executive Producer
Danny Burton - Producer
Dennis Sanders – Producer
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Paul (00:06):
Welcome to the Future Christian podcast, your source
for insights and ideas on how to lead your church
into the 21st century.
At the Future Christian podcast, we talk to
pastors, authors and other faith leaders for helpful
advice and practical wisdom to help you and your
community of faith walk boldly into the future.
(00:27):
Now here's your host, Lauren Richman, junior.
>> Loren (00:33):
Welcome to the Future Christian podcast. Today we're welcoming
Jonathan Foster. Jonathan is the partner of
one, father of three, author,
podcaster, lowercase Tea, theologian with some
degrees, founder of lovehaty.org and
a lover of mountains o and Colorado School of
Mines, and in general, a, uh, solvum
probler extraordinaire. Find out
(00:55):
more@jonathanfosteronline.com.
Let's welcome Jonathan to the show.
All right. Welcome to the Future Christian podcast. This is
Lauren Richmond, junior, and today I'm pleased to be
welcoming Jonathan Foster to the show. Hey, and
(01:16):
welcome.
>> Jonathan Foster (01:17):
Hey, welcome to you. Thanks so much for.
Thanks so much for having me back on. Appreciate it.
And, uh, it's great to see you, man.
>> Loren (01:25):
We're hoping to do this in person. Last
week at the conferences we were a part of,
but Jonathan is just such an
important figure that I just could not pull him off the
many panels, uh, and speaking
elements he had. And I had other things, unfortunately.
So we're doing this virtually, uh,
here. So appreciate your time and making
(01:47):
some time to have this conversation.
>> Jonathan Foster (01:49):
Absolutely. Sorry it didn't work out in person. That's goofy.
When we were together, couldn't make it happen, but, oh, well,
we got the technology, and, um, I'm thankful to have
a conversation either way.
>> Loren (02:00):
Right. So you've been on the pod before, but give a sense,
uh, give a summary, if just kind of. If you can, of your background,
faith journey, that kind of thing.
>> Jonathan Foster (02:08):
Sure. Well, uh, I've been a church planner most of
my life. Um, that served me really well. I
enjoyed doing that. Hopefully, I served it well.
>> Loren (02:17):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (02:18):
And then, um, my theology kind of shifted and
changed and morphed, but went, uh, through a
lot of loss, including the loss of our
daughter about nine years ago
and four months ago. And, um,
that really just kind of fast tracked me. I,
you know, there's a lot of questions I had to respond to.
And so as I was trying to have intellectual honesty with all of
(02:41):
that stuff, uh, just kind of picked up speed
and didn't work really well with my denomination, my former
denomination, they asked me to leave. And, um,
yeah, so that's been a really interesting journey, and it's really absurd, but I'm
also quite grateful for it. I'm thankful. Thankful for where I
came from. I'm not bitter towards them. I think
it was silly, but, um. But I'm also
(03:02):
thankful. And then we got a partner of 34
years, and we have a couple boys
who are now in their twenties and have kind of grown up
in all of this shifting, changing stuff. So that's been fun and
meaningful to process it with them. Um, and I'm an
author and a podcaster, and I run a nonprofit down in
Haiti. And, um, I'm involved in way too many
things.
>> Loren (03:23):
Yeah. The, uh, big fancy title for Jonathan
Foster's podcast. Here, give it to us.
>> Paul (03:29):
What?
>> Jonathan Foster (03:30):
What is it?
>> Loren (03:31):
Jonathan Foster.
>> Jonathan Foster (03:32):
Right. Jonathan underscore Foster, the
podcast.
>> Loren (03:35):
That's a big, fancy name, right?
>> Jonathan Foster (03:36):
Yeah, that, that's my big, fancy name. Jonathan
Foster. Because, um, all the cool names, like
future Christian were taken and what are you gonna do, man?
So I just. I just went with it.
>> Loren (03:47):
Yeah. Yeah. Um, what's a
spiritual practice that's been meaningful for you of late?
>> Jonathan Foster (03:54):
Um, probably the most important spiritual
practice for me over the last. Well, really my whole life,
but certainly the last nine or ten years, has been getting out
hiking when I'm out in your part of the country.
Um, I mean, I can call it hike when I'm in Kansas City,
but it's kind of embarrassing. It's really more of
a walk or a run.
>> Loren (04:13):
A walk on gravel.
>> Jonathan Foster (04:15):
That's right. We, uh, have some nice parks here, but not a lot
of incline or decline. So, um, getting out
and doing that has probably been the most important
thing. I often think about exercise
as a way to exorcise
the stuff I got going on inside of me. And the
physiological, the spiritual, as you know, are all entangled,
(04:36):
and so it's. There's no delineating
between the two. So it's. It's a really important time
for me, man.
>> Loren (04:43):
I know that Thursday, uh, yesterday,
I came home just really exhausted
from mental and physical grind this week, but
I got on the treadmill and just kept going. Cause, like, oh,
uh, I'm exhausted with this. Feels good.
>> Jonathan Foster (04:57):
Yep. Yeah, that's how that works. Yep. For
sure.
>> Loren (05:00):
Yeah. Well, I wanted to bring Jonathan
on the show because Jonathan is
a part of this pretty recent
formation of a clergy network
called Open Table Network.
And as I understand it, it's kind of
a new credentialing source. Is
(05:20):
that fair to say?
>> Jonathan Foster (05:22):
We're not sure what to call it. It's opentable
network. Um, it's funny,
um, we started it together, myself and my
friend Dana Hicks and also,
um, Jennifer Miles and Guy Taylor. And so the
four of us were all kind of in similar
positions. Jennifer and Guy, more
coming from chaplaincy and having.
(05:44):
Needing to be reordained, re
credentialed, uh, for their
positions, but also wanted. Wanting to do it in a place that was
affirming. Both Dana and I having been
very, uh, much moved out of our former places
because we were trying to be, uh,
affirming to the LGBTQ community.
(06:04):
So, yeah, sometime in 23,
we said, well, what? Maybe we need to. Need to start something for
us and invite others. And, uh, so it's grown
from there, and it is a place to be
credentialed, to be licensed if you want. It's a place
for resources. We've started, um, a
cohort, uh, just so pastors have a
safe space and chaplains and counselors. Those are the
(06:26):
three kind of main groups, so that they have a safe
space to process the, um, as you know, the
really awkward, weird space we all
occupy in this, like, post modern age that
we live in.
>> Loren (06:38):
Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to talk
to you, uh, and I had. Jonathan. I'm,
um, saying that weird. I want to talk to Jonathan today
on the show just because I think this is such an
interesting development,
kind of in light of what you even just said,
our context in postmoderny,
(07:00):
post modernity, when we think about
the decline of institutions.
Um, so this is kind of going to be
a wide ranging conversation. I hope it'll make sense
to you and for our listeners. Jonathan,
um, you kind of share that
the big impetus, it sounds like, was folks who've
been, to use
(07:22):
strong word, like excommunicated, whether
intentionally or implicitly from
their faith tradition. Um,
as this thing has begun to take shape, like, what are
the primary, uh, folks? Is it folks
who no longer fit in their faith tradition? What are the primary
folks who are coming to this
network?
>> Jonathan Foster (07:43):
Sure. It's very interesting because,
um, I think that
theologically, there are deeper issues
than just the queer affirming issue,
but, um, that has become kind of the flashpoint. And
so I would say we're brand new. I mean, we're only a
few months old, and there's. There's maybe 30 or 40
people kind of connected. There's maybe at this point, only like
(08:06):
15, maybe 20, I'm not even sure
licensed through it. Um,
but I think as far as I know, everyone, like, that's
the main thing, that they either were, yes,
officially excluded from their former
theological ecclesiological space, or.
Or we'll put it this way, they knew their
time was coming. I mean, they just, you know, you saw the
(08:27):
writing on the wall, and so they're coming because of
that. But, you know, to me, there
are that affirming
queer theology stuff really just stems
from, as far as I'm concerned, like a
posture of love, a posture of uncontrolling,
non binary, nonviolent, non
scapegoating, uh, uncontrolling love.
(08:49):
And so, for me, that's really the deeper
issue. But a lot of people find themselves here
because the other, it gets
so much news and so much traction.
>> Loren (09:00):
Yeah. So, practically speaking, if I can ask,
what was the formation look like? Did you all just form
a non profit and register as a church type
thing?
>> Jonathan Foster (09:09):
Basically, yes. It's funny because I just talked to,
uh, a new friend. Her name's Elle pike, she's from
Canada. And they're doing something very similar.
They started, um, probably about two
years ago, but we had to laugh because
she's taken two years to do study groups.
Uh, she's been meeting with people around the country,
(09:30):
up north, as it were. Um,
and just now is getting going on their nonprofit.
And I do think the canadian process for nonprofiting
is a longer process anyhow. And after
we talked a little bit, I just laughed. I said, well, we just
typical Americans, we did the opposite. Uh, we immediately
formed a 501 z three, and we
(09:50):
pulled. Fortunately, uh, a guy was
really capable, uh, and Jennifer as well,
and had some resources together to be able to credential
and, uh, some really nice processes for,
uh, people to walk through that, though I should say, side
note for anyone listening who might be interested, like, we really
take serious, um, if people have
(10:10):
had, uh, a lot of experience in ministry. So we're not particularly
interested if someone has spent a few years
in another, uh, space to have to
make them go through, jump through a bunch of hoops.
>> Loren (10:22):
Well, let's talk about that.
>> Jonathan Foster (10:25):
Yeah, go ahead.
>> Loren (10:26):
Yeah, sorry, I was just going to say, let's talk about that. Because
certainly in my neck of the woods, at least I'll
say, like, those of us who have been through div
school and gone through an ordination process, and I
think you've gone to seminary, right?
>> Jonathan Foster (10:39):
That's right. They, uh, don't claim me, but I.
>> Loren (10:41):
Yeah, like, at least speaking for
my friends, we kind of get super annoyed at those who get, like,
the online ordination,
um, and then, like, go do their friend's
wedding. So I don't think you guys want to do,
like, that kind of thing. Or at least I'll say
I hope not. But what's kind of like your.
Is there some, like, guiding principles, some
(11:04):
shared theology, that sort of thing that really
provides some cohesion?
>> Jonathan Foster (11:09):
Yeah. So a couple of things. First of all, yeah, I agree with
you. We're not trying to rubber stamp stuff.
Um, and we're trying to, uh, walk the line
between that and also not forcing
people, like, let's say, in my, uh, for my
purposes, you know, I had been a pastor and,
you know, have a master's and a doctorate and had been doing this
for basically. Well, yeah, a quarter of a
(11:31):
century. Um, I just.
I didn't. I wasn't interested in. It is part of
the reason I didn't jump into some other denominations. I was just not
interested in going through all the hoops again.
>> Loren (11:42):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (11:43):
We're trying to kind of walk that line between, um.
Yeah, we definitely want to vet people and have
integrity with what we're doing, but also
not make, um, it a thing where they have to
start over. So
theologically, um, where
Dana and I come from, um, and,
you know, the trajectory of
(12:04):
opentable.net work is open and
relational theology. And so if
people are familiar with that or process theology,
um, they're going to already
be kind of well on their way to
understanding what we're trying to do.
And if you go to opentable.net work, you'll see our values.
You'll see. Again, we tried to keep that sparse,
(12:27):
but, um, I'm really proud of the way
that stuff turned out and some of the things that we're
interested in. I think people will catch a sense right away
of who we are and what we're trying to do.
>> Loren (12:38):
Yeah. So I think as, uh, this
will release. A couple weeks ago, I did an interview with Ted
Smith, who wrote a book about the decline,
really, of theological education and the
voluntary, voluntary association as the
primary kind of sociological institutional
model. And he talked about
denominations kind of turning into
(13:01):
the word he uses, affinity groups. And obviously
there's some real pluses and minuses, I think we'd both
agree for that sort of thing. Um,
for one, you said it straight out, like,
folks who are LGBTQ are on that, um,
in that context.
