patheological: The Podcast for the Pastor Theologian Todd Littleton

Marv Levy takes his dry humor around the globe in the comedy series The Reluctant Traveler. Levy’s travels leave him perplexed and curious. His episode-ending reflections include themes he picks up along the way. Often sounding surprised, he finds that folks living in Finland enjoy life outdoors, even if it is cold. Smiles greet him, and he cannot figure out why. After a few episodes, you get the feeling that he may enjoy a habit he never dreamed he would.







Maina Mwara describes his recent book as a project that called him. And after our conversation, I wondered if Howard Hendricks could be described as The Reluctant Mentor. Not resistant but reluctant. 







Mentoring hit the craze level some years ago in Christian leadership circles. Books on mentoring, how to be a mentor, and successful mentoring became the rage. I recall receiving a free book or two at a conference on the subject. The desire to be a mentor has a dark side. It feeds a nascent narcissism that may be latent in all of us. “You need to listen to me.”







Like Hendricks to those who saw him as their mentor, my mentors have not self-identified as such. I have recognized they are my mentors. The relationship developed into a mentoring relationship. Rick did not tell me one day as Darth told Luke, “I am your mentor.”







Reluctant does not mean resistant. Influential does not always mean intentional. Relationships predicated on a contractual arrangement seldom reach the depths of mentoring relationships. And lack of intention does not mean accidental. Christian discipleship is organic, not programmatic. “Don’t pluck the weeds lest you pluck the wheat also.” Time and interactions are the soil in which mentoring relationships emerge.







Howard Hendricks’s story as an influential mentor rises from within an uncomfortable context, reaching diverse people, and results in an investment that yet survives his short sojourn. Remember, no matter how long we live; it is like a vapor.







Pick up a copy and observe what it means to be an influential mentor. You don’t need a program. You only need an interest in people.

We deconstruct everything so why the bugaboo?







Mark Driscoll famously attacked deconstruction, or Deconstruction, with the caricature that the goal is to reduce everything to its nub so it may be dismissed. He used the schtick to strike fear in those who dared question what they had been taught, particularly at Mars Hill. 







We all know how that turned out. Just this week, I listened to a sermon where Driscoll was the illustration for the need to deconstruct what preachers say. “God hates sin and the sinner.” It is as if the Serpent returned upon hearing that “God so loved the world” and whispered in the congregation’s ear, “Did Jesus really say he loved the world?”







My friend Greg Hortin joins me for another conversation on deconstruction, or Deconstruction. When we listen to policymakers and elected officials, how do we discern what they are saying, or not, with the words they choose? This has become important in Oklahoma, given the rhetoric of our State School Superintendent and his constant use of “woke ideology.” Listeners need to interrogate the language – that is, deconstruction or Deconstruction.









https://traffic.libsyn.com/patheological/HortonDeconstruction.mp3

Claims that the Woke Left is indoctrinating students in Oklahoma Public Schools have been a talking point of Oklahoma State School Superintendent Ryan Walters since he began his campaign. Once elected, erasing the Woke Agenda has been his ongoing mantra. My friend Greg Horton posted about the claims of indoctrination on his Facebook Page, to which I remarked everyone indoctrinates. We decided to have a conversation about the subject.







*Greg suggested a warning that he uses salty language in our conversation. Some editing has been done. Other words remain.

“Is healthcare a right or privilege?”







Maybe the question needs a better frame.







Recently I was talking with my friend Marty about healthcare, high deductibles, and treatment costs. Amidst the ongoing cultural battles occupying congressional talking points I wondered on Twitter when would our legislators take up one of the more crucial human needs. Dr. Kevin Driver was quick to respond. He included a willingness to have a podcast conversation on the intersection of theology/ethics and healthcare.







I dusted off the mic, reminded myself of the best recording settings, and set up the Zoom conversation. What resulted is today’s podcast.







When we think of the ideas that undergird talking Christian about healthcare what comes to your mind? Give us a listen and hear what Dr. Driver offers.















If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

I tried to work in one of my favorite lines from Cold Mountain into the title.







I imagine God is weary of being called down on both sides of an argument. Inman, Cold Mountain







Next week Messengers to our denominations’ annual meeting may hear proposed Resolutions on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. One feature of the debate over the past couple of years has been working out just how the conception of race as a social construct should inform our awareness of the way racialization has become part of the legal structures of the U.S. legal system thereby making it normal to subordinate non-white people. Some disagree with this assertion having opted for a derivative definition of CRT.







In this episode, Brad and I talk about my own difficulty understanding and agreeing that race is, in fact, a social construct. What caught my attention is that both those who see the benefit of CRT analysis and those opposed agree – race is a social construct. Even Christians agree. However, at that point it is a matter of disagreement as to who’s side God is on when it comes to the usefulness of such a conclusion. It is here where I would echo Jude Law’s character, Inman.







Where interests intersect is what some refer to as common places.







Bradly Mason joins me as we continue our series of conversations on Critical Race Theory. On this episode we discuss the common places, areas where shared interests converge in search of understanding, if not action. I should note here that I have been helped, and indebted to, Brad for taking time out of his schedule to have these conversations.







In the past week a couple of friends, pastor types, who resisted any benefit of CRT, have found these conversations helpful and admit to drawing conclusions without exploring the original sources and ideas. One young friend sent along a document dated to the Wilberforce era where the conditions that gave rise to CRT, the organized subordination of others, existed before Derrick Bell’s seminal essay just more than 30 years ago.







If you missed our previous episodes you will find them here:The Danger of Mediating IdeasWhen the Law Does Not DeliverCan Two Walk Together















If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Near the end of our last conversation on the subject of Critical Race Theory, Bradly Mason remarked that race is a social construct for the subordination of other human beings. His statement did not go without notice. One listener sent a series of questions. If Mason asserted that race was a social construct and Founder’s Ministry agrees with that assertion, then how is it Founder’s views CRT different than Mason. Or, how is it that two agree but cannot walk together?







Here are a couple of the questions: When did race become a social construct in the United States? When did it stop in the United States?







During this third episode in our ongoing series on the subject of CRT, we utilize these questions to talk about how race has been used. You might find it interesting that Mason points to a source that describes how the category of race is used by one European group to subordinate another European group where skin color was not the issue. Subordinating one group to another was the economic goal. How is that not what occurred in the United States, I wondered?







One gnawing matter for me is that when we discover a habit that is inconsistent with the life of Jesus, no matter how I come to learn of its presence within me, how is it I don’t see that as an occasion for sanctification? In other words, if CRT exposes the way other humans beings have been subordinated and that laws intended to change that reality are ineffective, what is wrong with the question, “How did this happen?” Isn’t this the same question post-holocaust philosophers and theologians asked after the efforts to exterminate, subordinate, one group of people by another?







It is clear that a movement is at work to empty CRT of its origins, its history, and infuse it with all perceived cultural evils that must be avoided at all costs. This has actually been stated as a goal. Most call this obfuscation or watch the hand over here so you don’t see what the hand over there is doing. Even some in my denomination seem firmly entrenched in this position. I have yet to see any leaders address the origins and aspects of CRT. Really all we see is an attempt to make this analytical tool the worst thing to come along. And yet, those same Christian people claim to find analytical value in an atheistic worldview. Confounding, I know.















If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.