Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Go to shifting culture podcast.com to interact and donate. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy.
It only takes a second, and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app you're using right now and hit five stars. Thank you so much. Previous guests on the show have included JG Thomas, AJ Swoboda and Pam Arland. You could go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Josh White. Josh White is a speaker, recording artist and writer and founding pastor of door of hope, a family of churches in the urban core of Portland, Oregon.
Josh lives with his wife Darcy son Henry daughter, Haiti. Portland is the city where he and his wife Darcy met 23 years ago, while Josh was playing the show with his then Seattle glam rock band, man, Ray. Little do they know that their lives within a few years would be turned upside down and revolutionized by the gospel of
Jesus. He just released his first book and stumbling toward eternity for penguin imprint, Multnomah press, Josh and I have a great conversation around the foolishness of the cross around our need to be confronted with the end of ourselves so that we can be dependent on Christ. We talk about how confession can drive our communities. Being a witness to Jesus in the world and radical grace and vulnerability. It's a really good episode. Enjoy my conversation with Josh White.
Josh, welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited to have you on thank you so much for joining me.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I'd love to I loved your book, some weed toward eternity. It was, I think, you know, we're, we're at a similar age, I grew up in the northwest. So I could get, you know, references of like the crocodile and, and other things that made it a little bit more enjoyable for me. Seeing Michael Louis Smith that Jesus Northwest snakes that that came up and some of your reflections, I was like, Yeah, I was there, too. So it was, it was really enjoyable.
But you know, what I love is that just the radical grace, forgiveness, vulnerability of, of the cross of this act, that Jesus did as the savior of the world as he's, he's there, giving his life up. And that actually changes the way that one we relate to God, but to the way that we relate to each other? How did how is the cross transformed zero in life and your story in the way that you interact in the world?
Yeah, you know, I think, when I can, I can get paid later in life. So like, 1999 I was living in Seattle, I'd moved to Seattle, right, you know, right, when I got out of high school and started pursuing music, and so, you know, the, that that pursuit, you know, ending in the loss of a record deal, a few months after I got married, and then and then just the, the kind of anxiety and existential dread that that created that led me to open up a Bible my mom gave me when I was
21. But, you know, reading through the Gospels, I think the first like conviction that came that struck me was it there is that there was something about Jesus there's power in the name of Christ and and I shared a story in the book about, you know, asking a group of musicians that the crocodile like what I was reading the Bible, and I wasn't even a Christian yet I asked them what they thought of Jesus and that just the horror at the question.
Even I was like, I'm like, this response goes beyond what would be like acceptable or normal, like, like, what I didn't share in the book is that just before I asked that question, a girl sitting next to me was telling us that shit, we knew she was a part of this whole like, New Age kind of druid movement, and that she was talking about summer solstice and how her and all her druid friends got naked up on Capitol Hill and like, we're like running around in the park
by the cemetery where Bruce Lee is buried. You know, like celebrating The Summer Solstice nude. And nobody said anything. They were like, That's awesome. And then I'm like, I'm reading a Bible. What do you guys think about Jesus? And everyone's like, obey Him. I mean, they they seriously act like they strip naked in front of them.
Yeah. And so I think that that there is something compelling about the wink, what is it about Jesus that is so offensive, it's more than just like cultural, you know, biases or something that there was something deeper than that. And then when it came to faith, I realized that, that I think it all comes down to the
centrality of the cross. And the offensiveness and the bullishness of the crosses, Paul put it, and I was really I was very, I was immediately enamored with the Pauline letters, and specifically as is his focus on the cross and the beginning of First Corinthians, there's just like, this is strange, to think of, of the intellectual prowess, that that man had, his ability to, to assimilate Greek thought, in Jewish thought, and, and bring, bring that as a tool to
serve the gospel. And yet he says, I've determined nothing but Jesus Christ and crucified and, and then even his is focusing on, you know, the juicy Dr. Signs and the Greek seek after knowledge, but we preach Christ crucified, I became obsessed with those four words, we preach Christ crucified. And, and I, it was in that point where I realized, like, man, the cross is, if the gospel is the center of the Christian message, the cross is the center of the
gospel. And that if we remove the cross, we actually drink Christianity of its blood. Because we can't even talk about resurrection insinuates versus death. Yep. And, and what I love about the crosses it it, it brings the gospel, literally
down to earth. It's this, it, it's like the beauty of that kind of radical Grace theme that you that you mentioned about the book comes out of, you know what my friend David's all calls a low anthropology it's like human beings, absolute impotence, inability to reach God in their own strength. That was my whole conversion point was that verse in Matthew, chapter five says, Therefore be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. And I remember being so frustrated, I wanted to throw my Bible out
the window. And it was in that moment as like the Holy Spirit, just like, that's the point is you can't be it's like Jesus's laying out an impossible possibility. Yeah, he's calling us to put faith in His
perfection, not in ours. The gods come down and met me and my brokenness in and in the cross also is one of those, that those elements, there's so many aspects to atonement that I find so fascinating, you know, different denominations, and in groups within, under the umbrella of Orthodox Christianity have have long debated over the mechanics of atonement, and even emphasize different elements of it. But I think that there's a book called The mosaic of atonement. That's
a really great book. I think it is Josh McNally. I think he's the guy that wrote that book, it shows how like, different different denominations, Orthodox, the Catholic, the Protestant but then even within Protestant have a different emphasis Christus Victor, Jesus's triumph over the domains of darkness, recapitulate recapitulation, Jesus as the second atom in the firstborn over new creation, and then substitution, you know, the idea of Jesus as the as the scapegoat, essentially, the sin
bearer. And it's like, depending on your denominational leanings, like there's reformed thinkers tend to focus almost primarily on penal substitution. Yeah, you know, Eastern Orthodox tends to focus on on Christus, Victor, or recapitulation, but it's like they're all there. And and that's the beauty and the mystery of the gospel. It's like, yeah, I need the tribe, I need to substitute it. And I definitely need Jesus to be the man that I can't be.