Obviously in this context, they're going
(13:23):
to find a welcoming and inclusion much more
than they might find in some other contexts, or certainly not at
all in certain contexts. But obviously some
dangers, uh, of affinity groups, is there can be
very much like an echo chamber,
um, certainly exclusionary in their own
right. So what do you think? Broadly speaking,
as we see this kind of trend increase
(13:45):
in our culture and even in our faith
traditions. Um. This is
kind of a hard question, I suppose, but how do you think about
that in relation to open table network?
>> Jonathan Foster (13:57):
Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. And we are an affinity group.
At some level. It feels like so many of us.
It's so many. I have these conversations
every week, sometimes almost every day, where I'm
meeting new people who
are still. I mean, loosely speaking,
like, generally speaking, you would say they're still interested in Jesus,
(14:17):
but they've been so underwhelmed and
disillusioned, uh, with the institutionalized
approach. And so there's hundreds of
thousands, maybe millions. Probably, uh, no,
probably millions of believers who are kind of in
these interesting waters, and
then a bunch of us who used to be, like,
leaders or whatever our titles were,
(14:40):
who are now trying to figure out how to navigate all this. It's
very, very interesting. And,
yeah, I think what we've said is,
like, tribes are important, but what we're trying to
do is not give way to tribalism.
So if you can get a tribe without tribalism, I think that's
super important. Psychologically, sociologically,
(15:01):
um, emotionally, spiritually. And we're human
beings. We're wired to be connected. So it's
important to do. But I think moving forward,
people who have intellectual integrity
about all of this are going to be more and more,
um, invited into situations where they're going to
hold. They're just going to hold to their,
(15:22):
um, denominational ties, their association ties, their
affinity groups with, um. You're just
gonna probably hold them more loosely. It doesn't mean that they're
less important. It's just. Good Lord, they're so. I
mean, pluralism is such a reality in our world
now. It doesn't make any sense
to try to force love into one
(15:42):
small, little pocket. I mean, love works
in small, little pockets. I mean, God,
uh, you know, by faith, I think God can fit anywhere.
I don't think there's any godforsaken space in the cosmos.
>> Loren (15:54):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (15:54):
But I don't think that's the healthiest way forward.
So, yeah, we're trying to do the tribe without
tribalism.
>> Loren (16:01):
So obviously, like, we've seen the danger of
institutions in that there is this
just protect the institution of, uh, at all costs. You
know, like, we're both sports fans. Like, the NFL has
been like, protect the shield. You know? It's,
it's, it's protect the league's
identity integrity at all costs.
Yeah, certainly, um, we've seen that in
(16:23):
denominations. We've seen that in big
churches where it's protected the denomination,
uh, Catholicism. Protect
the church. In big churches, it's
protect the pastor's brand. Protect the
church's brand. Um,
conversely, though, again, I'm
(16:43):
thinking about this sociologically, there does need to be some level
of commitment or covenanting or stickiness to
keep people together. How do you see,
like, you can answer this kind of how you want to, whether
it's from an open table perspective, from like a,
you know, thinking about, uh, groups
of believers organizing in the future, like, what do you
(17:04):
think is going to be necessary to kind of maintain that?
What I think is an important balance, not
leaning too far the other.
>> Jonathan Foster (17:12):
Yeah, it's, that's a, um. It's something to be
managed, isn't it? It's not a, it's not a problem to be
fixed once and for all. I think it's constantly
ebbing and flowing, in part because our
contexts ebb and flow and our culture and
our societies and, um,
even, you know, to some degree, morality, because
(17:32):
it's based on customs and culture
and systems. And all of these things change over
time. So I know one of the things that we're
trying to do and something I personally believe in is,
you know, we're just constantly, as we, as we
meet and talk about these things, we're committed to not building
ivory towers and giant headquarters
(17:52):
and some big place from
which all the mandates, uh, are
decreed. From, um,
instead of that approach, we're trying to say things like, we
are here to empower local
missional communities. So
basically, if you've got an idea that's
working or something you want to do, uh,
(18:14):
we're going to try to get behind you rather than the other way
around. And that was always, I know I won't be the
only one who feels this way. As, you
know, there were good things about the denomination I was part of, but it
was always a sense. I said, even when I was a,
uh, 20 something and I didn't know anything,
I was always like, it's just weird how it feels like
(18:34):
the pastors exist for the benefit of the
denomination. It should freaking be the other
way around. It should not be that way.
And, um, so,
yeah, we're just trying to keep that in mind. And I think moving
forward in general, no matter what group you're part of,
because it's the local missional
things that really wind up
(18:57):
making so much of the difference. Kind of like
politics, you know, we get all wound up about who's going to be the next
president. Meanwhile, like, I don't know what the percentage is,
but there's a high percentage of. It's never even
going to matter whether Trump or Biden is, for
me personally, is the next president. Um,
it's about state legislation
(19:17):
and local and community. So I think
keeping that in mind, whatever happens is really important.
>> Loren (19:24):
Yeah, I'm glad you made that point about. I think
some of the clergy I know would agree,
who work in, uh, some contexts. So I'm
thinking, as someone who grew up
independent, in an independent Baptist tradition, where there
was no, there was no formal
denominational ties, there was very loose networks.
Um, and then again, I currently am
(19:45):
ordained in a mainline tradition that is pretty
rigid, pretty, uh, organized. And certainly other
mainline traditions are even more so with higher
barriers of entry and higher
regulations.
Certainly we've talked about some of the negatives
of denominations and
institutions. Certainly, um, one
(20:08):
positive, I think, would be
kind, um, of accountability and,
um, just kind of keep an eye on
folks. I'm thinking about one of the real
problems in, when we think about
the SBC, southern Baptist, their denomination,
but they're not very top down,
(20:28):
obviously, at least as I understand it. So suddenly
there's that big scandal where there are just churches where
just turn the blind eye to
offenders and passing the buck along,
where with a more top heavy
approach. I mean, I say it
won't work, but obviously happened within Catholicism. But
theoretically, right, theoretically, the system is
(20:51):
supposed to kind of keep those things from
happening. So what do you think?
Um, the dangers are,
um, not necessarily just within open table,
but in these kind of looser, um.
Um, these looser structures, like, whether
it be certainly, certainly, um,
harm, um, is one way, but, you know,
(21:11):
theological. I sure
do not love the word, but I think you get it. You can hope get a sense of what I'm
saying. Right. Theological cohesion, mate, will say it
that way.
>> Jonathan Foster (21:21):
Yeah. It's almost like, pick your poison, man.
>> Loren (21:23):
Right?
>> Jonathan Foster (21:24):
If you're going to do ministry in the post post
modern age that we live in, which is how I kind of reference
it, you know, you're. You're gonna have to have a
tribe and you, I mean, you
don't have to, you can go out and do your own thing, but there
are lots of, like we've said positive things associated
with it, by the way. There may be a pension associated
with it, you know, a paycheck or something like that. Those
(21:46):
were the good old days, weren't they?
>> Loren (21:47):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (21:48):
Um, you know, and it's.
>> Loren (21:50):
I.
>> Jonathan Foster (21:51):
What I used to always say when I was church planting was when I
was a part of the Church of the Nazarene was, uh,
you know, we're doctrinally and fiscally
accountable to these people, which I always
thought, especially as a church plant, when you're starting with nothing
was a really healthy thing. And in theory it
is until.
(22:11):
Until the doctrine gets all skewed
and even the finances at times can get
skewed. So it is not an easy.
There's no one fix. It's not an easy
thing. Um, open table. I mean, I feel good about
it in the sense that I can tell you this. It has never been my
dream to start a denomination or an
association or whatever the heck we call ourselves. That
(22:33):
is never a part of my five year, 20 year
plan. Um, it's just emerged
because there's obviously such
a need for it, and we're in such an,
again, awkward, interesting phase.
And so here we are, me and my colleagues, and, you know, we have
some experience. We've been around. We've got
(22:53):
a few intelligent things to say. We've also got a lot of
unintelligent things to say. Um, so we just thought,
well, we're going to put this together and see if we can help
people. But, yeah, you're asking great questions, because
there are no perfect answers to this, for sure.
>> Loren (23:07):
Well, I think what I'm hearing from you,
and this is a position that I've been coming to more and
more late, is so much as I try to
live according to, is just trying to hold this
tension between two things.
And obviously, like, it's easy to get pulled
in one direction or another.
Um, and I hear a lot of that in what you're
(23:29):
saying.
>> Jonathan Foster (23:31):
I think so. I think that's the way to live life,
personally. I think that's the way more and more people
are living life. You know, all of our institutions, whether they're
economic, political, religious, national,
military, um, they're
full of cracks and crevices, actually. They always
have been.
>> Loren (23:49):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (23:49):
It's just because of the. Probably because of the Internet,
because of the fact that we get news, you know,
up to the second news, and we see problems everywhere. It's.
It's just in our face. So we're just aware of it more
than ever. And it's a really. It's a. I started to
say dangerous time. I don't like that word because. Because
there's also a lot of potential. It's just a very
interesting, potentially good, potentially
(24:12):
bad time. And so for folks out
there, men or women who have,
or people who are in some kind of nonbinary
state there, too, I should say, who have felt a
call and an invitation to be, again, a pastor or
a counselor, a spiritual director, a leader, a chaplain.
Um, yeah.
(24:33):
It takes a lot out of you to kind of figure out
how do you want to move forward with all of that. And I think
living in the tension is a Jesus move. I
think it's an embodied love move, and I think it's the only
thing we can really do. We don't need to do it and
be disrespectful of other institutions, although,
well, I'll say this way, we don't need to be disrespectful
(24:54):
of people in other institutions. I personally
kind of don't really care that much if we're disrespectful to the
institution itself.
>> Loren (25:01):
Sure, I can live with that. Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (25:03):
Some of these systems, man, they've been living off
the fat of the hog, so to speak, for, you
know, at least 18 centuries since
the time of Constantine.
Um, and it's just not right. I mean, it took
1800 years for us to figure out slavery was wrong. It took
1900 years to figure out women should vote. It's taken
us a couple thousand years to figure out queer
(25:25):
folk are like real life human beings.
And all of that was perpetrated,
again, good people. But the systems
themselves, um, can get really
skewed and sideways. Yeah,
I keep saying the same thing. We just live in an interesting
time. Um, and it
(25:45):
takes a lot of courage to keep moving forward in all of this.
>> Loren (25:47):
So let's talk about moving forward.
I think, and I imagine you'd probably agree, we're going
to continue to see denomination
splinter and split and diminish.
I mean, I think, frankly, that's going to be a big
draw for, like, your open
table. What do you think? I mean, do you
(26:08):
think this is a trend? Do you think you're kind of ahead of the curve? What do you
see?
>> Jonathan Foster (26:12):
Well, um, I
always try to get ahead of the curve, but it seems like, uh,
I never quite am. Um, but, um, it
seems like I get hit by the curveball.
>> Loren (26:22):
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
>> Jonathan Foster (26:24):
I totally agree. I think, yes, there's going to be
more fractures and splinters and. And on
one level, it's nuts, because we have already, depending
on, I hear, 30,000, maybe 40,000
just protestant denominations alone,
counting eastern orthodox and catholic and all
that. Um, so, good lord,
we don't need any more splintering. On
(26:47):
the other hand, uh, there's something good about
it, too, because the
splintering splits you up into smaller groups. And again, kind
of like the local missionalized, missional
things. And so maybe that's a really. I think there's some
really positive stuff about that. I don't see
it going anywhere else. There's no chance that there's going to be
(27:07):
one big, mega church, unless one big,
mega denomination, unless, you know, something like
christian nationalism might
be able to pull, um, which they
already kind of do to some degree. And that's a nauseating
thought.
