1. Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (Presbyterian) – ProgressiveChristianity.org & The Christian Left: Busting Myths About Progressive Christianity

ITS THE SEASON TWO PREMIERE!

🎙️ 1. Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (Presbyterian) – ProgressiveChristianity.org & The Christian Left: Busting Myths About Progressive Christianity

In this episode of The Sacred Slope, Alexis Rice is joined by Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (@marksandlin), Presbyterian minister, writer, and co-founder of ProgressiveChristianity.org (@progressivechristianity) and The Christian Left (@the_christian_left). Mark has spent decades helping people recover a Christ-centered faith rooted in love rather than fear, shame, or authoritarian control.

Together, Alexis and Mark dismantle the biggest misconceptions that keep so many people trapped—or pushed out—of Christianity altogether, especially those raised in conservative or fundamentalist spaces.

✨ In this conversation, we myth-bust 6 common beliefs:

1. Progressive Christians don’t believe the Bible
Why taking Scripture seriously is not the same as taking it literally—and how historical and literary tools deepen faith.

2. Progressive Christianity isn’t “real” Christianity
How white American evangelicalism came to dominate the narrative—and why Christianity has always been bigger, older, and more diverse.

3. Progressive Christians ignore sin and holiness
How fear, shame, and hell were weaponized—and what sin looks like when understood as anything that separates us from love and community.

4. Faith and science can’t coexist
Why evolution, the Big Bang, and the cosmos don’t threaten belief in God—and can actually reveal deeper beauty and connection.

5. Progressive Christianity is just politics in disguise
Why justice, care for the vulnerable, and love of neighbor were never apolitical—and why calling them “political” protects power.

6. There’s no salvation or afterlife in progressive faith
What salvation looks like without fear-based evangelism—and what Jesus was actually saving people from.

📚 Resources Mentioned
• The Bible for Normal People – @thebiblefornormalpeople. Podcast: https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/podcast/

 • Jared Byas – @jaredbyas
 • Pete Enns – @peteenns
 • Richard Rohr – Podcast: Another Name For Everything https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/another-name-for-every-thing-with-richard-rohr/id1452609613
 • Brian McLaren – @brianmclaren Podcast: Learning How to See: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learning-how-to-see-with-brian-mclaren/id1532685433
 • Diana Butler Bass – @dianabutlerbass
 • Barbara Brown Taylor – @barbarabrowntaylor
 • Dan McClellan – @maklelan Podcast: Data Over Dogma: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podc

Transcript

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (00:00)
I was on Twitter and something else 20 some years ago. and there was a guy named Jones. down in Florida was burning Qurans lots of them stacks of them. And he was getting national press and I didn't hear any ministers talking about it. So I pulled out the Bible that I was given when I was seven years old and wrote him a letter that said, if you're going to burn,

the sacred text of my Abrahamic brothers and sisters. want you to include this with it. I've had it since I was seven. You can see it's well worn. And I took a little picture of it on Twitter to encourage other people to think about doing the same thing. I don't know. And I sent it off to them and it blew up. I got all kinds of letters from all over the US radio stations, call-ins to do interviews. I went, wait a minute.

I did this because I didn't see enough ministers standing But I'm getting a lot of calls from ministers who actually were standing up. They were just doing it in their own space and we weren't hearing about it. And so that was the beginning of realizing that the social media would provide a larger platform for putting some of this out there so folks can see that the evangelical way of doing Christianity isn't the only one that's out there. And so that's how it all started.

Alexis Rice (00:56)
That's right.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (01:12)
It began rolling. almost couldn't stop it at that point. And what I've learned is that there are a lot of people that are either hurt by the church or so heavily isolated in where they are, that going to church is not something that's going to happen for them, at least not in any time soon. And to be able to provide for them a resource of whatever it is, whether it's something you wrote or the constant presence of talking about daily events and political events,

seeing that there is a Christian way of approaching those that doesn't feel like the stuff you were running away became really, really important. It's why we founded the Christian no one was responding to the Christian right being a bullhorn for those politics. So we said, we want to make a space exactly for the people I was just talking about, where they can also talk about politics, if that's what we want to do, and do it from a place of saying, I'm saying this because I follow the teachings of Jesus.

Alexis Rice (02:10)
Welcome to season two of The Sacred Slope Friends. I'm Alexis Rice and I didn't want to make you wait that long. I always get so sad when a season ends of one of my favorite shows or podcasts and I feel like I just have to wait and wait. So we're going to dive right into season two today. so excited about this season. There are going to be so many amazing that I've got lined up so far. just can't wait to go on this journey all around the world.

in learning about healthier versions of the Christian faith that are typically not represented in media, in American media, whether that's conservative or progressive media, we're also going to go all around the world because honestly, there's over 2 billion people on the planet who are part of this Christian faith. And white Christian nationalism in America is a tiny, tiny percentage.

of people, even though it holds the most money power and the biggest microphone currently. So I want to lift up all these other voices, pastors, priests, reverends, artists, musicians, politicians, influencers, actors, and everyday people.

wanted to share a story with you about a friend of mine from college. He listened to a couple episodes of Sacred Slope and he was like, I did not like it. It was not for me. And at the time in college, we were both conservative Christians. He still is and very, smart guy, And I took a very different path.

But what I wanted to say is that we both wrestled very strongly with our faith. And we really examined it and we opened it. And he ended up staying on the conservative side of things. And that is what means a lot to him. And I did not. through traveling all around the world, through meeting so many different people, through experiencing the things I experienced, I just thought, you know what?

I want you guys to know that if you come from conservative places, this is not podcast that's trying to convince you that you shouldn't be interested in lower taxes or anything like that. It is to expose you to all different types of ways that people have healthy expressions of the Christian faith. I will say though that the vast majority of people who are represented in Christianity in media

have a pretty extremist view of the Christian faith. And it has been very costly and at the expense of the vulnerable. And that is not a faith that I recognize and that I know. I'm just would like to ask you the question, don't you owe it to yourself to really take apart this faith?

Don't you owe it to yourself to really ask the hard questions. the great about living in this day and age is that we have podcasts, we have people all over the world who are doing this incredible work, who have devoted their entire lives to Jesus and to study and to scholarship who can help you with this stuff. your...

