20. Brian Recker (Ex-Evangelical Pastor) – Hell Bent on Reclaiming Love

🎙️ 20. Brian Recker (Ex-Evangelical Pastor) – Hell Bent on Reclaiming Love

Alexis Rice welcomes Brian Recker (@berecker) — former evangelical pastor, founding voice of Beloved on Substack, and author of Hellbent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love (out Sept 30)

👉 Order on ThriftBooks

With honesty and pastoral clarity, Brian explores why hell-talk became the center of so many Christian upbringings—and how returning to Jesus’ core command to love can free our faith from fear, control, and gatekeeping.

Alexis and Brian dive into:

• What fear-based theology does to kids and communities
• Gehenna vs. “hell”: context, metaphor, and why it matters
• Deconstruction without losing God—and why Brian stayed Christian
• Leaving inerrancy, re-meeting Jesus, and finding church again
• Worship as deeply human
• Justice now vs. afterlife anxiety: building a world where love is in charge

💡 Key Takeaways

• “Perfect love casts out fear” isn’t optional; fear-built faith produces punishment, not Christlike love
• Reading Scripture with history, genre, and language (Gehenna/Sheol/Hades/Tartarus) expands—not erases—faith
• The Kingdom of God is about this world’s flourishing, especially for the most vulnerable
• Curiosity and honesty are spiritual practices; consent and freedom belong in our faith lives

👤 About Our Guest

Brian Recker is a former evangelical pastor turned writer and creator whose work centers love-forward, justice-rooted Christianity. He speaks widely on faith, deconstruction, and reimagining spirituality beyond fear.

📚 Resources Mentioned (with IG handles)

• James H. Cone (The Cross and the Lynching Tree) 
• Marcus Borg (The Heart of Christianity, Jesus: A New Vision) — @mjbfound
• bell hooks (All About Love) — @bellhooks_
• Rob Bell (Love Wins) — @realrobbell
• Rev. Darrell Goodwin (Executive Conference Minister, UCC) — @revdgoodwin
• United Church of Christ — @unitedchurchofchrist

✨ Beyoncé @beyonce, John Legend @johnlegend, Jon Batiste @jonbatiste — if you’re listening, we’re ready for that Christian worship album. Please and thank you. 🎶🙌

#Christianity #deconstruction #ProgressiveChristianity #Exvangelical #TheSacredSlope

Transcript

Alexis Rice (00:00)
it's very tough when you feel like a lot of people who are in power are using the name of Jesus other people. Let's just say it that way, And then they do it like somehow in the name of Jesus. And what I find really interesting as kind of a backlash to that is there's a lot of people who were raised Christian and maybe were like either hurt or repelled

Brian Recker (00:08)
Totally.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (00:23)
Christians And now they're actually going back to this Jesus that we know, that they've always known to and been like, wait a minute, I know Jesus and Jesus is not down to hurt people. you're seeing?

Brian Recker (00:35)
Yeah, that's

another reason I stay Christian. You know, some people are like, wow, the Christians are so bad right now that that makes me not want to be Christian. I want to distance myself from that. And that makes sense. But I actually do the opposite of that. I'm like, wow, the Christians are so bad right now. And how dare they get his name out of your mouth? Like, I'm not going to let you, the worst people in the country, represent my guy. You know I'm saying? I'm not going to let the people with the worst opinions who don't know how to love their neighbors

say like, this is what Christianity is, guess there's a stubbornness in me that's like, yeah, I'm gonna stay Christian because I Christians that are the loudest are not really representing the way of Jesus. And so I try to stay within that world because it's not even hard to show how like Jesus wouldn't stand for that. it's not like you really have to do some gymnastics with the text to make it look like Jesus would be pro-immigrant. Like, no, it's like literally right there. It's a layup, you know?

And so yeah, that's one reason I do hold on to the label as well almost as a stubbornness and like an F you to the people that I feel like are so corrupting the name of Jesus

Alexis (01:44)
Friends, we made it. This is episode 20 of The Sacred Slope. And honestly, that takes my breath away a little bit. When this began, I pictured it like starting a tiny campfire on a windy night, like crouched down, striking the match and shielding it carefully and blowing gently, trusting that if I kept showing up, this flame would catch. And here we are, we're gathered around it together. And before we go any further, I just wanted to tell you that if you're new here, welcome

Whether you found this podcast through a reel or a friend's recommendation or pure curiosity, I want you to know something. every time someone follows the sacred slope, I look at your profile and I say a short prayer for you. I've prayed over each of you and I'm going to keep praying. you are in this journey of life, I want you to know this. You are seen, you are known.

You are loved by God. And you are not alone here. The space has grown so much in just a few months. in 24 countries and over 400

On Instagram, we're closing in on our first thousand followers. the last 90 days alone, Reels have reached over half a million views, reaching more than 160,000 people. little community is spreading And that is because of you. It's sharing, it's praying, it's listening. It's showing up with your questions, your courage, and your hearts. So thank you.

This really matters. This really matters right now because the loudest Christian media voices in the US often tilt conservative still, but that's not the full story of Christians and Christianity. There are over 45,000 denominations and one in three people worldwide identify as Christian, which means that no single group, party or pastor, human being, political side owns this faith.

Christianity is vast, it's diverse, it's beautiful, it's complicated, and we need spaces that reflect this truth online and in our media. And that brings me to today's guest. I wondered for a while what it is about Brian Recker that resonates so powerfully online. Why do more than 300,000 people follow him on Instagram? And after speaking with him, I really get it. Brian is deeply authentic. He carries a faith that is honest, it's compassionate, it's courageous.

He's unafraid to stand up as Jesus did to speak truth to power, calling out whitewashed tombs and religious hypocrisy, not to stir controversy, but out of fierce love for people and for God. he cares for the least of these. He isn't afraid to ask the hard theological questions that many of us were told never to touch, especially about doctrines that shaped us through fear. Brian's new book, Hell Bent.

How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from the Spirituality of Love is releasing on September 30th. And that title alone tells you we're not skimming the surface today. This is a conversation that may be challenging for some of us. but maybe it's time to really reckon with this, to examine what we believe, what we were taught about hell, about love, and about God's character. So buckle up.

