The Long Journey from Believer to Evangelical Critic – Dan Miller

Episode 86. 
Several big international changes have occurred since the last episode was released on the 9th of January. America witnessed another peaceful transfer of power, though it was immediately followed by some executive orders that are anything but peaceful, and Israeli hostages were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire. These small steps are part of much longer national journeys that will affect many people for years to come. 

Today’s guest, Dan Miller––professor, co-host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast, and former evangelical pastor––has stepped out of his usual discussion of White Christian Nationalism in America to talk with me about his own personal faith journey. Over the years of observance and theological training, Dan has shifted from believer to critic, though he is back in a church community. You’ll hear many reminders of why thinking deeply and critically is so valuable.


Highlights:
·       Complex Identity and Faith Transformation 

·       Evangelicalism: Biblical Authority and Social Conservatism

·       Leaving Evangelicalism for Social Justice

·       Biblical contradictions and complexity 

·       Justice and Jesus of Nazareth

·       “All we can do is the next right thing.”

Social Media link for Dan:
Website – Straight White American Jesus
Email – DanielMillerswaj@gmail.com

Transcript on Buzzsprout

More episodes with Evangelicals:
Cathy Sirvatka
Kelly Baader

Social Media links for Méli:
Website – Talking with God Project
LinkedIn – Meli Solomon
Facebook – Meli Solomon

Follow the podcast!
The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 

Comments?  Questions? Email  Méli at – info@talkingwithgodproject.org

The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/

Transcript

Dan Miller transcript

The Long Journey from Believer to Evangelical Critic

Méli Solomon [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meili Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more, check out the link in the show notes. Several big international changes have occurred since the last episode was released on 9th January. America witnessed another peaceful transfer of power, though it was immediately followed by some executive orders that are anything but peaceful, And Israeli hostages were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire.

Méli Solomon [00:01:01]:

These small steps are part of much longer national journeys that will affect many people for years to come. Today's guest, Dan Miller, professor, co-host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast and former evangelical pastor, has stepped out of his usual discussion of white Christian nationalism in America to talk with me about his own personal faith journey. Over the years of observance and theological training, Dan has shifted from believer to critic, though he is back in a church community. You'll hear many reminders of why thinking deeply and critically is so valuable. And now let's turn to our conversation. Hi, Dan. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I'm so pleased to have you on today.

Dan Miller [00:01:57]:

I'm glad to be here. Glad to see you again. We haven't had a chance to talk, for several weeks, so it's nice to be here. Thank you.

Méli Solomon [00:02:03]:

You know, I listen to your Straight White American Jesus podcast regularly. It's fantastic. I learn a lot, but I have invited you on to really talk about your personal faith path. Let's start at the beginning. I gather from your bio that you would identify yourself as a Christian. Is that a reasonable statement?

Dan Miller [00:02:29]:

It's a complicated statement. I guess guess what what I would say with that is, I feel like the word Christian is so co-opted. Folks who may not know me, I do a lot with Christian nationalism and American high control religion and things like that, but I sometimes worry what that communicates to folks. But, yeah, that's the tradition I come out of. I'm affiliated with a very liberal Protestant church in Massachusetts where I live and support them and what they do. So very broadly, yes. But the people that used to know me are sometimes shocked when they find out what that doesn't mean mean for me anymore. So a lot of grist for the mill there.

Méli Solomon [00:03:03]:

And we will be totally getting into that grist. How were you raised religiously?

Dan Miller [00:03:08]:

We did a lot of church hopping. I don't know if people know what that term means, but when people are sort of, like, trying out different churches American Protestantism is a very consumer y sort of thing. And so we would go to different churches, try them out and so forth. But somewhere late grade school, middle school, somewhere in there, we settled on a church. I lived in Colorado. It was part of a denomination called the Conservative Baptist at the time, but we started attending a small church there in in Montrose, Colorado where I grew up. And I was there for a number of years, and that's where we sort of settled eventually.

Méli Solomon [00:03:41]:

In reading your notes, what I saw a lot was about evangelicalism. Yeah. So I as a Jew, frankly, find these Christian labels really confusing. Yeah. So I have been thinking about evangelicalism as a denomination. But when I read your notes, Dan, I was thinking, maybe I have that really wrong. Maybe it's more about evangelicalism as a theological approach or a stance towards non-believers or non-evangelicals, which can inhabit various denominations, in your case, the Southern Baptist. What do you think?

Dan Miller [00:04:27]:

I think you're right about how weird that term is and complicated. So if we think about denominations, if people drive around, they see the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church. Those are the denominations, and they have their own organizations, their own histories, and so forth. Evangelicalism is like an umbrella term that overarches a lot of those denominations. And sometimes people within the denomination that would not be considered evangelical would still sort of fit that term. And so I think evangelicalism refers to really a set of theological doctrines, kind of a style of faith, if you like. And so there are whole denominations that fit very comfortably under that umbrella of evangelicalism. Southern Baptists are 1.