Christianity aside because of church trauma and harm and you're still in that space where you're unable to look at that, that is completely understandable. If you though took your entire Christian faith and said, I don't believe in a talking snake and therefore because I was told that I have to believe in a talking snake or that the world was 6,000 years old or that abortion is always wrong or that I can't love my gay best friend or I can't even be.

gay or I can't be trans. If you were taught that the rapture is something that is completely true and you've never learned about Nero and you've never learned about Rome at the time and you didn't study the context. If you only think that hell is, there's one way to look at it with eternal conscious torment, that you don't know that there's four actual words of hell that was all translated into one in the Bible. If you don't know about universalism and

annihilationism. If you don't know about the different atonement theories, you only know about PSA, Google it. If you were told that homosexuality is there's only one way to look at that in the Bible. If you haven't studied some of this stuff, if you were told that women aren't allowed to be pastors because the Bible says so, if you were told that men have dominion over women in the house, and that's just because the Bible says so, if you think that

universal healthcare or being a Democrat are bad and wrong things, you have to understand that you were raised in a context, in a cultural context that told you those things. And no, not all Christians believe that and you don't have to either. So if you were told that you have to believe in all those things or you're out of your faith, I have really good news for you. You are allowed to re-examine this faith.

a lot of people who were raised in Christianity, I've noticed online, have really been raising their voice because they've been saying, hey, Jesus is not like that actually. is not the faith that I actually recognized from growing I find that really interesting right now. today's episode really is for anyone who was raised in Christianity.

And then they were told explicitly or implicitly that there was only one way to belong, one way to believe, one way to read the Bible, one way to vote, one way to love. And if you stepped outside that narrow frame, you were out. Many of you left because you were hurt, you were shamed, you were silenced

you were pushed out for asking honest questions, and then they were called doubts. Or you asked those questions because you were allowed to, but then you got chastised for not accepting the answers that were given to you through, for example, apologetics. And that makes sense. some of us left quietly. we got tired. We got cynical. We assumed the fundamentalist Bible-literate version.

of Christianity was the only legitimate one. And when we couldn't accept that, we walked away from the whole entire thing. No one told us that there were other faithful ways to stay. No one told us that you could be Christian and liberal, Christian and scientific, Christian and queer affirming, Christian and committed to justice. So we believed the lie and we left. And for some of you, leaving was the right choice.

if you are whole and peaceful outside of the faith, If you find God outside of church walls and if you find a connection to something bigger than you in other ways, I really do believe that God can honor that and meet you where you are in different forms. for others, there's still a pull. For millions of people, especially right now, when we see

undeniable cruelty and atrocities, there is something that tells us that there is something more important to fight for, to believe in, to care about. And that is the humanity, the dignity, the respect of other people, the caring and not the disregarding for demonizing other humans, for not caring about other humans. That, to me, is the sense of the divine.

And if you have that sense that life might be more than about just surviving, consuming, achieving for pleasure, for power, for fame, then legacy, and then disappearing. If you have a belief, a quiet but persistent belief that love, that dignity, and care for the vulnerable really do matter, maybe it's time to unpack why. Why does that matter?

If we're all just going to go to the ground anyway, and there's no divine nature behind any of this, why do you still feel that you want to stake your entire life on believing and fighting for these things? Maybe the teachings of Jesus still haunt you in the best way. Maybe Christmas time every year, you hear, O holy night, and it still cracks something open in you. Maybe you never stopped actually believing in God.

You just couldn't stomach the version that you were given anymore. And if that's you, maybe you weren't wrong to leave. Maybe you were wrong about what you had to leave behind. So today, for those of you who are ready to do the work, we're starting over slowly, honestly, and without fear. I'm joined by Reverend Dr. Mark Sandlin today.

a Presbyterian minister in North Carolina

co-founder of progressivechristianity.org and of the Christian is deeply educated, he's unapologetically liberal, and grounded in the profound love of Jesus, so much so that he left the business world and followed his love of Jesus in ministry.

And like many of us, he comes from conservative Christianity. So he gets the fear, he gets the grief, and he gets what it costs to ask real questions. He gets the demonization that other people continue to throw at him in forms of names and threats and all sorts of ridiculousness. And what I love about this is we laugh so much in this episode. We laugh all the way through it, basically. And I love the way that he approaches

His faith. In this conversation, we talk about mythbusting Christianity. We talk about a Christianity that doesn't collapse under science. a faith that doesn't weaponize shame. a Jesus who serves instead of dominates, who sides with the vulnerable, who refuses to be used as a cover for cruelty, control, or power.

This is not about going backwards. It's about reclaiming something truer. So if you've ever felt cheated out of your faith, if you were told that you didn't have the right to it because you're a liberal or a progressive or care about not throwing people in prison that they have the right to a dignified life of healthcare, if something still longs in you for meaning, connection and courage,

and you're possibly willing to look at that in community, this conversation is for you. Season two begins here, and I'm really glad you're here with us. Let's go.

Alexis Rice (12:58)
Welcome back to The Sacred Slope, friends. Today, we're busting myths about progressive Christianity together with Reverend Dr. Mark Sandlin. Hi, Reverend.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (13:09)
Hey Alexis, how are you? Great, and please just call me Mark.

Alexis Rice (13:10)
Fine, how are you?

I will call you Mark. Thanks, Mark. you know, the myths about progressive Christianity, those are really like the ones that kept a lot of us who were raised in more conservative spaces, really afraid to think, question, or grow outside of those boundaries of a certain of Christianity. So as an example, like when I was a kid, I used to listen to

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (13:15)
Perfect. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (13:36)
something from Focus on the Family from Dr. James Dobson, which was Adventures in Odyssey. And those episodes, if anybody resonates with those, is where the main character, Connie Kendall, for example, she'd go to a Bible study that turned out to be a progressive Christian space. The leader told her, well, the Bible could mean whatever you want it to mean. And everyone started reading another book instead of scripture.

And that message was really clear as a child that progressive Christians don't really believe the Bible. And so I grew up believing, and that was reinforced in my communities, that pastors with rainbow flags outside of their churches aren't real churches, that pastors who are progressive Christians somehow didn't study the Bible or aren't real pastors, they twisted scripture to fit culture instead of truth.

here I am like all these years later realizing that some of the most persistent myths out there are not actual So so thrilled to welcome you. I'm going to tell the audience a little bit about you. You're a Presbyterian minister. And I always say, even though I went to a Presbyterian church for a while, I say it wrong. Can you tell me how to say Presbyterian correctly?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (14:37)
out.

You just said it perfectly, Presbyterian.

Alexis Rice (14:53)
I

always, and I still can't spell it after all these years, I can't believe it.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (14:55)
It took

me I started going to a Presbyterian Church when I was in high took me years to figure out how spell it It's true

Alexis Rice (15:04)
I feel a little better, thank you.