Exactly. Exactly. And I think, I mean, even with different denominations, a lot of it comes out of our own cultural biases, and things that out of who we are and where we were raised and how we were brought up. These are the things that that we emphasize within our culture, even though it's all there, the ads, you know, that's what I don't like about all these different songs to nominations. But what I do like about it, is that we actually need each
other. Now like a we've emphasized this, maybe too much, and we've lost some different aspects of the cross of atonement of Jesus. And maybe we missed his, you know, his missionary aspect of who Jesus is, or, you know, we've missed, you know, whatever it is with Jesus. So how do we, how do we see this, I just give you a little bit of background for me, my wife and I were in the Middle East, we worked a lot with Muslims. They love Jesus, His prophet, but the cross is very
offensive to them. How in the world in this man die, a death that we should have died, and then resurrected. So they believe that, you know, it wasn't it wasn't Jesus on the cross, or he was switched out at the very last second, you know, because he couldn't die this death, it's very offensive to them. Why? And why are we okay?
With all the other aspects of Jesus, and I'm sure in post, post Christian Portland where you are, you could talk about Jesus in his works in his ministry and who he is all day long, but the cross is so offensive. Why do we get to that point of like, this is the offensive piece?
Yeah, I think that the that the bullishness of the cross is, I think is it's an absolute affront, especially in our modern kind of psychological age in which the individual experience and they, you know, were the products of a of a massive, massive cultural shift, that that, you know, goes back a few 100 years, but really took root and gain momentum in the 20th century, that now is kind of, I think, it's it's run its course to its final, you know,
upside down logic. And that, that is the idea that, it sadly, I think the church has as fallen into many of its trappings. And in that is the, the, the central importance of the of the individual experience, a kind of an existential vision of existence, where the, the only thing that's ultimately real is my own experience and my own feelings. And so, you know, relativism was a was a, you know, a first first nail the,
the distrust of truth. Now, we have like a whole, anti historical, anti, even anti Western intellectual movement of late ends in Areum, bracing of kind of Marxist revolutionary ideas around like the the oppressed need to bring down the oppressor. And the problem is that because we don't trust history any longer we forget that every time the oppressor, the oppressed, brings down the oppressor, they just create something more oppressive. And it kind of plays into our whole
victim culture. The cross is offensive, because it actually it actually becomes as Rene Girard points out, one of my favorite philosophers who really developed the idea of my mimetic rivalry that everything in human in human history in a fallen state is that we're driven by the desire for what others have. And that desire, desire is actually what it means we made the image of God, but sin has caused us to focus our desire on people rather than we desire to
be with God. And when when God we notice desire to have what isn't ours, and then to possess it at all costs, which creates the scapegoat mechanism and the need for violence, you know, he moves to violence. And I think that the that there is, there's kind of a violent response to the cross, because the cross tells the individual, that they're not the most important thing in the universe. And not only that, that the great model of you can do anything, you can
be anything. The, the demand of the cross is actually an acceptance of your actual
inability. That's why That's why I actually love 12, the 12 step program, yeah, because the 12 step program, its effectiveness is actually and I think it's actually probably a more beautiful and pure picture model of what the church should function like, which is the people who have come to the end of themselves, and recognize that they cannot do this without the help of others, and ultimately, without the help of God in its higher power,
whatever. But the idea is like, it's a it's a radical confessional community that recognizes their impotence without so they they continue to call themselves alcoholics even in that actually in the context that community is their triumph over alcoholism. I think that that's the Christians are sainthood is actually the triumph of sainthood is actually found in our continual recognition of our of our sinfulness and our desperate need for dependence upon the
sinless Jesus. The cross is the is the leveler it eradicates our ability to be the victim. And because it forces Just remember that Jesus died for the victim and the victimizer. And that he spoke the judge and the judge in our place. And so, so I think that it's offensiveness comes down to, is that you have to acknowledge that you can't save
yourself. And we human, everything in human history is, is built upon, upon kind of what I call ladder theology in the book, but it's the you know, it's I agree with Luther, everything can be split into long gospel, and ladder theology is that the heroic, the heroic journey, I'm like, I'm gonna, I gotta climb my way up, I gotta prove my, my, my, my worth, I need to, I need to find my enoughness in X ABCD when you name it, and but there's never sat ultimate satisfaction and in
those stakes, which you and I, you're swimming, you're close to my age, like I gotta be next month. Like that's what they call a midlife crisis is realizing that, that the heroic, beautiful rolling said doesn't, it doesn't lead us where we thought it was gonna lead. Yeah, now I gotta figure out what we're gonna do for the second half of our lives. Yeah, that we discovered the ceiling of limitations.
