Nijay K. Gupta: Slow Theology

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome to Becoming Church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus is not just about becoming Christians, but about becoming the church. I'm your host, Kristin Mockler Young and my guest today is Professor Nijay K. Gupta. Nij is a self proclaimed foodie, podcaster, authority and a senior translator of the New Living translation of the Bible, which is one that we use often here at Mosaic. He's here to talk about his latest book, Slow Theology, which is less about speed and more about how we can better hear from God in the noisy world that we live in. I am happy to introduce you to Nje K. Gupta. All right, Dr. Nijay K. Gupta, welcome to Becoming Church. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Thank you. It's an honor. [00:00:59] Speaker B: See, I feel like I do have to get the formality out of the way even though. Tell the listeners what you just told me about what you tell your students. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I tell my students if I can wear a T shirt to class, then they can call me nj. Don't tell my dean though, okay? [00:01:12] Speaker B: Okay. So guys, listen, sometimes they get frustrated with me, Nij, if I'm not using people's correct titles. So he says we can call him Nijay. [00:01:22] Speaker A: It's okay. [00:01:22] Speaker B: It's fine. It's all good. [00:01:24] Speaker A: My dad's a surgeon and my kids say know. Oh, my dad's not, you know me. My dad's not a real doctor. I'm a real doctor. But honor, honor to my. To my dad for being the real Dr. Gupta. [00:01:38] Speaker B: That's right. I love it. Well, we are going to talk about your latest book, but I would love first for people that maybe have not followed along with you for a little while, give us your background in faith, in Christianity and kind of how it got you to where you are now. [00:01:54] Speaker A: Sure, yeah, I'll give you the short version, but I grew up, born and raised in Ashland, Ohio, north central Ohio. My parents came from India in the early 70s. I was born in the late 70s and grew up in a Hindu family. I became a Christian as a teenager through my brother, one of my older brothers. And he became a Christian through some high school friends when he was in college. And I was just on fire for the Lord. I wanted to be a missionary, I wanted to be a youth pastor, all this stuff. I ended up going to seminary after college and met my wife there, Amy. We were both seminary students. And then I was kind of choosing kind of how I wanted to do ministry. I was really interested in missions. I was really interested in like parachurch campus ministry. But I'm an extreme introvert. So I didn't necessarily want to be around people all of the time. And. And I had a chance to be a TA in seminary for Greek, and I just loved it. I was just like, oh, my gosh. I get to. I really think of my job as I get to read, and then I get paid to read, and then I get paid to tell other people about what I read. And so I think it's the best job in the world. So I ended up getting a PhD at the University of Durham, famous for two things at the time. One was NT Wright was the Bishop of Durham, if you guys know NT Wright. And the other thing is, if you're not an N.T. wright person, that Durham was a Harry Potter filming site. So the first couple movies. Yeah. So when students are walking between classes in the hallways, that's the Durham Cathedral cloisters. And I wasn't there during the filming, but there's still some fake cobwebs from that time. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Oh, no way. [00:03:41] Speaker A: And then. And then after I finished my programs, discerning, kind of where I want to be in a ministry, I really saw my vision as being a pastor to pastors. And, you know, pastors have a really, really challenging job, and Christian leaders and people in the Christian charity space and to equip, encourage, challenge and lift them up. I really see that as my job. So I love. You know, I remember I was interacting with some folks at the Bible Project because I live in Portland, Oregon, and they're here in Portland and they're saying they have a vision to reach billions of people. And I have a vision to reach dozens of people, many dozens through seminary. But I love it that I'm on the front end of training these pastors, missionaries, Christian leaders who then are going out there and bringing the gospel to the world. [00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, as a pastor who has consumed much of your work, thank you for that. Thank you for all that you're putting out there. I also have to clarify, like, I got very excited about the Harry Potter thing. I actually am way more excited about the NT Right thing. I'm like, I just have to. Did you actually get to engage with him? [00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, as the Bishop of Durham, he was bishoping, but he taught one course, I think, a year for the seminary, which is called Cranmer hall. And they were looking for volunteers to be a ta. And I immediately put up. I was like, I want to be a TA. I had to fight off some. So there are two TAs, but I had to fight off a bunch of people. And so that meant we did a lot of grading, but it also meant we got to have lunch with him when he came to the seminary to teach and we got a little interaction with him and just to, you know, to hear his heart as bishop. You know, you think that he's out there, you know, talking about theological stuff. He's out there doing a lot of work with the poor. He's doing a lot of advocacy work for the least of these. So I got to kind of see his heart for people and the beautiful work that he did. So, yeah, I did get a little bit. I mean, you know, would he be able to pick me out of, out of a lineup? Not sure, because that was 20 years ago. But I did get a chance to kind of just hear what his vision is for a beautiful church. [00:05:58] Speaker