26. Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (Bible Scholar) – Wrestling with Scripture Beyond Literalism

🎙️ 26. Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (Bible Scholar) – Wrestling with Scripture Beyond Literalism

When “Bible-believing” meant literalism and inerrancy, many of us thought that was the only Christian option. Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw—New Testament scholar, professor, and church practitioner—opens the door to a bigger, older, more beautiful Christian story. We unpack why inerrancy & literalism are relatively recent (1800s) theologies, how the Bible’s genres invite deeper reading, what Revelation is actually doing, and how multiple atonement models live inside the tradition.

What we cover

• Inerrancy & literalism as modern control theologies
 • Reading the Bible as literature: genres + context
 • Atonement models 101: moral exemplar, Christus Victor, satisfaction → penal substitution
 • Revelation as apocalyptic resistance literature (and why the rapture isn’t in Revelation)
 • Practical tips for finding Jesus-centered churches today
 • Learning to think in stories not isolated verses
• Jennifer’s forthcoming Serving Up Scripture (with @abhigashi)

💡 Key takeaways

• Wrestling with Scripture is ancient & holy work
 • The rapture is a 19th-century doctrinal system, not a Revelation doctrine
 • Center Jesus when doctrines conflict
 • You’re not alone — many scholars make Scripture accessible without dumbing it down

⛪ About our guest

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (@jgbashaw) is a New Testament scholar & professor who also serves in congregational ministry — bridging academy + church with clarity, courage, and compassion.

📚 Resources mentioned

@thebiblefornormalpeople (Bible Scholar Pete Enns @peteenns + former pastor Jared Byas @jaredbyas)
 Homebrewed Christianity @theologynerd (host @trippfuller)
 @maklelan – Bible Scholar and podcast host, Data Over Dogma
 @abhigashi – co-author and Bible Scholar
 @crosspointecary – church where Jennifer preaches
 @derekwebb – songwriter mentioned

🔎 Episode highlights

“Nowhere does the Bible say you must read this literally or that every word is inerrant.”
 “Genres matter. Reading apocalyptic like a newspaper guarantees you’ll miss the point.”
 “If a church talks more about the inerrancy of the Bible than the way of Jesus, pause.”
 “Think in stories, not isolated proof-texts.”

Transcript

Alexis Rice (00:00)
Okay, so I know you're like blowing some people's minds right now. I know it's very normal to you, but you just said, sorry, it's just so funny. you mentioned literalism, and those are words that like we just thought came with being a Christian, a lot of us in evangelical spaces. Like you have to believe that or you're not a Christian. So then,

You just said, no, no, you can definitely be a Christian. And in fact, a lot of Bible scholars who have done this work. can you just unpack that why is that. Why is this not just complete heresy and off the rocker, which is what our families and close Christian friends will tell us when we're trying to look at these types of churches that we're not doing a Christian thing.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (00:45)
the thing to start with, I think, is that the word and the concept of inerrancy and a literal interpretation of the Bible are newer phenomenon. I mean, from the 1800s, mid 1800s. So this is not the way Christianity has always been. It is not what Christians have always thought about the Bible, nor is it what the Bible claims about itself.

Nowhere does the Bible say you must read this literally and every word is inerrant. It doesn't say that. People will pull a couple of scriptures to try to defend that theology, but that's just what it is, a theology, something that humans came up with probably to control people, probably to be like, it's much easier to get people to do what you want when you say, this is the way that the Bible has to be read.

and you listen to what I say about the Bible and do what I say about the Bible, right? Instead of encouraging people to wrestle with all the different voices that are in the Bible, all the different kinds of literature in the Bible, we forget that there are, we call it genres, different genres of literature in the Bible, most of which should never be read literally. It's just taking things literally means you miss all these levels of-

meaning what the authors intended. so when people say, you know, if you don't take the Bible literally, or if you don't think the Bible is inerrant you're not a Christian, they're parroting what they've been told, what's been passed down as tradition from the are not talking about the Bible with the Bible's own words, So, I mean, personally, I think people who take the Bible for its

contextual history for its of literature are doing a much better job of reading the Bible than people who are saying it's inerrant or people who are saying that you have to take it literally. And so, yeah, it kind of makes me laugh, in a sad way when people say, I'm such a liberal or you shouldn't listen to me because I, don't think the Bible is inerrant because I say, no, I kind of feel the one that's interpreting the Bible.

badly you're not following the way that even Jesus read his own scriptures, So yeah, makes me laugh that that happens, but it's true that there's so many people that think because that's what they've been taught, that can't be Christian outside of this particular way of interpreting the Bible. So it's kind of scary to think about.

Alexis Rice (03:14)
Welcome to the Sacred Slope. I'm Alexis Rice. And today, buckle up friends, we're heading into the world of biblical scholarship with Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw When I first learned the differences between a pastor's master of divinity, which trains you to shepherd people,

and an academic path in biblical studies, which trains you to analyze languages, history, genres, and interpretations. It really blew my mind. For a long time, a lot of the scholarship, it lived in classrooms and conferences, but today more scholars are opening their work to all of us online. And I'm so grateful. So a fair warning.

This is not for folks who only want simple answers, especially for those of us who grew up in more evangelical, conservative, fundamentalist spaces. We were given really simple answers that we thought were the only ways to interpret the Bible in the correct way.

I've heard pastors talk about other pastors they know who say that they avoid confusing their congregation by opening up the Bible's many voices, genres, and interpretive options. And I get that, but I really think that's quite a disservice to us. Why do they think that we can't handle

complexity, why do they think that we want just simple sound bites and really quick answers and really tied up packaging in a bow? Like this faith is messy and it's complicated and people argue about it. And that's why we don't have just one way of looking at this. This is why we've had thousands of denominations. People don't agree on what the Bible says and that is So here on the sacred slope,

We really believe that wrestling with scripture is holy work. It actually comes from a Jewish tradition. rabbis wrestle with the scripture, with each other and it's holy work. It's beautiful work and it's okay to do that. It's important that we do did you know that some closed case issues are not so closed? I'm going to give you some examples.