Dan Miller [00:05:08]:

The conservative Baptists would have been 1. So it would be safe for me to say that I grew up as an evangelical or a conservative Baptist. And just the last point to make about that within contemporary American Christianity, evangelicalism is a kind of Christian identity is really superseded for a lot of people denominational identities. And so I think there are a lot of people who maybe they go to a Baptist church or a Methodist church. They couldn't tell you what the difference between those traditions are, but that sense of being evangelical and what that means is is the deeper identity. And so when people hear about sort of conservative Protestantism in the US, broadly speaking, we're we're typically talking about evangelicalism.

Méli Solomon [00:05:46]:

And what what does that mean?

Dan Miller [00:05:49]:

It means a lot of things. Tends historically to mean a strong emphasis on biblical authority. The idea that the Bible is the, as they would use the language, the inerrant word of God, that it doesn't contain errors, that it's a revelation from God and so forth, an understanding of salvation as spiritual and individual. One becomes a Christian by having this this all the language you'd hear, a personal relationship with Jesus as one's individual savior and so forth, socially conservative. A lot of the stuff we hear about culture wars and social conservatism. So, for the last, you know, what, 40 or 50 years, opposed to abortion access, opposed to LGBTQ rights, same sex marriage, different kinds of issues like that. But I think for a lot of evangelicals, if you ask them, they would say biblical authority being a, quote, unquote, biblical Christian. Their understanding that the Christianity they affirm comes from the Bible and is faithful to that.

Méli Solomon [00:06:46]:

Thanks. I hear the, college professor will not answer. No. It's it's fantastic. I I love the the clarity and articulate answer. I've had several evangelicals on as as guests, and what I've noticed is that when I ask them, well, what's your religious identity? They don't say I'm an evangelical.

Dan Miller [00:07:08]:

Mhmm.

Méli Solomon [00:07:08]:

They say I'm a Christian. Yeah. And what I can kind of tease out of them sometimes is that they're not using the word evangelical because of what you mentioned a moment ago, Dan. That the last 5, 10 years in America has so polluted that term, so tainted it, that they shy away from it.

Dan Miller [00:07:32]:

Yeah. I think there are 2 dynamics here. I think that's part of it. And in fact, there's evidence now that some people call themselves evangelical who don't identify as Christian because of its political connotations. The other one is that for lots of evangelicals, evangelicalism simply is authentic Christianity. Other forms of Christianity, they just don't quite have it right. They may be more or less strident in stating that. Traditionally, evangelicals have held that, what we would call liberal or mainline Protestants.

Dan Miller [00:08:00]:

They're not maybe really fully Christian. Catholics, maybe not fully Christian. Even parts of the historically black church tradition with its emphasis on civil rights and activism, there's been suspicion toward that. So I think that's the kind of sociological piece of it. For many evangelicals, they simply are Christians. They are the authentic embodiment of what real Christianity is.

Méli Solomon [00:08:22]:

Wow. How about that for a world outlook?

Dan Miller [00:08:25]:

Yeah. Yeah. Another defining feature of evangelicalism historically has been that it is an exclusivist understanding of of Christianity. Right? The the those who are not true Christians are simply not saved and so forth, and that evangelicalism kinda has a lock on what that is.

Méli Solomon [00:08:42]:

And God saved the rest of us.

Dan Miller [00:08:44]:

Yeah. If you become evangelical, God will. That's that's that's how it works. Right? Yep. Literally, God saved the rest of us. Yeah.

Méli Solomon [00:08:54]:

Right. Right. The other thing that I that I've heard is that the term itself is all about evangelizing. Mhmm. Right? That it's in the name, and yet that's not one of the things you mentioned. So that's really interesting to me.

Dan Miller [00:09:09]:

Yeah. It it would be one of the distinctives that they would highlight. As part of that being biblical, part of the what they understand that that means is that they are called there's a passage in the bible that they will call The Great Commission where Jesus tells his followers to go out and make disciples. And so making disciples of others, leading others to salvation would be their language. Others, leading others to salvation would be their language. Proselytizing is a core element of of that tradition as it's historically been articulated. Yeah.

Méli Solomon [00:09:37]:

Getting back to you. You've experienced since your early church hopping days, with your family, you've made several changes through different churches. So could you walk us through briefly how that's been?