B: Yeah, what an experience he is. Every time I prep a sermon, I go to N.T. wright first. I go to, like, his content first. And he is one of my, I would say, two, like, dream guests to get on this show. So I'm like, oh, I've like, how many degrees of separation until I can get there? [00:06:14] Speaker A: Well, you know, he has a new book. Either it's out or it's coming out on Ephesians. So now's your window of opportunity. [00:06:19] Speaker B: If you think I haven't already emailed his team, I have. [00:06:24] Speaker A: So we will see. [00:06:24] Speaker B: We will see. Well, you have written lots of books. Tell Her Story was very impactful for me as a female in ministry leadership, and I think I even messaged you about that after I read it. But also not only that book, you have your substack and you tend to write about things that, whether or not they should be controversial sometimes. Are women in ministry empathy, Even the Christian response to Charlie Kirk's assassination. How do you decide what you're going to say out loud, like for public consumption and what to just process with God? [00:07:01] Speaker A: That's a good question. I don't know if anyone's ever asked me that before. You know, it's funny because if you read the majority of things I write, they're not kind of hot button issues. It's stuff just about the Bible and stuff about like there's a new commentary out or, you know, that sort of thing. Maybe it's devotionally sorts of things. But, you know, I feel like the Lord has given me a voice that people, that some people trust, let's put that way, some people trust. And sometimes I feel that I need to use that social capital to be able to use the platform or use the trust that I've built to be able to speak on issues that sometimes people aren't thinking in sort of cooler heads about because they're very sensitive, hot button issues. And so a lot of it I think is I have. I grew up in a lot of white spaces. I grew up in a rural town, Amish country, eastern Ohio, northeastern Ohio. I was one of the only brown kids in my school. You know, I know this sounds really silly, but, like, I was on the tennis team and they nicknamed me Mandela, even though Mandela's not Indian and I'm not African. Oh, my God. So I had to grow up with stuff like that. And, you know, I did my best just to put my head down and just sort of get through it. And I remember there's a period of my early life where I lamented not being white. And even today, I think about my kids, my wife is Caucasian. I think about my kids, and they can, quote, pass for white because of the way they look. And in a horrible sense, sometimes I think, how fortunate are they that people aren't going to yell things at them when they're driving home, like they've yelled at to me, or when they're walking on the street, like they've yelled at to me. And I don't want to cry. Whoa. Like, you know, I've not experienced anything like people experienced, you know, a couple generations ago. But I think we're still pretty far off from the vision that Jesus has of treating each other in civil and graceful ways. And so I think. So I think I have a natural heart for people who feel like they're on the outside of things. You know, it's funny. I'll be at a conference, I'll get. Tell you the story. I was in college. I went to a pretty big state university in Ohio. And I would be on the bus going from one part of the campus to the next. And international students of various kinds, mostly Asian, but of various kinds, would just sit next to me and we wouldn't talk because I'm an introvert. So I don't want to meet new people. But I think I didn't process it at the time, but over time, my Bible study leader just processed it with me and just said, is it. They just feel comfortable being around somebody that is equally different from the norm. That's not saying something bad about white people, that's not saying something bad about the norm, but just saying just comfortability. And so I think some of the. Some of my heart that goes out for some of the issues that are going on, whether it's immigration things, race things, you know, the challenges that women face. I was having a conversation with somebody about empathy, and they said to me, it's a friend that I've had for a long time. He said, empathy isn't real because you can't actually experience the exact same experience as someone that's different than you. And he said, you could just sympathize, meaning you can feel bad from a distance. And I said, I did some research on it because I thought he was wrong, but I wanted to be kind of mindful. If you look at what empathy is, you know, for example, you're a woman, I'm a man. I don't know what it's like to be you. I don't know what it's like to be my wife. You know, I don't know what it's like to be women, for example, that have had a miscarriage. But I can try. The human imagination is powerful. I can't know exactly, but what I can do is I can learn. I can learn. I can hear stories, and I could try to enter that. The image I get in my head, and I talked about this in a recent substack, is from the movie Invictus, where. Which is about Nelson Mandela. And this, I think, rugby player, white rugby player. And the rugby player wanted to support Mandela, and he. He takes his team, I think, to the prison where Mandela was, and he. It's Matt Damon, and he steps inside this prison and he sticks his arms out to experience the span of the very small prison cell that he was in for decades. To me, that's empathy, is that he's not Nelson Mandela. He didn't live in that room. But to stand in that room and stretch your arms out or to look at the mat on the ground, the thin mat on the ground where Mandela slept, that's empathy. So I just feel like we live in an age that dehumanizes so quickly through social media and other means, tried and true means, and. And the call of God, the call of the incarnation, is to humanize. And to humanize is to say, I don't know what it's like for