Why did Jesus die? Okay, many of us were raised on something that we didn't know that was called penal substitutionary atonement theory, but it's one model and it's not the only one. The church has long engaged in other lenses too, like Christus Victor, where God defeats the powers of sin and death or the moral exemplar, where Jesus shows the way of love. There's ransom theory and satisfaction theory. What about hell?

across Christian history, you're going to find multiple schools of thought. Yeah, there's eternal conscious torment, which is what we just thought hell was a lot of us. But there's also annihilationism, which is where the wicked are destroyed rather than tormented forever. And there's universal reconciliation theory, which God ultimately restores all things. What about Revelation and the rapture?

Okay, we thought that because of left behind books the rapture is just a done deal, that is what the Bible says. But Revelation is actually this apocalyptic literature full of symbols for first century Christians living under empire. The famous 666, it likely points to Nero via ancient number coding. And the modern rapture scheme that was popularized in the 19th century, so think like John Nelson Darby,

It isn't in Revelation. Literalism and inerrancy, the specific modern formulations that many of us inherited took shape far more recently than Jesus or the apostles. The Bible itself contains poetry and parable and prophecy and apocalypse genres that invite something deeper than read every line the same way. Voices who have helped me on this journey include Bible scholars like Pete Enns,

and the Bible for Normal People team, Trip Fuller of Homebrewed Christianity, Aaron Higashi, Dan McClellan, who has a podcast data over dogma, and today's guest, Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bachaw So keep an open mind. That's my challenge to you today. If you were told there's only one faithful way to understand all this, it simply isn't true. The bigger, older,

more beautiful Christian story has room for honest questions and for rigorous study. God can handle your questions and your doubts, but the people around you may not be able to. So this is tough work, but I'm here on this journey with you and so are so many others. My own faith did not shrink as I learned this. It grew, it grew deeper, it grew kinder, it grew more courageous, and it grew to be more informed.

If you struggle to stay in spaces that won't acknowledge what scholars discuss, you're not alone. So I'm thrilled to introduce you to my conversation now with Dr. Jennifer Garcia-Bashaw. Let's dive in.

Alexis Rice (09:11)
Welcome back, friends. Today's guest is Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw Jennifer is a New Testament scholar, professor, author, and deeply trusted voice for those navigating their faith with honesty and courage. She holds a BA from Baylor University.

a master of divinity from Truett Theological Seminary a PhD in biblical studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. Jennifer serves as an associate professor of New Testament and Christian ministry in the College of Arts and Sciences at University in North Carolina, where she's shaping the next generation of faithfully and critically engaged Christian leaders. Hi, Jennifer. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (09:53)
Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Alexis Rice (09:55)
So I first met you actually several years ago at Theology Beer Camp, which is hosted by Tripp Fuller from Homebrewed Christianity in North Carolina. And it's basically an adult VBS is kind of what I would say with beer and with a lot of us who were going through very similar things. And then it was full of super incredible.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (10:09)
Maybe.

Alexis Rice (10:17)
Bible nerds, those of us who love learning about the Bible and amazing scholars like yourself that we could learn from have fellowship together. So it was an incredible time. What's something that that beer camp time

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (10:30)
I really loved it because, well, first of all, I tend to be around either like church people or Bible scholars. the people that were there were more theologians and philosophers, at least the people that were speaking. And so that was fun for me to kind of get out of my little bubble. But what struck me about the people that were attending was that they were so open and enthusiastic about

learning new things, about meeting new people. It was just a very accepting, loving vibe there, which I appreciated a

Alexis Rice (11:03)
I feel the same. One of the things that I just was so struck about you and why I really am so honored that you came on the podcast is because I, even though was a long time ago, like I've been able to follow your work over the years and I find you so brilliant. And I noticed you were like the only woman I had ever really heard speak in a scholarly way about the Bible and about scripture. we love our

White men, we do, but it's one perspective. love the way that you Bible feel more accessible to those of us who are not scholars, but this is very important

without dumbing it down. saying like, well, this is going to be too complicated. So let's simplify this. So you dignify our intelligence.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (11:45)
Yeah, I mean,

that's probably my number one goal in my career in life is to take academic Bible scholar stuff and make it easier to understand because I think a lot of scholars just assume that lay people aren't going to understand and so they don't share. And that just keeps that gap between what scholars are doing and what people are doing in the church big.

You know, so that's my goal in life.

Alexis Rice (12:14)
Well, you're doing it. People might also know you from your work with the Bible for Normal People, which has been such a for me and so many people I know. So that's the podcast and platform created by Pete Enns and Jared Byas. And you've contributed to some really powerful pieces. can you talk about what there is available for people?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (12:32)
Yeah, so because we have several different scholars, we tend to cover different materials. And I don't know how it worked out, but I tend to talk about things that have to do with sin and atonement more, or even like New Testament stuff more, because our scholars our nerds in residence. Like most of them are Old Testament. then Pete and Jared are both, well, Pete is definitely Old Testament. Jared leans Old Testament. And so I end up...

kind of being the one that does the New Testament stuff and sin and atonement. And I do think the atonement things that I've done, like there's one of the podcasts on atonement, there's several videos out there ⁓ that are like little short videos that I've done on atonement. They've been the most impactful, I think, for people as far as looking at the comments and how people are engaging with it because is something that we don't talk about in church. Like most churches just...

assume there's one way to think about salvation and sin so they don't teach all these different ways we have looked at it throughout history or all the different ways that the Bible talks about so I think that's probably the main road that I have taken with Bible for Normal People.

Alexis Rice (13:41)
I remember that when I went to beer camp and there was a whole section on PSA and I was like, what's PSA? because I had grown up and like, you you pray the sinner's prayer, that is the way. And if you hadn't prayed the sinner's prayer, it's just very, it's very obvious who's getting into heaven and who's going to hell for eternal conscious torment forever. Right. And so then when I learned there

I felt a little duped, to be honest, from a lot of my church experiences, like, man, I was one of those kids who was always trying to not check my brain at the door. I really wanted to learn and understand what is the what did Jesus come for and what is this Christian faith?