>> Paul (27:22):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (27:22):
Um, by the way, christian nationalism, for the
listeners, I don't mean just conservative. I mean, uh,
there's liberal christian nationalism, too, but
the conservative one is kind of the one that's more in your face and
kind of more gross, right?
Yeah.
>> Loren (27:37):
Um, I want to say one more point on this, too.
I'm thinking about, like, in my
conversation with Carol Howard and also with Ted
Smith, the point came up about how, especially
with some denominations, and you kind of alluded to this, like,
there's so many hoops to jump through that,
um, as the pastor,
(27:58):
as a profession, becomes more and more,
I should say, less and less financially
sustainable, um, I do think it's
important for us to have
credentialing, to use that word, um,
ordaining models that don't require
an M div or don't require seminary debt. So
I think that's another reason why your
(28:20):
model is intriguing, because
I think it's gonna be important, you know, to have other
models or avenues to some kind of
ministry credentialing that aren't gonna
require, you know,
such, um, rigid standards.
>> Jonathan Foster (28:38):
I know it's tricky. Um, we gotta have standards.
>> Loren (28:41):
It is tricky.
>> Jonathan Foster (28:42):
It is trick, especially if you're leading people. There's so
many needs. I mean, to be a. We'll, uh,
just say spiritual leader, for lack of a better phrase, to be
that in any day and age, for sure. But the day and age we
live in, it's complicated, man. There's so much
mimetic dysfunction out there. There's so many politics.
There's so much, you know, um,
(29:03):
spiritual manipulation and
weirdness. And people come into your
practice or your church that are strange, and they
project all this stuff on you. Um,
not to mention, like, you got to have ways to figure
out how to read your sacred texts, in our case, the Bible. And
if you don't have some education,
um, you know, we'd all like. We'd all love to
(29:25):
say, well, love will just lead us. But as
you and I both know, there's some really complicated stuff. So,
yeah, just trying to walk that line between
encouraging education, but not incurring
all this debt, um, figuring out ways to,
to stay educated and, and not,
uh, have to do kind of the traditional route, which is what you're
(29:46):
saying that people have done and have put them in a
really tough position financially. So,
yeah, it's interesting.
>> Loren (29:54):
Whoever's listening to this is probably like, are these guys going to make up
their mind? Like, they're talking all over the place, like on both sides. And I think
that's really the case. Like, we're trying to acknowledge, like,
the complexity of this. And like, you know,
like, as those words were coming out of my mouth,
I'm like, oh, man. But I do really value theological
education. I do really value rigid
(30:15):
ethics and ethical guidelines. But
also it's a both and
tension thing, I think has been the theme of this
conversation.
>> Jonathan Foster (30:24):
Absolutely. One good thing is we live now
in this, um, time period, obviously, with the
Internet and so many resources. I mean, this is
unprecedented in the history of humanity. So
people can get educated now in
ways that, if they wanted to, could be
a lot less expensive in the past.
(30:45):
Part of the problem is, do we
recognize those people? Do we recognize,
for example, and that's part of the reason why@opentable.net.
Work. We're not making people who've pastored for
20 years jump through a bunch of hoops because we want to
recognize the fact that experience that accounts for
something, it means something that you can't get
in a seminary classroom, um,
(31:08):
or, you know, from a traditional thing. So,
yeah, it's just muddy. I'll muddy the waters even
more by saying that, um, there's got to be ways moving
forward where we can, uh,
informally formalize the way
someone can learn theologically, psychologically,
emotionally, and, um,
(31:28):
yeah, we're kind of open to those things at opentable.
We're trying to play catch up with a lot of it. But, um, I
think that's a really interesting discussion.
>> Loren (31:36):
Yeah, it is.
I want to shift the conversation because I feel like we could stay in
these muddy waters forever, but I want to shift the
conversation towards, I think, a
subplot or a sub theme of this.
Ah, and that's to grief. And it's even
hard to talk about, I think. Ah, and you're well acquainted with grief.
(31:57):
You have a book you wrote on grief. You mentioned
the loss of your daughter and how that shaped your family's
life. I'm thinking about
this as I
wrestle with my own grief, um, just thinking
about my own professional career in
ministry, or it seems like a lack thereof,
moving forward I think about folks
(32:20):
like yourself who committed so many
years to a, uh, denomination or
traditional, only to find themselves
at odds or even actively
transitioned out of those traditions
or churches or what. Have you,
uh, have you encountered
(32:42):
such a situation at an open table?
Um, whether you want to speak to this
personally or professionally, uh, share more about
that, if you would.
>> Paul (32:52):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (32:52):
Thank to like you for asking, and thank you for asking it in
that way, because, Loren, I think that is
a big piece of what is going on
across the country. I mean, it's not like
I travel a lot, but I'm in and out, and
I talk to quite a few people in a lot of different
situations. And I would say
one of the, on the, on the short list of common
(33:15):
denominators that is connecting a lot of
american christian spiritual
sojourners at this point is this idea of
grief. It's the idea that this thing just did
not go like we thought it was going to go.
Um, the dream of whatever that church was or that
pastor it was, or even if you haven't been a pastor,
(33:37):
especially when you get to be my age, I'm a little bit older than you, but I'm in my
fifties. I'm a grandpa now, by the way. Got a two month
old granddaughter. Um, did I show you
a picture last week of my granddaughter?
>> Loren (33:47):
I don't know. We'll have to do it here when we're done. I probably should have.
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (33:52):
But, um, when you get to be my age, it's funny, my partner
and I, we talk all the time. Uh, she was just
saying something about this the other night, but, uh, how,
you know, when you've been serving in the church for lots of years and
you get to be our age, you're like, everyone's pretty much done. They're like, they
just, they're so tired. They've had it. They've been through
so many battles. Add on top
(34:13):
of all the craziness that's happened in our world
over the last 1020 years, and then if
you add any personal stuff like she and I have been
through, um, yeah, you just
realize that life is like, you go from one
expectation to the next, and,
um, it's very frustrating. So I
(34:33):
think a lot of people are grieving. They're grieving the loss, and you
don't have to have been. I hope you haven't been someone like me who's
lost a kid. You know, you may have
lost a marriage, or it just may have been
death of a dream or death of the
way you thought things were going to go.
What is interesting is, well,
(34:53):
there's a lot of things, but essentially Jesus
said this whole dealing with lost
thing, it's a prerequisite for joy
because he said, blessed are those who mourn.
So maybe, again,
back to the theme we already kind of talked about. Maybe we're living
in a day and age when it's both
(35:14):
deeply troubling and problematic
and hurtful, but also
deeply replete, full of the
possibility of blessing. Because if we can,
just like, there's this fine line
between. Hmm hm. What do I want to
say? Fine line between, like, complaining
about something and I'm hesitant about that because
(35:36):
I'm, uh. I think there are times when you complain. And
trust me, you know, having been through what we've been through, I've, I've
complained a few days. But there's a fine line between
that and a, uh, lament.
>> Loren (35:47):
Yeah.
>> Paul (35:49):
Mourning.
>> Jonathan Foster (35:49):
Um, and, you know,
also nihilism.
And by the way, not to plug my book, but indigo, the color of
grief, really is an attempt
at one level to try to be
intellectually honest. Sorry, I think that's a fourth or fifth time
I said that phrase.
>> Loren (36:07):
No, it's fine. Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (36:09):
I was trying to be honest with how you can
go really hard one way or the other.
Like, when you go through loss, you can really
double down on the old. Like, if you're a Christian,
you can double down on the old, maybe holiness codes or, you
know, behavioral modification and go really lean
hard into God's control, or you can
(36:29):
go crazy the other way and nihilistic and
say, you know, God's. There is no God. And.
Yeah, and I can have a measure of respect for
both. I probably have, huh. Maybe a little more respect for the latter
than the former, but it
feels like living in the tension between the
two is where you kind of have
(36:49):
to be. And I. We're just not.
We're just not great at that. Our, uh, our institutions haven't
conditioned us to do that. But I can't blame it
all in the institutions because personally,
you know, I, you know, it's just not what I signed up
for with life. You know, I was looking for more black
and white kind of really, really,
(37:10):
really positive answers versus all this gray.
But, yeah, I think you're right to frame it in,
um, a perspective of grief because I think a lot of
people are struggling with that.
>> Loren (37:22):
And I think what makes this so hard, if
I can be honest, is
like, as clergy, we're the trained
caregiver in most contexts that we're
in a, and then
b, because our
profession is. Also tends to be tied
to our spiritual community. When we leave that
(37:44):
profession, we tend to leave that spiritual
community. Um,
like my daughter, who's like a
preteen, she's like, dad, we've changed churches so much. I'm
like,
because I work for a church
or have. That's a hard dynamic, isn't
it?
>> Jonathan Foster (38:05):
Yeah. Just adding to the complexity that we
already, man, people tuning in who aren't pastors,
they're like, they should be so grateful they're
not pastors right now. Yeah. Another
thing I thought of when you said that, too.
Um, we're caregivers.
And then to be pushed
out, you know, kicked out in my case,
(38:26):
officially, and lots of other places unofficially. It
is a. It's a mind trip. We're also.
A lot of us are kind of like, when you're
clergy, you play, like, a meaning making
role in your, uh, community. So when bad
things happen, you help people make meaningful.
>> Loren (38:43):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (38:44):
Well, what's crazy is when bad
things happen, like, if it's bad enough, like, uh, for
example, in my situation, my entire meaning making
system, you know, just kind of fell apart,
right? So now I was trying to create meaning in the middle of
chaos, right? And the poor people who had to come to
my church, I mean, I say poor people, some of them
(39:04):
were really, really great and, uh, learned a
lot. Um, that's a whole interesting dynamic,
too. And I think a lot of meaning making clergy
people types, counselor chaplain types are in that
position. Their lives, personally are
being unwound sometimes
and really beautiful, but the beauty is always attached to
(39:24):
the dark, really bad stuff,
too. And so to
navigate all that at the same time, you're trying to create meaning for
others. Holy smoke. What a trip
that is, man.
>> Loren (39:38):
This is tough stuff, but I think good stuff, and
I hope it's resonating with the listeners.
Let me ask you one more question here before we move
on. So, again, I'm going to
refer back to my conversation with Ted Smith,
and he talked about the model of a
chaplain as being a really future model
because it signifies you as
(40:00):
a spiritual leader, but not necessarily tied
to a institution.
Uh, like a pastor doesn't
have to be, but it's often tied to a church, often in
a specific church where a, uh,
chaplain, for instance, the hospital
chaplain, even a corporate chaplain, may or may not work
(40:21):
for that actual institution. Do you
see? Have you thought
about how opentable might be a part of that, or
what that model even might look like, uh,
of a spiritual leader? Not necessarily
tied to an institution.
>> Jonathan Foster (40:38):
Yeah, that's very interesting.
Um, I don't know if I've formally thought
through that. Informally. I think so
because it's kind of my world and your world, too.
We kind of are in it all the time.
Some of it is like, your
response to, like, well, what kind of title do you want? And what is
(40:58):
the connotation of that title?
>> Paul (41:00):
Or.
>> Loren (41:00):
Right. Cause, like, I wanna call myself a pastor because,
like, I think pastorally, and I care
for people pastorally, but pastors are,
by and large connected. Like, they're seen as
being connected to a church in a leadership role. And that's not
where I am right now.
>> Paul (41:16):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (41:17):
I think this speaks to the need for
expanded imagination around our language.
>> Loren (41:22):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (41:23):
And language is, you know, it's important.