you day to day, but I'd like to try. I'd like to try to know what it's like. [00:12:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:40] Speaker A: So I can know your struggles, and I can know how I could pray for you. [00:12:45] Speaker B: Well, I think that is what leads. At least for. I will say, at least speaking for myself, that is what leads to transformation, and that is what leads to becoming more like Jesus. And seeing other people the way Jesus see them, because, yes, I'm never going to understand what it is like to live outside of very white skin. I'm not going to know. But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. And I think that's the difference between sympathy and empathy is, yes, if I can sympathize with you on things that I get, I'm going to empathize with you on things that I can't, but I know still matter to you. And so they matter to God. And so therefore they must matter to me as a believer. [00:13:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Well, how would you encourage maybe somebody else who's listening, but. And they also have a heart for people that are, like, outside of things, but they're afraid to speak on various topics because maybe they fear backlash from outside or from, you know, within their own family. How would you encourage them to kind of find their voice? [00:13:42] Speaker A: That's a good question. I do think building trust is crucial. I think what happens a lot in social media, and I'll get to kind of personal relationships in a minute, what happens on social media is you just go out there guns blazing, and there isn't opportunity, there isn't voice. So I'll tell you a story from. You know, I taught at a different seminary a handful of years ago, and I got an invitation to speak at Southern Baptist Seminary on the Lord's Prayer, because I've just written a book on the Lord's Prayer. The invitation came from my friend, good friend, Jonathan Pennington. We were very close. We text pretty often. And my students, when they found out, got really mad. They're like, how dare you condone what the Southern Baptists do by going there, taking their money, speaking to them graciously. And I said, I'm not going because I condone. I'm going because my friend Jonathan invited me and we're close. And he's a gracious human being. He's a generous, thoughtful human being. And I went there and spent time with his students. It was wonderful experience. And he said, would you like to have lunch with doctoral students? I said, sure. So I sit down with doctoral students, and the first thing for lunch, the first thing they ask is, why do you support women ministry? Now, what's really interesting about that is they could read something I wrote on social media and be, let's say, upset about it. But it's a different thing to be able to sit at a table and have a conversation over lunch where they can see my humanity. They can. They can see what I ordered for lunch and I order food just like anybody else. You know, they, I crack jokes. Like they could see me and my, and my warm friendship with Jonathan. They could see how much Jonathan respects me, even though we don't see eye to eye on everything. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:34] Speaker A: But they could see there's a friendship there. So there was some trust built. They're across difference where they could say, ah, maybe I should hear N.J. out because he's not as bad as people say he is, or he's not as, you know, knee jerk or crazy or whatever as people say he is. So when it comes to personal relationships, I think having, having goodwill, moments that help build some trust there, I think is really huge. I mean, it's really, is really important in terms of how I try to do it with people that I naturally disagree with. To be honest, I really try to focus on scripture. And you know, sometimes a third thing, a third perspective lowers the tension. And so, for example, if you're reading a book about race versus just telling, talking to somebody, saying, you know, what's right and wrong, if you read a artifact a third thing, it could bring that down because it's not about me and it's not about you. It's about this third thing. And for Christians, we could do this with scripture where I'm not calling you racist, you're not calling me super woke, whatever. We're just reading scripture. I'll tell you something that just happened to me recently. I've been thinking about kind of a different rhythm for my devotion. So one of my heroes is Eugene Peterson. Just somebody that I feel like was uber chill, the most uber chill person ever. And so I thought you, I need a reset of my devotions. And I thought, I'm going to read the Psalms, one psalm a day, and I'm going to read Peterson's devotion on the Psalms. So I started reading them. Now let me just tell you, Kristen. I've read the Psalms before, but I started reading them Psalm 1, Psalm 2. I've never read them in order. I've never read them once a day. The first thing that struck me after reading about 15 Psalms was these guys are really hung up on the poor. I mean, Even the first 15 Psalms talk about the poor a lot. [00:17:37] Speaker B: Okay. [00:17:38] Speaker A: And I'm thinking to myself, this is supposed to be like ushy, gushy spiritual stuff that's supposed to make me feel all warm and fuzzy. And it's like if I'm like the PR person for the psalmist, I'm like, can we just maybe do a psalm without Mentioning the poor like this. Supposed to be about you and your feelings, you know, and you and Jesus and you and God like this. Let's not like, get. I thought, geez, there's a lot of stuff about the poor. The Psalms, like, the Psalms are the most. The most formative spiritual literature in all of Christian tradition, and it's obsessed with the poor. And I just thought, gosh, we live in an era of escapism. I feel like I have some work that I'm going to have coming out in 2026 on this. We live in an era of escapism, whether it is escaping into our