Open your heart and your mind and come with me on this journey as we sit down with Brian Recker.

Alexis Rice (05:36)
Welcome back to the Sacred Slope, friends. This week I'm honored to welcome Brian Recker. Hey, Brian.

Brian Recker (05:42)
What's going on, Alexis?

Alexis Rice (05:44)
evangelical pastor and a founding voice of the sub-stack Beloved and author of the upcoming book Hellbent, How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love. It's releasing September 30th so excited about that. cannot wait. Brian's book takes us right into that wrestle, inviting us to imagine Christianity without the chains of hell as the centerpiece.

and to rediscover a spirituality grounded in love, not fear. So if you've ever wrestled with the doctrine of hell and carried that weight of church hurt or longed for a faith rooted in compassion and inclusion, this conversation is for you. So Brian, welcome to the sacred slope.

Brian Recker (06:25)
Man, it's good to be here. love what you just said. was like, I should have had you write the copy for the back of the book. I think that was better than what we came up with.

Alexis Rice (06:34)
Well, I can't wait to learn all about this and dive in this. let's start by talking about your eight years as an evangelical pastor and before you deconstructed your was that like? And why didn't you leave faith altogether? A lot of people deconstruct and they end up leaving faith altogether. a lot of people deconstruct and they faith happens to end stronger, more beautiful, more inclusive.

Brian Recker (06:48)
No.

Alexis Rice (06:58)
So I'd love to hear a little bit about that.

Brian Recker (06:57)
Totally. Yeah, that's a good question.

put everything on the table at one point in my deconstruction. I don't think I knew that where it was headed. When I first quit the did not know where this was going was on the sacred slope. Is that referring to like a slippery slope except you kind of are reframing? Is that the idea? Okay, I love that. I think that's beautiful because I do think that that

is a little bit what it feels like. We're warned about the slippery slope. once you affirm queer people, what's next? You know, it's a slippery slope and you don't know where it's going. And it's like, it's true. We've been in this box and you've told me exactly where we're allowed to go. And actually once you're liberated to just see where curiosity takes you, it can feel a little bit like a slope. And I think that is something to embrace like you do. You call it sacred. I think that's beautiful. was a moment where I realized I had never

given myself permission to be truly intellectually honest about spirituality, I was never allowed to approach it with what the Zen Buddhist called beginner's mind. they say that in the mind of the beginner are many possibilities, in the mind of the expert, there are few. And in so many ways, you can't have that beginner's mind, that sense of, how can I just see this with absolute fresh eyes? And the reason you can't, at least in the framework I was raised in,

Alexis Rice (08:03)
Hmm.

Brian Recker (08:11)
was because of hell. Because if anything like that is a looming possibility, if you're wrong, it doesn't really give you much opportunity to explore and be curious. The stakes are just too high. that is like the ultimate control mechanism to make sure that you aren't coloring outside the lines because punishment exists outside of those lines. And so that would be scary. and then the other thing that was kind of keeping me from...

being as curious as I could have institutional pressure of the church. And so your relational pressure, your institutional pressure, financial pressure, if you're a pastor, if you're being paid to believe certain things, it's very hard to be objective about those beliefs when holding up that statement of faith is a part of your sort of position and job salary, as well as connected to your belonging within a community.

So it's really hard to question those things. So stepping out from that and actually quitting and not being a part of that institution anymore, was the first time that I felt really free to say, okay, I'm actually allowed to believe whatever I want. And like, there's nobody that's, I can't get in trouble for that, you know? And I didn't realize how much that was playing into.

What I was believing, I didn't realize that. It wasn't like I was a pastor and it's like, man, I'd love to, you know, believe X, Y, Z, but I can't because I'm not allowed. I didn't have that conscious thought. This is very much on a subconscious level. This pressure is just something that you live with. And when it was lifted, it was like, wow, I actually am allowed to just change my mind. We're all allowed to do this. This is crazy. This is like a revolutionary

Alexis Rice (09:39)
It's

Brian Recker (09:41)
And I was like, I could just try on not being a Christian. And then if I miss it, I could just go back to being a Christian. And that's fine too. Like there's no rules here. You could just believe what you want and what feels right for you. And that's okay. I'm not gonna get spanked by anybody, including God, you know? Which allowed me to kind of begin to be curious for the first time. why did I hold on to faith? So kind of going into that place of...

Yeah, actually it was so good for me to say, hey, if I turn out to be an atheist, that's okay. When I had that thought, was like, whoa, you sure it's okay?

Alexis Rice (10:13)
Yeah,

very

Brian Recker (10:16)
But that's so important because if you've never allowed that to be an option, like if in your mind it's like it's morally bad to not be a Christian and it's morally better to stay Christian, well, you're not being objective, actually. you're weighing these things differently. like, why? who says, So in my mind, I had to say, actually I have atheist friends who are actually on the whole more compassionate, more moral.

more intellectually honest than most of my Christian friends, especially more than most of my evangelical friends. So why wouldn't I allow that to be on the table? I have so much respect for these people. So I put it all on the table. And ultimately, the reason I'm not an atheist is really, really simple. Are you ready? It's that I believe in God.

Alexis Rice (10:58)
I am.

Brian Recker (11:03)
And like, and it's just that I believe in God. Okay. Like I'm not saying what you should believe, but I realized like I put it all on the table. And at the end of the day, it's like, I do still believe in God. personally, for me, the universe makes more sense. And also I've had particular experiences that make more sense with the belief in a divine. I have experienced connection to a divine presence that makes sense of my reality. and so in my deconstruction, I never stopped believing in God.

because I just honestly do, not like because I have to believe in God, not because I'll be punished if I don't believe in God, but simply because I actually just honestly do believe in God. And so it was actually really delightful to come to that realization in myself. Nobody's making me believe in God. I didn't have to pray a sinner's prayer or else I was gonna be blasted away by some God that actually hates me. No, I just believe in God because literally just do. And so then...