Dan Miller [00:09:55]:

Yeah. So that that whole discussion of evangelicalism is useful because it's a very identifiable American religious subculture, and that's the subculture I lived in. So the sort of fast forward version, we started attending this church. We might call it sort of the, you know, the nominal Christian. I went there. I kind of felt guilty all the time because I didn't think I was doing what God wanted, but I didn't, like, fully commit or whatever. But when I was 16, we went on a youth group mission trip to Mexico, and I had a very profound kind of conversion experience, or we might call it in the evangelical ease, a recommitment experience. But I felt called to ministry.

Dan Miller [00:10:31]:

I felt that God was directing me to become a pastor. And from that day on, I became like mister super evangelical kid. My family moved to Arkansas shortly after that happened. My dad got a different job and became part of a Southern Baptist church, but I led youth bible studies. I preached in church. I was part of what we call purity culture. I signed a card pledging to remain abstinent until marriage. I was this little moral exemplar of, you know, what what a Christian kid was supposed to be.

Dan Miller [00:11:02]:

And that carried me for some time. I felt this commitment to go into ministry. I attended a Southern Baptist College as a bible major with an eye to then going on to seminary and and all of that. I was eventually ordained and one of 2 pastors at a small Southern Baptist Church in Seattle, Washington and earned a Master of Divinity from a Southern Baptist Seminary. So I was I was the evangelical's evangelical up to that point in time. So that that's the sort of quick and dirty version.

Méli Solomon [00:11:29]:

But you're not that now, are you? 

Dan Miller [00:11:33]:

I am not that now. No.

Méli Solomon [00:11:36]:

You've fallen off the wagon?

Dan Miller [00:11:38]:

I'm a very, very strident critic of evangelicalism. Yeah. Somewhere when I was pastoring in Seattle, that would have been, you know, late nineties, and a pivotal moment for me was the the 2000 election. Those of us of a certain age. Right? Remember that one? And I was a pastor, and I was pretty politically illiterate. I knew that God liked Republicans and Republicans were Christians and Democrats were the devil, but I didn't know any more than that. And I had parishioners with questions. I remember this really profound moment for me when I in the lead up to the election, I did some sort of online survey thing that would, like, explain different political views and then, like, line you up with which candidate you were most like and things like this.

Dan Miller [00:12:18]:

I was trying to learn about politics. And to my shock and dismay, I lined up with Gore way more than than George W. Bush. That wasn't supposed to happen.

Méli Solomon [00:12:28]:

You're sure going to hell now.

Dan Miller [00:12:30]:

I know. And and so, I mean, I I I was this closeted Gore voter. I remember, you know, the recounts happen and Bush wins. And I go to seminary. I was in seminary at the time, and people are in this prayer circle, thanking God that his will was done and the George W. Bush won. And I quietly walked by because I had voted for Al Gore. And the the period while I was pastoring, it was 5 years. During that time, I met LGBTQ people, and they didn't fit into the evangelical narrative that I had.

Dan Miller [00:12:57]:

I became concerned with what we would now call social justice issues, and they just did not have a place within the evangelicalism that I practiced. I didn't align politically with a lot of my evangelical peers. I also had theological questions. I was, you know, as I say, a biblical studies person at the time and started studying theology and just didn't think that theology worked. Didn't think that the Bible could be what evangelicals said it was. So I continued that that ministry, but I eventually left, not for any reason of animosity, but because I was going on to pursue, further education in theology. And so I went to study in the UK, and I knew when I left to go do that that I was finished with evangelicalism. So that was my move out of, you know, the Southern Baptist denomination, out of American evangelicalism.

Dan Miller [00:13:41]:

It was a nice kinda quiet way, to leave. I didn't have to make any bold pronouncement or tell anybody I was doing it. I was just literally leaving and, started exploring different theological and spiritual paths after that.

Méli Solomon [00:13:54]:

As it happens, I was living in Seattle when you were there.

Dan Miller [00:13:57]:

Oh, wow. Yeah. Alright.

Méli Solomon [00:13:59]:

Yeah. And and what's interesting to hear you talk about that, just on a very quick personal note, is that those were the years when I was getting into Judaism

Dan Miller [00:14:08]:

Oh.

Méli Solomon [00:14:09]:

From from nothing. I was raised with nothing. So it's just really interesting to think about considering that I saw Seattle as just liberal city, lots of culture, and a reasonable Jewish community.

Dan Miller [00:14:23]:

Part of what drew me there was it was the least church city in the US at the time, that evangelistic sort of thing. So I went there because there was this aim of going to the unchurched. And and I guess on the cautionary tale for the evangelicals, I met all these unchurched people, and they weren't so bad. Yeah.

Méli Solomon [00:14:40]:

Right. So you've attended all these different churches. You've shifted around, and you're now, you know, on this evil liberal end. How has your sense of religious identity changed?