It's helpful. I mean, I don't know if it would be it would have been helpful, you know, 25 years ago to be able to figure out the ceiling of your limitations, I'm sure it would have been but you know, in your, your youthful zeal to be able to climb the ladder and continue to move forward. It's really difficult to get to that midlife crisis to say, Okay, I'm actually getting to the end of myself. And this is where God is beginning. And this is where I have to, like, surrender all to
him. You know, that's,
that's the that's the absolute, like, we're talking about the our absolute disdain, when a celebrity takes his own life. And I said, it's not, it's not like when Kurt Cobain killed himself, you know, it wasn't that everyone was in love with Kurt Cobain, that created the distress in this whole generation of young
people. He became like a principal in Scripture, he became the one for the many a voice of discontent, of frustration of, you know, despair and fear and II, he becomes this voice, but he reaches the pinnacle of human achievement. Any then he just throws it away. In this in this, this, this crazy moment, where he just take all of a sudden takes his life. And our freakout is that it's like, he got to the where none of us will get, we can't even get to Basecamp this
guy get over the top. And it's like, he looks down from the top of the mountain and says, Sorry, guys, there's nothing up here. And so our upset is not that we cared about him, as much as we'd like to think are upset is that is that he just revealed to us that what we're chasing after isn't, isn't it isn't the thing. And that's where I think that the cross is like, the great leveler, it it actually brings a realistic vision of life, and at the same time and unbelievable,
almost. It will it is a transcendent Vision of Hope out because God because God's like, you can't get to me, but I can come to you, and why would he come to us. And that's the mystery of His love, His grace, a love without contingency, that the first word is Father forgive them. Because it's God's heart to forgive. And that isn't some mysterious then
it is, and this radical grace to move into, to this, it actually drives us into being part of, of community. And one of the things now as we are the church, and we're the body of Christ, and we're continuing to be in this community, to give grace to others. You talked a little bit you you mentioned Gerards mimetic theory. And so if we have some mimetic desire, so if we're desiring something that is not Jesus, the ones around us will start to desire
that as well. Right, we're going to start to mimic the desires of the people around us. So how within community can we start to desire Christ to know that it's the end of me, that I'm not trying to climb this ladder so that everybody else around me desires that, that ladder climb?
But I'm the one that desires Christ or our community desires, Christ above all, so that we all can start to desire Christ instead of gets, you know, caught up in all of our infighting and, and things just to jostle for power.
Yet Well, I think that it goes back to that that passage in First Corinthians one, the juicy chapter signs, the Greeks egifter knowledge. I see often there's this the strange battle between those two realities, one is pride and experience. The other is pride in knowledge. And I see that in, and my more reformed circle of friends, that the pursuit of you know, there, there's a deep passion for being, being
theologically right. Being sound that is almost like many of my report points of view, it's like they almost feel it. It's like their responsibility to be in the police of good theology. Like they hold the corner on it or something. But my really charismatic friends, like, they, they're like, whatever, I don't care about that. Like, I want to know how it actually change how it how do I experience God? How
do I once the How does it? How does it change my life, I want to see the power of the gospel. And so the experience overrides the theology, you know, not that it's without theology, and not that, that those that Chase theology are devoid of experience. I just think that the the enemy's great work, I would say that Satan's greatest work is not outside of the church in that pagan universe, that seems to be under his rule, the greatest work is his ability to take God servants and turn
them into his own tools. And, and I think that he does that by getting our focus off of the cross and onto, on to things that actually matter. Experience matters. Knowledge matters, we want to we want to have understanding, we want to have
intimacy. But but we want to be people that function in power, not in fear, you know, we want to be a people that have wisdom, not not foolishness, however, the cross is the place that keeps it's the anchor in the center, that that produces the humility necessary to have the proper intimate experience and the proper pursuit of knowledge. But we lose sight of that. And so that's where I see those
battles. It's like the, you know, the, I've seen the spiritual pride that so could, can quickly take over not just like a church leader, but over a church community. And, and all of a sudden, once again, it becomes an us against them mentality. It's why I got so disheartened during 2020. And it's like, all the sudden said, the church talking about the gospel, the church is talking about, about social justice issues, or politics and like, and really the two are married.