For someone who's never known that that's not the only way of being a Christian of believing, can you just kind of open that box a little bit for people?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (14:31)
Yeah, sure. I mean, I can start kind of talking about the New Testament that there are different, I like to call them motifs or themes the idea of salvation. In gospels, let's say, the theme to be much more about, kingdom of God and how God's priorities are different priorities and how Jesus comes to

sort of connect us to God's throughout time that showed up in a saying that when Jesus comes and he lives his life and he dies, all those things are showing us a couple of things how to live first of all, moral exemplar theory.

And then Jesus's death is showing us God's love and character. And so that's kind of one theme. And that's probably not a theme that gets emphasized much in churches, especially evangelical churches. But another theme is this idea that, Jesus comes to defeat the powers of sin, death and evil or Satan, depending on who you are talking about this theory. As actually,

You see strands of it in the gospels and in Revelation and Paul's letters. And the early church really liked this theory and we tend to call it Christus Victor theory now, atonement theory. And so that idea is sort of like good versus evil. God sends Jesus evil forever so that we're not under the power of sin and evil forever. Now.

I think this is a really important part of the way the Bible talks about salvation, a little incomplete and it's hard to follow when you say, okay, well, did Jesus really defeat evil? Because like there's a lot of evil around like what happens if that was supposed to be the battle, why are we still dealing with this? And so like most people will explain Jesus's death and resurrection were like the beginning of the end of sin and evil and death.

then it to fruition until Jesus comes back. And so that theory is very biblical. It just seems a little bit like there needs to be something else to explain in there because it doesn't end, right? We're still going with that. But then the one that kind of is behind penal substitutionary atonement, the earlier version of it was called Satisfaction that was from the like 11th century.

Anselm and like, he was just trying to figure out how to explain salvation in terms of the feudal system, like lords and serfs and all that, and how the lower people are supposed to give honor to the lords. and so he started explaining it that, God deserves honor and we have taken honor from God because of our sin. So Jesus had to die, you know, in order to, appease either.

God's honor or wrath. Sometimes they use wrath language. And so that eventually becomes the penal substitutionary atonement theory that does say, God basically sent God's own son to die in order to appease God's own wrath. So it kind of has a circular logic that Jesus takes our place, that we deserve to die because we've, you know, invoked God's wrath.

that becomes sort of the foundation for a lot of the evangelical explanation of the gospel, know, the tracks that we have and the way preach in revivals. That kind of becomes the foundation. And then after a while, because it's such a like an easy, simple, nicely wrapped package, I think that just became the dominant way that people talked about sin, salvation and atonement.

So much so that the other theories don't get very much play, except for maybe in some mainline denominations. Like Methodists tend to be Christus But in general, the like Christian culture way to explain salvation follows that satisfaction theory into penal substitutionary atonement theory. there are pieces of that in the Bible. I mean, especially in

Paul's writings, but what they do is they take these strands and they tie it up into this big bow that doesn't necessarily take all of its pieces from the Bible.

Alexis Rice (18:36)
I've noticed is if people are in their evangelical church spaces and they're like, I can't be here anymore for a million reasons, And then they're thinking like, well, if I go back to church, I don't want it to be that, right? So I'm looking for something else. But then we were also so warned about going down this slippery slope into heresy, into atheism, right?

That's why I call this the sacred slope is because no, this journey is actually a very sacred thing where God is with us the whole time and we're being more honest and we can learn and have a bigger, more beautiful faith than ever. Nonetheless, when we were taught that way, it's so ingrained that my question to you is for people who are potentially looking for a new church they don't want to go to a church that's like,

I don't want to hear about like fire and brimstone and this like fear of eternal conscious torment, are some other ways that people might talk about it in churches? So you mentioned that the United Methodists,

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (19:32)
there are different ways that churches go about doing this, I But maybe like the one that's becoming more popular right now is to focus on the life and teachings of Jesus and how Jesus was in the world and how we as followers of Jesus need to show up in the world. That's the one that I think that I would like to follow. The church that I work for now,

I chose very purposefully in our, about us what we believe, it talks about how we don't believe that God is condemning people to eternal torment. Like we actually say we don't believe in that version of hell, right? We believe in the way of Jesus and we want to follow that way. And I appreciate that focus so much because there's a lot in the Bible.

And not everything in the Bible is something that is a positive example, nor is it something that I think we should be following for all time. Some of it's very contextual, right? And so I love that to take the anchor in the Bible as being Jesus's life and teachings. I think that is a good way to go. I think a lot of churches are doing that. By the way, my church is called Crosspointe Church. Crosspointe has an E on the end.

Point E and it's in Cary, North Carolina and our online. So even if those of you are out there and you are not ready to get out into a different kind of church or a new church, you can start watching things online. I only preach four or five times a year there, but you can find my sermons, but the other sermons are so good. We have preachers total will preach. And so we all kind of rotate around this idea that

What Jesus does and says in the Bible is key, not these theologies have come to dominate evangelical Christianity, But there are other churches out there like us. I will say my brother lives in California. He lives in Camarillo and he's having a hard time finding a progressive church. That's not like all older people. Not that that's a bad thing, right? But he's younger.

And so it depends on where you live too, like if you could find a church that has this focus. But I found as far as denominations go, UCC churches tend to be good disciples of Christ. Some Methodist churches tend to be this like more, we're gonna focus on Jesus's teachings. Some Lutherans, E.C.L.A.

some Presbyterians. it's interesting how our denominations are split in different ways. And so it's just because you say, I'm going to a Presbyterian church. You don't necessarily know what you're getting. I will say people should do their homework before they go to a church, like get on their website and at the, we believe. I tend to look to see who's on staff. I go to a church that doesn't have any women on staff.

it's very important to me that both men and women are in ministry, that we work together. And so when I see a church that has all men on staff, I'm like, that's not maybe the place for me, right? So I just encourage people to do their homework on that.

Alexis Rice (22:27)
that's very practical And it is good that we have stuff online. I've noticed is that churches that are kind of like are vague for a reason, right? So you want to be looking for a church that's incredibly clear about what the values are.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (22:37)
Yeah, right, that's right, that's right. Yeah.

Mmm.