For me though, the question is, well, why stay Christian? And that's a little bit more complicated, but at the end of the day, it's because I still think that the Jesus, or the God that Jesus talks about makes sense to me. And the way that Jesus does spirituality still makes sense to me. And so while many aspects of the Christian religion that have come about in the centuries since Jesus are not my favorite. And I certainly don't endorse everything Christianity has done. So So me being a Christian,

is more about me saying like, still see Jesus as worth following and whatever he had going on with his spirituality and his connection to God is what I would like to have in my spirituality and in my connection to God.

Alexis Rice (12:35)
yeah, it's very tough when you feel like a lot of people who are in power are using the name of Jesus other people. Let's just say it that way, And then they do it like somehow in the name of Jesus. And what I find really interesting as kind of a backlash to that is there's a lot of people who were raised Christian and like either hurt or repelled

Brian Recker (12:44)
Totally.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (12:59)
Christians And now they're actually going back to this Jesus that we know, that they've always known to and been like, wait a minute, like I know Jesus and Jesus is not down to hurt people. you're seeing?

Brian Recker (13:12)
Yeah, that's

another reason I stay Christian. You know, some people are like, wow, the Christians are so bad right now that that makes me not want to be Christian. I want to distance myself from that. And that makes sense. But I actually do the opposite of that. I'm like, wow, the Christians are so bad right now. And how dare they get his name out of your mouth? Like, I'm not going to let you, the worst people in the country, represent my guy. You know I'm saying? Like, I'm not going to let the people with the worst opinions who don't know how to love their neighbors

say like, this is what Christianity guess there's a stubbornness in me that's like, yeah, I'm gonna stay Christian because I think that the Christians that are the loudest are not really representing the way of Jesus. And so I try to stay within that world because it's not even hard to show how like Jesus wouldn't stand for that. it's not like you really have to do some gymnastics with the text to make it look like Jesus would be pro-immigrant. Like, no, it's like literally right there. It's a layup, you know?

And so yeah, that's one reason I do hold on to the label as well almost as a stubbornness and like an F you to the people that I feel like are so corrupting the name of Jesus

Alexis Rice (14:17)
what are some other things that you felt like when you put everything on the table that you let go of? And what are some of the things that you held onto as you went through that process?

Brian Recker (14:26)
So I let go of inerrancy. That's a big one. think renegotiating my relationship with the Bible. And that's been a process. All these things are things that were in process while I was still a pastor, which kind of led to me quitting. But there was more clarity once I got out from under the institutional pressure. So it was almost like I was able to be more definitive afterwards, but all these kind of in process for probably since around 2015, 2016 when Trump...

Trump was really the thing that shattered my rose colored glasses of evangelicalism and started me doing a lot of digging. Really, it started the question of, okay, if they don't have the moral discernment to see through that guy, what else are they lying to me about? And so I'm to have to do some work here. And that culminated in 2020 when I actually put in my resignation. That year, I think with COVID, I was able to pull away from the church and have some introspection and come to some conclusion. But yeah, so I do still go to church, so I've held on to that.

I go to an inclusive, affirming I really do love going to church still. love singing. I feel like singing is just such a human thing. And I understand why people are really triggered by worship songs because they've often been used to manipulate and produce particular emotional reactions and that sort of thing. But like, you do know that all music produces emotional reactions and that's what makes it fucking awesome, right? Like... ⁓

Alexis Rice (15:24)
same.

Yes.

Brian Recker (15:42)
Like I never really fully understand that when people are like, yeah, Christian music is bad because it's producing these emotional reactions. I'm like, yeah, no, that's what's cool about it. Because like, I love listening to music and feeling something. That's what music does because we're human beings. That's why we make it in the first place to feel something. The problem is that for many people, the association is you're supposed to feel this particular way. And then you're supposed to have this particular response. I did actually a response to a pastor talking about how he was preaching at camp.

and trying to get the kids to respond. And he felt like the Holy Spirit was calling one more kid to respond and he wouldn't respond. So the pastor said, God's gonna punish you if you don't respond. You know, this whole thing. Yeah, literally he did the classic camp preacher thing. He said, I really felt in the spirit that the person who's supposed to respond, if they don't respond to God, they're gonna get into a car accident tonight. Literally. To camp, yeah, campers.

Alexis Rice (16:15)
Mmm.

What?

Peace.

To... to a child?

Brian Recker (16:35)
And so this is a big pastor, like that's John Bevere said that. That's a, I don't know if you know his name, but he's as big as anybody in evangelicalism right now. So like that's a norm and a lot of times that was accompanied with music and an altar call and that whole thing. So I can understand why that's triggering, but for me, I find it so human and connecting to sing together with a bunch of grown ass adults. Like, when do we do that? You know, assuming that theology isn't morbid and horrible,

Alexis Rice (16:36)
Mmm, the poor kid.

Brian Recker (17:00)
and I like the songs that we tend to pick. So I like church. I like singing. I've held on to those aspects. I do like the Bible, although, my relationship with it is different. I find myself mostly gravitated these days towards the gospels. Although, you know, Paul lately, I'm, I'm, I do like Paul. I think he's misunderstood in some ways and maybe I'll spend some time with him later, but still I'm spending most of my time in the gospels right now. But.

Yeah, I think a lot of the accoutrement of evangelicalism for me are so intertwined into you have to believe this way. It's so dogmatic and so rigid. And so much of that is because they have a punitive worldview that's shaped by a punitive God. And so rejecting all of that really just opens up the doors for it blows the doors open for curiosity and exploration in your spirituality.

Alexis Rice (17:43)
was talking Reverend Darrell Goodwin. He's part of the United Church of he had a fundamentalist call him and leave a really horrible racist saying like, know, Trump this is so awesome and like God should blah, blah, blah. And he's a gay Reverend, by the

His response in his heart was so compassionate it was like, my God is so much bigger than your God. Like my God is full of compassion and holds space for all of us, including that person. And I just thought that was really cool just to think of it in that way of are all worshiping the same God, even the ones that are spewing a lot of hate towards other Christians right

Brian Recker (18:14)
Wow.

Alexis Rice (18:28)
whatever.