Dan Miller [00:14:54]:

It's it's sort of waxed and waned. Evangelicalism is very, very effective as a subculture of creating a kind of coherent religious identity Christian identity. So much so that when people leave it, they often don't have any conception that you could be something else and still identify as as Christian. I I work with through the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery with people that are are processing religious trauma. And this is one of the most common things I find from people who leave evangelicalism is they're sort of like, where do I go? And I I was part of that. And so there were times when I I sort of identified with the tradition, times when I didn't. Some life things flowed in there. You know, we have our first kid and who who has time right Sunday morning to do anything and, you know, sort of faded in and out.

Dan Miller [00:15:39]:

But when I moved to Massachusetts, it's where I live now. I've been here about 10 years. I became affiliated with a church. It's a really interesting church. It's Jonathan Edwards Church. People know anything about American history. So the great the great awakening, you know, sinners in the hands of an angry God, Jonathan Edwards. It's his church building.

Dan Miller [00:15:55]:

There's a bust of Jonathan Edwards on the wall, but it's super progressive. It's something like 30% queer identified. Was invited there. And I remember just to give a sense to folks of what this this looks like. One of the first Sundays I went there was was what's called Reformation Sunday, which is like celebrating Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses on the door in Wittenberg. And I'm I'm I'm a tough sell at this point to be going to a church somewhere. I already know they're queer affirming. They got Black Lives Matters banner.

Dan Miller [00:16:23]:

I know that they're social justice oriented. I know that they're not super dogmatic. That wouldn't have gone there if I wasn't, but I was curious. I was like, I'm gonna see what this pastor does with this reformation Sunday. I walk in and there's a door at the front of the church, and there's a basket full of paper and, like, hammer and nails. And what the pastor did is invited people to write down things they no longer believe about God and nail them to the door for reformation Sunday. And I remember I was like, okay. This could be a a place where I can fit.

Dan Miller [00:16:51]:

So, you know, things like that drew me back in unexpectedly in 2016. You know, there was an election in 2016. Folks probably remember it. Another sort of defining feature for me at the time was the effort to defund Obamacare, universal health care. I believe strongly have for a long time that in a country as rich as ours, there ought to be universal health care. And I think it's not hard to make sort of a Christian case for that. And evangelicals and those who supported Donald Trump, 81% of white evangelicals supported Donald Trump in 2016, were just adamant about the evils of universal health care and so forth. What was interesting to me, if I sort of reflected on myself, is there's a passage, another passage in the Bible where Jesus says, whatever you've done for the least of these, you've done for me.

Dan Miller [00:17:35]:

This is part of the Jewish prophetic tradition, right? The poor, the orphan, the widow. He doesn't specify a church. He doesn't specify belief. He doesn't specify doctrine. He just basically says whatever you've done for the least of these, you've done for me. And I found myself reaching to that passage, a religious resource to capture my incensed rage at this. And I felt drawn back into that Christian orbit as a result of that. So it's this kind of ironic thing that in opposing a certain kind of conservative Christian politicizing, I found myself sort of drawn back into another part of that tradition in a way that I really had not expected.

Méli Solomon [00:18:13]:

Yeah. Super interesting. And that is that is such a powerful and and famous quote. Yeah. And it's it's really moving. Absolutely. What's so interesting, Dan, in hearing that faith path is the flow from being absolutely steeped in a high control conservative religious tradition to then becoming pretty alienated and stepping out and then being drawn back. It sounds like partly through what's funny that it sounds like the politics took you out and in a way brought you back in.

Méli Solomon [00:18:56]:

But also, you know, you just brought up a scriptural quote. Did you find that that there was something missing in your life that that also drew you back in?

Dan Miller [00:19:11]:

So that's a great question. I I don't I don't know the answer to it. I think more than more than a sense of something missing. I guess what I'll put my religious studies scholar cap on. Right? Among other things, I think religion is about meaning making. I found that there are still resources within the Christian tradition that I find meaningful, that allow me to make me and I I think that I I would not have realized that that particular passage or impulse was, like, rattling around inside of me until in this this kind of moment of anger and frustration and feeling of powerlessness, that's what I wound up reaching for. Right? I found the meaning there and a source that perhaps I hadn't anticipated. One of the things that when people ask, you know, are you a Christian? I say it's complicated is because I find meaning in that.

Dan Miller [00:19:56]:

I find meaning in the notion, for example, that the locus of divinity is with the marginalized and dispossessed, that that's where God is. I don't think anybody else has to find meaning there, and I'm not interested in telling somebody that they have to be a part of a particular religious tradition to find that meaning. I'm not good at proselytizing. I'm not interested in proselytizing. I'm not interested in converting. And so I find meaning there. I bear no ill will to anybody who doesn't and affirm everybody, you know, finding that meaning. I'm much more concerned, I guess, in others who wanna help the marginalized and dispossessed than I am with the why of it.