We got to have it. Obviously, it's fundamental to who we
are, but we just get so
locked into certain things. So,
uh. Uh, while we're expanding our theological,
um, paradigms and perspectives and imagination,
we should. The language is all a part of it,
(41:44):
too. I agree. Like, it's funny, I've been a
pastor most of my life. I still do pastoral things. I
still talk to people every single day.
People text me or email me, message me. By the way, you can't
facebook me right now because Facebook just suspended my account,
so.
>> Loren (42:00):
Oh, man.
>> Jonathan Foster (42:00):
Pretty interesting. Yeah. Um,
but. But I. But I'm not really a
pastor, like chaplain. I
totally agree with what Ted and what you're saying, I think.
But also that word, to me, the connotation. And it's probably just
my own stuff. Probably. It's probably a great word,
but it seems passive in some sense,
some senses.
>> Loren (42:21):
Yeah, I think that's a feeling like that. Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (42:23):
But then again, I don't need an aggressive. Like, I used to
be part of a pretty relatively
evangelical church planning network that,
in retrospect, now that I have some years behind me, I realize
was really informed more by
competitive american exceptionalism and
toxic masculinity than it is anything else.
So if I had to choose between passive and that, I'd go
(42:45):
passive. So I'm trying to come up with a
name. I saw something today where
the guy said he was a, um. Get this. He
said he was a solv'em probbler,
a solvent.
>> Loren (42:59):
Mhm.
>> Jonathan Foster (43:00):
And I thought, how do you spell.
>> Loren (43:01):
That, then solve em.
>> Jonathan Foster (43:03):
S o l v e m m. Probler. Probler.
>> Loren (43:06):
Oh, I was thinking that was like s
o u l sol them.
>> Jonathan Foster (43:11):
Problem. It could be, but it's a takeoff, obviously. Problem
solver. He's a solvent problem. And I'm like, okay, I
like that, but that's just silly. Like, I used to call myself,
um, what do I used to call myself?
Oh, the most recent church plant, I
called myself lead follower. Ten
years I did that. And that always led to interesting discussions.
(43:32):
Before that, I was spiritual environmentalist at the
church plant. Before that, yeah. So
I'm always playing with that, trying to figure
out what these words mean and trying
to break out of the stereotypical
molds of what these things mean. But the greater
point is plurality
is a reality in our world. We need lots
(43:54):
of people in all different walks of
life who are feeling
esteemed by their tribes,
also feeling self esteemed, feeling esteemed by
God and love to step forward and
to lead. As much as
I have, uh, a conflicted
relationship with the word lead or leadership, but
(44:16):
that stuff's really important. And, um, so we all
just need to step up and try to figure out how to create those
spaces and those names and those titles.
>> Loren (44:24):
Well, it goes back to our theme of earlier,
holding that tension, holding that balance between the two.
Right?
>> Jonathan Foster (44:30):
Yep. Yep.
>> Loren (44:32):
Well, usually I build on a break here, but I kind of want to
just stay with this momentum and ask you this silly
question, Jonathan. Um, uh, because
like, you are in some
ways like the highest level
denominational official I've ever interviewed.
>> Jonathan Foster (44:51):
That's really funny, man, and really
sad.
>> Loren (44:55):
No, and I'm actually hoping to get my
denominational, uh, lead person on here
soon, but I'm kind of being
loose with the term denomination and that's, I guess that's what
I'm making a play on words here is that you're
co founder of the denominations or you're like co president
of the denomination. So
this is the question. Um, if
(45:18):
you expanded your influence
and you were some might call it a pope
for a day, what
would you want to do with that
influence for a day?
>> Jonathan Foster (45:32):
Yeah, well, first of all, it's pretty funny. When we started this
thing, I told my friend Dana, I'll, uh, help, however.
But I wasn't going to be the president, so he's the
president on the papers, so he's the official
guy. Um, and
I'm helping him. I just say that to make sure, if Dana listens
to this, I have absolved
(45:53):
myself of all responsibility. That's pretty
funny. What would I want to do for the day?
It would have to be something around, like
just helping people re
approach the concept of love. I
think that the essence of God is love.
I think it's biblical. I think philosophically, it
(46:14):
makes the most sense. I think, practically
speaking, it makes the most sense. What's been
interesting in my journey? Well, there's a lot of things
that have been interesting, but one thing that's been interesting is
I didn't realize I was doing this, but when I set
out on this new journey, I actually, in many ways, was
redefining love. In the old
(46:34):
days, love was. I'm not
really sure what it was. It had something to do with hierarchy and
sacrifice and doing the right thing and
morality, and some of that still plays
in. But now when I think of love, I go,
it's this uncontrolling, non binary, nonscape,
goating, nonviolent energy that's in a relationship
(46:54):
with God and with others,
and it's meant for good and blessing in the world.
And every single one of those words
are pretty well vetted in my life. I mean, I've
written some books about them. I mean, they may not be good books, but, I
mean, I've written. I've put some words behind them, and
I've spoken a few times about them.
(47:16):
Um, and I've logged a lot of hours staring
at the ceiling and again, taking hikes and
walks in all parts of the country, trying to figure out what
I think. And so it's fascinating. Each one of those
things are really, um, important
concepts. And so if I had a. Well,
you're asking if I could make a mandate. Well, that's
completely. It's completely antithetical to open a relational
(47:38):
theology. If this is a
consensual thing, then I can't make a mandate.
But I would highly encourage, invite
everyone into deeper and
deeper instantiations of
love.
>> Loren (47:52):
You would seek to persuade them, right?
>> Jonathan Foster (47:55):
I would lay out the lure, yes.
I would invite them and persuade them to
do my best to persuade them to think even more
deeply, to throw off the shackles of
the myth of redemptive sacrifice, and to lean into
the freedom and the grace of love.
>> Loren (48:12):
Well, this is good. Uh, you really leaned
into that quite well. So thank you for engaging
that question. So, since you mentioned your
books here, I do want to give you some opportunity to plug the books,
because I've had the privilege of
reading. Um, actually,
uh, I think all three of your books here, right. The
reconstructionist. Um, what's the second
(48:35):
one?
>> Jonathan Foster (48:35):
Theology of consent.
>> Loren (48:37):
Theology of consent. And then the one you just, uh,
released in go, which I just want to
say, I don't know if this is good or bad, Jonathan, for
you, but I have not fully engaged it, because
it's so raw and
deep, um, that I've had to flip
through it and look at stuff, and I don't know if I've been in a
space where I can fully engage.
(48:59):
So I guess it speaks to, I think, the richness
and depthness of that book. But, uh, say what
else you. Anything else you want to say about your works
there?
>> Jonathan Foster (49:09):
Thank you for inviting me to say stuff. Um, yeah,
you're not the only one who's done that with Indigo. I've had a lot of
even closer friends who have
picked it up and even family members. Yeah, actually, my
sister just told me a couple weeks ago. And it's
funny because she's always one of my biggest fans. I
mean, I tell you what, Loren. Everyone needs a big sister
(49:29):
in their life who's a big
fan. And of. She has,
um, all three of my sisters have been big
fans. But anyhow, she told me a couple weeks ago she
was an early reader back before it was published,
but she hasn't read it yet. And it sits by her
bedside because she's just got to get in the right frame
of mind now. It's probably not good. I'm scaring
(49:51):
people. Um, I will say it's on audio, so
that might be easier. It might be easier to listen to it than turn pages.
>> Paul (49:57):
Um.
>> Jonathan Foster (49:59):
But, yeah, that's, um, been an
important book for me. Reconstructionist was important.
That gives a little insight into
how I kind of rewound when I decided
I wasn't just going to deconstruct, but I wanted to
reconstruct. And I decided to do it around three
basic things. Well, I didn't decide. I realized after the
fact that three things had basically happened to me, and
(50:22):
that is that, um, all my questions
I was having, I kept running through these three filters.
One was mercy is greater than sacrifice. And
number two is people are greater than the text.
And number three is love is greater than fear.
>> Loren (50:36):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (50:37):
What I discovered was every question I had
theologically, every question I had about human
sexuality, um, about,
uh, omnipotence,
the bible, all these things,
eschatology. When I
worked all of my questions through those three filters, and
when I came out on love, people and mercy,
(50:58):
that's the kind of theology I wanted. So
that's the reconstructionist. That's with choir publishing. And then theology
of consent is, uh, back with
sacrosage. And that's about. Yeah,
mimetic theory as it. It's me
talking about how I think memetic theory is wired and then how
I think open and relational theology is wired. And then I
(51:18):
crossed the wires, and I watched the smoke fly
and try to come up with something of
depth there. I also have a nice little book
with a snappy title, questions about sexuality, that got
me uninvited for my denomination.
>> Loren (51:32):
Rolls off the tongue there.
>> Jonathan Foster (51:34):
Just rolls right off the tongue. There's so many
words on the COVID you can't even quite fit it on the COVID
But, yeah, so thanks for asking about the
books.
>> Loren (51:43):
Yeah. And I'll just give a plug. I know we're running long here, but, like
the reconstructionist, what was it? Mercy over sacrifice,
love over text. The third one.
>> Jonathan Foster (51:50):
Again, people are greater than the text.
Uh, mercy is greater than sacrifice, and love is greater
than fear.
>> Loren (51:57):
Yeah, love. Great. Uh, I think those are really,
really solid foundational pieces. And hopefully, I don't
think I'm misrepresenting you. Having read the book, you're
not throwing out sacrifice or the
text or fear. You're saying, that's
right. If you're saying, again, to that balance
intentionally, if we got to choose one of the
(52:17):
over, like, we choose mercy over
sacrifice, we choose people over
text. Because, again, like
Jesus said, I think the Sabbath is meant to serve the people,
not people, Sabbath. Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (52:30):
Right now, it's a really important point. Like,
even with sacrifice, what it required me to do, and
I do more. I show my work in theology of
consent. Um, on this, it required
me to go back and to think in terms of,
well, okay, some sacrifice is good. Like, there's
altruistic sacrifice that's given your life away. But what it
boiled down to, the long and short of it, was
(52:52):
consent became the thing for me. I was like,
oh, agency, empowerment,
individual. Like, consent. Like, God's not forcing
anybody to sacrifice, but love will invite
you. And when you're invited and you consent
to it, it'll take you down an interesting journey. But if
you don't, love's not going to forsake you.
(53:12):
So it's that kind of stuff. And you're right. I'm not
trying to disregard all the other stuff. I'm just
saying, I don't know. There's a healthier
way to work through these things, Jeff.
>> Loren (53:23):
Yeah, well, this is good stuff. Uh, we got to get
going here. So how can people connect with you? Give your
website. That's the thing.
>> Jonathan Foster (53:31):
Sure. Thanks. Jonathan Foster
online.com is the website. They can
go there, find out about the books. They can sign up for my
substack newsletter. They can find out about the work we're
doing in Haiti, and, uh, any number of
things they can find out there.
>> Loren (53:46):
And the super titled podcast
Jonathan Foster.
>> Jonathan Foster (53:51):
That's right, they can find out about Jonathan
Foster podcast with the coolest
probably name in the history of all
podcasts.
>> Loren (54:00):
Well, I really appreciate your time and the conversation. Always
leave folks with the word of peace. So may God's peace
be with you.
>> Jonathan Foster (54:07):
Thank you.
>> Paul (54:08):
Um, thanks for joining us on the
Future Christian podcast. To learn more about Loren
or the podcast, visit future dash
christian.com. One more thing before you
go, do us a favor and subscribe to the
podcast. And if you're feeling especially
generous, leave a review. It really helps
(54:28):
us get the word out to more people about the podcast.
The Future Christian podcast is a production of torn
curtain arts and resonate media. Our
episodes were mixed by Danny Burton and the production
support is provided by Paul Romaglevitt.