And it's not that we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be good citizens. And it's not that we shouldn't carry care about the, the, the impacts of, of modernity, on on the on the vulnerable or the broken in our society. But But it became, it became a vitriolic, and even a radicalized atmosphere, instead of being radical for Jesus, it became radical for this particular cultural point of view. And all of a sudden, a gospel is like left, the cross is not even a conversation piece. You know, it's like wear
it in. And now we've got a whole new like land filled with scapegoats. So, so I think that'd be one of the things that post the church post COVID has got to learn is I think that the world is tired. I think the distaste for Christendom has some something to do with the fact that Jesus said, If the world hated me, it'll hate you as well. But I actually, I actually push back and say, well, that statement is true.
But what we're often heated for, is not for our love for Jesus or for one another, were hated for the hypocrisy that the world experiences when they see a bunch of Christians trying to present an ideal that they themselves can't keep. Yeah, and and that's in that's where I think so I think that we need a communal. The cross pushes us into a position of a communal, confessional kind of spirit. And it's like, we talk about
vulnerability. But usually, when Christians talk about vulnerability, they just mean they read a Brene Brown book. And as lovely as her writing on vulnerability is it's like, it's like, I don't know what it is about Christians and their inability to be really odd, especially pastors. I think that's why we keep having pastors fall.
It's like, because we have to hide who we really are. What's going on and in LA, you know, something's wrong. We think everybody's gonna leave us. You know? Yeah, I
remember hearing an old pastor, a part of the movement that I was a part of that was talking about how not to even buy Martinelli sparkling cider because it might give someone the assumption that you're buying alcohol. But that same pastor was you know, the notorious for putting other pastors who had had affairs back in the pulpit. And I'm like, I'm like, man talks about selective
sanctification. Like, we find that we find the things that will, you know, make us feel alright in the world, like, I don't wear, I don't drink, but I might be duplicitous, and having a totally secret life. Yeah.
Well, then how think that we
have to live out out that brokenness openly, the victory is actually that we don't have to live in a position of defeat, because of the sin is still at play in our bodies.
Yeah. And that's really good. So my question was, like, how do we start to do that? How do we live out our
brokenness together? And, you know, as you said, you know, 12 Step, the 12 step program, you know, I've seen a lot of people coming into the doors of the church that have that are working the 12 step program, and, and to me, it brings life to the congregation and brings life to the community of God that's there, because there is a, a more of a radical vulnerability saying, A, this is who I am, and I'm at the end of myself, and I need God. And shouldn't we all be at this
space? How do we live into this open brokenness, that, that helps people heal and move forward towards a Jesus that is good and hopeful and and great, and doesn't just wallow in our brokenness?
Yeah. Well, I, I make a comment in the book about the about the power of the discipline of confession, you know, there's a renewed interest right now in spiritual formation, and the works of guys like Dallas Willard or Richard Foster. And, you know, I, I have my, I have things that have benefited greatly from those guys. And, and I'm all for spiritual disciplines, but often the contemplative practices, which I'm a little more leery of, like, solitude and silence,
I'm kind of with Bucha. Right. I think solitude is the devil's playground. And I think that too many pastors spend way too much
time alone. Yes, it's the I mean, I know that I have, and times where it just, it just gets too much and, and then we justify it by, you know, misapplying passage like Acts chapter six, we're taking something and making it prescriptive, like we didn't, it doesn't even say that the Holy Spirit led those guys to say that all we should be doing is praying and studying the Word had, we're like, this is the establishment of deacons. It doesn't say that anywhere in the text. And those guys did not
function like deacons. They function like apostles, while the apostles were awake, praying and, and seeking God's eye, you know, I'm leery of anything that pushes us into isolation. I think the great here for the church today is that we need to get away from and it is very difficult, because there's a million voices buying perfection, but we, we have to break free from the hyper individualism of our culture. And we need to come back to
communal language. The Church Fathers were very specific. They know there's no language in our theology books, it says, One God, three individuals. It says when God three persons and individual is our uniqueness defined apart from others, personhood is our uniqueness to find in the context of relationship with others. That's a biblical vision of uniqueness.
I like the uniqueness of who I am, as Josh White is found in the context of my relationship with the community, our gifts are discovered in the context of the community, our victory over sin is found in the context of community. And it's a confessional place where I say that when we confess our sin, it actually becomes the place where we meet God most powerfully, and not just to God, but to one another. Now, that puts us in a position of humility and gentleness and how we care for
one another. And it's risky, it's messy. And someone might even use your confession against you. And that's, but that's the risk that it's worth. And it's it's actually far more dangerous. To, to hide, because the whole essence the first consequence of sin is hiding. It's like, there's, that's the outcome they hit. And so like, we should be reflecting the
opposite. What does it look like to come into the light, and the more we come into the light, the more we'll begin to actually have victory over the sin that we had once. And so that's where I think that what we give a lot of space at door of hope for for confession, and call up and I try to model it as a preacher.