Dan Miller [00:20:32]:

So I I think it was just that meaning making resource was still there for me in certain ways. That's an interesting question to think about.

Méli Solomon [00:20:42]:

So, again, thinking about this arc from your childhood through that wobbly period to now. When you look back, are there theologies or practices from your childhood that you still cherish or pick up from time to time, maybe attached to a holiday or a place that you still cherish despite the part that makes you enraged?

Dan Miller [00:21:11]:

Yeah. I mean, a good example of this is, you know, we just celebrated Christmas. There's all kinds of historical issues with Christmas. Like, whoever Jesus of Nazareth was, he wasn't born on December 25th and, you know, all that sort of stuff. But we have a a nativity set. So the the the image of, you know, the holy family and all of that and this this mythical story in the Bible about how Jesus was born and so forth. And I know lots of people who don't wanna have a nativity. They don't believe those things and so forth.

Dan Miller [00:21:37]:

And I still find it meaningful partly because it's another one of these stories where you have this story of God becoming a human being born or whatever, and none of the story makes sense. Like, the shepherds are invited, and they're like outcasts. And you have these pagan, the so called wise men or kings or whatever, astrologers from, like, the Far East who come over. And the only part of the story that makes sense is that Herod, the king of the Jews, tries to kill this child because there have been prophecies about a new king. That's the part of the story that actually makes sense is the political reaction to a perceived threat. What happens? Mary and Joseph and the baby have to flee to Egypt. They become refugees and asylum seekers. I see all of that, and I I still feel this story of the of the Christian mythos that where is God? God is with the weak.

Dan Miller [00:22:28]:

God is with the powerless. God is with the dispossessed. So I I still find tremendous meaning in that. And so that part of the holiday season still resonates with me. And I'm I'm very sensitive to the fact that for lots of folks like me who've left evangelicalism, it doesn't. Another piece I should say, and this is maybe more intellectual, but I'm a I'm a real textualist. I like diving into texts and reading them, and I do all this, you know, in my my podcast, this sort of decoding of culture. I trace all of that to growing up being taught to read the Bible, to read it closely, to read it carefully, to try to understand it, that it was important to understand what this text meant.

Dan Miller [00:23:04]:

And and I still trace a lot of critical capacities that I really value to that upbringing in reading a particular text really carefully and really well and really closely because it was a really important text. Reading it so closely and so well that I came to believe that it couldn't be what people thought it was. That part of the motivates so much of what I do professionally and individually, I think, is still really important to me as well.

Méli Solomon [00:23:29]:

Thank you. You've you've disrupted a sense that I have had about Christians and their relationship to the bible. Mhmm. Especially the on the conservative end. What I have seen, including attending church services, is nobody's opening a book, which I, as a Jew, find really disturbing.

Dan Miller [00:23:54]:

Mhmm.

Méli Solomon [00:23:54]:

It's like, why are people not reading along? What I've heard is the minister at the front is saying, okay. We're talking about this bible verse, and this is what it means. End of story. There's no discussion. There's no invitation. There's no thought provoking, well, this is what it meant for me, implying, you know, this could mean something different for you, which is, you know, that's what goes on in synagogue.

Dan Miller [00:24:19]:

There's no Midrash. Right?

Méli Solomon [00:24:20]:

There's no Midrash. Right? Where's the Midrash? But you're saying that either through your early church experience and or through your later theological studies, your M. Div., you were really reading closely. So can you clarify this for me?

Dan Miller [00:24:40]:

As an undergraduate, and this is this is still, I think, a a testament to the institution I went to, was one of the only undergraduate institutions with an actual biblical languages degree. So, I mean, I studied Greek. I studied Hebrew. I read the Masoretic Hebrew text. I couldn't read the unmarked text, but I read the Masoretic Hebrew text. I read the Greek New Testament. So, like, really, really serious about delving into what I understood at the time to be the word of God. That's why you you dive into it and taking it really seriously.

Dan Miller [00:25:07]:

But taking it seriously meant understanding eventually that, yeah, this this book is not a unity. And there are lots of different authors and traditions and layers here. And there are clearly multiple voices that are not saying the same things, and they're sometimes saying opposed to things and having to recognize that psychology from 2000 years ago didn't know some stuff that psychology knows now. Right? That it had its limitations. But none of that was because I didn't take the text seriously. None of that was be it was it was because of taking the text really seriously. I think it's it's undersold in American culture. It's not well known, but I've I've had the privilege of being parts of churches or, you know, reading theologians or others who use the scriptures.