Thanks and go in peace.
Welcome to the Future Christian podcast, your source
for insights and ideas on how to lead your church
into the 21st century.
At the Future Christian podcast, we talk to
pastors, authors and other faith leaders for helpful
advice and practical wisdom to help you and your
community of faith walk boldly into the future.
(00:27):
Now here's your host, Lauren Richman, junior.
>> Loren (00:33):
Welcome to the Future Christian podcast. Today we're welcoming
Jonathan Foster. Jonathan is the partner of
one, father of three, author,
podcaster, lowercase Tea, theologian with some
degrees, founder of lovehaty.org and
a lover of mountains o and Colorado School of
Mines, and in general, a, uh, solvum
probler extraordinaire. Find out
(00:55):
more@jonathanfosteronline.com.
Let's welcome Jonathan to the show.
All right. Welcome to the Future Christian podcast. This is
Lauren Richmond, junior, and today I'm pleased to be
welcoming Jonathan Foster to the show. Hey, and
(01:16):
welcome.
>> Jonathan Foster (01:17):
Hey, welcome to you. Thanks so much for.
Thanks so much for having me back on. Appreciate it.
And, uh, it's great to see you, man.
>> Loren (01:25):
We're hoping to do this in person. Last
week at the conferences we were a part of,
but Jonathan is just such an
important figure that I just could not pull him off the
many panels, uh, and speaking
elements he had. And I had other things, unfortunately.
So we're doing this virtually, uh,
here. So appreciate your time and making
(01:47):
some time to have this conversation.
>> Jonathan Foster (01:49):
Absolutely. Sorry it didn't work out in person. That's goofy.
When we were together, couldn't make it happen, but, oh, well,
we got the technology, and, um, I'm thankful to have
a conversation either way.
>> Loren (02:00):
Right. So you've been on the pod before, but give a sense,
uh, give a summary, if just kind of. If you can, of your background,
faith journey, that kind of thing.
>> Jonathan Foster (02:08):
Sure. Well, uh, I've been a church planner most of
my life. Um, that served me really well. I
enjoyed doing that. Hopefully, I served it well.
>> Loren (02:17):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (02:18):
And then, um, my theology kind of shifted and
changed and morphed, but went, uh, through a
lot of loss, including the loss of our
daughter about nine years ago
and four months ago. And, um,
that really just kind of fast tracked me. I,
you know, there's a lot of questions I had to respond to.
And so as I was trying to have intellectual honesty with all of
(02:41):
that stuff, uh, just kind of picked up speed
and didn't work really well with my denomination, my former
denomination, they asked me to leave. And, um,
yeah, so that's been a really interesting journey, and it's really absurd, but I'm
also quite grateful for it. I'm thankful. Thankful for where I
came from. I'm not bitter towards them. I think
it was silly, but, um. But I'm also
(03:02):
thankful. And then we got a partner of 34
years, and we have a couple boys
who are now in their twenties and have kind of grown up
in all of this shifting, changing stuff. So that's been fun and
meaningful to process it with them. Um, and I'm an
author and a podcaster, and I run a nonprofit down in
Haiti. And, um, I'm involved in way too many
things.
>> Loren (03:23):
Yeah. The, uh, big fancy title for Jonathan
Foster's podcast. Here, give it to us.
>> Paul (03:29):
What?
>> Jonathan Foster (03:30):
What is it?
>> Loren (03:31):
Jonathan Foster.
>> Jonathan Foster (03:32):
Right. Jonathan underscore Foster, the
podcast.
>> Loren (03:35):
That's a big, fancy name, right?
>> Jonathan Foster (03:36):
Yeah, that, that's my big, fancy name. Jonathan
Foster. Because, um, all the cool names, like
future Christian were taken and what are you gonna do, man?
So I just. I just went with it.
>> Loren (03:47):
Yeah. Yeah. Um, what's a
spiritual practice that's been meaningful for you of late?
>> Jonathan Foster (03:54):
Um, probably the most important spiritual
practice for me over the last. Well, really my whole life,
but certainly the last nine or ten years, has been getting out
hiking when I'm out in your part of the country.
Um, I mean, I can call it hike when I'm in Kansas City,
but it's kind of embarrassing. It's really more of
a walk or a run.
>> Loren (04:13):
A walk on gravel.
>> Jonathan Foster (04:15):
That's right. We, uh, have some nice parks here, but not a lot
of incline or decline. So, um, getting out
and doing that has probably been the most important
thing. I often think about exercise
as a way to exorcise
the stuff I got going on inside of me. And the
physiological, the spiritual, as you know, are all entangled,
(04:36):
and so it's. There's no delineating
between the two. So it's. It's a really important time
for me, man.
>> Loren (04:43):
I know that Thursday, uh, yesterday,
I came home just really exhausted
from mental and physical grind this week, but
I got on the treadmill and just kept going. Cause, like, oh,
uh, I'm exhausted with this. Feels good.
>> Jonathan Foster (04:57):
Yep. Yeah, that's how that works. Yep. For
sure.
>> Loren (05:00):
Yeah. Well, I wanted to bring Jonathan
on the show because Jonathan is
a part of this pretty recent
formation of a clergy network
called Open Table Network.
And as I understand it, it's kind of
a new credentialing source. Is
(05:20):
that fair to say?
>> Jonathan Foster (05:22):
We're not sure what to call it. It's opentable
network. Um, it's funny,
um, we started it together, myself and my
friend Dana Hicks and also,
um, Jennifer Miles and Guy Taylor. And so the
four of us were all kind of in similar
positions. Jennifer and Guy, more
coming from chaplaincy and having.
(05:44):
Needing to be reordained, re
credentialed, uh, for their
positions, but also wanted. Wanting to do it in a place that was
affirming. Both Dana and I having been
very, uh, much moved out of our former places
because we were trying to be, uh,
affirming to the LGBTQ community.
(06:04):
So, yeah, sometime in 23,
we said, well, what? Maybe we need to. Need to start something for
us and invite others. And, uh, so it's grown
from there, and it is a place to be
credentialed, to be licensed if you want. It's a place
for resources. We've started, um, a
cohort, uh, just so pastors have a
safe space and chaplains and counselors. Those are the
(06:26):
three kind of main groups, so that they have a safe
space to process the, um, as you know, the
really awkward, weird space we all
occupy in this, like, post modern age that
we live in.
>> Loren (06:38):
Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to talk
to you, uh, and I had. Jonathan. I'm,
um, saying that weird. I want to talk to Jonathan today
on the show just because I think this is such an
interesting development,
kind of in light of what you even just said,
our context in postmoderny,
(07:00):
post modernity, when we think about
the decline of institutions.
Um, so this is kind of going to be
a wide ranging conversation. I hope it'll make sense
to you and for our listeners. Jonathan,
um, you kind of share that
the big impetus, it sounds like, was folks who've
been, to use
(07:22):
strong word, like excommunicated, whether
intentionally or implicitly from
their faith tradition. Um,
as this thing has begun to take shape, like, what are
the primary, uh, folks? Is it folks
who no longer fit in their faith tradition? What are the primary
folks who are coming to this
network?
>> Jonathan Foster (07:43):
Sure. It's very interesting because,
um, I think that
theologically, there are deeper issues
than just the queer affirming issue,
but, um, that has become kind of the flashpoint. And
so I would say we're brand new. I mean, we're only a
few months old, and there's. There's maybe 30 or 40
people kind of connected. There's maybe at this point, only like
(08:06):
15, maybe 20, I'm not even sure
licensed through it. Um,
but I think as far as I know, everyone, like, that's
the main thing, that they either were, yes,
officially excluded from their former
theological ecclesiological space, or.
Or we'll put it this way, they knew their
time was coming. I mean, they just, you know, you saw the
(08:27):
writing on the wall, and so they're coming because of
that. But, you know, to me, there
are that affirming
queer theology stuff really just stems
from, as far as I'm concerned, like a
posture of love, a posture of uncontrolling,
non binary, nonviolent, non
scapegoating, uh, uncontrolling love.
(08:49):
And so, for me, that's really the deeper
issue. But a lot of people find themselves here
because the other, it gets
so much news and so much traction.
>> Loren (09:00):
Yeah. So, practically speaking, if I can ask,
what was the formation look like? Did you all just form
a non profit and register as a church type
thing?
>> Jonathan Foster (09:09):
Basically, yes. It's funny because I just talked to,
uh, a new friend. Her name's Elle pike, she's from
Canada. And they're doing something very similar.
They started, um, probably about two
years ago, but we had to laugh because
she's taken two years to do study groups.
Uh, she's been meeting with people around the country,
(09:30):
up north, as it were. Um,
and just now is getting going on their nonprofit.
And I do think the canadian process for nonprofiting
is a longer process anyhow. And after
we talked a little bit, I just laughed. I said, well, we just
typical Americans, we did the opposite. Uh, we immediately
formed a 501 z three, and we
(09:50):
pulled. Fortunately, uh, a guy was
really capable, uh, and Jennifer as well,
and had some resources together to be able to credential
and, uh, some really nice processes for,
uh, people to walk through that, though I should say, side
note for anyone listening who might be interested, like, we really
take serious, um, if people have
(10:10):
had, uh, a lot of experience in ministry. So we're not particularly
interested if someone has spent a few years
in another, uh, space to have to
make them go through, jump through a bunch of hoops.
>> Loren (10:22):
Well, let's talk about that.
>> Jonathan Foster (10:25):
Yeah, go ahead.
>> Loren (10:26):
Yeah, sorry, I was just going to say, let's talk about that. Because
certainly in my neck of the woods, at least I'll
say, like, those of us who have been through div
school and gone through an ordination process, and I
think you've gone to seminary, right?
>> Jonathan Foster (10:39):
That's right. They, uh, don't claim me, but I.
>> Loren (10:41):
Yeah, like, at least speaking for
my friends, we kind of get super annoyed at those who get, like,
the online ordination,
um, and then, like, go do their friend's
wedding. So I don't think you guys want to do,
like, that kind of thing. Or at least I'll say
I hope not. But what's kind of like your.
Is there some, like, guiding principles, some
(11:04):
shared theology, that sort of thing that really
provides some cohesion?
>> Jonathan Foster (11:09):
Yeah. So a couple of things. First of all, yeah, I agree with
you. We're not trying to rubber stamp stuff.
Um, and we're trying to, uh, walk the line
between that and also not forcing
people, like, let's say, in my, uh, for my
purposes, you know, I had been a pastor and,
you know, have a master's and a doctorate and had been doing this
for basically. Well, yeah, a quarter of a
(11:31):
century. Um, I just.
I didn't. I wasn't interested in. It is part of
the reason I didn't jump into some other denominations. I was just not
interested in going through all the hoops again.
>> Loren (11:42):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (11:43):
We're trying to kind of walk that line between, um.
Yeah, we definitely want to vet people and have
integrity with what we're doing, but also
not make, um, it a thing where they have to
start over. So
theologically, um, where
Dana and I come from, um, and,
you know, the trajectory of
(12:04):
opentable.net work is open and
relational theology. And so if
people are familiar with that or process theology,
um, they're going to already
be kind of well on their way to
understanding what we're trying to do.
And if you go to opentable.net work, you'll see our values.
You'll see. Again, we tried to keep that sparse,
(12:27):
but, um, I'm really proud of the way
that stuff turned out and some of the things that we're
interested in. I think people will catch a sense right away
of who we are and what we're trying to do.
>> Loren (12:38):
Yeah. So I think as, uh, this
will release. A couple weeks ago, I did an interview with Ted
Smith, who wrote a book about the decline,
really, of theological education and the
voluntary, voluntary association as the
primary kind of sociological institutional
model. And he talked about
denominations kind of turning into
(13:01):
the word he uses, affinity groups. And obviously
there's some real pluses and minuses, I think we'd both
agree for that sort of thing. Um,
for one, you said it straight out, like,
folks who are LGBTQ are on that, um,
in that context.