And if they

tend to mention the Bible more than Jesus, that should give you a little bit of a pause. Like if they talk a lot about the inerrancy of the Bible and all of that, then be on guard, because usually they have a very literalistic interpretation of the Bible, and they're centering the Bible maybe more as an idol than they are centering Jesus and Jesus' teaching. So yeah, look for that too.

Alexis Rice (23:13)
Okay, so I know you're like blowing some people's minds right now. I know it's very normal to you, but you just said, sorry, it's just so funny. you mentioned literalism, and those are words that like we just thought came with being a Christian, a lot of us in evangelical spaces. Like you have to believe that or you're not a Christian. So then,

You just said, no, no, you can definitely be a Christian. And in fact, a lot of Bible scholars who have done this work. can you just unpack that why is that. Why is this not just complete heresy and off the rocker, which is what our families and close Christian friends will tell us when we're trying to look at these types of churches that we're not doing a Christian thing.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (23:58)
the thing to start with, I think, is that the word and the concept of inerrancy and a literal interpretation of the Bible are newer phenomenon. I mean, from the 1800s, mid 1800s. So this is not the way Christianity has always been. It is not what Christians have always thought about the Bible, nor is it what the Bible claims about itself.

Nowhere does the Bible say you must read this literally and every word is inerrant. It doesn't say that. People will pull a couple of scriptures to try to defend that theology, but that's just what it is, a theology, something that humans came up with probably to control people, probably to be like, it's much easier to get people to do what you want when you say, this is the way that the Bible has to be read.

and you listen to what I say about the Bible and do what I say about the Bible, right? Instead of encouraging people to wrestle with all the different voices that are in the Bible, all the different kinds of literature in the Bible, we forget that there are, we call it genres, different genres of literature in the Bible, most of which should never be read literally. It's just taking things literally means you miss all these levels of-

meaning what the authors intended. so when people say, you know, if you don't take the Bible literally, or if you don't think the Bible is inerrant you're not a Christian, they're parroting what they've been told, what's been passed down as tradition from the are not talking about the Bible with the Bible's own words, So, I mean, personally, I think people who take the Bible for its

contextual history for its of literature are doing a much better job of reading the Bible than people who are saying it's inerrant or people who are saying that you have to take it literally. And so, yeah, it kind of makes me laugh, in a sad way when people say, I'm such a liberal or you shouldn't listen to me because I, don't think the Bible is inerrant because I say, no, I kind of feel the one that's interpreting the Bible.

badly you're not following the way that even Jesus read his own scriptures, So yeah, makes me laugh that that happens, but it's true that there's so many people that think because that's what they've been taught, that can't be Christian outside of this particular way of interpreting the Bible. So it's kind of scary to think about.

Alexis Rice (26:22)
it's very helpful to be hearing it from you, who spends your whole life on the Bible. I'd to ask you about your was your childhood like? then what led you into biblical studies and What made you decide, OK, I want to spend the rest of my this work?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (26:41)
I grew up in Texas mostly in Southern Baptist churches But I was one of those Kids that wanted to read the Bible all the time and I was at church like every single second I think I'm grateful that I didn't have a church even though it was Southern Baptist. They weren't Really really strict about this is what you have to believe

or whatever. I still grew up without any women ministers in my church and some sort of assumptions, but get mad at people when they asked questions or anything. So I did ask questions and I read the Bible on my own. And then I started feeling like what people call a call to ministry. When I was in high school, we were on a mission trip to Ecuador when I started feeling that feeling. But then I'm also like,

I don't feel like I'm a missionary person. And I don't feel like I'm a children's minister because that was basically the only other thing you could be or I saw in the church as a woman. But I was like, okay, but I'll just like tuck this away and we'll see what happens. And I went to college, started doing ministry through the Baptist Student Ministries there at Baylor.

leading Bible studies and things like that. And then I got a stronger sense this is something I wanna do with my life. Like the church had actually made a really good difference in my life. People in the church that would love me and basically raised me. It's like, I wanna do that for other people. And so when I decided to go to seminary, I did have some people at Baylor be like, why are you going to seminary if you can't be a pastor? I didn't.

know what to say at that point. It didn't feel right to me that they said a woman couldn't be a pastor and they quoted Ephesians 5 at me and a couple of other passages. But I like, that doesn't feel right. I think at that point I was a little open to what we would call the Holy Spirit talking, more so than what these guys were telling me about the Bible. But I doubled down. I'm like, I'm going to go to seminary. I'm going to learn how to read the Greek and the Hebrew of the Bible and I'm going to study it.

Because I need to figure out why what they're saying feels so wrong, right? So I did, went to seminary and did really well. But as I was approaching the end of seminary, people were giving me the idea that, it's going to be hard for you to be a minister in Baptist Church in Texas. Maybe you should go get your PhD instead. And so I was like, okay, I mean, I love the Bible. I will study the Bible forever.

So that's what I did instead and I got a PhD in New Testament and I knew I wanted to teach. even though I'm actually not like a typical scholar person, like I'm not an introvert, I'm not someone who likes to spend hours and hours and hours in a library, but I knew I wanted to teach the Bible. So I was like, I need to get a PhD to do that. And so I did, but I kept on ministering in churches the whole time. So I felt pretty strongly that my calling was,

to teach in the academy or in the university and also to teach in the church. And so I kind of did that until I graduated with my PhD. And at that point, I was kind of tired of academics, to be honest with you, environment, the people are kind of competitive. it's not a compassionate, loving environment. And so was like, maybe I should just go work in a church. And I sent out my,

applications to different churches and I could not get a job. Mainly they would say something like, you don't have any senior pastor experience so you can't be a senior pastor. But if I tried to apply to associate pastor, they'd be like, you're more educated than the pastor. Like we can't hire you for that. I it was just like I was stuck. My education and my gender, you know, got me stuck. And so my first job was at a university. My first job out of PhD and then now I'm at my second.

Alexis Rice (30:04)
my gosh.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (30:15)
one and I just I mean I love it. I love teaching the Bible. I love studying it, writing about it, and then as I noticed that people in churches weren't they weren't even to the point where my students are. My 18, 19, 20 year old students know more about the Bible and how to read the Bible well than most people in churches and I was like ⁓ gosh I really also need to figure out a way to get the things that I'm teaching in the classroom out to people in churches and so that's when I started

doing Bible for normal people and trying to and things on a more lay level.