Dan Miller [00:25:51]:

But in much of the kind of way that you're describing of finding the counter voices of reading the scripture against itself in particular ways and telling those stories, but saying, well, you know what? Here's this character that never gets a voice in this passage. What does that tell us now if we imagine being God's people and and so forth? So just a very, very different kind of engagement that for me didn't come from abandoning the text, but it developed because I was taught to be really serious about the text.

Méli Solomon [00:26:19]:

Yeah. So with that in mind, what would you say to your younger self about practicing Christianity or about identifying as a Christian?

Dan Miller [00:26:31]:

Boy. Yeah. It's it's hard to answer because I I always know what I would have said to myself if I went back. Like, the the what the younger me would have said to me now would be that, you know, I'm apostate and fallen or whatever. But I think now I would say that number 1, just kinda lighten up. It's like you're so serious all the time. I think another thing, quite frankly, and and this is this is a big one, is there's a lot of bible passages about, you know, God giving a faith that surpasses understanding. And, the apostle Paul says that we shouldn't, you know, live in a, what, not in a spirit of fear.

Dan Miller [00:27:05]:

And there's all this language of freedom and this great burden being taken from us because we're, you know, Christian and this and that. And yet the sense of guilt all the time, the sense of having a burden all the time, the sense of constantly standing under sort of divine condemnation. I think I might have tried to ask myself to pay a little bit more attention to that disconnect. There's these indications that this is how you should feel if you're a Christian, this freedom and this this peace and this sense of transcendence and so forth. If you don't feel that, what might that mean about the theological framework you're working in?

Méli Solomon [00:27:43]:

Yeah. Excellent point. And one of the things that I, again, from an external point of view, wonder about is there's a lot of talk at least among some Christians, maybe more on the the liberal end of God is love, that Christianity, New Testament is all about God is love. And yet there's also this line that that you're noting is from the Garden of Eden that you're born in sin and you're just guilty from the get-go. I see these disconnects. I'm like, okay. So Jesus died for your sins, and yet you have sin nonetheless. And yet if you take Jesus as your lord and savior, that is all about love.

Méli Solomon [00:28:34]:

And I I have no idea how these things are supposed to get connected, and I don't see how you how you live this faith with a sense of coherence. So maybe you can help me out here.

Dan Miller [00:28:48]:

Yeah. I think often you don't. I mean, that that that is. It is I often say in my work with clients and the things I write, my my criticisms of evangelical theology, it's a it's a rigged system. Right? You're constantly called to be obedient to God, to overcome your sinfulness, to be held responsible for sinning. Yet a core component of the doctrine in almost all forms of evangelicalism and and broader reformed theology as well is that human beings cannot not sin. We we don't have the freedom to not do that. And so, I mean, if if you're God, I guess it's a pretty good game.

Dan Miller [00:29:21]:

Right? Like, you get to, like, set up the system. Human sin, they're always sinful and fallen, but you still get to like condemn them for being sinful and fallen. And anytime they do something good, you get to take credit for it because you enable them to do it. Whenever they don't do something good, it's their own sinful nature. It's in my view, it's a really bad theology. And I think it is hard to live out. And I think a lot of people experience that. It's a circle you just can't square.

Dan Miller [00:29:44]:

I think it is a fundamental contradiction. It's part of why I'm not part of that tradition anymore. But I think you're picking up a real tension. I think on the flip side, if somebody says, yeah, the Bible is this really complex text and it has lots of different voices and authors and perspectives, then when Paul says something over in Romans, you know, like, well, how does that line up with what Jesus of Nazareth is presented as saying in the gospels? You don't have to find a way to magically try to harmonize those things. Right? You can understand that as the kind of conversation within an ongoing tradition of Jesus movements, if you like, that was going on, and I think it provides a very different kind of perspective.

Méli Solomon [00:30:21]:

That sounds like a really reasonable and clear bifurcation, and I it's funny. I say that while I'm also trying to say that it's between complexity and simplicity. Right. Right. So that that's a bit of an odd way to say it, but it does seem like even across the very broad spectrum that every religion has between super orthodoxy and super liberalism, one one way to split it in 2 is do you see it as complex, or do you see it as a way?

Dan Miller [00:30:55]:

No. I think I think that that is is not a bad if you're looking for a typology to map a lot of, you know, a lot of religious traditions that have these kind of spectra within them, it's not a bad way to map it of, you know, complexity versus simplicity or or, you know, a tradition speaking with one voice or something like that. It's not a bad way to map it out.

Méli Solomon [00:31:16]:

Let's shift to your current practice and beliefs. I kinda hesitate to ask you this, but I really need to. Do you take Jesus as your lord and savior?

Dan Miller [00:31:26]:

I don't think so. No. I I don't know. And this this is one of the things about the church I go to because if they've never asked me that. They've never made me answer that question. I think I don't think that God is a personal entity, that's like some sort of big human like person or consciousness or or whatever. And I don't know that I like the language of, say, truth about a lot of religion. I I like the language of meaning more than I do the the language of truth.