Obviously in this context, they're going
(13:23):
to find a welcoming and inclusion much more
than they might find in some other contexts, or certainly not at
all in certain contexts. But obviously some
dangers, uh, of affinity groups, is there can be
very much like an echo chamber,
um, certainly exclusionary in their own
right. So what do you think? Broadly speaking,
as we see this kind of trend increase
(13:45):
in our culture and even in our faith
traditions. Um. This is
kind of a hard question, I suppose, but how do you think about
that in relation to open table network?
>> Jonathan Foster (13:57):
Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. And we are an affinity group.
At some level. It feels like so many of us.
It's so many. I have these conversations
every week, sometimes almost every day, where I'm
meeting new people who
are still. I mean, loosely speaking,
like, generally speaking, you would say they're still interested in Jesus,
(14:17):
but they've been so underwhelmed and
disillusioned, uh, with the institutionalized
approach. And so there's hundreds of
thousands, maybe millions. Probably, uh, no,
probably millions of believers who are kind of in
these interesting waters, and
then a bunch of us who used to be, like,
leaders or whatever our titles were,
(14:40):
who are now trying to figure out how to navigate all this. It's
very, very interesting. And,
yeah, I think what we've said is,
like, tribes are important, but what we're trying to
do is not give way to tribalism.
So if you can get a tribe without tribalism, I think that's
super important. Psychologically, sociologically,
(15:01):
um, emotionally, spiritually. And we're human
beings. We're wired to be connected. So it's
important to do. But I think moving forward,
people who have intellectual integrity
about all of this are going to be more and more,
um, invited into situations where they're going to
hold. They're just going to hold to their,
(15:22):
um, denominational ties, their association ties, their
affinity groups with, um. You're just
gonna probably hold them more loosely. It doesn't mean that they're
less important. It's just. Good Lord, they're so. I
mean, pluralism is such a reality in our world
now. It doesn't make any sense
to try to force love into one
(15:42):
small, little pocket. I mean, love works
in small, little pockets. I mean, God,
uh, you know, by faith, I think God can fit anywhere.
I don't think there's any godforsaken space in the cosmos.
>> Loren (15:54):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (15:54):
But I don't think that's the healthiest way forward.
So, yeah, we're trying to do the tribe without
tribalism.
>> Loren (16:01):
So obviously, like, we've seen the danger of
institutions in that there is this
just protect the institution of, uh, at all costs. You
know, like, we're both sports fans. Like, the NFL has
been like, protect the shield. You know? It's,
it's, it's protect the league's
identity integrity at all costs.
Yeah, certainly, um, we've seen that in
(16:23):
denominations. We've seen that in big
churches where it's protected the denomination,
uh, Catholicism. Protect
the church. In big churches, it's
protect the pastor's brand. Protect the
church's brand. Um,
conversely, though, again, I'm
(16:43):
thinking about this sociologically, there does need to be some level
of commitment or covenanting or stickiness to
keep people together. How do you see,
like, you can answer this kind of how you want to, whether
it's from an open table perspective, from like a,
you know, thinking about, uh, groups
of believers organizing in the future, like, what do you
(17:04):
think is going to be necessary to kind of maintain that?
What I think is an important balance, not
leaning too far the other.
>> Jonathan Foster (17:12):
Yeah, it's, that's a, um. It's something to be
managed, isn't it? It's not a, it's not a problem to be
fixed once and for all. I think it's constantly
ebbing and flowing, in part because our
contexts ebb and flow and our culture and
our societies and, um,
even, you know, to some degree, morality, because
(17:32):
it's based on customs and culture
and systems. And all of these things change over
time. So I know one of the things that we're
trying to do and something I personally believe in is,
you know, we're just constantly, as we, as we
meet and talk about these things, we're committed to not building
ivory towers and giant headquarters
(17:52):
and some big place from
which all the mandates, uh, are
decreed. From, um,
instead of that approach, we're trying to say things like, we
are here to empower local
missional communities. So
basically, if you've got an idea that's
working or something you want to do, uh,
(18:14):
we're going to try to get behind you rather than the other way
around. And that was always, I know I won't be the
only one who feels this way. As, you
know, there were good things about the denomination I was part of, but it
was always a sense. I said, even when I was a,
uh, 20 something and I didn't know anything,
I was always like, it's just weird how it feels like
(18:34):
the pastors exist for the benefit of the
denomination. It should freaking be the other
way around. It should not be that way.
And, um, so,
yeah, we're just trying to keep that in mind. And I think moving
forward in general, no matter what group you're part of,
because it's the local missional
things that really wind up
(18:57):
making so much of the difference. Kind of like
politics, you know, we get all wound up about who's going to be the next
president. Meanwhile, like, I don't know what the percentage is,
but there's a high percentage of. It's never even
going to matter whether Trump or Biden is, for
me personally, is the next president. Um,
it's about state legislation
(19:17):
and local and community. So I think
keeping that in mind, whatever happens is really important.
>> Loren (19:24):
Yeah, I'm glad you made that point about. I think
some of the clergy I know would agree,
who work in, uh, some contexts. So I'm
thinking, as someone who grew up
independent, in an independent Baptist tradition, where there
was no, there was no formal
denominational ties, there was very loose networks.
Um, and then again, I currently am
(19:45):
ordained in a mainline tradition that is pretty
rigid, pretty, uh, organized. And certainly other
mainline traditions are even more so with higher
barriers of entry and higher
regulations.
Certainly we've talked about some of the negatives
of denominations and
institutions. Certainly, um, one
(20:08):
positive, I think, would be
kind, um, of accountability and,
um, just kind of keep an eye on
folks. I'm thinking about one of the real
problems in, when we think about
the SBC, southern Baptist, their denomination,
but they're not very top down,
(20:28):
obviously, at least as I understand it. So suddenly
there's that big scandal where there are just churches where
just turn the blind eye to
offenders and passing the buck along,
where with a more top heavy
approach. I mean, I say it
won't work, but obviously happened within Catholicism. But
theoretically, right, theoretically, the system is
(20:51):
supposed to kind of keep those things from
happening. So what do you think?
Um, the dangers are,
um, not necessarily just within open table,
but in these kind of looser, um.
Um, these looser structures, like, whether
it be certainly, certainly, um,
harm, um, is one way, but, you know,
(21:11):
theological. I sure
do not love the word, but I think you get it. You can hope get a sense of what I'm
saying. Right. Theological cohesion, mate, will say it
that way.
>> Jonathan Foster (21:21):
Yeah. It's almost like, pick your poison, man.
>> Loren (21:23):
Right?
>> Jonathan Foster (21:24):
If you're going to do ministry in the post post
modern age that we live in, which is how I kind of reference
it, you know, you're. You're gonna have to have a
tribe and you, I mean, you
don't have to, you can go out and do your own thing, but there
are lots of, like we've said positive things associated
with it, by the way. There may be a pension associated
with it, you know, a paycheck or something like that. Those
(21:46):
were the good old days, weren't they?
>> Loren (21:47):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (21:48):
Um, you know, and it's.
>> Loren (21:50):
I.
>> Jonathan Foster (21:51):
What I used to always say when I was church planting was when I
was a part of the Church of the Nazarene was, uh,
you know, we're doctrinally and fiscally
accountable to these people, which I always
thought, especially as a church plant, when you're starting with nothing
was a really healthy thing. And in theory it
is until.
(22:11):
Until the doctrine gets all skewed
and even the finances at times can get
skewed. So it is not an easy.
There's no one fix. It's not an easy
thing. Um, open table. I mean, I feel good about
it in the sense that I can tell you this. It has never been my
dream to start a denomination or an
association or whatever the heck we call ourselves. That
(22:33):
is never a part of my five year, 20 year
plan. Um, it's just emerged
because there's obviously such
a need for it, and we're in such an,
again, awkward, interesting phase.
And so here we are, me and my colleagues, and, you know, we have
some experience. We've been around. We've got
(22:53):
a few intelligent things to say. We've also got a lot of
unintelligent things to say. Um, so we just thought,
well, we're going to put this together and see if we can help
people. But, yeah, you're asking great questions, because
there are no perfect answers to this, for sure.
>> Loren (23:07):
Well, I think what I'm hearing from you,
and this is a position that I've been coming to more and
more late, is so much as I try to
live according to, is just trying to hold this
tension between two things.
And obviously, like, it's easy to get pulled
in one direction or another.
Um, and I hear a lot of that in what you're
(23:29):
saying.
>> Jonathan Foster (23:31):
I think so. I think that's the way to live life,
personally. I think that's the way more and more people
are living life. You know, all of our institutions, whether they're
economic, political, religious, national,
military, um, they're
full of cracks and crevices, actually. They always
have been.
>> Loren (23:49):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (23:49):
It's just because of the. Probably because of the Internet,
because of the fact that we get news, you know,
up to the second news, and we see problems everywhere. It's.
It's just in our face. So we're just aware of it more
than ever. And it's a really. It's a. I started to
say dangerous time. I don't like that word because. Because
there's also a lot of potential. It's just a very
interesting, potentially good, potentially
(24:12):
bad time. And so for folks out
there, men or women who have,
or people who are in some kind of nonbinary
state there, too, I should say, who have felt a
call and an invitation to be, again, a pastor or
a counselor, a spiritual director, a leader, a chaplain.
Um, yeah.
(24:33):
It takes a lot out of you to kind of figure out
how do you want to move forward with all of that. And I think
living in the tension is a Jesus move. I
think it's an embodied love move, and I think it's the only
thing we can really do. We don't need to do it and
be disrespectful of other institutions, although,
well, I'll say this way, we don't need to be disrespectful
(24:54):
of people in other institutions. I personally
kind of don't really care that much if we're disrespectful to the
institution itself.
>> Loren (25:01):
Sure, I can live with that. Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (25:03):
Some of these systems, man, they've been living off
the fat of the hog, so to speak, for, you
know, at least 18 centuries since
the time of Constantine.
Um, and it's just not right. I mean, it took
1800 years for us to figure out slavery was wrong. It took
1900 years to figure out women should vote. It's taken
us a couple thousand years to figure out queer
(25:25):
folk are like real life human beings.
And all of that was perpetrated,
again, good people. But the systems
themselves, um, can get really
skewed and sideways. Yeah,
I keep saying the same thing. We just live in an interesting
time. Um, and it
(25:45):
takes a lot of courage to keep moving forward in all of this.
>> Loren (25:47):
So let's talk about moving forward.
I think, and I imagine you'd probably agree, we're going
to continue to see denomination
splinter and split and diminish.
I mean, I think, frankly, that's going to be a big
draw for, like, your open
table. What do you think? I mean, do you
(26:08):
think this is a trend? Do you think you're kind of ahead of the curve? What do you
see?
>> Jonathan Foster (26:12):
Well, um, I
always try to get ahead of the curve, but it seems like, uh,
I never quite am. Um, but, um, it
seems like I get hit by the curveball.
>> Loren (26:22):
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
>> Jonathan Foster (26:24):
I totally agree. I think, yes, there's going to be
more fractures and splinters and. And on
one level, it's nuts, because we have already, depending
on, I hear, 30,000, maybe 40,000
just protestant denominations alone,
counting eastern orthodox and catholic and all
that. Um, so, good lord,
we don't need any more splintering. On
(26:47):
the other hand, uh, there's something good about
it, too, because the
splintering splits you up into smaller groups. And again, kind
of like the local missionalized, missional
things. And so maybe that's a really. I think there's some
really positive stuff about that. I don't see
it going anywhere else. There's no chance that there's going to be
(27:07):
one big, mega church, unless one big,
mega denomination, unless, you know, something like
christian nationalism might
be able to pull, um, which they
already kind of do to some degree. And that's a nauseating
thought.