Alexis Rice (30:50)
thank you for that work, because is so important. before the internet, I think people got to a point they deconstructed, And there were no resources. So it's like, well, I guess I'm going to be not a Christian at all,

but it's like, wait a minute, there is so much between here, and, there's no invisible reality.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (31:07)
Yes.

Alexis Rice (31:10)
this does seem to be your passion like, want people to understand that they can have a faith connection And you don't have to believe that a talking snake, was, an actual real thing. And you don't have to tell your children yeah, like,

God killed everybody in a flood in Noah's Ark and, you know, happy birthday, you're four. you don't have to be a Christian and say all those things, correct?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (31:31)
right. And it's funny because I think it came to a head when I was thinking about how I'm gonna teach my own kids about the Bible. And I realized that if you start off talking about the Bible the way the Bible talks about itself, instead of getting these ideas about inerrancy or whatever, then their minds are open to many different things and...

Alexis Rice (31:39)
I think that's happening a

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (31:52)
more engaged ways of understanding the Bible. So I would describe things like the creation story and the fall story and all those as stories, the way that human beings are making sense of what's happening around them and who God is and how they interact with God, how they're different writers of the Bible. And sometimes they don't agree because they're in different time periods and they have different ideas about God. So if you just start,

with children talking about the Bible as it is, like just how you would read it, not with this theology about inerrancy and whatever, then they're much more open to engaging it on this really literary imaginative sort of way, which is the way it was written, right? There's a lot of imagination and a lot of literary skill involved in these authors and how they write the books of the Bible.

Alexis Rice (32:29)
Yes.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (32:45)
So if you can just start that way, it's easier. But if you didn't start that way, if you started in this very strict way, there is that crisis that you have when you're like, I feel like if I start reading the Bible in this way, it's gonna lead me down a bad path or I'm not gonna be faithful to God or I'm gonna start horrible things and being a horrible person or the hard part. I think...

The best thing to do at that point is like you said, there are resources out there. There are people who love God and show up in the world like Jesus wants them to do. And they're also talking about reading the Bible with imagination and understanding context. So there are lots of resources out there for people who are deconstructing, if you want to call it that. There people probably in your community that are doing the same thing. And so I would say find

people who are doing the same thing and get together with them and read books with them and talk with them. I think that is helpful that you don't feel like you're alone. And you can see how these people who are struggling with the same things as you are, are still like amazing, wonderful people who love God and love others, So when you see that on a daily basis, then I think that fear of, I'm heading down the wrong path. Probably you can let go of that because you can see around you.

real loving people that are wrestling with the Bible, not just like swallowing it whole like they've been told.

Alexis Rice (34:05)
Yeah. And in the beginning with deconstructing, thought, what's kind of the point? it make a believe that the talking snake was actually a real talking snake or not? Does it make a difference? And maybe not for everything, but there are things that are happening in the world where it's actually super dangerous, like with Revelation, to take it really literally.

And we notice in the world there are people who are saying, well, I'm a Christian, therefore I believe in the end times. And that means we have to do what some people believe are really horrible things like bombing other countries or doing these things because of this literal interpretation that we've been given. And this is it's actually not a nice to have. This is really important.

that we understand, for example, where Revelation came from, what it actually is. And so I know that like a good amount of people that probably listen to this podcast have heard ⁓ Revelation actually isn't necessarily about left behind. Like we were taught, even though we spent, as much time as kids spend in Harry Potter books now, we spent so much time in left behind. So it's so ingrained.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (35:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (35:17)
we really wanna support, these certain countries and, this certain thing happening because this is the only way that Jesus is gonna come back. So we're supposed to do these things. Okay, so I feel like a lot of us have broken away from learning that, but then also a lot of us are really concerned about falling prey to conspiracy theories.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (35:25)
Mm.

Alexis Rice (35:34)
So it's well, okay, so I've heard a little bit about this is not about the future. It's about Rome and 666 isn't about the devil. It's about Nero, but what's true and what's not. And I feel like this is a little convoluted even for some of us who have been spending a lot of years deconstructing. So I wondering if you could just talk about Revelation and why this is so important that we understand what it was really about

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (35:56)
Yeah, I think Revelation is a good test case for interpreting the Bible well, because we have to consider when it was was writing it, and who it was written to. it's the end of the first century, Christians are being persecuted, probably not across the whole Roman Empire, but in some places. And so when Revelation is written,

there is sort of a code involved or like symbolism and things like that because it's part of a genre. Apocalyptic literature is a genre that kind of pops up in Israel's history whenever they are being oppressed by some sort of empire. And they're trying to get a message of hope out to the people who are really discouraged and really fearful. you can go back and read Daniel as well because it's written during a time period like that and it's apocalyptic literature.

And so in Revelation, trying to get a message of hope out to the people who are fearful that the Empire is going to, imprison them or kill them or whatever. And so it follows this genre of apocalyptic literature, which is symbolism and talking about angels and demons. in the genre, they take battles of the heavens, know, supernatural sort of battles, and they describe them.

to talk about things that are going on on Earth. And so again, you kind of have to ask, okay, what is it pointing to that's happening at their time period? And then you had Nero as an emperor, probably Domitian was the emperor during Revelation, but they were just kind of like referring back to with the 666 number. But basically it's painting this picture of how yes, things are so horrible right now, but God is going to be faithful to you.

and you will not always be under empire, you will not always be suffering. good, will win in the end. God will win in the end is the message of Revelation. But along the way, it uses these particular literary devices, symbolism and things like that, visions to explain that because, and we don't know this for sure, but we imagine that if they would just come out and say, the emperor is a beast,

Rome is horrible and Rome needs to be overthrown. Like they said that in ⁓ a document and it got intercepted like they would get killed like, you know, so you have to write things in a more symbolic way. So what people have done, I think throughout history is that instead of reading Revelation in its time period for what the symbols meant to them, they tend to like get imaginative and start thinking, well, what about me? What about our time period? And so they'll

like assign certain historical events to the things that are happening in revelation, or they'll, you know, fast forward to the future and be like, this is what's gonna happen when Jesus comes back. it's a way of comforting themselves, but you have to have to first talk about what it is it means to the people then. And if it doesn't mean anything to them, if you're talking about helicopters or...

you know, what's happening in the world in the 21st century, that doesn't mean anything to people in the first century, right? Why would he write that? Why would John write that to them? you have to first think about their historical situation. Now, I'm not saying there isn't a future vision in Revelation, because there is. And the future vision is that God does not abandon God's people, that God will be the winner in the end,

that people will have judgment and punishment for the things they're doing. But that's talking about the empire. It's not talking about the Christians, like the Christians, you're doing bad things, you'll be punished. This is not, no, the only way Revelation kind of talks to Christians about way of like saying, okay, make sure you stay faithful and don't go the way of the empire because punishment's gonna come for the empire.