Brian Recker (18:27)
I love that idea that it's

get more, not less a lot of times in deconstruction, it's true. You do end up with a bigger God. I think that's a really great way to think about it. And deconstruction sounds like you're losing things in some ways, but I actually feel like I've gained so much. It's not that I've cut people off. I have a more expansive view of where God can be at work. I'm starting a conference with a friend of mine, she's a queer black woman who

Alexis Rice (18:31)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Brian Recker (18:50)
grew up in IHOP and has a lot of experience in like conference world and in spaces where, you know, giving like words and doing worship and all that stuff. And like, we were feeling like a lot of times in the deconstruction and progressive space, we've given up on like worship because it seems corny or even it seems evangelical, you know?

And because we were given this paradigm where really worship happened this one particular way by this one group of people and you had to have your theology this particular way and you can access God directly through this one particular narrow way. And I just think that you're getting worship all wrong. Like worship is human. To me, God is for everybody. And I think that was fundamental to even what Jesus was saying. Like the whole idea of even the veil being torn, this idea that like there's no more gatekeeping of God.

Jesus' critique of the temple system, you know, when he turned over the tables, he said this was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations. it was supposed to become more always had this more expansive vision. And then when you look into the New Testament after that, the early church, that was their whole mission was, wow, God's, it's the Gentiles. Like, that's everybody. And even this vision of, you know, Peter received this food, not being unclean

And God said, don't call common I have made clean. And Peter said, God revealed to me that that wasn't even about food. That was about people. no one, Peter says, no one is unclean. And it's crazy because I received a worldview from evangelicals that all kinds of people were unclean.

Alexis Rice (20:14)
Absolutely,

Brian Recker (20:15)
Peter says, God shows no partiality. This is not about, in other words, anyone can get in on this. God is for everybody. This more expansive view. I do think we have a bigger view of God. And as a result of having that narrow view of God, we did so much damage and we were so blind to what could have been gifts from other traditions. And instead we stamped them out and colonized tradition, like indigenous spirituality or black ancestral spirituality. And we've told them that

Alexis Rice (20:33)
Yes. Yes. Yep.

Brian Recker (20:40)
your roots are demonic, you have to get in on our way of things, because we're the only one that has the keys to heaven and hell. Your way is going to hell, our way is going to heaven. That mindset of superiority creates incredible separation ultimately, I think you're actually blotting out the work of the Holy Spirit all around the world.

Alexis Rice (20:59)
Yes,

yes, the work of the Holy Spirit. mean, to think that we have the corner on understanding the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is only with like this select group of people, which like evangelical American fundamentalist Christians are a tiny sliver of the world's two plus billion Christians, it's just one lens.

want to talk about your new book, Hell Bent So why did you write this book and why did you write this book now?

Brian Recker (21:25)
So hell always, always bothered me, hell.

Alexis Rice (21:30)
it always bothered me.

Brian Recker (21:30)
about the majority

of people who ever lived suffering forever. I don't know why it just rubs me the wrong way, Alexis, I guess I'm just built

Alexis Rice (21:40)
not that pleasant to think about.

Brian Recker (21:41)
before my earliest memories began, I was told that I would stand before God one day and because of my sins, I would deserve to go to hell unless I got saved in the particular way that I was told to get I made a decision to become a Christian, to be born again, to accept Jesus into my heart.

You know, whatever you want to call it. That happened to me when I was five years old and hell was definitely a part of that decision. And, I talk to people a lot now in my little book tour that I've been going on. Whenever I have a group together, I say, hey, if you've ever been saved, if you've ever been born again, accepted Jesus into your heart, if that's ever happened, you stand up. And typically the group that I'm talking to, just about the whole group will stand up. They've had that experience.

And then I'll say, okay, if when you made that decision, you knew about hell, it was a part of your mental model for God. And it was your understanding that unless you were born again, unless you were converted, unless you were saved, you would go to hell, remain standing. And typically everybody remains standing. In other words, the decision to be born again, to be converted, whatever, that was connected to not going to hell at some level. And then I'll say, okay, if that happened to you before you were 10 years old, remain standing. And again, typically,

it's like 80 to 90 percent of the people are still standing up in a lot of the groups that I talk to. And so my book in some ways, especially the first part, is really just about what happened to us and how that affected us. Because for me, that idea was not just one particular doctrine. That really shaped my understanding of what it meant to be a Christian and why we should be Christians.

Alexis Rice (23:14)
Mm

Brian Recker (23:14)
And

ultimately, I just don't see how if you believe in hell, how that can't become central because if you actually believe that everybody who doesn't believe like you is going to burn forever, then that does become your number one spiritual priority. It should. And what I was raised in, in fundamentalism, it was much more explicit. I was raised where this was front and center in hellfire and brimstone sort of environments like Bob Jones University, where hell was very much front of mind.

that we were trying to save the world from hell, essentially, by evangelism, and that sort of thing. I tell a story in the book. When I was at Bob Jones, before we would go home on breaks, where we would be spending time with family members or unsaved friends, Dr. Bob, our university president, would have us all recite this mantra. We would all stand up, the whole student body would stand up, and we would all repeat together in unison, the most sobering reality in the world today.

is that people are dying and going to hell today. And I felt that shit in my gut. and how, if you believe in hell, then yes, of course that's true. It felt unquestionably true. If I, if I believed in this and I said that I did, and to me, you know, heaven and hell was a package deal. If I believe in Jesus, the whole thing hinged on Jesus saving us from what? He's a savior. Savior from what? Savior from hell. And so I believed in hell.

And if I was going to say I believed in that, then how could I not feel that weight? And so there was a lot of guilt. And also it really shaped my spirituality. And so when I began to deconstruct hell, and especially when I began to study what the Bible actually said about hell, I realized that the Bible does not actually clearly lay out a doctrine of hell, and actually so much of what we've been told to believe about hell is not really from the Bible at all. And it was like, well,

Alexis Rice (24:58)
Spoiler

alert.

Brian Recker (24:59)
Why are we believing this obviously horrible thing if the Bible doesn't even demand it? Well, I'll tell you why, because our whole theological system demanded it. And I didn't know how to just uproot hell out of my faith because if there's no hell, why did Jesus die? What's the point of being a Christian? Why does any of this matter if there's no hell? I felt those questions and I had to work through a lot of that. And what I found when I would begin talking online about how I didn't believe in a literal hell,

Alexis Rice (25:05)
Yeah.