>> Paul (27:22):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (27:22):
Um, by the way, christian nationalism, for the
listeners, I don't mean just conservative. I mean, uh,
there's liberal christian nationalism, too, but
the conservative one is kind of the one that's more in your face and
kind of more gross, right?
Yeah.
>> Loren (27:37):
Um, I want to say one more point on this, too.
I'm thinking about, like, in my
conversation with Carol Howard and also with Ted
Smith, the point came up about how, especially
with some denominations, and you kind of alluded to this, like,
there's so many hoops to jump through that,
um, as the pastor,
(27:58):
as a profession, becomes more and more,
I should say, less and less financially
sustainable, um, I do think it's
important for us to have
credentialing, to use that word, um,
ordaining models that don't require
an M div or don't require seminary debt. So
I think that's another reason why your
(28:20):
model is intriguing, because
I think it's gonna be important, you know, to have other
models or avenues to some kind of
ministry credentialing that aren't gonna
require, you know,
such, um, rigid standards.
>> Jonathan Foster (28:38):
I know it's tricky. Um, we gotta have standards.
>> Loren (28:41):
It is tricky.
>> Jonathan Foster (28:42):
It is trick, especially if you're leading people. There's so
many needs. I mean, to be a. We'll, uh,
just say spiritual leader, for lack of a better phrase, to be
that in any day and age, for sure. But the day and age we
live in, it's complicated, man. There's so much
mimetic dysfunction out there. There's so many politics.
There's so much, you know, um,
(29:03):
spiritual manipulation and
weirdness. And people come into your
practice or your church that are strange, and they
project all this stuff on you. Um,
not to mention, like, you got to have ways to figure
out how to read your sacred texts, in our case, the Bible. And
if you don't have some education,
um, you know, we'd all like. We'd all love to
(29:25):
say, well, love will just lead us. But as
you and I both know, there's some really complicated stuff. So,
yeah, just trying to walk that line between
encouraging education, but not incurring
all this debt, um, figuring out ways to,
to stay educated and, and not,
uh, have to do kind of the traditional route, which is what you're
(29:46):
saying that people have done and have put them in a
really tough position financially. So,
yeah, it's interesting.
>> Loren (29:54):
Whoever's listening to this is probably like, are these guys going to make up
their mind? Like, they're talking all over the place, like on both sides. And I think
that's really the case. Like, we're trying to acknowledge, like,
the complexity of this. And like, you know,
like, as those words were coming out of my mouth,
I'm like, oh, man. But I do really value theological
education. I do really value rigid
(30:15):
ethics and ethical guidelines. But
also it's a both and
tension thing, I think has been the theme of this
conversation.
>> Jonathan Foster (30:24):
Absolutely. One good thing is we live now
in this, um, time period, obviously, with the
Internet and so many resources. I mean, this is
unprecedented in the history of humanity. So
people can get educated now in
ways that, if they wanted to, could be
a lot less expensive in the past.
(30:45):
Part of the problem is, do we
recognize those people? Do we recognize,
for example, and that's part of the reason why@opentable.net.
Work. We're not making people who've pastored for
20 years jump through a bunch of hoops because we want to
recognize the fact that experience that accounts for
something, it means something that you can't get
in a seminary classroom, um,
(31:08):
or, you know, from a traditional thing. So,
yeah, it's just muddy. I'll muddy the waters even
more by saying that, um, there's got to be ways moving
forward where we can, uh,
informally formalize the way
someone can learn theologically, psychologically,
emotionally, and, um,
(31:28):
yeah, we're kind of open to those things at opentable.
We're trying to play catch up with a lot of it. But, um, I
think that's a really interesting discussion.
>> Loren (31:36):
Yeah, it is.
I want to shift the conversation because I feel like we could stay in
these muddy waters forever, but I want to shift the
conversation towards, I think, a
subplot or a sub theme of this.
Ah, and that's to grief. And it's even
hard to talk about, I think. Ah, and you're well acquainted with grief.
(31:57):
You have a book you wrote on grief. You mentioned
the loss of your daughter and how that shaped your family's
life. I'm thinking about
this as I
wrestle with my own grief, um, just thinking
about my own professional career in
ministry, or it seems like a lack thereof,
moving forward I think about folks
(32:20):
like yourself who committed so many
years to a, uh, denomination or
traditional, only to find themselves
at odds or even actively
transitioned out of those traditions
or churches or what. Have you,
uh, have you encountered
(32:42):
such a situation at an open table?
Um, whether you want to speak to this
personally or professionally, uh, share more about
that, if you would.
>> Paul (32:52):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (32:52):
Thank to like you for asking, and thank you for asking it in
that way, because, Loren, I think that is
a big piece of what is going on
across the country. I mean, it's not like
I travel a lot, but I'm in and out, and
I talk to quite a few people in a lot of different
situations. And I would say
one of the, on the, on the short list of common
(33:15):
denominators that is connecting a lot of
american christian spiritual
sojourners at this point is this idea of
grief. It's the idea that this thing just did
not go like we thought it was going to go.
Um, the dream of whatever that church was or that
pastor it was, or even if you haven't been a pastor,
(33:37):
especially when you get to be my age, I'm a little bit older than you, but I'm in my
fifties. I'm a grandpa now, by the way. Got a two month
old granddaughter. Um, did I show you
a picture last week of my granddaughter?
>> Loren (33:47):
I don't know. We'll have to do it here when we're done. I probably should have.
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (33:52):
But, um, when you get to be my age, it's funny, my partner
and I, we talk all the time. Uh, she was just
saying something about this the other night, but, uh, how,
you know, when you've been serving in the church for lots of years and
you get to be our age, you're like, everyone's pretty much done. They're like, they
just, they're so tired. They've had it. They've been through
so many battles. Add on top
(34:13):
of all the craziness that's happened in our world
over the last 1020 years, and then if
you add any personal stuff like she and I have been
through, um, yeah, you just
realize that life is like, you go from one
expectation to the next, and,
um, it's very frustrating. So I
(34:33):
think a lot of people are grieving. They're grieving the loss, and you
don't have to have been. I hope you haven't been someone like me who's
lost a kid. You know, you may have
lost a marriage, or it just may have been
death of a dream or death of the
way you thought things were going to go.
What is interesting is, well,
(34:53):
there's a lot of things, but essentially Jesus
said this whole dealing with lost
thing, it's a prerequisite for joy
because he said, blessed are those who mourn.
So maybe, again,
back to the theme we already kind of talked about. Maybe we're living
in a day and age when it's both
(35:14):
deeply troubling and problematic
and hurtful, but also
deeply replete, full of the
possibility of blessing. Because if we can,
just like, there's this fine line
between. Hmm hm. What do I want to
say? Fine line between, like, complaining
about something and I'm hesitant about that because
(35:36):
I'm, uh. I think there are times when you complain. And
trust me, you know, having been through what we've been through, I've, I've
complained a few days. But there's a fine line between
that and a, uh, lament.
>> Loren (35:47):
Yeah.
>> Paul (35:49):
Mourning.
>> Jonathan Foster (35:49):
Um, and, you know,
also nihilism.
And by the way, not to plug my book, but indigo, the color of
grief, really is an attempt
at one level to try to be
intellectually honest. Sorry, I think that's a fourth or fifth time
I said that phrase.
>> Loren (36:07):
No, it's fine. Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (36:09):
I was trying to be honest with how you can
go really hard one way or the other.
Like, when you go through loss, you can really
double down on the old. Like, if you're a Christian,
you can double down on the old, maybe holiness codes or, you
know, behavioral modification and go really lean
hard into God's control, or you can
(36:29):
go crazy the other way and nihilistic and
say, you know, God's. There is no God. And.
Yeah, and I can have a measure of respect for
both. I probably have, huh. Maybe a little more respect for the latter
than the former, but it
feels like living in the tension between the
two is where you kind of have
(36:49):
to be. And I. We're just not.
We're just not great at that. Our, uh, our institutions haven't
conditioned us to do that. But I can't blame it
all in the institutions because personally,
you know, I, you know, it's just not what I signed up
for with life. You know, I was looking for more black
and white kind of really, really,
(37:10):
really positive answers versus all this gray.
But, yeah, I think you're right to frame it in,
um, a perspective of grief because I think a lot of
people are struggling with that.
>> Loren (37:22):
And I think what makes this so hard, if
I can be honest, is
like, as clergy, we're the trained
caregiver in most contexts that we're
in a, and then
b, because our
profession is. Also tends to be tied
to our spiritual community. When we leave that
(37:44):
profession, we tend to leave that spiritual
community. Um,
like my daughter, who's like a
preteen, she's like, dad, we've changed churches so much. I'm
like,
because I work for a church
or have. That's a hard dynamic, isn't
it?
>> Jonathan Foster (38:05):
Yeah. Just adding to the complexity that we
already, man, people tuning in who aren't pastors,
they're like, they should be so grateful they're
not pastors right now. Yeah. Another
thing I thought of when you said that, too.
Um, we're caregivers.
And then to be pushed
out, you know, kicked out in my case,
(38:26):
officially, and lots of other places unofficially. It
is a. It's a mind trip. We're also.
A lot of us are kind of like, when you're
clergy, you play, like, a meaning making
role in your, uh, community. So when bad
things happen, you help people make meaningful.
>> Loren (38:43):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (38:44):
Well, what's crazy is when bad
things happen, like, if it's bad enough, like, uh, for
example, in my situation, my entire meaning making
system, you know, just kind of fell apart,
right? So now I was trying to create meaning in the middle of
chaos, right? And the poor people who had to come to
my church, I mean, I say poor people, some of them
(39:04):
were really, really great and, uh, learned a
lot. Um, that's a whole interesting dynamic,
too. And I think a lot of meaning making clergy
people types, counselor chaplain types are in that
position. Their lives, personally are
being unwound sometimes
and really beautiful, but the beauty is always attached to
(39:24):
the dark, really bad stuff,
too. And so to
navigate all that at the same time, you're trying to create meaning for
others. Holy smoke. What a trip
that is, man.
>> Loren (39:38):
This is tough stuff, but I think good stuff, and
I hope it's resonating with the listeners.
Let me ask you one more question here before we move
on. So, again, I'm going to
refer back to my conversation with Ted Smith,
and he talked about the model of a
chaplain as being a really future model
because it signifies you as
(40:00):
a spiritual leader, but not necessarily tied
to a institution.
Uh, like a pastor doesn't
have to be, but it's often tied to a church, often in
a specific church where a, uh,
chaplain, for instance, the hospital
chaplain, even a corporate chaplain, may or may not work
(40:21):
for that actual institution. Do you
see? Have you thought
about how opentable might be a part of that, or
what that model even might look like, uh,
of a spiritual leader? Not necessarily
tied to an institution.
>> Jonathan Foster (40:38):
Yeah, that's very interesting.
Um, I don't know if I've formally thought
through that. Informally. I think so
because it's kind of my world and your world, too.
We kind of are in it all the time.
Some of it is like, your
response to, like, well, what kind of title do you want? And what is
(40:58):
the connotation of that title?
>> Paul (41:00):
Or.
>> Loren (41:00):
Right. Cause, like, I wanna call myself a pastor because,
like, I think pastorally, and I care
for people pastorally, but pastors are,
by and large connected. Like, they're seen as
being connected to a church in a leadership role. And that's not
where I am right now.
>> Paul (41:16):
Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (41:17):
I think this speaks to the need for
expanded imagination around our language.
>> Loren (41:22):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (41:23):
And language is, you know, it's important.