So there is a sense in like trying to maybe scare them a little scare them straight, I guess you would call it, right? Back onto the right path. But again, that's part of the genre of apocalyptic literature. It's an extreme way the way I talk about it is like if your kid was walking across the street and they're about to get hit by car, you're not gonna be like, please come back. They'd be like, no, stop!

You're gonna get hurt. Like you could really get killed. know, like that kind of reaction is what's happening in Revelation. And so it's very much extreme, but people take that extreme and they make it like a literal reality. this is the way things are gonna happen in the future. And I just don't think that that's what John was intending when he wrote it. He's not trying to map out what's gonna happen when Jesus comes back. He does want us to long for a time when Jesus comes back and to know that things will be better.

whenever we can, fully fall under God's reign, right? God's but the details, like pressing the details doesn't work for this particular genre, much more symbolic.

Alexis Rice (40:37)
So if I hear you correctly, it would probably not be the biblical scholarly consensus to say that there will come a day when people are just going to be disappearing all over the earth and then there will be people left behind.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (40:53)
Not only that, but I don't really know of any serious scholars that would say that because the rapture, the idea of the rapture is not even in Revelation. The only place that you have to put together two different passages, one in 1 Thessalonians 4 and one in Matthew, which is not even really a good one, you have to put those two together and then interpret them in a weird way in order to come up with the idea of the rapture. There's no rapture in Revelation.

whole dispensational idea, this is what we call the theology, the rapture and all of that came about again in the 1800s.

John Darby, then they made Bibles out of it. Like they started taking his ideas and they put it in the footnotes of Bibles. And people thought it was part of the Bible. And so people started reading it. Like, this is what the Bible says. Like, no, that's what one person and probably his followers about Revelation. So again, we have taken some person's ideas about the Bible and made it into

fact about the Bible or even made it into scripture. And that's dangerous. Like that's really dangerous. So yeah, I mean, for people who still have this idea, like conspiracy theory ideas and all of that, I mean, I would just say to read a good commentary on revelation. I mean, the Bible for normal people commentary on revelation is really good. revelation for normal people.

Alexis Rice (42:00)
⁓

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (42:15)
It's easy to read and then you get a lot of that historical background. So it helps you know that, maybe the things that I've been taught are just from this guy from the 1800s, not actually from John who wrote Revelation, right?

Alexis Rice (42:29)
Yeah, that's so helpful. And it's refreshing, So let's go to where more alarm bells are coming off in my head, which is so funny, because even though deconstructed, it's like primal. It's like the triggers the warning bells go off in your head, right? And so here's what happens when you talk about that stuff. I'm like, that makes so much sense. And then somewhere in me goes,

a pastor saying, don't trust Bible scholars. They're a bunch of, they're not Christians and they're not, you know, they're a bunch of liberals and they don't have the Holy Spirit in them. And what is up with this distrust between like all these people are doing the work of Jesus of God, in the Christian faith.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (42:51)
Yeah.

Alexis Rice (43:10)
Can you help us understand? Because it's very confusing for just like a spectator of all of this or like a Christian that's just trying to learn about the Christian faith in the most authentic way.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (43:21)
Yeah, no, it's really scary actually because it's way of control, If you want people to listen to you and you aren't a Bible scholar, like you're a pastor, you're not a Bible scholar, like you would have to make the people believe that you know better than the scholars. And so how would you do that except to start discrediting them, saying them that they're not really Christians or they don't have the Holy Spirit? And I think that's what happens, like sort of...

Across the board in evangelicalism, pastors have to maintain their authority But when people who are Bible scholars are saying what they're saying, ⁓ you know, you don't have the authority This is not the right way the best way to read the Bible then they have to figure out a way to discredit them not saying that they all get together and decide

we're going to say horrible things. No, it's just like, it's an instinct, right? Maybe you even think you're doing the best thing for your congregation. Like, well, I want to keep my congregation safe. I don't want them to, be corrupted by, Bible scholars. But we literally study the Bible every day of our decades, right? And most of us are very committed Christians. I 100 % believe in the Holy Spirit and try to listen to the Holy Spirit, right?

And so I think because, and maybe this is partly Bible scholars fault, because we don't have a lot of interaction sometimes with people in the pews, they can believe things about us that aren't true because they haven't met us, right? If they hear me say, I listen to the Holy Spirit, I pray for God to guide me, all these things. And I'm also a Bible scholar. Then maybe they'll start saying, okay, maybe my pastor is being a little extreme in the way he's saying,

the Bible scholars are heretics or whatever. So I think we need to interact more with people in churches. And the scholars I work with tend to do that, but a lot of churches don't invite scholars in, Because again, they don't wanna give up the authority and the control. They're afraid of what we might say that might contradict what they've already told their congregations. ⁓ And so that's why I think evangelicalism has had such a...

strong influence over Christian culture because they do it in a way where you can't believe or listen to all different voices and then judge. No, we're just going to tell you what to believe. people like that. Like people like the idea that somebody's going to tell them what to think and they don't have to wrestle with it and they don't have to put in the They don't have to feel the fear confusion that comes with reading and understanding the Bible.