Brian Recker (25:26)
I would get those questions from many people. They would say, well, if there's no hell, why did Jesus live? What's the point of Jesus? Why did Jesus die? etc. etc. And I realized, wow, this is way more fundamental for people. And we need to go beyond where some of the previous books have gone. So I love Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, is a great book. There's been other books as well about hell,

Love wins kind of teased the idea of universalism as a possibility and as a result he got cancelled completely out of evangelicalism. You know, for even really kind of suggesting, hey, what if maybe God doesn't condemn people through eternal torture? It's, hey, just throwing it out there, you know? And they were like, yeah, fuck you, get out of here. We don't want you around here. Cancelled forever. Go to hell.

I realized that we need to go beyond that because for a lot of people, Christianity is really inseparable from this afterlife based religion. the spirituality that I received in evangelicalism was not one that was based on the flourishing of this world and the people in it and the planet that we live on. It was about the afterlife.

And I realized that one of the things I think for a lot of people, they throw away Christianity and their deconstruction because Christianity is really an afterlife religion. It's a death cult. It's apocalyptic. It's about, we got to save everybody before Jesus comes back. And as a result, don't really care about the flourishing of the planet because this world is going to burn. They don't really even care about social justice in the world because

Social justice, yeah, giving somebody that's hungry a sandwich sounds great, but if that person dies and goes to hell, who cares if you filled their belly if they didn't actually get saved, right? And so it ultimately becomes an afterlife-focused religion. And I realized I don't want a spirituality unless it shows us how to live in this world for the sake of this world, for the sake especially of the most vulnerable in this world. That's what I wanted. But ultimately I realized that was the message of Jesus.

The message of Jesus was not an afterlife death cult. The message of Jesus was the kingdom of God, which was what would it look like to live in this world if love was in charge? And what does it look like to live out of that for the sake of the least of these? And so I felt like I've become more Christian since I've deconstructed hell and grown closer to the message of Jesus But I realized a big reframe was necessary. And so, yeah, in my conversations with people deconstructing, there's a million

Alexis Rice (27:43)
Yep.

Brian Recker (27:51)
issues that they have, LGBT, you know, stuff is big, obviously. church hurt church abuse and sex abuse within the church. Purity culture is a big, like there's all kinds of issues, but foundationally, just in like, why be a Christian at all? Like, what is this whole thing kind of about? I realized hell was really just very, very fundamental. And so I kind of wanted to start there and...

So I was a little worried that writing a book about hell was going to be too niche, but I have realized that if you are wrestling with any kind of Christianity, not even just conservative, progressive Christians as well, very many progressive Christians I've realized who were even raised in like the PC USA or the Episcopal Church still received a binary way of thinking that you were in or you were out, you were a Christian or you're a non-Christian. And if you're not a Christian, then our prime directive is to kind of get you to become a Christian. Why is that? Well, because otherwise you go to hell.

Alexis Rice (28:45)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Recker (28:46)
I think that that creates, a lot of problems. It creates a spirituality of separation and superiority, and it causes you to enter into relationships very unlike the way that Jesus entered them. And so, yeah, that's why I wrote my

Alexis Rice (28:56)
Mmm, tell me more about that.

I think the first time that I had heard that there were different schools of thought about Hell within the Bible, I was in my 30s. And I don't understand how that's possible because I spent my entire life in church more conservative, more fundamentalist. I didn't know that's what they were called. I just thought I was in church spaces.

I think one of the problems for people who want to try to deconstruct this is that that's terrifying to do, Because you're like, I'm not allowed to question that. I'm not going to risk going to hell by disassembling that belief and just letting it go. think what's really important

Brian Recker (29:31)
It really is like the ultimate

control mechanism. You can't question it because the stakes are just too high.

Alexis Rice (29:35)
Yes?

Yeah, mean like eternity burning doesn't really sound like anything I could compromise with, right? So it's like, how do you even start there? ⁓ And instead of just being able to say, well, I let it go, that's not what you're saying in this book, you're actually arguing from a Christian standpoint that there are many ways to look at how the Bible talks about Hell right?

Brian Recker (29:57)
I think it's a metaphor. And so the question is, well, what is this about? And I think one of the real problems with American Christianity is they don't understand the power of symbols and metaphors. They do make everything kind of woodenly literal. They do this with atonement theory as well. They want a formula. they love systematic theology. They want the whole thing to tie together. You know, Jesus didn't teach systematic theology.

Alexis Rice (30:00)
Mmm.

Brian Recker (30:21)
Jesus didn't have a statement of faith for his disciples to sign on to. Jesus didn't teach any dogmas at all, actually. He didn't say like, here's the things that you're supposed to believe. He didn't do that. He fought for the vulnerable. And he pointed people when they asked, well, what do you need to believe? What's the central thing? Like, what's the main thing? When people came in with that question, he answered the same way every single time. He whittled it all down to love. He said the whole law in the prophets was really just about loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself.

It's about the golden rule. It's about doing to others what you'd have them do unto you. That is the law and the prophets. In other words, that's what the whole thing is about. He did not teach sort of these dogmatic beliefs, but you need that. mean, in the Western mind, we want this sort of tidy system. And we don't understand that a lot of these evocative metaphors like

Apocalyptic hyperbole is I would call how hell is used. And we see it in the Old Testament prophets. It's so interesting how evangelicals, because it is all based on what their system demands. So when you read Revelation, they can tell like, that's a symbol, that's a symbol, that's a metaphor. There's not an actual dragon. I get it. Like the beast is not a real beast. Like these are metaphors. But then you get to the lake of fire and they're like, yeah, those guys are going to really burn for real. And it's like, no, this is an apocalyptic metaphor. But what are we talking about? And for the most part,

Alexis Rice (31:29)
Yep.