Some people are uncomfortable with that and not like you want to you don't want to glorify sin, obviously, or even or take lightly the consequences of sin but we also at the same time need to hold tenaciously to the fact that Jesus has dealt with sin that sin, you know, in the word, so I think it was Saddam that said that Sin died. We ask Jesus on the cross, that all sin past, present and future has been forgiven. But even forgiven, sin still has the ability to wreak havoc in our
lives. And that's why we confess it. So people are like, Why do I confess it? It's already forgiven, because, because it may be forgiven, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have consequences. confessing it breaks free, the tyranny of Satan, telling us that God will never forgive you for that. And so that's where I think that the the Triumph the Christian life, it's like that's, that's where the the, the line that gets becomes blurred between Saint saint and sinner.
Yeah. So then how do we structure the community of believers in a way where confession can be a part of, of what we do, and it's not individual confession, but it's a confession of the personhood that's connected to the community?
Yeah, I think that a it has to start with leadership. And so you know, I do a lot of, I do a lot of work for the Luis Palau Association, and I do their, I do what's called their, their renew their front end festivals before they go in and do a festival there. I love them, because they have such a commitment to working with the local church, they won't do it unless the local church has buy it. But I'll go and speak to all the pastors on the front end.
And I really have a heart for kind of explaining this particular passion of mine, because I worked in churches where the pastors were so private, and I worked for I worked for several pastors that had moral failings. And so it was like that in to me, it was just like this kind of connecting of the dots, like,
there's a pattern here. And the pattern is this like is, is that we actually have created ladders, you know, we're the whole gospel is just to free people from the tyranny of the ladders that the world is presenting, you know, to satisfy you know, our longing for wholeness. We get them in the church, and we tell them Jesus is accepted or just as they are, but then we get them in, and then we give them a new ladder to climb that's actually more exhausting, and more difficult,
and not nearly as fun. Because we forget that the golden Christian life isn't arriving, it's snowing. And in, in so I think that we have to, you know, when you're actually in a real relationship with someone, your best relationships are the ones that you're honest about your brokenness. And so so I've modeled that. I tried to model that from the, from the pulpit, we give space to it in our
worship experience. So when we have our, our worship and communion at the end, we encourage people every week come forward, that our elders are always up front prayer team, we will come we share our brokenness with one another, and bind and in doing that, with my freedom, and we've been encouraged that in our community
groups. And that's the that's the cause, like, what makes door of hope, has always been a very strong evangelistic community, is our evangelism is a flows out of that idea that the whole church together preaches cross. Can we do that by Dale? No, you're my disciples, by your love for one another. Your care for one another and hate on your worst stinking day. Jesus is crazy about you. That's the thing. I tell the church every week. And it's like, you're not a bigger failure than God
already knows. You are. Yeah, that's why the gospel is such good news.
Yeah, so what does that look like? If you're an evangelistic Church says you're going in preach. They're saying, here's the cross of Jesus, especially in this, the post Christian area of Portland's I know that, you know, I've had people on my staff that have gone to Portland and say, it's really easy to talk about Jesus. In Portland, it's a little more difficult to talk about the church. But it's really easy to talk about Jesus.
What does that look like then? I think, for a lot of people, and I think, you know, Portland, I think is a little bit ahead of the time than a lot of the rest of the United States is in the West. So what what does it look like? How do we get to this place where we could be open about our own brokenness, and about our need for Jesus and the cross?