They just want someone to give it to them. I think it's just getting worse because our people in the aren't reading as People are watching YouTube videos and stuff like that. They're not reading and they're not developing that critical thinking. And so it's just much easier to have someone tell them either what they already think or feel or someone they trust like a pastor giving them very strict

boundaries because then they they don't have the skills sometimes to do the critical thinking and so it's just easier to stay in this lane, But I think they can definitely do the thinking they can do the critical thinking but they just have to open themselves up to other voices, But I'm scared for the state of our American Christianity because like we're not thinking we're not questioning we're not wrestling

Alexis Rice (46:30)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (46:35)
We're just being lazy maybe and just staying with what we've always believed, what feels I don't think that's gonna lead us towards a path of engaging with scripture more. It's just gonna lead us farther and farther away from Jesus in the Bible and more into tradition and the theology that the church is teaching. So it's a scary future. I'm not really, I'm gonna do my best.

Alexis Rice (46:39)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (47:01)
to try to get the word out there, but there are lots of churches that would never ever invite me in to speak, you know?

Alexis Rice (47:07)
Yeah. I mean, I'll give you an example. I have a friend who has been deconstructing worship leader in actually a conservative space, still has been for years, but also has been studying a lot of Bible scholars. He told me that he posted a scholar recently on Instagram and his pastor pulled him aside. And this is a man in his 40s, okay, has his own life, pastor pulled him aside and was like, what are you doing?

you're going to lead people astray. So that is happening right now in 2025. And so I don't think we can discount the fact this is really hard for a lot of people, even if they want Their communities that they're still in are pulling them back to all these threats that you're talking about.

For people who are there right now are just like, man, I just want to be a Christian, but I really feel like I understand how to be a Christian now. I think what we have to remember is Christianity free for us in the sense of we're not paying a service. We don't have to go to that church. We can disconnect and go down the road over there and find these other places. But for someone who's there, what of comfort do you have for them?

I understand why there's so many people that are just like, I'm done with the whole thing. I'm done with the label because I can't handle this. doing that work and going alone is really scary. it's really tough.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (48:27)
I think it takes a lot of courage to push outside of your comfort zone, right? To try to even look at other churches or look at other ways of reading scripture. But I would say also that I think that is the heritage that we have from the writers of scripture and from Jesus. Like when you think about what he does in his life,

He does not just swallow everything that his religious faith is giving him, He pushes against, he stands up against things that feel wrong, that feel oppressive to other people. so it takes a lot of courage to do that, but I think we have the best example, in Jesus Jesus didn't swallow everything that he was taught from the religious leaders, the Jewish authorities.

And so if he didn't do it, then why do we think we need to do it? read more about Jesus' story and figure out how you can walk in the same way with Jesus. And that should take you down a path of more knowledge, more questions, Again, you have to have more courage to push yourself out, it will take you, I think, down that path that Jesus led us down.

Jesus was a questioner, Jesus even, you know, doubted sometimes his own mission. He doubted God. He was honest about it, And so I think if we really immerse ourselves in the story of Jesus, we can realize that like just sitting still and swallowing what everybody tells us is not the way of Jesus. Looking around and seeing who's in need is. Asking questions to the people in power is the way of Jesus.

And so that's what I would encourage them with. If you really do want to be like Jesus, then figure out how he lived and try to emulate it, however hard it might be, because it is hard, sometimes maybe isolating. That's why Jesus surrounded himself with people, right? Because he needed people around him to help him to stand up against injustice and the people who were trying to control the masses,

So find your people find some people who are asking the same kinds of questions as you are and walk together with them, it's not an easy road, but it is rewarding

Alexis Rice (50:28)
of those resources, There's a lot of stuff online. There's a lot of resources. The Bible for Normal People, again, just start.

at that gateway drug and it's going to give you a lot. I also am really excited about your new book. Can you tell us about your new book

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (50:35)
I'm leave her.

Yeah, sure. So this has been a long time coming. I've been teaching biblical interpretation, what the academy called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is not a word we throw around, but biblical interpretation I've been teaching for 14 years.

Alexis Rice (50:54)
Tripp Fuller throws that

I learn a

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (50:55)
And this is basically,

ways to read literature well, and in this case, ways to read the Bible so the book is called Serving Up Scripture, How to Interpret the Bible for Yourself and Others. So Aaron Higashi and I, he's another nerd in residence the Bible from other people. By the way, you should check him out on TikTok and Instagram. I think it's like abhbible is his.

Alexis Rice (51:10)
Aaron's so great. He's so smart.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (51:18)
Instagram name and he does so many good things trying to like just break down best ways to read the Bible, interpret the Bible. So check him out. But we wanted to take the things that we teach our students and this is like undergrad and also master's level students. What we teach our students about interpreting the Bible and we like start pretty simple. Like what is interpreting? Like what is that?

how do we as readers already bring something to the table when we're starting to read? What is the Bible? We actually go through and look at the different literary types, genres in the Bible. What are some best ways to read that? We talk about asking questions of the Bible. So literary questions, historical questions, ideological questions, theological questions. And then at the end, we talk about like, what are some ways that we can interpret for ourselves and for other people that we care about?

And so it's really our attempt at trying to bridge that gap between the academy and the church that we talk about all the time, ⁓ giving people the tools to interpret on their own. So they don't have to just listen to what their pastor says all the time. And not that your pastor is wrong all the time, but you should be able to have the power to interpret on your own, but you just need the skills, And so that's what we're trying to do. And we use a cooking metaphor throughout, so it's kind of fun.

But yeah, I'm really excited and I hope that people in the read it so that they can like take back that power of interpreting the Bible well and on their own because people I think aren't doing a lot of that today.

Alexis Rice (52:50)
Yeah, I'm so excited to read it. I can't wait.

All right, lightning round. what is a Bible verse or a passage that means something to you?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (53:03)
I grew up memorizing Bible verses. And I mean, think it helped me at times when I was scared or I needed, you know, connection to God, I think that was good. But nowadays I think it's much better to think in stories and passages than it is to think in verses because, you know, verses are just taken sort of out of context and we can make them mean whatever we want to, And so I tend to think more in stories and passages and

Alexis Rice (53:19)
Mmm.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (53:28)
story really come back the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman or the Canaanite woman, depending on if you're reading Matthew or Mark. But the idea here is that this woman comes to Jesus and needs him to heal her daughter. But Jesus is sort kids say, locked in. Jesus is sort of locked in at that point. I'm going to...