Brian Recker (31:33)
I think that most of these metaphors are about life in this world, because that's what spirituality is about. Spirituality is not about the next world, it's about this world. It's about how we're living right now. It's about the kinds of societies we're creating and how we're treating each other. I really think that that's what the metaphor of hell is about. It is about chickens coming home to roost. I do believe that there are real natural consequences for our actions in this world. Like, for example, if you...

continually extract more from the earth than it produces and we treat it like a commodity to be exploited, then yes, we will in fact reap what we sow on this planet in this world. And that will be hell. And if you create a culture that's based in violence where you might have more wealth than any culture in the history of the world, but you spend that wealth not on healthcare, but on bombs to bomb people in other countries that are poor. Yeah.

that violence will come home to roost on you as well. Like I do think that that is the kinds of things that Jesus was talking about when Jesus was talking about hell.

Alexis Rice (32:33)
Hmm.

It brings up a lot. This stuff is really deep, this is not surface stuff. we were wired like this as brains were formed in a certain of people have had to put that away put it in a box and aside But what I love is that you're just saying, no, let's tackle this head on. this is really important to work through.

I love about this is I think it's gonna reach a lot of people to say, hey, you know what, there's a lot of ways to look at hell. One of the things that helped me a lot when people would say, ⁓ the Bible is really black and white about hell, like hell's all over the Bible. if you learn that in the English translation, that's correct, But in the original languages, there are four different words that the English translators just decided made.

a literal decision that we're just going to connect these as all one thing. But then you start Gehenna and Tartarus and Sheol. these are actually different concepts that take place in different times. And so once you start unraveling that a little bit, don't have to be like, well, it's all just bullshit. You can actually start trying to understand the context. what I think is most important about what you talked about with Jesus is

Brian Recker (33:36)
Right.

Alexis Rice (33:44)
When you re go look at the gospels and you see Jesus talking about hell and you replace it with Gehenna, which is the only word that he used, right? Like how does that change the gospels for

Brian Recker (33:54)
Totally.

my chapter, Hell on Earth, in the book, I spend the most time talking about Gehenna I kind of talk about what the Bible says about hell. the Old Testament really doesn't have anything to say about hell. Sheol is the word used in the Old Testament that's often translated hell, but that just means death, the grave. It's not a place of torture or judgment. It actually, even the good people go there, right? So there was no concept of a punishing afterlife. In the New Testament,

Most of the doctrine of hell comes from a couple verses in Revelation that are apocalyptic hyperbole, but then you take those images of fire, which are again, like these apocalyptic fire images, which are not meant to be taken literally. And if you put that onto some of the sayings of Jesus, then you can kind of make this amalgamation and come up with the doctrine of hell, which then you supply some imagery from medieval times to kind of accentuate the flames, that sort of thing from Dante. But what Jesus talked about was Gehenna.

And so a lot of times preachers will say, well, Jesus talked about hell more than anybody. But as you mentioned, actually, if Gehenna wasn't hell, then he didn't talk about hell at all. He talked about Gehenna more than anybody. But what did he mean by Gehenna? And let me just give you like my two minute answer to that. Jesus didn't come up with that metaphor. First of all, Gehenna is the valley of Hinnom. That's what that means. It's a real ass valley outside of Jerusalem. And the first person to use the metaphor of the valley of Hinnom as a place of judgment was Jeremiah.

Jeremiah said that the Valley of Hinnom would become a valley of slaughter because the Babylonians were going to destroy Jerusalem and the temple and they would slaughter so many people that the bodies would be stacked in the Valley of Hinnom Jeremiah was very metal. This is apocalyptic. It's horrible, but he's not talking about what happens in the afterlife. He was talking about what was about to happen in their lives with judgment coming, not in the form of an afterlife torture chamber,

but in the form of Babylon's armies. Now fast forward 400 years and Jesus also spoke to people on the brink of societal collapse. A lot of people don't think about this. 40 years after the life of Jesus, Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed for the second time in history. The first time was by the Babylonians right after Jeremiah prophesied. The second time was after Jesus by the Romans in AD 70. Matthew's gospel.

was written primarily to Jewish people who had survived that apocalyptic destruction of Jerusalem. The diasporic Jews was who Matthew wrote his gospel to. And he wrote it within 10 years of the destruction of Jerusalem. Most scholars think somewhere around the end of the 70s, Matthew wrote that gospel. In other words, this gospel was written to people who had literally just watched their temple and their city burned to the ground. Now, in the lips of Jesus, you have these warnings, unless you change your ways.

Gehenna will be upon you, right? And Jesus actually explicitly connects that to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem multiple times, basically saying that upon this generation, that destruction is going to come. And yes, so he uses this same metaphor that Jeremiah uses. And the historian Josephus tells us that actually when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, that bodies were actually stacked in the Valley of Gehenna because so many people were slaughtered there. And so...

A lot of times this language, sounds like the end of the world and it's because it was the end of their world. Their culture was destroyed. They lost their temple. Their civilization was wiped out. How do you make sense of that? You need a word that's stacked with some metaphorical urgency like Gehenna, like hell. But this is again, not talking about the consequences of how God is going to punish you in the afterlife. It was talking about how our actions return on us in this life. And they did not create a society that reflected

the love and welcome of God. And as a result, they experienced judgment, not in the afterlife, but in this life, natural consequences for the kinds of worlds that we create. And honestly, I see that when I look at the world right now and I think about the kind of world that we tolerate and create, that we have more guns than people in America. And then we wonder, hell is in the afterlife? No, no, Hell, hell was in Annunciation Church in Minnesota when

Alexis Rice (37:57)
you

Brian Recker (38:02)
Children are running for their lives and being shot in the very place where they're supposed to be safe. That's hell. Hell is in a classroom where kids are hiding from an active shooter because we have just decided that we're just okay with this happening. And so there are natural consequences and usually that violence falls on the most vulnerable, unfortunately. And so hell is an urgent thing. I do think it's meant to ask us, are we creating a society that reflects the love of God, especially for the least of these or not?

Alexis Rice (38:16)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Recker (38:30)
Because Jesus longed for us to build the kingdom of God, a kingdom of love, and instead, often we allow Gehenna in our lived experience.

Alexis Rice (38:34)
Hmm.

Hmm.

I'm sitting with that a minute because...