So Reverend Dr. Mark Sandlin, Mark is a Presbyterian minister and a writer and one of the early architects of modern progressive Christianity through progressivechristianity.org and Southern Fried Heresy and in publications like the Huffington helped millions worldwide see that faith and reason can live in the same heart.

and that following Jesus was never about fear. He has written essays like, The 10 Things That You Can't Do While Following Jesus and Why I Still Call Myself Christian. He pastors Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greensboro, North Carolina, and his ministry is a sanctuary for those rebuilding a faith that's intellectually honest, inclusive, and deeply rooted in Jesus's message of love and justice. So today we're going to explore the biggest myths about progressive Christianity,

from they don't believe the Bible to they're just political and why this movement is one of the most faithful expressions of the gospel in our time. So welcome to the sacred slope.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (15:59)
Yeah.

Thank you, it's lovely to be here. Looking forward to this time with you.

Alexis Rice (16:09)
start with your youth and your childhood. Can you paint a picture for us about what your faith life looked like growing up?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (16:16)
Sure, of course, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in a small, rural Southern town. So that right there should give you a pretty good idea of what I was being told as a young person. And as I grew, I became very, very involved in church and it became a very important part of who I understood myself to be even. By the time I hit high school, I was doing Young Life and I was a leader in Young Life. But all of that.

definitely was giving me the more kind of old school traditional understanding, kind of high authoritarian way of approaching Christianity. ⁓ I was fortunate, I say, that I was because in high school, the church we were at didn't have enough youth and my parents wanted something to keep us engaged. So we moved to a Presbyterian church. And that's the first time I heard people who weren't the minister asking questions.

And I realized that's interesting, you know, and the more times I heard a question and people struggle with them, the more something about it resonated with me. And it made me feel like, well, yeah, if it's important, why we should be doing this. And so that was the beginning of me moving. I never walked away from the church, but I did have a journey that allowed me to recognize that the authoritarian version that I kept being

introduced to was not particularly biblical and that when we open it up and free ourselves to asking questions it becomes ⁓ much more life-giving which felt more like it matched up with the teachings of Jesus. So that's kind of my early story anyway.

Alexis Rice (18:01)
Hmm. And what drew you to the ministry side of things? Like, what made you decide to go to the Presbyterian tradition? And what made you decide that you wanted to spend your one wild and precious life doing ministry full time?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (18:07)
Yeah.

Well,

I tried not to, honestly. I really genuinely did. ⁓ Even back in high school, there were moments where I would feel like maybe ministry is what I'm supposed to be doing. ⁓ But then I would very quickly develop a list of 12 people who would be much better at it than I ever would. And so I started really running away from it. My first two undergraduate degrees were in

Alexis Rice (18:21)
Hehehehe

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (18:41)
English with a minor in computer science and a business degree. I ran hard away from it and even was in the business world for quite a few years before I came back. continued to have the struggle of feeling like maybe I was supposed to have done ministry and it kind of became more and more increasing. I was still as progressive in terms of theology as I am now.

And I was in my truck driving down the road, listening to, of course, as a good Christian would Christian radio. and I heard this commercial cause I had been running away from it and I was struggling with whether I just walk away from the business world and go back to school. I heard this commercial of a guy was really about tithing. He was like, I flip the coin and it lands on heads, I'll give this if it lands on tales illl give this. But anyway, long story short, he kept.

making bargains and finally, just the way it lands on its side, then I'll give everything I have. Flips it. goes, huh, well, how about that? It landed on its side. And in that moment, I realized that's what I had been doing was playing this game of if this, then I'll do it. These people be better. So if they are doing it then and back and forth and that moment, I literally just decided there that it was probably time for me to get serious about it. And then a month later, standing in a room and

Piedras Negros, Mexico that we had just built, my minister asked me how work was. And I said, you know, it's work. And he said, I never thought that was right for you anyway. And it all started from that point. Ended up going to Wake Forest University, again, just a few months later. I applied to a few places, got into Wake Forest. And Presbyterian had always been in my background. I much they value.

the intellectual part of religion and faith and how they value it. That, along with, in complete honesty, they're really great package for health care and the things that really matter. Just between the two of them, said, this is definitely, it's where I started making the questions. It's where I want to be doing questions from now on. So that's kind how I ended up in Presbyterianism.

Alexis Rice (20:25)
Me too. Yeah.

Hmm

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (20:47)
and in ministry at all. Like I said, I tried not to. A matter of fact, I forgot the minister who said that's not what I, I never thought that was right for you. Also at a different point told me, only go into ministry if you can't be happy doing anything else.

Alexis Rice (21:07)
Wow. Okay, I've never heard that.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (21:08)
Yeah, He was

just saying that can be how difficult it can be and that you really need to have this deep inner desire approach it and to do it if you think you're going to stay because there's great burnout and fallout and ministry for sure.

Alexis Rice (21:24)
going to ask you something that might make you a little bit uncomfortable, but if you don't want to answer it, that's okay. of the things that I feel like people talk about online is like, these progressive ministers, they don't have enough education in Bible and they don't have enough education in general. They don't know what they're doing.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (21:29)
That's fine.

Alexis Rice (21:39)
You have a doctorate. And so I'm just curious, would you mind to share with educational background? It's not bragging. hear about

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (21:46)
My degree was in English with a minor in computer science and philosophy. Then I went on to get one year of an MBA and then completed my business degree and then master's degree from Wake Forest University. earned my doctorate looking at how we talk about God, particularly in prayer.

Alexis Rice (22:05)
something tells me that you have a little bit that you've learned through your educational process.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (22:12)
I've picked up a finger or two and you know, I'm very active in social media and I do get those comments of people telling me I am and I'm just like, you don't understand how little that can't hurt me. If anything, I am and I'm not bragging on this, I'm actually saying it in a kind of a negative way. If anything, I'm over educated. I enjoyed school too much and kept going back.

Yeah. ⁓

Alexis Rice (22:41)
Amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I think

it's really important, you know, like when you're when you're looking for a minister or a pastor, you know, not everybody is educated in the same way. And I personally have found it really interesting to ⁓ actually use that as one of my clarifying questions. Like, what is the education of the minister that I'm willing to put in front of me and teach me about God every Sunday? What do you think about that?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (22:59)
Later.

Yeah,

yeah, I think it's really incredibly important because of the way that the Bible, and I think we'll be talking about this because it's part of the myths, the way the Bible is put together, the way you have to approach it, kind of education and tools and skill sets that you need to be able to do it in any kind of honest way. Yeah, it's really important who you choose to follow and what kind of education they have for doing that. I couldn't agree more.