Talk to the Jewish people my people are the ones who need to hear me, right? But this is a foreign woman And at first she's like no, I mean I came my people And then she gives a really witty smart response to him and he changes his mind and he says ⁓ You know what? I was wrong like I'm gonna heal your daughter and then after that he ends up going into the areas that are non-jewish areas

So it's like this woman's wittiness and courage and persistence changes the trajectory of what gonna do. And so just that whole, isn't it beautiful? It's so cool, like the way this divine and human working together. And it also kind of shows you that, know, Jesus is human. Like he does sometimes make mistakes that he corrects. And he is influenced by his culture and all of that, but he's willing to change.

Alexis Rice (54:22)
I love that.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (54:40)
when he hears from this woman, someone who would normally never even talk to a Jesus, because women didn't talk to men that weren't in their little sphere of influence. So anyway, that story has been on my mind a lot lately. That was a long, long, that was not a lightning answer, sorry.

Alexis Rice (54:56)
That's

okay. But it was so important. I love that idea of we don't have to think in verses, but in stories, like in concepts. my gosh, that's beautiful. This is why we have to listen to scholars, people. You think you know everything about Christianity, the Bible, if you've been doing this your whole life, and then you listen to scholars and you're like, Okay, what is a Christianese saying that just drives you crazy and you wish that we would retire?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (55:23)
yeah, yeah. What is that? We're we at this church are going to do life together. I mean, I love the idea, the concept behind it. Like, well, yeah, we should actually be doing life together. But it just feels so trite because people have said it a lot. So I'd say maybe let's return.

Alexis Rice (55:38)
Nice. What's a favorite worship song or a hymn or a Christian artist that gives you life?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (55:45)
See, I don't listen to a lot of Christian artists anymore. I did a lot before. Oh, it's funny. You mentioned Derrick Webb. I used to, oh my gosh, I used to love Derrick depth and the honesty that's in his lyrics. And I'm thinking from like 15, 20 years ago, but it made an impact on me because it was so different than the other Christian music.

Alexis Rice (55:49)
It's hard. It's very hard.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (56:07)
You know, that was around at the time. So, yeah.

Alexis Rice (56:09)
Okay,

so that means, well, then I will tell you, his 2023 album is called The Jesus Hypothesis, and you're gonna love it. It's the depth and struggling and asking Paul about like, why did you do all this stuff? you're gonna love it. So yeah, What's one idea that you used to believe about God that you've completely rethought? Just one.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (56:16)
Okay, I need to check it out. Thank you.

Okay, good, good, thanks, that's awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. This is a good one. So all throughout the Old Testament, you get this idea that God is sort of violent and vengeful. There's just, you know, times that God commands the Israelites to kill all the people in the city and things like that.

I've always wrestled with it. Like it had to my heart because I was like, well, this is what it says in the Bible, right? These are stories that are being told about God and God's character. Like I have to listen to it. But after I studied Gerard, Rene Gerard, he's the guy that I use in my first book, Scapegoats. He's a literary critic, religious studies theologian. But he says that what people in societies normally do, this is just part of who we are,

as a civilization is we tend to project our own violence onto God. And so what that means is like, because we interact in a way in society that is in opposition to one another, that is violent, that is vengeful, then when we start writing about God, we assume that God is like that so a lot of the things that are written in the Bible are from the perspective who love God.

but are thinking through their own perspective, you know, through their own eyes. And so write these stories and they assume it's God that's telling them to do this, but it kind of comes from hearts and from the way that society interacts with one another. That was like life-changing for me to think, okay, maybe everything we read in the Bible isn't like straight from God. It's not like God is like,

beaming down, this is how I am, please write this. But it's more that people are wrestling with God and the ideas about God. And then sometimes they get it right. sometimes they're kind of coming out of their own experience. And we have to wrestle with that. We have to read through the Bible, especially looking through the lens of Jesus and say, well, Jesus doesn't seem to be vengeful and violent. And Jesus is God, the representation of God that we can see.

on earth. So what's going on here? How come these two pictures are different? And the answer that I've come to understand is that the stories about God as vengeful and violent are us humans projecting our violence onto God.

Alexis Rice (58:42)
that's so good and so helpful. Friends, don't you feel like, ⁓ that doesn't make me agnostic to question those things out loud. I'm hearing from a Christian scholar.

it's important. final question. It's a two part one. What is something that you deeply lament about how the American evangelical church or just the American evangelical voices in power are speaking for others? And what deep hope do you have the Christian faith?

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (59:14)
The thing that has been really harmful lately is the way that the church is excluding and oppressing and marginalizing the people who need the most love and help. I'm thinking about immigrants, I'm thinking about people from different cultures and religions in America, I'm thinking about LGBTQ people. The church has almost been on the front lines of persecuting these people.

harming them, taking away their rights. And that is the exact opposite of what Jesus did. The people that Jesus interacted with and the people that Jesus centered in his ministry and his life were these same kind of people, the marginalized, the ones didn't have voices in their society. And so it's really tragic that we're doing the exact opposite of what Jesus, what I think Jesus would do.

Alexis Rice (59:46)
Yes.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (1:00:04)
and the way we treat the people who need help the most in our country. But the hope is see Christians and followers of Jesus that are not doing that, that are reaching out in love to immigrants, that are reaching out in love to LGBTQ folks. And it's smaller, it's a smaller percentage of people, but the way that they love...

and the way that they support these groups is it's so powerful. And if you can see it, then you can see the rightness of it. You look and you say, yeah, that's what Jesus would do. I it's less people than sort of the bigger evangelical church, but it makes a difference in people's lives. And so that's the hope I have, that these little places of love and hope and inclusion,

will grow because we'll see it and we'll see that that's what Jesus would do. So that's my hope.

Alexis Rice (1:00:55)
Dr. Jennifer Garcia-Bashaw thank you so much for being on the sacred slope today.

Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (1:01:00)
Thank you. It's been great. It's been a great talk.

Alexis Rice (1:01:08)
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, may the fruit of the spirit guide you this week.

Go in peace, friends.