Yeah, well, I think it's true. Portland is probably the first pure, like, post Christian city in the United States like, and it because it's always been a bit of a wild west. And it's funny, it was, you know, is one of the oldest cities in the northwest. So it's
it. There's churches everywhere that were built, you know, and, and Portland added zone, you know, the, the Welsh Revival was a global revival and, and it hit Portland as well, that, that there was a there was a time when every shop for like six months in downtown was closing down for prayer. Wow, like
around my teeth. 1908. But that, that revival, you know, like our Bibles, they they come and go, and I think that Portland's are always been a very spiritual so unlike the, like a city like New York, New York still has an incredible foundation and both Catholicism and Judaism like there's, you know, you go to Times Square the two statues in Times Square the one of a famous Jewish leader and the other famous Catholic in Greece you know, and I think that Portland is kind of the opposite of that
it's its background is like, is very spiritual. But the coexist sticker you know is dominant, you know, when the largest lesbian population in the world. So, you know, the transgender conversation here before I hit anywhere else, even more so that I go to London every year and it's like, not even close to what you see in Portland and Portland's beyond the transitioning from guy to girl
or girl to guy. It's like, No, I'm, I mean, there's a whole community here of people that are, you know, claimed to be elves in wear prosthetic elf ears, you know, and it's like, that's the nature of a, of a of a world that says you are whatever you think you are, in your interior identity is actually the most important thing. So this where it makes the gospel challenging people are very open to the Gospel. But when you This is why the cross is bullish, its nose began Cross. The Cross demands,
identity be rethought. It's like, it's, you know, it's like, people going to bed I'm like, You're not if you're not a gay Christian, is your identity isn't your sexual preference, your identity as Jesus? Who wants to embody your brokenness wherever you are. And you know, but I think the same time because people don't have a background, the Gospel, there is a willingness to talk about it far more than people assume. There isn't the hostility that you would think there's lots of
hostility in the city. And right now it's, we who live in the city of love our city are mainly just hostile toward our terrible, terrible city government. Who is allowed Portland to just be, you know, we once were Portlandia? Yeah, no, now we're now we're Beyond Thunderdome. And it's, it's, it's, you know, I mean, that they get shoot in door pope is really trying to work toward
that, too. It's like, what does it look like to be in a city where we become a mecca for homelessness, because it's a place where you can do math and fentanyl and not be prosecuted. And we'll give you a will give you a free tent and feed you four meals a day. So it's like, it's forcing us to even rethink, like, classic Christian vision is that we should be the poor, or feed the hungry? Well, what if feeding them actually is helping them kill themselves that no, like, what do you do
that? So we're having to rethink and I think that the city is always going to be because of the uniqueness of being a post Christian city. And being a very progressive city. It's an interesting place to like, explore how does the gospel actually play itself out in that particular context that we're in, and I'm committed I that's what makes me even more convinced that all the all the attempts to be about social justice in the past to become
irrelevant. And the expense of the gospel is proven to be fatal, actually, for the church here. And what I'd much rather see is, is gospel centered witness that then leads to care and concern, like we want we want to preach the gospel and word and deed. Yeah, but often deed has as been a cover up for the fact that we don't actually want to talk about the offense
of the gospel. And so So I think that yeah, talking about Jesus is one thing, talking about you, your your sinful person who needs who needs forgiveness, and redemption. And you can't save yourself, and all the all the things you're pursuing and all the ways you're trying to identify yourself to find meaning and life is not going to be found in anything until you put your trust in Him. And that's, that that's where you're
going to get the pushback. And so the community has job, but we I always ask the church and like, we can't make people believe what we believe. But they should at least believe that we believe what we're telling them. And they should actually see something in us that they would want. So I'm like, is the church a place where you would want to invite a
non believing branch. And so Dora Pope has really worked hard to create, I would say, create the most beautiful, uncomfortable space possible to hear the most uncomfortable message possible.
That's good. That's good. It is the most uncomfortable message. But it's good news. That uncomfortable message is really good news. And one of the things that's been struck me a lot just talking to people lately, is the word witness. You know, talk about wear away witness to the lamb that were witness to this the Suffering Servant Jesus. That's, you know, I, you know, I come from a lot of, you know, missional theology, I lead a missions organization, where we like to talk about all sorts of
different things. But this this witness thing that's happening in Revelation, it's what Jesus said, You will be my witnesses. Right. And, you know, when He ascended back, what is it about being a witness to the foolishness of the cross? How, how is witness so important?
Yeah, well, I think that that's the, that's what the world does is that it? It's, you know, it's a witness to whatever it is, it's selling, you know, it's like, the new priests and priestesses of the modern age, are the influencers of our social media. I mean, this, they're the, they're the in and they are witness, they're, you know, they are, they're selling
their wares. And they're called, and they're calling people to worship, you know, whether it's fitness or health or body positivity, or, you know, or, you know, justice issues, there's, there's a million, the calls, and it's, it's hyper spiritual. And it's, it's very, it's very religious. And so for us, it's like, our witness is just that it's like, you will talk about head you will help, and you will talk about whatever it is you love. And so, I have put a big emphasis on witnesses.
Well, because witnesses, and it's a powerful, it's a freeing thing. Yeah, like, it's a scary thing. I always call pastors, a lot of pastors don't do altar calls anymore, and that some of them will claim because it's like theological conviction. They don't want to be emotionally manipulative. But I think bogus for the most part, I think it's usually it's, I don't want to be humiliated. No, in response, you know, I don't want to be confronted with my own impotence or the lack of power.
And I think that what I always tell people is like, if you don't save anybody, like yeah, we're just called, like, Jesus said it by be lifted up, I'll drop people to myself, but we don't we forget is that not everyone who's dropped every everyone made the drop, but not
everyone responds the same. And that, and he's also he draws but he's also the sword that divides in, like, our responsibility is just to be faithful to lift up and lift up that same, the same message of I have met Jesus, come, come and meet the one. Come and see the one who's, yeah, who's revealed everything that that makes, like make sense. And so that's where I've always encouraged the church from the beginning, is like, I don't want to be a church that grows by transfer growth. That's
not a win. shifting around the the people that are already in the club, as you know, we exist for the good of those outside
our walls. And, you know, the Portland, that when I started door book was, was the city that the churches were private in the city proper, which is what gives Portland its reputation is were filled primarily with, it wasn't a fully liberal church, that it completely abandoned the gospel, their their churches, the only people that were coming were people that don't even live in
the city. And so for us early on, it was like, what are the practical ways, simple ways that we can actually be witnesses? Well, part of it was just getting Christians to like, come out of the closet. So you know, when I have a barista, a young 20 something year old barista come, like, I just found out my coworker, who I've worked with for two years as a Christian. And they're so excited. And I'm like, You shouldn't be excited about that. Let's say that you guys have worked really years.