Alexis Rice (23:33)
Yeah, I'd love to ask you about the Presbyterian denomination. And if you can talk to our listeners and your listeners about what does that lens mean? What does that look like? What's the focus? Tell us a little bit more about what people can expect if they look at the Presbyterian denomination.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (23:52)
I mean, the Presbyterian denomination has traditionally been pretty forward thinking when it comes to social justice issues, ⁓ except for a few key ones that we've made great strides on recently. But what I think is the real value of the Presbyterian Church is it tries to make space for folks from pretty much most walks of their faith, but it does so

really, as we said earlier, prioritizing the importance of knowing these tools that I was talking about, of valuing education, of asking questions, and to making space where that is not only OK, but encouraged. So it's a great place if you're wanting to explore. It's typically most Presbyterian churches are going to provide that for you. There's obviously exceptions.

In terms of what is main for us, we try to respect the past. We try to also always be looking at what do we believe and why do we believe it and is there a better way doing that as well, which is one of the things I probably love the most about it is that it is core to our understanding of who we are that we constantly ask, are we in the right place and what we're moving forward look like.

Alexis Rice (25:03)
Yeah, I love that. I spent an adult in the Presbyterian Church very intellectually and interested, a scientist, MBA, it's very allow for that critical thinking. And we really nice home, a nice fit there, that it felt like this is stimulating. It's not just going to be your typical, like,

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (25:25)
Great. All right.

Alexis Rice (25:27)
what is that? Like the Greg Laurie stuff or like the drive by crusade. I can explain all this to you in five minutes and you're going to know. It's just like, no. Okay. ⁓ no, exactly. you have a physical church in North Carolina, but you also...

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (25:31)
right.

Five minutes. Yeah, doesn't work that way.

Mm-hmm, yep.

Alexis Rice (25:46)
felt this calling, I made a decision, I don't want to put words into your mouth, about going online, about being a pastor online to social media. And I'd love just to hear about that. what have you learned? Why do you do it? Why do you find that it's really important as a pastor to be visible on social

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (25:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, this

Yeah.

Well, I stumbled into it. It was not something I did on purpose.

I was on Twitter and something else 20 some years ago. and there was a guy named Jones. down in Florida was burning Qurans lots of them stacks of them. And he was getting national press and I didn't hear any ministers talking about it. So I pulled out the Bible that I was given when I was seven years old and wrote him a letter that said, if you're going to burn,

the sacred text of my Abrahamic brothers and sisters. want you to include this with it. I've had it since I was seven. You can see it's well worn. And I took a little picture of it on Twitter to encourage other people to think about doing the same thing. I don't know. And I sent it off to them and it blew up. I got all kinds of letters from all over the US radio stations, call-ins to do interviews. I went, wait a minute.

I did this because I didn't see enough ministers standing But I'm getting a lot of calls from ministers who actually were standing up. They were just doing it in their own space and we weren't hearing about it. And so that was the beginning of realizing that the social media would provide a larger platform for putting some of this out there so folks can see that the evangelical way of doing Christianity isn't the only one that's out there. And so that's how it all started.

Alexis Rice (27:02)
That's right.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (27:18)
It began rolling. almost couldn't stop it at that point. And what I've learned is that there are a lot of people that are either hurt by the church or so heavily isolated in where they are, that going to church is not something that's going to happen for them, at least not in any time soon. And to be able to provide for them a resource of whatever it is, whether it's something you wrote or the constant presence of talking about daily events and political events,

seeing that there is a Christian way of approaching those that doesn't feel like the stuff you were running away became really, really important. It's why we founded the Christian no one was responding to the Christian right being a bullhorn for those politics. So we said, we want to make a space exactly for the people I was just talking about, where they can also talk about politics, if that's what we want to do, and do it from a place of saying, I'm saying this because I follow the teachings of Jesus.

Alexis Rice (28:12)
meant a lot to me. We've never met in person. I would never probably have been able to cross paths with you in any other way, but starting to read The Christian Left years ago and then posting a lot on my personal about The Christian Left, I just found myself resonating going, yes, this is my faith and my values they do align. not separate from each other, It was just that I was only given one framework and then that

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (28:33)
Right. Exactly.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (28:37)
framework said, well, anything outside of this framework is wrong. Christian Left doesn't do that.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (28:46)
we get called an oxymoron all the time. Christian left is an oxymoron. we get that comment probably every day because of the teachings you were just talking about. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (28:52)
then you, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I was it was an sits in the ether of the culture. So much so just immediately dismissed short sound bites the words. I mean, let's just throw out the words. What are the words that people in your space on the Christian left or you are called on a daily basis that are just, you know.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (29:00)
Mm-hmm.

get called the mouth of Satan, ⁓ wolf in sheep's clothing. I have been called the Antichrist, uneducated, unintelligent, a false prophet. Yeah, we get that kind of stuff both at the Christian Left, my personal page, progressivechristianity.org, we get that kind of stuff all the time.

where folks have been, it's been so ingrained that it's hard to remember because it feels like an attack, have to remember this has been ingrained in them in a way where they can't see why it's wrong. it's challenging at times not be upset and, attack back or something like that. we've learned definitely that, that is a incorrect approach.

also doesn't value who they are as a person and where they're coming from and what they learn from the places they've been.

Alexis Rice (30:04)
Yes. that's awesome. All right. Let's dive into some of the myth. All myth number one, progressive Christians don't believe the Bible. why do so many evangelicals equate Bible believing and Bible believing church? Like I've heard that term a lot, like, I go to a Bible believing if other churches didn't, like I told you. Sorry, I won't get there. I'll let you do it. Okay.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (30:08)
Okay.

you

Yeah.

Don't? That's fair.

Alexis Rice (30:30)
But it drives me nuts. like,

what? OK, sorry. So ⁓ why do so many evangelicals equate Bible believing with literalism?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (30:39)
Well, I mean, think it's, again, it's the way that we were brought up. They were raised to believe that the Bible was sort of a, that there's only one way to approach it and that it's the single voice instructional manual for life. and what do we do in this life? and completely ignores the reality that it's really a library. It's many books made over long periods of time, talking to different groups of people, trying to communicate different things to very specific timeframes. Very rarely was it trying to speak to people in the future.

And so when we are taught that we tend to fall into it again, but ultimately what we're doing

We're pretending that the Bible is one thing rather than honoring the Bible for what it actually is. And when we do that, we really kind of flatten the Bible allow it to breathe and be everything that it's capable of being in all of its complexities and all of its contradictions. that's life right there. And that a lot more meaning for you if you were able to grab onto it and live in it, because that's what life is like. Life is not flat and simple. And it's one of the reasons why that

appeals so much because we would all love for life to be a lot more simple to have an instruction manual. It tells us exactly how life works And so it's easy to buy into, but it's just not very true or real about what that text is, right?