Dan Miller [00:31:54]:

I also like, as I say, a certain conception of justice. And I think for me, that might be the question. What conceptions of the divine license actions of justice and which one's license actions of injustice? And in that, I I do find Jesus of Nazareth. Right? Whether that's some metaphysical entity is the 2nd person of the Christian trinity and so forth. But the prophet and reformer and religious leader in, you know, 2nd Temple Judaism, I find that figure to be informative and for me exemplary in a number of ways. People listen to me carefully. They'll notice that I almost always refer to that person as Jesus of Nazareth and almost never as Jesus Christ because I get nervous with the whole Jesus the Christ, the Messiah language, and the way that that goes. And so I will I've had a few people comment on that.

Dan Miller [00:32:40]:

They're like, you always say Jesus of Nazareth, never Jesus Christ. I'm like, yep. Sure do. I'm more interested in that. Nazareth, never Jesus Christ. I'm like, yep. Sure do. I'm more interested in that historical figure than I am the metaphysics that might, you know, people might find behind that.

Méli Solomon [00:32:52]:

Yeah. And I I noticed that right away, and I really appreciate that distinction. I think that's super important, and it's clearly important to understanding your faith position at this point. And I think it's important for all of us who are thinking about our faith practice and set of beliefs and others who are in the Christian tradition that that we're aware that it that these are actually two different things and and to be sensitive to that. I noticed in your notes that you said that you with your current UCC church, United Church of Christ, that you support the social ministries and ethos of that church.

Dan Miller [00:33:33]:

Mhmm.

Méli Solomon [00:33:34]:

How would you describe that, and what does that mean for you?

Dan Miller [00:33:38]:

Part of it is the for example, you know, it's it's fully LGBTQ inclusive. It has been part of, you know, the sanctuary movement, you know, helping people who are undocumented, you know, literally stay within churches so that they can avoid deportation. The Black Lives Matter movement, movements of social justice. This is a core part of the identity of this particular congregation, the United Church of Christ, the UCC as a whole. I should also say the church is dual affiliated with American Baptist Churches USA, ABC USA, and that has its its liberal wing as well. But it has more of a UCC feel. So I think for me, again, it's that social justice. The question for me is the centrality of that to that particular congregation.

Dan Miller [00:34:22]:

There are evangelicals and others who will engage in sort of social justice, but it's always like a means to an end Because what really matters is saving somebody's soul and making sure they go to heaven and so forth versus just trying to make the world a more just place because that's what we're called to do. And and I think that that that is the ethos, that I really support about that particular congregation.

Méli Solomon [00:34:45]:

How is that showing up for you these days?

Dan Miller [00:34:47]:

It won't surprise anybody to know that most of those folks identify with the political left more than they do the political right. Last election was hard. And the the pastor of the church, I remember texting with her, after that. She's not any older than I am, but she's very wise. There are not very many people in the world I consider wise, but, she's one of them. And she said that all we can do is the next right thing. And that was that just struck me as hugely profound and helpful in that moment when we often feel just so overwhelmed. The issues confronting us are big.

Dan Miller [00:35:16]:

They're bigger than any of us. They might be bigger than all of us, frankly, That kind of thing. And so I've I've really been thinking of that, like, of, you know, what is the next right thing? The category of joy, the notion of joy. What does it mean to find joy? Not happiness, not fulfillment, but actual joy. How do we reach for that on a daily basis? That's another sort of practice that I think I've been thinking about, and pondering quite a bit. And as well as, you know, there is that whole prophetic tradition, right, in in the Jewish and Christian tradition of fighting for justice and encountering injustice, encountering power and so forth. And I think for a lot of, folks like me and folks of that congregation, that's that's a space that we're entering back into as we, you know, as we record this, we're right, you know, on the cusp of the inauguration. So I think that that's another sort of broad broad piece of of where I'm at at present.

Méli Solomon [00:36:09]:

What you just said, Dan, lots of great stuff, and I love this quote. All we can do is the next right thing. So that does immediately speak to action. Yeah. Right? But are there practices? Are there prayers? Are you reading certain bible passages? How is it showing up that way?

Dan Miller [00:36:31]:

Yeah. I think one of the pieces that it sounds abstract, but it's not, is the seeking of community, and I think that plays out with family. I think that does play out with like-minded people of faith or spirituality. I think that ties in with friends, the the need to be connected to others. And I think making that intentional is a practice. Right? I mean, it's it's really easy not to do that. I I laugh at myself because people if people listen to my podcast, they'll know that I have a tendency to catastrophize. I can go pretty dark pretty fast.