We got to have it. Obviously, it's fundamental to who we
are, but we just get so
locked into certain things. So,
uh. Uh, while we're expanding our theological,
um, paradigms and perspectives and imagination,
we should. The language is all a part of it,
(41:44):
too. I agree. Like, it's funny, I've been a
pastor most of my life. I still do pastoral things. I
still talk to people every single day.
People text me or email me, message me. By the way, you can't
facebook me right now because Facebook just suspended my account,
so.
>> Loren (42:00):
Oh, man.
>> Jonathan Foster (42:00):
Pretty interesting. Yeah. Um,
but. But I. But I'm not really a
pastor, like chaplain. I
totally agree with what Ted and what you're saying, I think.
But also that word, to me, the connotation. And it's probably just
my own stuff. Probably. It's probably a great word,
but it seems passive in some sense,
some senses.
>> Loren (42:21):
Yeah, I think that's a feeling like that. Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (42:23):
But then again, I don't need an aggressive. Like, I used to
be part of a pretty relatively
evangelical church planning network that,
in retrospect, now that I have some years behind me, I realize
was really informed more by
competitive american exceptionalism and
toxic masculinity than it is anything else.
So if I had to choose between passive and that, I'd go
(42:45):
passive. So I'm trying to come up with a
name. I saw something today where
the guy said he was a, um. Get this. He
said he was a solv'em probbler,
a solvent.
>> Loren (42:59):
Mhm.
>> Jonathan Foster (43:00):
And I thought, how do you spell.
>> Loren (43:01):
That, then solve em.
>> Jonathan Foster (43:03):
S o l v e m m. Probler. Probler.
>> Loren (43:06):
Oh, I was thinking that was like s
o u l sol them.
>> Jonathan Foster (43:11):
Problem. It could be, but it's a takeoff, obviously. Problem
solver. He's a solvent problem. And I'm like, okay, I
like that, but that's just silly. Like, I used to call myself,
um, what do I used to call myself?
Oh, the most recent church plant, I
called myself lead follower. Ten
years I did that. And that always led to interesting discussions.
(43:32):
Before that, I was spiritual environmentalist at the
church plant. Before that, yeah. So
I'm always playing with that, trying to figure
out what these words mean and trying
to break out of the stereotypical
molds of what these things mean. But the greater
point is plurality
is a reality in our world. We need lots
(43:54):
of people in all different walks of
life who are feeling
esteemed by their tribes,
also feeling self esteemed, feeling esteemed by
God and love to step forward and
to lead. As much as
I have, uh, a conflicted
relationship with the word lead or leadership, but
(44:16):
that stuff's really important. And, um, so we all
just need to step up and try to figure out how to create those
spaces and those names and those titles.
>> Loren (44:24):
Well, it goes back to our theme of earlier,
holding that tension, holding that balance between the two.
Right?
>> Jonathan Foster (44:30):
Yep. Yep.
>> Loren (44:32):
Well, usually I build on a break here, but I kind of want to
just stay with this momentum and ask you this silly
question, Jonathan. Um, uh, because
like, you are in some
ways like the highest level
denominational official I've ever interviewed.
>> Jonathan Foster (44:51):
That's really funny, man, and really
sad.
>> Loren (44:55):
No, and I'm actually hoping to get my
denominational, uh, lead person on here
soon, but I'm kind of being
loose with the term denomination and that's, I guess that's what
I'm making a play on words here is that you're
co founder of the denominations or you're like co president
of the denomination. So
this is the question. Um, if
(45:18):
you expanded your influence
and you were some might call it a pope
for a day, what
would you want to do with that
influence for a day?
>> Jonathan Foster (45:32):
Yeah, well, first of all, it's pretty funny. When we started this
thing, I told my friend Dana, I'll, uh, help, however.
But I wasn't going to be the president, so he's the
president on the papers, so he's the official
guy. Um, and
I'm helping him. I just say that to make sure, if Dana listens
to this, I have absolved
(45:53):
myself of all responsibility. That's pretty
funny. What would I want to do for the day?
It would have to be something around, like
just helping people re
approach the concept of love. I
think that the essence of God is love.
I think it's biblical. I think philosophically, it
(46:14):
makes the most sense. I think, practically
speaking, it makes the most sense. What's been
interesting in my journey? Well, there's a lot of things
that have been interesting, but one thing that's been interesting is
I didn't realize I was doing this, but when I set
out on this new journey, I actually, in many ways, was
redefining love. In the old
(46:34):
days, love was. I'm not
really sure what it was. It had something to do with hierarchy and
sacrifice and doing the right thing and
morality, and some of that still plays
in. But now when I think of love, I go,
it's this uncontrolling, non binary, nonscape,
goating, nonviolent energy that's in a relationship
(46:54):
with God and with others,
and it's meant for good and blessing in the world.
And every single one of those words
are pretty well vetted in my life. I mean, I've
written some books about them. I mean, they may not be good books, but, I
mean, I've written. I've put some words behind them, and
I've spoken a few times about them.
(47:16):
Um, and I've logged a lot of hours staring
at the ceiling and again, taking hikes and
walks in all parts of the country, trying to figure out what
I think. And so it's fascinating. Each one of those
things are really, um, important
concepts. And so if I had a. Well,
you're asking if I could make a mandate. Well, that's
completely. It's completely antithetical to open a relational
(47:38):
theology. If this is a
consensual thing, then I can't make a mandate.
But I would highly encourage, invite
everyone into deeper and
deeper instantiations of
love.
>> Loren (47:52):
You would seek to persuade them, right?
>> Jonathan Foster (47:55):
I would lay out the lure, yes.
I would invite them and persuade them to
do my best to persuade them to think even more
deeply, to throw off the shackles of
the myth of redemptive sacrifice, and to lean into
the freedom and the grace of love.
>> Loren (48:12):
Well, this is good. Uh, you really leaned
into that quite well. So thank you for engaging
that question. So, since you mentioned your
books here, I do want to give you some opportunity to plug the books,
because I've had the privilege of
reading. Um, actually,
uh, I think all three of your books here, right. The
reconstructionist. Um, what's the second
(48:35):
one?
>> Jonathan Foster (48:35):
Theology of consent.
>> Loren (48:37):
Theology of consent. And then the one you just, uh,
released in go, which I just want to
say, I don't know if this is good or bad, Jonathan, for
you, but I have not fully engaged it, because
it's so raw and
deep, um, that I've had to flip
through it and look at stuff, and I don't know if I've been in a
space where I can fully engage.
(48:59):
So I guess it speaks to, I think, the richness
and depthness of that book. But, uh, say what
else you. Anything else you want to say about your works
there?
>> Jonathan Foster (49:09):
Thank you for inviting me to say stuff. Um, yeah,
you're not the only one who's done that with Indigo. I've had a lot of
even closer friends who have
picked it up and even family members. Yeah, actually, my
sister just told me a couple weeks ago. And it's
funny because she's always one of my biggest fans. I
mean, I tell you what, Loren. Everyone needs a big sister
(49:29):
in their life who's a big
fan. And of. She has,
um, all three of my sisters have been big
fans. But anyhow, she told me a couple weeks ago she
was an early reader back before it was published,
but she hasn't read it yet. And it sits by her
bedside because she's just got to get in the right frame
of mind now. It's probably not good. I'm scaring
(49:51):
people. Um, I will say it's on audio, so
that might be easier. It might be easier to listen to it than turn pages.
>> Paul (49:57):
Um.
>> Jonathan Foster (49:59):
But, yeah, that's, um, been an
important book for me. Reconstructionist was important.
That gives a little insight into
how I kind of rewound when I decided
I wasn't just going to deconstruct, but I wanted to
reconstruct. And I decided to do it around three
basic things. Well, I didn't decide. I realized after the
fact that three things had basically happened to me, and
(50:22):
that is that, um, all my questions
I was having, I kept running through these three filters.
One was mercy is greater than sacrifice. And
number two is people are greater than the text.
And number three is love is greater than fear.
>> Loren (50:36):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Foster (50:37):
What I discovered was every question I had
theologically, every question I had about human
sexuality, um, about,
uh, omnipotence,
the bible, all these things,
eschatology. When I
worked all of my questions through those three filters, and
when I came out on love, people and mercy,
(50:58):
that's the kind of theology I wanted. So
that's the reconstructionist. That's with choir publishing. And then theology
of consent is, uh, back with
sacrosage. And that's about. Yeah,
mimetic theory as it. It's me
talking about how I think memetic theory is wired and then how
I think open and relational theology is wired. And then I
(51:18):
crossed the wires, and I watched the smoke fly
and try to come up with something of
depth there. I also have a nice little book
with a snappy title, questions about sexuality, that got
me uninvited for my denomination.
>> Loren (51:32):
Rolls off the tongue there.
>> Jonathan Foster (51:34):
Just rolls right off the tongue. There's so many
words on the COVID you can't even quite fit it on the COVID
But, yeah, so thanks for asking about the
books.
>> Loren (51:43):
Yeah. And I'll just give a plug. I know we're running long here, but, like
the reconstructionist, what was it? Mercy over sacrifice,
love over text. The third one.
>> Jonathan Foster (51:50):
Again, people are greater than the text.
Uh, mercy is greater than sacrifice, and love is greater
than fear.
>> Loren (51:57):
Yeah, love. Great. Uh, I think those are really,
really solid foundational pieces. And hopefully, I don't
think I'm misrepresenting you. Having read the book, you're
not throwing out sacrifice or the
text or fear. You're saying, that's
right. If you're saying, again, to that balance
intentionally, if we got to choose one of the
(52:17):
over, like, we choose mercy over
sacrifice, we choose people over
text. Because, again, like
Jesus said, I think the Sabbath is meant to serve the people,
not people, Sabbath. Right.
>> Jonathan Foster (52:30):
Right now, it's a really important point. Like,
even with sacrifice, what it required me to do, and
I do more. I show my work in theology of
consent. Um, on this, it required
me to go back and to think in terms of,
well, okay, some sacrifice is good. Like, there's
altruistic sacrifice that's given your life away. But what it
boiled down to, the long and short of it, was
(52:52):
consent became the thing for me. I was like,
oh, agency, empowerment,
individual. Like, consent. Like, God's not forcing
anybody to sacrifice, but love will invite
you. And when you're invited and you consent
to it, it'll take you down an interesting journey. But if
you don't, love's not going to forsake you.
(53:12):
So it's that kind of stuff. And you're right. I'm not
trying to disregard all the other stuff. I'm just
saying, I don't know. There's a healthier
way to work through these things, Jeff.
>> Loren (53:23):
Yeah, well, this is good stuff. Uh, we got to get
going here. So how can people connect with you? Give your
website. That's the thing.
>> Jonathan Foster (53:31):
Sure. Thanks. Jonathan Foster
online.com is the website. They can
go there, find out about the books. They can sign up for my
substack newsletter. They can find out about the work we're
doing in Haiti, and, uh, any number of
things they can find out there.
>> Loren (53:46):
And the super titled podcast
Jonathan Foster.
>> Jonathan Foster (53:51):
That's right, they can find out about Jonathan
Foster podcast with the coolest
probably name in the history of all
podcasts.
>> Loren (54:00):
Well, I really appreciate your time and the conversation. Always
leave folks with the word of peace. So may God's peace
be with you.
>> Jonathan Foster (54:07):
Thank you.
>> Paul (54:08):
Um, thanks for joining us on the
Future Christian podcast. To learn more about Loren
or the podcast, visit future dash
christian.com. One more thing before you
go, do us a favor and subscribe to the
podcast. And if you're feeling especially
generous, leave a review. It really helps
(54:28):
us get the word out to more people about the podcast.
The Future Christian podcast is a production of torn
curtain arts and resonate media. Our
episodes were mixed by Danny Burton and the production
support is provided by Paul Romaglevitt.
Thanks and go in peace.
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