Alexis Rice (31:55)
Yeah, right. So how do you personally approach scripture? And what does it mean to take the Bible seriously rather than literally, which is from the Bible for Normal People, but I love the way that that's framed.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (32:01)
Mmm.

Yeah, well, that would be my exact answer. I try to take it seriously, literally. And when you do that, then you want to recognize it for what it is in terms of a book. And that's what we just talked about. This is a series of 66-some books, depending on which one looking at. And you've got to realize that there's lots of different techniques that were used in order to write it, lots of different things the writers were trying to do. So there are tools like textual criticism, historical criticism, literary criticism.

that help you get into those texts and understand why they were written, what were they written for, was their context were they in, so who were they talking to and how might it have impacted them, what do these words, what did they mean to the folks in that time. actually fascinating. It's a lot more, I think, interesting when you use these tools to dig into the text than it is just to have some person stand up in a pulpit.

tell you exactly what they think it means and almost always what they think it means is something that will allow the hierarchy, the patriarchy to control itself. I'll leave that there.

Alexis Rice (33:12)
What do you say to the person who thinks progressive Christians just pick and choose out of the Bible?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (33:18)
Absolutely, everybody picks and chooses out of the Anytime you're not eating shellfish or are eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics You are picking and choosing so think the real question so much whether we interpret the Bible when we pick and choose as much as how we do it and if you are a Christian who? the teachings of Jesus if that's what's important and I would say if you

claiming to be a Christian, should be, then the lens that you should be doing all this through is a lens love, of liberation, of healing, of justice, building healthy communities. And so, yeah, we all pick and choose, but that's the nature of the book. We just need to be more honest about why we're picking and choosing it and what framework we're using and what lens we're approaching. it with.

Alexis Rice (34:07)
I try not to bring this up too much, but just find it important. So I used to believe that a lot more when I was younger, like, yeah, I think maybe liberals or whatever, liberals, ⁓ do pick and choose out of the Bible and believing all of it. I'll give you a little told a friend that I grew up with that I was doing this podcast and this friend came from the same background that I did lived in the same.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (34:28)
Yeah.

Alexis Rice (34:28)
community

and said, what do you think conservative Christians are going about it and the picking and choosing and all that? And I was like, are you kidding me right now? With this state, with our we to specifically not feed the poor and we are specifically throwing people in prison versus visiting people in prison. So

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (34:32)
Right?

Mm-hmm. All right.

Alexis Rice (34:50)
I'm putting that out there because this just feels a little more obvious, I think, than it ever did of going, we all pick and choose.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (34:57)
Christian nationalism is what comes into play here, ultimately. And the way that that group of folks who are maybe the most hardcore evangelicals that still remain who haven't walked away, who didn't go into the early evangelical movement of recognizing the importance of social justice, they figured out how to pull them all together and to create a house for them to live in where they can feel like

their superior, that they're right and that they have the answers and that the rest of the messed up. Somehow they also, and it has to do with authority and the very authoritarian approach that that world uses is that they will claim that they're following Jesus without actually knowing the teachings of Jesus because the person in charge told them that that's what they're doing. It's also a really good tool for manipulating people. So I think it's a combination.

of all of those that comes together that puts us in that space where we have people who believe that they're being Christian, but are also saying, we're going to take away your food and your healthcare, which is got literal stories of Jesus giving those away. So it's crazy that folks are still capable of going, yeah, no, I'm just following the teachings of Jesus here.

Alexis Rice (36:06)
Yeah. Thanks, Reverend Dr. Mark Sandlin on that one. All right, myth number two. Christianity isn't real Christianity. Where did this idea come from? Like that faith only counts if it looks like white American evangelicalism.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (36:09)
Yeah.

It literally came from white American evangelicalism as it rose in the United States in importives and became kind of a dominant fixture and voice. also then began shifting because it wasn't this way before. They began shifting the, kind of understanding that their approach to Christianity, their interpretation of Christianity was the only one. was the correct one. And they were able to do it because they were coming.

from a place of dominance, which biblically, the Bible wasn't written for you folks. Biblically, it's always about the underdog, the outsiders, those that have been dispersed, about pulling them back in, making them more central, about finding the people shoved to of society and saying, no, you're more valuable than that, pulling them back in. And so to take a place of dominance, but

because of your religion and then use it to claim you have the only one true religion about a religion that's about bringing in the outsiders seems so oxymoronic. It's hard for me to completely wrap my head around because before that Christianity had all kinds of approaches that were all recognized as possible as valid ways of approaching it. and so it's certainly frustrating, isn't it?

Alexis Rice (37:43)
Yep.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (37:45)
Absolutely.

Alexis Rice (37:47)
find it

exceptionally funny in this day and age where right now we've just risen to this level it we're evangelical believe that we're right. And now it's to this, not only do we believe that we're whether or not you believe that we're right, we're going to impose it all on your And what is so funny is that in the wake of Zohran Mandami winning, now these same people are posting videos freaked out.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (38:04)
Yeah

Yes.

Alexis Rice (38:14)
that Islam is going to impose itself onto everybody else and they don't quite see it. Which by the way, Zohran love you and so excited. And also he's like, this is why we have separation of church and state. I can have my own beliefs and I'm not going to force you, but isn't that hilarious?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (38:16)
Right.

Yeah, it

is. The ability to not see yourself in the mirror, fascinating. The psychological studies are going to go on for ages about how this has happened and what causes a person to get to the point that they're willing to that in the face of simple logic. It's crazy.

Alexis Rice (38:54)
Yeah. How would you describe a faith that is still deeply Christ-centered but not fear-based?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (39:01)
I mean, it's love. We can do it in one word, love, because love would not want to put fear into someone. Fear tears people down. It makes people shut off, which is part of the reason why it's used so much. We shut off some of our thinking. It's fight or flight, and we stop trying to be logical. Love, on the other hand, encourages people. It helps people grow. It expands who they are. It nurtures them and gives them safe

places for asking questions, for expanding their faith. So I think it's pretty straightforward when you look at the teachings of Jesus, the opposite of fear, at least in terms of his teachings, would be love and the things related to

Alexis Rice (39:42)
Perfect love casts out all fear.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (39:44)
There you are.

