Ben introduces the idea of the "feral spirit," a way of understanding spiritual encounter that doesn't require institutional scaffolding to be real. He talks about what happens when churches try to manufacture the Spirit's presence instead of simply making space for it, the difference between rituals that help us remember and rituals that help us control, and why a thousand dolphins playing in the ocean off Santa Barbara is actually a decent theology of joy. There's poetry, there's a 26-year-old Bordeaux, there's Walter Brueggemann on the freedom of God, and somehow it all holds together. If you've ever felt like the Spirit left the building long before you did, this one is for you.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/xWAjix_cyVo

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in

Join us for the Wine and Whiskey trip in Oregon on September 25-27: https://communionwineco.com/events/wine-and-whiskey/

What do you do when the very people who introduced you to Jesus can no longer recognize the Jesus your faith has led you to? C.E. Jarnagin is a priest, researcher, and author who's asking that exact question in his new book The Congruent Life, and he brings a rare combination of Anglican liturgy, pastoral honesty, and zero tolerance for religious veneer to the conversation. In this episode, Jeremy and Chad work through what it looks like to hold your full humanity inside a faith community, why Christian nationalism and the Jesus of the Gospels are not remotely the same, and how a small church of 160 people (including a dozen former pastors) might actually be doing something the megachurch model couldn't.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/uTzs1Mo9F2c

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in

Links:

• https://www.instagram.com/chadjarnagin
• https://www.threads.com/@chadjarnagin

Bethany Cseh is a pastor who spent years standing at a pulpit she wasn't sure she was allowed to occupy, internally justifying each sermon as something other than what it actually was. That tension turned out to be the beginning of a longer, stranger education. In this episode, Bethany joins Jeremy to talk about co-pastoring two completely different churches with her husband, what happened when they tried to merge them into one service, and the counterintuitive theology that emerged from the wreckage: that God is revealed more fully through our distinctions than despite them. They also get into merit badge theology, walking as a spiritual practice, and why John Piper is the last person you want picking out a wine for you.

Watch the episode on video: https://youtu.be/ZpURVmhmfyc

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My new book, The Edge of the Inside, is now available. You can get a signed copy or in whatever form you prefer: https://www.edgeoftheinside.com/

Join the online community and get access to exclusive content and experiences: https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/online-community

Trying to make sense of faith? Download my free Deconstruction Field Guide. It's a ten-page resource to help you navigate what's next so you don't have to do it alone. https://www.jeremyjernigan.com/opt-in