Dan Miller [00:37:02]:

And so not doing that is its own kind of spiritual practice for me, right, of identifying hope, identifying joy, identifying spaces of what that next right thing may be. So it's it's almost a contemplated practice to just stop and let oneself sort of sit as it were with that or with communal others to think through and to just really better than thinking, feeling our way through. What does it mean to do the next right thing? How do we be in the world in a way where we do that? How do we exist in the world in a way where maybe we can be that for someone else? And so I I I don't know if that makes sense. It's not very programmatic, but I think that contemplated dimension is important for me because it is good to sort of stop moving, stop doing, and just ponder our way through that.

Méli Solomon [00:37:51]:

So I hear all that, Dan, and then your work. Right? So your Straight White American Jesus podcast and then your, the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery. How does that work affect your faith and set of beliefs religiously?

Dan Miller [00:38:13]:

Yeah. I think part of it is that I you know, I'm very critical, as I say, of American evangelicalism, and it's broad. I I think that theology is problematic within the contemporary American context with so many, particularly white American evangelicals who identify with Christian nationalism. I think that that has to be countered. And I think that for me, there's there's certainly one could describe as a religious dimension to that, and and that's how the podcast started. We wanted to my podcast, my collaborator, Brad Onishi, and I, we both have this similar background of having come out of evangelicalism and getting PhDs in religious studies and having this perspective of having been within that movement and trying to sort of interpret it and make sense of it to those who weren't. That is all part of of sort of what started that. And so I think that's that's been directly related.

Dan Miller [00:38:59]:

The religious trauma stuff is, interestingly, I've I've had I've had people note that it's a strangely pastoral role in a way. I've got some clients who want nothing to do with religion, and that's fine. I've got other clients who are trying to rediscover a new form of faith and spirituality. And and my role, as I understand, is just to help them find paths forward through that. I think there's also a sense that as an evangelical pastor, I feel like I contributed knowingly or otherwise or whatever to a lot of the things that are now so critical of, and I think there's a sense of wanting to pay some of that back for lack of a better term and and try to try to actively contribute to a different way of being in the world. So I I view these things and feel these things to be really, really related for me to to these other dimensions of life.

Méli Solomon [00:39:44]:

Yeah. Makes sense. You're kind of paying pennants in a way

Dan Miller [00:39:47]:

Yeah.

Méli Solomon [00:39:48]:

And helping other people.

Dan Miller [00:39:49]:

I hope so.

Méli Solomon [00:39:51]:

Yeah. Well, I mean, it sounds that way. I mean, I I don't know. I'm not I'm not in your therapy room.

Dan Miller [00:39:55]:

But It does. I mean, I I will say that the coaching work came out of the podcast work because I started, you know, we started getting I started getting emails from folks who were like, you know, I understand my in laws now and I never did, or everything you're describing makes sense to me and I never understood why it bothered me so much when a pastor would talk about male headship in the church or something. But, like, what do I do now? Or how do I be different?

Méli Solomon [00:40:17]:

Oh, that's super interesting. Yeah. I didn't see that coming. Okay. Clearly, there is much to talk about, Dan, and I'm so glad we've covered a lot of material. Two questions. Yeah. Looking forward, especially given that it's January 2025, what are your hopes and concerns?

Dan Miller [00:40:40]:

I'll just get real political. My concerns are that, the GOP and the MAGA movement will do exactly what they say they're gonna do. My hope is that they don't really seem to be capable of doing that. And and that that's a relatively low bar, but I think that our our hope is that they can be countered in a time when, you know, they control effectively the judiciary, both houses of congress, the the presidency. But I think there are real signs that it's more difficult for them than they think. And so those are things that, just given what I do, they really preoccupy my time and my thought a lot right now.

Méli Solomon [00:41:18]:

Yeah. Darkness, but a but a spark of light. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. How can people learn more about your work?

Dan Miller [00:41:27]:

I invite people just generally beyond my work. If they wanna look at the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, they can just Google that. It'll come up. My podcast, Straight White American Jesus, again, just Google Straight White American Jesus. It'll take you to the website. You can check out what we do. I also host a series within Straight White American Jesus called It's in the Code. They can also reach me, Daniel Miller SWAJ, DanielMillerswaj@gmail.com. I'm always months behind in my emails, but I I do read them and I try to respond. Love hearing from people, but if if if folks wanna check things out, reach out. Would love to hear from them.

Méli Solomon [00:42:01]:

Okay. Well, Dan, this has been great. Thank you so much for coming on my Living Our Believes podcast. I so appreciate you taking the time and sharing your unique perspective with us.

Dan Miller [00:42:14]:

Well, thanks. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Méli Solomon [00:42:19]:

Thank you for listening. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. If you'd like to learn more about that project, a link to the website is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.