Alexis Rice (39:46)
What's the difference between watering down Christianity and deepening it?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (39:51)
I think the difference comes down to a willingness to ask questions. if you're not willing to ask questions, you're definitely wandering it down because you're only giving it the potential to mean this one tiny little thing. And it is far too complex of a piece of literature to be there. So I think what we have to do is deepen our faith in a way that we trust in God enough

and believe that God big enough for the questions, right? And know that those questions will help us open up the book even wider than we've ever seen it before and apply it to our lives in ways that can not only help ourselves in our own personal growth, but can inspire us to be part of the movement that makes this world a better place. It begins to usher on earth.

I call the kingdom of love that that's what we're inspired towards when we are able to deepen our faith rather than water it down question.

Alexis Rice (40:47)
So there were a lot of us, there still are, who are raised in conservative, more fundamentalist spaces, who are very inquisitive, curious people, who really do want to seek out the truth of God and understand God. I do believe that there are so many I don't like when progressives, especially non-Christian progressives, paint conservative Christians as not educated, not smart, not caring, not is also not a reality. I think that's a character.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (41:12)
there.

Alexis Rice (41:14)
But I think what a lot of us feel a little bit betrayed about who were very inquisitive minds were that when we asked the questions, we were given apologetics. And so the apologetics the framing of it was this is defense of the faith. And I remember being in an apologetics class in high school that I took on my own free time. basically it was a defense of saying,

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (41:23)
Mm.

Alexis Rice (41:36)
The Bible is all one cohesive story and this is why you should believe that instead of presenting all different kinds of Christians all around the world approach the Bible. and so like even that framework is really frustrating looking back on it because I feel like it was designed to keep us into that framework of Christianity instead of being a little bit more honest about the questions that we ask.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (41:49)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (42:02)
So what do you think for people who are, you know, like high school, college age, who are inquisitive, who might actually still be in these spaces, who aren't able to leave these spaces? It's their whole church community. in the rural parts that you said, like they can't just leave, but they have these questions and they want more than just apologetics.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (42:13)
Yeah.

two things that I would, for me in that situation, it was reading. It was going and reading Diana Butler Bass and Brian McClaren and all of those types of folks who open it up. And I've named those particularly because they tend to do it in a very gentle, inviting way that feels safe and it doesn't feel so threatening. And they're just both incredibly brilliant and some of the nicest people I've ever

I would encourage that kind of thing. Go find those books and read those. But also I think what we talked about earlier about social media, progressive Christianity in general has expanded so much. There's so many resources out there now where you can ask those questions and have honest answers. And it's not going to be a person who says, I have the answer, but I have a answer. And here's how I approach and why I came to that answer. Here are the tools I use. Here's the parts I added together.

You can see how I got my conclusion, but you can make your own conclusion. I think that that's a place for folks to start for sure. I wish I'd had something like that when I was younger where I had that readily available of a resource that could do that. Because, know, cracking open a book, honestly, when I was in high school, I was much more likely to read some kind of sci-fi book than I was a study of theology. Although I did enough of it that it did begin leading me.

to where I am now for sure.

Alexis Rice (43:39)
I love readings of Diana and Brian love his podcast, Learning How to See has been really important for me. He does a bias study where he goes through nine different ways of bias and how we look at the world. And it's just been incredible. Richard Rohr, Barbara Brown Taylor, are there others that you suggest off the of your head?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (43:46)
Yeah, absolutely.

that. Great.

Dan McClellan, Ehrman in particular, if you're interested in the text, go read both of them. of fact, you can just, once you do a little Diana and Brian and realize that it's safe, jump straight to those guys. They are well-schooled on it and communicate it very well and kind of understand the larger picture and boil it down to a really accessible place. I highly recommend that.

Alexis Rice (44:23)
Myth number three, progressive Christians ignore sin and holiness. What does sin mean in progressive theology?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (44:33)
⁓ well, I avoid honestly the word sin just because of how it's been just tried to not use the word, but I do have an understanding of what I believe it is. And for me, then would be basically unloving actions that separate us from each other and from God, that those are sins. If it's an action that's separating us from each other and God. And I would kind of want to side note, say Jesus, when he said, love the Lord God with all your heart.

and love your neighbor as yourself. The little connection that he uses in between those two statements actually says something closer to and almost the same as loving God, love your neighbor as yourself. So I think anything that cuts us off from other people is cutting us off from God. Actions that do that are what traditionally would be under known, understood as sin, something that we should work to avoid because the idea

is to pull us all together and to recognize this connectedness that we have through God.

Alexis Rice (45:32)
Yep, okay, so my alarm ingrained in me, right? So here they are. So you say, I try to avoid the word sin, okay, so you know this, because you grew the more conservative. Sin is so central we hear in conservative spaces. We hear about it every week, we hear about it. and I do think that's a bit of polarized thing in a way, because I noticed that progressive Christians

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (45:36)
I'm sure they are. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (45:56)
try to avoid the word sin and conservative Christians are like sin, sin, sin, sin, sin. So it's, it's a, that's one of those concepts in the Bible for example, love is something I think most Christians can get around. that's a central tenant to Jesus, sin thing.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (46:01)
Alright.

that love looks

like sometimes is, I don't know, be crazy. Yeah, yeah.

Alexis Rice (46:12)
Very different, very different. But

can you talk about, because like I don't want people to turn when you say, when you say because I've heard that a sin is something I don't want to talk about because it's weaponized.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (46:16)
Yeah. right. Yeah.

don't like

using the word, not talking about sin.

Alexis Rice (46:26)
So let's unpack that a little bit. talk about how it's been weaponized. Talk about where that comes from. Why do progressive Christian leaders and ministers have a bit of a different take on it?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (46:37)
Well,

of course, people can have written whole books on this, but talk to kind of the more central argument that I see anyway, that sin is tied very closely to the concept of hell and that the threat of hell and the fear of hell, we've already talked a little bit about how unhealthy fear is in faith. So sin has been weaponized to scare people. As soon as the word sin is mentioned, particularly in evangelical circles,

One of the first things you think about is going to hell, because that's what the minister said, that if I do too much sinning and don't get forgiven for my sinning, I am going to go to hell. And so that's part of why I avoid the word sin, because it feels like using a knife. It feels like poking at people in places that they're still trying to heal from. So I try to stay away from that kind of language.

But I think it's used because of the way that church has grown into, or particularly traditional or more conservative church, has grown into a way of controlling people. And you need that authoritarian kind of structure to be able to do that. And let's name it for the patriarchy that it is, because you're going to very rarely find any women in that structure. Having that fearful downward flow causes people to fall in line because they think they're at risk.

of eternal damnation don't understand how we arrived at a point where that makes good religion. That's going to make people But that is where I see it coming from. And the reason why I avoid using this particular word sin. I'm all about talking about where we fall short of who we're supposed to be in the world. And that's people who things that are unloving that separate us from each other and from God. So I'm all about talking.