I don't think there's been a time in my life, I don't know about you, but I've never seen so many examples of people around us who are vulnerable, being oppressed, being demonized, not being cared for. often, so weirdly, it's the people who are doing this oppression are our brothers and sisters in Christ, the people that raised us, the people that

taught us about the love of Jesus. And so it's disorienting and jarring, I think, for a lot of us who are trying to understand what's going on right now in society do want to know about that because a lot of people feel now. A lot of people feel like

It's too much. I've just got to tune out the injustice. I've just got to tune happening around me. I just got to live my life and just keep going. And I actually do think that Jesus has a lot to say about that, about, like if you want to follow me, this is not really optional. You're supposed to look up and look around and care for the marginalized. That's part of your job. And so I'm just curious about

what you can do and what you can inspire others to do terms of when we see injustices in this moment.

Brian Recker (39:56)
I think we all have different spheres and callings and gifts to contribute. For me, yeah, writing this book and challenging the church to focus on these things is a big part of that. have three children and so trying to instill some of these things in them and help them to kind of see a different way of viewing the world. I have sons and so, you know, teaching them about the patriarchy and straight white male privilege and hoping that they kind of understand that they are going to

have that kind of privilege in the world and stewarding it well is a big part of that. I think being a part of a community, know, none of us do this alone in isolation. I do think that's where the church can actually play a huge role. The church for so many of us has been like the place that you're supposed to go you are supposed to give to and kind of the main event or mission of the church is to get as many people converted as possible and that sort of thing. But I do think the church can also be

an outpost of the kingdom of God that shows the world what it can look like when people really care for each other. You know, the early church, when they put like the message of Jesus into practice, they were like, okay, Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, Jesus is gone now. What does that look like? What are we supposed to do? I don't know exactly, but like, here's a good way to start. Let's sell all of our possessions distribute as to any head need and care for the poor.

And when they began to be more inclusive of Gentiles, actually, and Paul was like, you know what? I don't even think they need to get circumcised. I think we can just get rid of some of these exclusionary rituals and rules because this whole thing isn't about rituals and rules that gatekeep God. This is for anybody. Anybody can get in on this. And they're like, whoa, this is radical. But they were like, you know what, Paul, do you remember this in the Jerusalem Council when they agreed? They were like, OK, Paul, you do your thing. The one thing that we ask is that you make sure that you care for the poor.

Now imagine that, imagine that in evangelicalism, like somebody was like, you know what, we're changing our mind on some of these core doctrines. We're no more hell, like we're going to be radically inclusive. We're going to welcome gay people. We're going do it. And imagine that like the head honchos in evangelicalism were like, man, that's crazy. We never thought of that. But as you guys are still going to care for the poor, right? Cause that's like the main thing that we do. And they're like, yeah, totally. We're not going to forget about the poor. All right, carry on. That's literally like what happened in that,

Alexis Rice (41:42)
Yes!

Brian Recker (42:08)
And I do think that the church can still be like this radical outpost of not only radical inclusivity, but also mutual aid where we care for one another, especially the least of these in our communities. And so just being a part of that, I think is being a part of something. So not everybody's going to be a poster. Like that's obviously, I communicate, I'm a communicator. I'm still kind of a preacher, even though I'm not a pastor. But not all of us are meant to use our platforms in that particular way.

I do think we're at a moment right now in our society where silence is complicity. it does seem to me, especially if you are a Christian, then to me, if it, one of my biggest challenges I'll often talk about is to the evangelical pastors who, I don't think the majority of evangelical pastors are Trump supporters actually.

I just think they're quiet about it as most of the people in Trump supporters because they don't want to rock the boat. They don't want to lose giving, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think now is a time to speak up, especially if you have influence within that community. Because unfortunately, evangelical Christians are shaping a country that is inhospitable to the least of these right now. They're using their influence for really nefarious ends. And so I do think we have a responsibility to both be a part of communities that look different than that and also to speak out against that.

Alexis Rice (43:19)
And you do that. you've built this really authentic and thoughtful presence online where you've cultivated this immense following something is resonating, Clearly. what I love about your presence online is that curiosity is still central to you and you are motivated to call out injustice when you see it.

just like Jesus did. So I feel like you model a lot of what you do off of the Jesus that we've been talking about in this episode. And I just love to know about what motivates you to keep showing up online and keep doing this content creation what conversations are resonating most with the people who you interact with online.

Brian Recker (44:03)
Well, you know, in the last year, I think there's been just a really massive vibe shift I started doing this a few years ago when I actually thought like, naively, I thought that we were going to take some steps in positive directions as a country. I thought Trump was maybe going to be in the rearview mirror. You know, he had already been president and things were looking brighter.

it seems like we've taken a massive step backward. And in this last year, I think there's a lot of despair, actually. I think people are feeling really overwhelmed, which is so real. Like I feel pretty overwhelmed as well. I do think that also it is an opportunity because I think that they are in some ways overplaying their hand.

Yeah, it's so blatantly non-Christian. You know what I'm saying? I mentioned this earlier to you it's not like you have to stretch to be like, you know, this seems like some of the things you're doing are contrary to the way of Jesus. Like it feels really obscenely blatant. And as a result, I think it's an opportunity for us to create a very clear contrast because their masks are like off. They're saying the quiet part out loud. And as a result, I think the real Jesus will shine more brightly in contrast.

If we put that on display, so I think that's like a cool opportunity right now and why I think my voice is kind of continuing to resonate is because I'm like refusing to to cede Jesus, I guess. still like very politically active and I'm talking about all that stuff, but I try to center the fact. And you don't have to talk about, like if you're not a Jesus person, like that's fine. I don't think that's the only way to approach this. Like you can be...

Alexis Rice (45:30)
Yeah.

Brian Recker (45:31)
a good spiritual person, you can be contributing to the wellbeing and the flourishing of the world. And it has nothing to do with the Christian religion or Jesus. Like my girlfriend, for example. ⁓

Alexis Rice (45:41)
Yeah, and my husband, we

talked about this before. very much believe that if you have, other beliefs about love and about other things in the world is so much beauty and flourishing with other people.