Just now discovering that you're, that just tells me that you you don't think it's appropriate. You think it's a private matter? That I'm like, I'm like, it's it's personal, but it's never private. And I'm like, talk about it because you love it. So we've encrypted will bring their Bibles, pop shops, start living out the Christian life, naturally. The supernatural life should be lived out naturally. Just live it out. Would I shit when I tell you in secret, mumbling from the
rooftop. I'm like, it's not going out and yelling at the pig. And you open your Bible in a coffee shop in Portland, and sit there and read it. I guarantee people will ask you what you're doing. You know? Yeah. So and that really worked. And then it was just encouraging people like, Hey, you don't need to be an evangelist. And like, I promise you, if you invite people to church, I promise I will faithfully preach that
gospel every week. But you need to be able, you need to be learning and growing so that you can unpack that with him after church. But yeah, let's create an invitational come and see model door Mo. And it wasn't a secret sensitive model, either. It was the idea of we I like when I prepare sermons, I prepare sermons for God's people. Yeah, but the gospel has to be informing it and has to be
at the center of it. And what I found is that people would come and they're curious, they come for weeks, and they would talk about the gospel and it actually led community to becoming more evangelistic in the conversations that were happening around it. So
yeah, that's where the good that's really good. I have a couple of questions at the end one, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
Don't do what I did. Stay away from hard drugs. In him don't believe anything that you believe that, you know, yeah, that was if I was to go, I mean, door Pope's early growth is primarily 18 to 24 year olds. So the first five years I, I think I've married 75 couples.
And so I think that that was the coolest thing was to be able, this is why the confessional ethic is what helped me develop the confessional he was I wanted to give people with, you know, that's what the Bible is, it's like, we don't have the story of David's adultery, so that we can feel good about adultery is actually we could actually learn from his mistake and not make that mistake. And so, so I often would discuss my own stupidity of my early 20s, which was so,
so self absorbed. And so I think the biggest advice I give people is like, the, the world you know, is Chesterton's advice, how much larger would the world be if you were smaller? Now and, and I see a lot of kids with a lot of despair and a lot of angst, anxiety, my I have a 21
year old son. Yeah. And that 17 year old daughter, and I in, in fact, the joy of, you know, we've always been in the house and all their friends who have come to and our thing is ruled the homeless grace, like, we don't want to, we can't expect Henry and Hattie to be Christians, because their parents are Christians, like we have to actually just live out the Gospel in a way that that in trust that they'll, that they're going to, they're, they're going to have seen something
compelling, which is even our our brokenness, the quickness of mom and dad to say, hey, we made a mistake, by the I got mad, I shouldn't have, like, Never, not pretending like I had all my stuff together. But also pointing in, like, the one thing that he can't get away from is that we have an anchor that has helped us through, you know,
trials. And so that's the question I always posed, the young people is like, whatever it is, that you're building your life upon, like me when I was 21, it's like, everything for me was I discovered as an invisible kid that came up in a broken family, and was horribly picked on and bullied to my whole life, like dancing and singing and, you know, rural America where, you know, sports were reigned
supreme. And, you know, when I discovered my singing voice, and people cared about it, it was like, I all my value, all my hope was in, it was in making it in music, because that's where I found meaning was my was, I thought, acknowledgement, but it but the for the forgetfulness is that is that there's always going to be someone better, like the moment, your pursuit is to be the best, which is was my
pursuit. It's like, I was setting myself up for ultimate heartbreak because of my foundation was not anything that was lasting. And so that's what I always encourage people is like, like, pursue those things. None of those things are bad things, writing songs, not being a musician, being an actor, do whatever it is that you do. It's like, find, get your affections,
right. So for me, it's like what is what's the anchor the foundation by which you can then and then like, when Jesus is the anchor in the center, and you don't have to take yourself or the world that seriously, but you do have to take him in grace really? Seriously. That's it. So
that's great. Anything that you've been reading, watching or listening to lately, you could recommend?