That just, that word feels like a knife.

Alexis Rice (48:21)
This is so helpful. Thank you. I've never heard anyone explain it quite like that. That's going to help a lot of people, I'm sure. How do you about then holiness or transformation without that shame or fear of hell? And before you answer that, I do want to caveat one thing here for people who don't know. So those of us who thought hell was just eternal conscious torment forever, you must pray a sinner's prayer.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (48:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (48:45)
And there

is an existing hell for anyone who's never done that. I'm not gonna go into it too much now, but you don't know that the original words were actually four different words in the Bible for hell, right? Gehenna, Tartarus, Hades, and Sheol. ⁓ and yeah, so I do just want to caveat there even that,

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (48:56)
Alright.

from the old testing.

Alexis Rice (49:03)
please go do some of your own research on that everybody. So let's now like just reframe that. So how do you talk about holiness or transformation without the shame or fear of hell?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (49:14)
Yeah, I think for me, it means approaching this idea of we're not always who we're supposed to be and we need to be transformed towards that. Doing it from a point of desire and not from a point of guilt, in evangelical world, you're encouraged to do it from a point of guilt. So shame comes along with that. I think instead what we need to be doing is what I try to do is show a person how much better things can be rather than showing them how bad they are.

You're going to have a lot more engagement. It shows a lot more care for that person. And it's going to put them in a place where they're more capable of moving into whatever the healthier next step for them is. So have it come from a place of desiring being in a better place rather than having guilt over the place I'm in.

Alexis Rice (50:01)
How does Jesus's model challenge both moral license and legalism?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (50:07)
Yeah. Well, you know, ultimately Jesus challenges rule breakers who hurt other people and the rule lovers who hurt other people. So for me, the question is always going to come back to just does this create love? And I think that comes straight from the teachings of Jesus. I don't mean to oversimplify. That's not fair. I do frequently mean to oversimplify things. It comes down to that question. Does this create love? If the answer is no, then it's not from God. It's not following the teachings of Jesus. So

me, he approaches anyone who harms other people because of their set of rules, their set of how to approach life. If your way of doing it hurts others.

that is not following his teachings and it's not of God.

Alexis Rice (50:47)
myth number four. This is a big one that's driven a lot of people away. Faith and science cannot coexist. So little story, went to the observatory in LA, Hollywood Observatory, And we watched this gorgeous about the origins of the earth.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (50:55)
Yeah

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (51:09)
and how we started billions of years ago and going all in. And I had some loved ones with me who were unhappy at the end of that because they were like, well, that's not God. is against our Christian faith. The earth is 6,000 years old. Evolution is not accurate. We can't trust scientists because they're all a bunch of atheists. evolution is not correct.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (51:26)
Right.

Alexis Rice (51:34)
And so we were taught, honestly, to shut school. And this is why I think a lot of people are actually leaving public schools, is literally because they've been sold this idea that if you are a Christian, you must distrust science is not of God. So let's...

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (51:52)
Yeah. All right.

Alexis Rice (51:55)
Blow this myth right open. how did we end up with this idea that the belief in God and acceptance of science are mutually exclusive?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (52:03)
Well, I think where we saw it start was during the 18th century, during the Enlightenment, where leading thinkers were rolling around to when you were trying to do a literal interpretation of a set of books that were never meant to be interpreted literally so that you can use it to control the folks who follow you and maintain your position of power, all of a sudden science becomes a real threat because it values rationalism.

and values, looking at facts and discernment of things. So saw it start there. Interestingly, prior to that, there was nothing, the two worked hand in hand. one was saying, how does it work this way? The other was saying, does it work that way? They were answering two very different questions. What's the purpose of it working that way?

And from that point, I just kept dividing the more the kind of leading thinkers of the world's went deeper and deeper into kind of looking at things from a higher logic stamp standpoint, it became more and more of a threat to the people that were using literal interpretation as a way of establishing their power over the.

Alexis Rice (53:07)
So is it safe to say that you do not believe in the young earth creation theory?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (53:12)
Very safe to say. Yes. that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Alexis Rice (53:18)
Okay, I mean, it was just wild. I talked to a family member who grew up in Europe and grew up Catholic. And I said, hey, what did you grow up believing? Because, you know, she's a religious person. And I said, yeah, we grew up not believing in evolution and the Big Bang. her mind went, she was like, I've never heard of anybody, anybody who's a religious person, you know, Christian who doesn't believe in evolution and the Big Bang. So like, when I started,

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (53:35)
What?

All right.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (53:46)
Realizing, like looking around the world, like, ⁓ what's going on? Like, maybe this is like very cultural and yeah. what is beautiful to you? Let's dispel the myth that creationists, people who love Jesus and God are over here. then, you know, people who believe in science and evolution are godless, atheist, liberals over here. And these are the two pictures that

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (53:51)
Hahahaha

All Yeah.

Okay.

Alexis Rice (54:11)
that I will say are reinforced in both conservative and progressive spaces in general, right? do think that are characters of just two people that exist on this planet, but we're much more complex. So let's talk to you. what is beautiful to you as a Christian, as a minister about the Big Bang, about evolution and the cosmos as part of God's creation?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (54:27)
Yeah.

I am a, I science fan of science geek growing up. the big bang. here's, like the way that the big bang in my mind relates to quantum physics and quantum entanglement, that all things were one thing at once. And then it blew up and quantum entanglement tells us that any kind of quantum piece particle that occupied the same space.

No matter how far apart it gets, it can have an impact on the other. And we don't really understand why yet. We're beginning to. But for me right now, that is such beautiful poetry for the connectedness of God. I've always said that God is part of the thing, the connective tissue of life that holds us together. And the fact that science is finding that creation is actually possibly that deeply connected in its own, I think is absolutely

Gorgeous and it's poetic. I'm not saying that anything there is God I do think it points to the the existence of things We can't understand that connect us and for me that is it's just absolutely beautiful

Alexis Rice (55:38)
love that. Myth number five, progressive Christianity is just politics in disguise. you on the Christian left and own pages, you often connect faith to justice, to poverty, to LGBTQ plus inclusion, to racism. Why do some Christians see that as political?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (55:45)
All right.

Because when you start naming things that cause real harm, the people who benefit from that real harm get real uncomfortable. That's the main reason. They don't want it to be true because it makes them uncomfortable. It threatens again, we go back to the threatens their power. I always say love is political. has to be because there are folks who are trying to make sure that some people and even legislate that some people

get treated in an unloving way. if your call is to love all people unconditionally and equally, then because of the way other folks govern, love is and always will be political. not for the sake of being political, but it becomes political because the lawmakers are being unjust.