Brian Recker (45:52)
And I've learned so much from even her wisdom and the way that

she's gotten to some of the same values I've gotten to from a different pathway. At the end of the day though, Jesus to me is that embodiment of love. And I think for many of us, we have deconstructed a lot of the toxic elements of American Christianity, but as a result, we've gotten to fall maybe even more in love with who Jesus was because he stands in such great contrast to so much of what's been

done and what we've seen. And so I do think it's as horrible as like the darkness is. It is like a moment where I do think the real Jesus does shine pretty brightly in that start contrast

Alexis Rice (46:28)
A friend of mine who's Buddhist was talking about how lotus flowers grow, lotus flowers grow from the mud. So beauty comes from love it.

Brian Recker (46:33)
Wow.

Alexis Rice (46:38)
All right. As we're wrapping up here,

podcasts books scholars, what are things that you recommend? I'm going to start with Hellbent coming out on September 30th. 

Brian Recker (46:47)
Yeah, and I do hope people read

the footnotes because I tried to quote and cite a lot of I'm not just making up things. I am really pulling from liberation theologians and mystical theologians that point to more expansive, liberative way of viewing Jesus and Christianity. I didn't make this up. I am organizing it, I think, in a particular way to talk to specific questions, especially for those of us who are deconstructing from evangelical fear-based religion.

But for me, some of my favorite theologians and scholars, James Cone The Cross and the Lynching Tree, has been really pivotal for me a way of holding on to what the cross still means. So have a chapter in there about why did Jesus die if there's no hell? And I think for a lot of us that the cross is really just about this sort of formulaic transaction about like, okay, at the moment of Jesus's death in the metaphysical realm, God took your ledger of sin debt and moved it over onto Jesus. ⁓

man, I thought my hands were tied and I had to punish you, but now I don't have to punish you because I'm punishing Jesus instead. But I had to punish somebody to be clear. Like that was the way we learned the cross. And I think that's bullshit, first of all, but then it's like, well, what does it mean? Right? And I parallel that James Cone draws to tree of the American South helps us see the cross as not just kind of this

sort of metaphysical thing, but really it's just what empire always does to the least of these. And Jesus standing with the scapegoats of history in that way is really powerfully portrayed by that book. another theologian that's worth looking into is Marcus Borg has been really helpful for me personally. He has a bunch of books. He's been prolific. he has one called The Heart of Christianity, which is a really simple book about

what this particular progressive theologian would say is at the heart of Christianity. And I found that a really simple telling. Also, he has a book called Jesus, a New Vision, which is great.

another book, you it's not really a Christian book, but bell hook's All About Love, I found to be really helpful and formative for me. She's a black feminist scholar and her stuff on love really helped me understand love and God is love, right? And I want a spirituality of love.

Alexis Rice (48:27)
Yep.

Yes. ⁓

Brian Recker (48:42)
I was always told that like, yeah, God is love, but God is also just, right? And you kind of tamper down God's love and you add in punishment because God also sends people to hell. So that means love can send people to hell. But it's like, I think we're doing it all wrong. Actually, if God is love, then no, actually, think God sends people to hell because God is love. And so starting like, well, what is love? bell hooks book, All About Love, even though it's not explicitly theological, if God is love, then a book about love is actually theological.

Alexis Rice (49:07)
Absolutely. I tell my kids that too sometimes when they're like, I can't feel God. I can't hear God's voice, right? They're kids and you can't be like, yes, you can. I've felt it. Like, no, such a beautiful like raw thing to say. And I start with like, well, do know what love feels like? Right? Like, have you ever felt and experienced love? And I'm like, that is God, right? Like that is that feeling. So I love it too. I love it. And bell hooks is amazing as well.

Brian Recker (49:17)
Listen to love.

Boom.

Love that.

Alexis Rice (49:33)
We're going to go for a lightning round. A Christian-ese phrase that you wish that we would retire.

Brian Recker (49:39)
love the sinner, hate the sin. Obviously. Easy. Horrible.

Alexis Rice (49:43)
it's horrible, it's right?

Brian Recker (49:45)
I do

like to flip it on them and say like, you know, I agree with that. You know, hate the conservative-ism and love the conservative, right?

Alexis Rice (49:52)
There you go. That's great. What's a Christianie saying that you find yourself still using and liking?

Brian Recker (49:59)
⁓ no. Yeah, you know, I still talk about blessings, you know? I'm feeling hashtag blessed.

Alexis Rice (50:07)
something that connects you to church and community.

Brian Recker (50:10)
Well, I mentioned singing, so I'll just mention that again. I feel like we should not see, like we can't just say evangelicals own music. Like that's bullshit. Like if you're a progressive, can we have some good fucking music, please? Like let's again. Together. I want to join my voices together, not because it's Christian, because it's human.

Alexis Rice (50:22)
Yes, please!

Let's ask Beyonce, John Legend, John Bautize all these Christians just make a Christian album for us, make a worship album because you're all a Christian. Yes, we want to sing along. a Bible verse that still means something to you.

Brian Recker (50:35)
I wanna sing again.

the central one for my book is, you know, that there's no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment. That kind of says whole thing that my book is about, like right there. that verse alone, I think, cancels out most of evangelical theology because their theology has to do with punishment, which means it's fear-based.

Alexis Rice (50:58)
your favorite memory of youth group as a kid.

Brian Recker (51:01)
you know, I actually when I was in fundamentalist youth are obsessed with like the end times. I was obsessed with the end times. So we would like just be laying out revelation and mapping out all these like goofy things. And I actually like, I loved that because it was just like this geeky shit. I don't believe any of it now, the way that we processed it, but ⁓ I actually really got into that at the time.

Alexis Rice (51:22)
I love it so much. Brian Recker, thank you so much for being on the sacred slope today.

Brian Recker (51:27)
Thank you for having me, Alexis.

Alexis Rice (51:34)
Thank you for being with us today on the Sacred Slope. If you'd like to nominate a pastor, priest or reverend, send me an email at Alexis@thesacredslope.com. Music was by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin and Sean Spence. I'm Alexis Rice, your host. may the fruit of the spirit guide you this week.

Go in peace, friends.