Yeah, well, I, I have the last last few years I went on a major that you kind of thinkers that I dug deep into and kind of read. I've read everything by Jacque LWL, one of the law was, was another French philosopher churchmen who wrote a book called The technological age, which is probably
considered his masterpiece. But there's a book by him, that's kind of he's a, he's a very strong believer, part of the French Reformed Church, and definitely a profound thinker, and had unbelievable insight into the impacts of, of technological advances and the reduction of the human experience into into means into profit and the reduction of the human experience and the loss, the loss of the sacred, and in as we replace it with the secular, he is very helpful, but he wrote a book called present
Christian presence in the modern world, which he wrote in 1948. It's on whip and stock and it is a profound. It's actually the most digestible of his works. And it's kind of his theological grid. And it's so helpful. And his well being is that the primary responsibility of the church is to be a witness, and uses salt and light as the, as the two examples of what the church has to be. And then even and the picture of the churches, as sheep. And he Nihilo he says, he was at in a, in an Age of
Spiritual dominating. He's like, the church cannot afford to be spiritual dominators everybody wants to be the wolf. But we must continue to be the sacrificial sheep, we must point the world to the real lamb slain before the foundation the world by allowing our lives to be poured out for others. And I just found it very challenging graveyard. I love Rene Girard. I just actually finished, I think I've read all of his major works now. And so I just wrapped up
with that. I saw Satan fall like lightning, which is a kind of kind of the fruition of his life. Now in pursuit of mimetic rivalry, which really helpful. And then a book that I highly recommend is Carl Truman's book that came out in 2020. My buddy, Tim Mackey, the founder of the Bible project, he used to be a preacher Doorbot said it was one of the most important books he read the last few years. It's called the rise in triumph of the modern self. And that's out
on Zondervan. And it is profound look at the, at the, you know, from from Rousseau, all the way to where we're at now with sexual politics and identity and critical theory. And it is a, it is a really well written, very thoughtful, and not it's not, he's British. So it's not like it doesn't have that, like American political edge. It's They are more interested in it, just like, how did meet, how did, how did philosophy and science and you know, just the modern age bring us to this
point. And it is, he isn't given a lot of answers, he just wants to help you understand where we're at. And so you can be a little discouraged by it. But it's also very helpful to be able to read through something like that, without it being vitriolic. And so I really got him very helpful.
That's great. And definitely check those out. And so how can people connect with you and find your book suddenly toward eternity, which is fantastic. And I, you know, what I love about this book as it goes through the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross, and we're diving deep into the cross and the foolishness of the cross. We're contrasting that from ladder theology, of trying
to work our way up. But also you give little vignettes of your life in the midst of it, and how the the cross actually affected your, your own life. And in walking through, and I really loved those. And I thought that it brought it into a place of reality. And to ground it, really, and the story of you and your father was really, it was beautiful to for you to bury your own brokenness in the midst of it as well. And it was really helpful to be able to see that. So I really enjoyed it. And I
want people to check it out. How can people find it?
Yeah, well, stumbling toward eternity. It is a combination of literary memoir, which is a passion. I love fiction, like, yeah, you're really asked me what I'm reading, I'm out to give you like 10 novels that I, too, I would highly recommend the passenger by Cormac McCarthy, mine. He wrote it 90 years old, the guy is still probably the greatest living author in America. And if not globally,
and then. And then there's a new author from Peru, Benjamin Labaton, who wrote a book called when we cease to understand the world. And I think it's profound look at the impact of physics in
quantum mechanics. And it's a combination of fiction, nonfiction, so you get the fictionalizes the interior motivation or thought process behind these great scientists, but explores these powerful questions of like, these guys and their their discoveries did not lead them to a belief and nothing it actually led them to the wall of God itself. And so it's really about that's yeah. But But yes, only trainee trainee comes in, it's on its
penguin imprints imprint. So it's Waterbrook, Multnomah, my Laga, Multnomah, and you can get it anywhere any, anywhere that sells books. So Amazon, and then I did the audiobook for it as well. And the way that I wrote the book was through I, I'm a lyrical writer, so I really cared a lot about prose. I took a lot of time to write this was a very difficult book to write. It's hard to merge memoir in theology, without the theology, making them being heavy. There's a desire to Explain the memoir.
You can't do that you have to let the narrative be what it is and let the reader experience for themselves. So I fought my publisher Mike, I'm not going to, I'm not going to give lessons out of my life by John's gonna, I just want to share the stories. And hopefully they'll come back. Yeah, oh surely with how these themes from the cross
speak to those areas. But I did the audiobook for it in that I actually, you know, audiobooks have become so popular, a lot of people, you know, have busyness, their lives, and that this book was almost meant to be read out loud because of the way that I write because I would write everything out. Then I'd speak it out loud and tell it Intel it sounded like me, except without mistakes.
That's great. Yeah, well, yeah, the Go get the audiobook is stumbling toward eternity. And you know, Josh, this is a fantastic
conversation. I just loved going deep into the foolishness of the grace of what it looks like for us to, to actually be confronted with this the end of ourself, so that we could just have have Jesus and say, I'm now dependent totally on you and all the community around us how confession drives us in community, how we can be a witness to the gospel, and to Jesus in everyday life of saying, This is who I love. And this is what I love, and this is who I am. And so thank you. I
really really enjoyed it. It was a fantastic conversation. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.