Alexis Rice (56:52)
Yeah, so I think that's another thing in spaces, Christian spaces, is that we grew up with a message that, well, we are an apolitical space. And the churches that I know, this is why I'm really excited to hear it, to ask you. Well, you know, those churches over there, they are political. Look how political they are. We are apolitical. I think now more than ever, it's real obvious that

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (57:06)
Alright.

All right.

Alexis Rice (57:19)
Look, I was a communications major in college and I learned real early that everybody has a bias. So like when Fox News says fair and unbiased, it just makes me nuts. Like everybody has a bias. We all do. So if we start from that place of accepting that we are all coming from a bias, that none of us can be fair and impartial, we can try our best, but we're all coming from a point of view. I think that's just a lot more of an honest.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (57:22)
Now.

Ha ha ha ha

Exactly.

Alexis Rice (57:44)
place and I wish that more churches would be a little more upfront about that. So I really respect the churches that are saying, yeah, we're political. I would like to hear how that strikes you when you hear about those churches that say, well, we're apolitical.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (57:45)
Mm-hmm.

But

yeah, it comes back to that where I saying seem to see themselves in the mirror. It's interesting, particularly around the question faith and politics, particularly with the work I do over on the Christian left. What you see is the Christian nationalist movement.

doesn't see anything they do as religious, but everything that doesn't match what they want becomes religious. And that's the reason why your side is being religiously political. So.

It's such a difficult, I'm trying not to be mean. such a disconnect and divide from reality that we are going to have to find new approaches to hold that mirror up. because they truly do not see it. even as they point to the Bible and hold it up as they're signing a law, they'll say that they're not.

being political with their religion, hard to get past. There is such a disconnect. So we got a lot of work to do there. I'll leave it there. We got work to do there. definitely is a massive disconnect Christian nationalists think that they're not trying to manipulate Christianity for political purposes.

Alexis Rice (59:02)
Amen. And that's part of the reason I'm so thankful for ministers like you who are online in this space speaking out against it so other people can see that this is not what all Christians believe, right? It's really important.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (59:11)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Alexis Rice (59:13)
Myth number six, there's no heaven, there's no hell or salvation at all in progressive faith. How do you talk about salvation and eternal life without reverting to fear-based evangelism or eternal conscious torment?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (59:29)
Yeah, I always start with asking what's the question of what are we being saved from? already talked about the idea of sin and being saved from hell and some of the progressive issues with that. I'd like to talk about what progressives say what being saved is really about. we being saved from? And I would make the argument that if you look at the life of Jesus, that the things we're being saved from, or being saved from shame, or being saved from fear, from

injustice from systems that are built intentionally to crush the human spirit. That's what salvation looks like is more and more folks understanding that, living from a loving place and working to make sure that we can bring more and more people into that of salvation where they can let go of the fear and the shame and the injustices that have been put on top of them. you know, I think definitely salvation. It's just not

what salvation ultimately got shaped to be 19th and 20th century in America.

Alexis Rice (1:00:29)
Don't go to a Presbyterian church if you're not willing to be thinking.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (1:00:34)
that's fair that's fair that is fair

Alexis Rice (1:00:39)
So for listeners who kind of are like, okay, all right. I'm interested. a little more open to this previously had to trauma there. For listeners who feel like they've left Christianity behind because they couldn't believe in the talking snakes or the 6,000 year old

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (1:00:45)
All right.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:01:01)
or like that they couldn't bring their gay friend to church or whatever that was. Or that women couldn't lead. won't keep going, but we know there's a million reasons why people have left. What do you want them to know about the Jesus that you have encountered in your life?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (1:01:03)
Right.

Yeah, it's on this.

I want them to know that the things that hurt them that they're running away from and understandably so running away from are not the Jesus that I understand from biblical text. I want them to understand that there are safe spaces where you can explore that and develop your faith in whatever way is the healthiest and best for you that don't go to those places. As a matter of fact, what they prefer to do is provide you with the tools that help you learn to ask better questions so that you can find out who this Jesus was.

what Jesus wanted for this world and how Jesus taught we are to go about bringing in what again I call the kingdom of love, a place where we're all equals and where we all exist together and we don't marginalize people and everyone has their needs met.

Alexis Rice (1:02:05)
So as we close today, Reverend Dr. Mark Sandlin, Mark, as we close today, Mark many haven't been prayed for in a long time because they've had to leave these church spaces or they've been kicked out or whatever. I would love to ask you if you could offer a prayer for them for those need it right now.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (1:02:08)
Yes. ⁓

I will be glad to. all center ourselves, breathe in, breathe out, let go noises in the world around us for just a moment, and let's pray together. Good and querying God that refuses to fit inside the walls we inherited, be near to every soul learning to breathe again. For the ones who were told faith meant silence,

May their questions become a doorway to freedom. For the ones who were told love had limits, may they discover love that expands, love that liberates, love that never asks them to shrink. May the rubble of fear become the foundation of something truer. Not the faith that we were given, but the faith that we are growing into. Spacious, curious, rooted in justice and

honest enough to bring about healing. May we remember that we are already held, already worthy, already beloved, and may that truth be the beginning of our rebuilding.

Alexis Rice (1:03:44)
Amen. Thank you so much, Mark. one final question. What do you like to do for fun?

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (1:03:47)
been great. Yes, please.

⁓ Read books. Read books. I actually recently I've gotten to the point that I work too much and I've been working with my therapist and one of the things that I have started redoing that I used to do all the time is video games. So that is, have gone back to playing video games and love it so much. It is so healthy for me.

Alexis Rice (1:04:14)
Yeah!

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (1:04:20)
important that we all have that little moment of escapism where we can kind of breathe in and breathe out and let the world pass by us for a little bit. than reading science fiction fantasy sometimes. than that, that's one of my big ones in movies. I have a podcast, ⁓ the Moonshine Jesus Show, where we talk about science fiction, fantasy movies and television shows. So that too

Alexis Rice (1:04:43)
Well, we will link to that in your notes and I'm so, so thankful for the work that you do. Keep going and thank you so much for being on the sacred slope today.

Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin (1:04:45)
Okay.

Appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Very enjoyable. I appreciate you inviting me.

Alexis Rice (1:04:54)
Thank you for joining us today If you'd like to nominate a pastor, priest, or clergy member anywhere in the world, send me an email at Alexis @ thesacredslope.com. Music was by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin, and Sean Spence. the fruit of the spirit guide you this week. I'm Alexis Rice. Go in peace, friends.