phones, whether it is just trying to turn off the news because it's so bad, whether it's just like dreaming about vacation or just giving up. I mean, we talk about quiet quitting. I think there's a lot of spiritual quiet quitting of the world. [00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. [00:18:46] Speaker A: And what's amazing about something like the Psalms is even in my kind of moment of like God, I just want to get away from the noise of all the stuff going on in the world and just read the Psalms and just get kind of like a spiritual hit. You know, the spirit still saying, remember the poor. I mean, it's wild to me. And so, you know, you talked about how do we have conversations. I think what's crucial in sort of the character assassination dynamic of culture today is to get back to what is the heart of God? What. What is God? What is the heart of God? What does God want? And, you know, I don't want to get kind of all political right now, so I'm going to be really careful what I say. Okay. But I thought about writing in the future on the subject. Will heaven be capitalist or communist? And what's. What's funny about that is we really see these as binaries. We really see either. Either we do X or do Y. And I just want to say, could it be a completely different thing? [00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:19:57] Speaker A: You know, where, you know, Paul says in Second Corinthians, I don't want. I don't want anyone to have too little. I don't want anyone to have too much. And we push back and we say, isn't it okay to have too much? Isn't that the American way? Isn't that the American dream? And Paul points back to the mana feeding. He says, no, you shouldn't have too much. That's actually bad for you. But you also shouldn't have too little. That's also bad for you. Some people call this the Goldilocks phenomenon. Not too much, not too little, not too hot, not too cold, but just enough so you don't have to worry about the stuff. And when we're talking with our neighbors, when we're talking with relatives, we're talking with co workers about this. Just like, what is the heart of God for all this stuff? The heart of God is Goldilocks. Really. It's just not, not too much, not too little, but just enough so we could focus on good work. [00:20:55] Speaker B: Yeah, listen, I used to teach kindergarten, so you got me with the gold. I'm like, yeah, I totally understand that. Well, Nijay, you've done lots of good writing on your own, but you've also collabed with some other people. I love Beth, Allison Barr, who we've had on the show. Scott McKnight, Glen Packham. What is it like working with some of these other people versus working on a project on your own? [00:21:20] Speaker A: Man, you ask good questions. Thank you. I love collabs. I love it because I geek out on Bible stuff, I geek out on ministry stuff. And I love finding someone that is like minded. Scholars like me, we tend to be extremely isolated. I work from home all day, eight or nine hours or 10 hours a day, whatever it is, by myself. And you know, it's kind of funny when like I used to read or hear like, the board met for this, the board met for that. And I think they're sitting in a room now. I realize everyone's just at home texting each other. Nobody's actually together anymore. And so I love opportunities where I can really come together with like minded folks and work together and think together and collaborate together. It comes with. It comes with like probably 80% awesomeness and like 20% really difficult challenge. [00:22:18] Speaker B: Sure. [00:22:19] Speaker A: So for example, and this is public, so I could say this. Carmen Imes and I are writing a youth edition of Tell Her Story, which is called Awesome. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that title. Oops. Anyway, you heard it. [00:22:33] Speaker B: We'll bleep it just in case. Wait for it, guys. [00:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah, censor it. Anyway, it's going to be old New Testament and working together. So the joy of it was Carmen and I are very like minded. We're both nice people, I think. And we are about the same age. Our kids are about the same age. We have so much in common. She's had kind of a history of life in Oregon. I live in Oregon, so we have a lot of that in common. I will say she is a far better writer than I am. So I Kind of got schooled because she wrote half, I wrote half. And then when the editor stepped in, I had a lot more corrections that she did. Right. Not. Not theological corrections, but writing style stuff. So the hard part is sort of the, oh, man, this person's really good. And I had this experience, too, with AJ Swoboda when we wrote Slow Theology, the book. We have this podcast, and then we decided to write this book, and we, you know, it's not that there were a lot of edits to my stuff, but I'm reading his stuff, and I'm just like, oh, my gosh. He's just. It's like butter reading his stuff. And. And then my stuff. You know, I'm. I'm more of. I'm more of a scholar that tries to write for trade, and he is more of a. More comfortable in the trade space of writing for everyday folks. And so it just comes more naturally. So I'll say, like, it's really exciting and it's fun, but there's a little bit of. I don't want to say comparison, but this. This feeling of, like, when you're working with the best, the best of the best, they're going to school you a little bit. And that, you know, that's. That's probably healthy for me. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Keeps you humble. That's good. [00:24:23] Speaker A: That's a good way to put it. It keeps you humble. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Well, you mentioned slow theology. I've got a copy of it right here. So thank you for this. But how would you describe slow theology to the listeners? [00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah, so AJ Swobodo wrote this really wonderful book called After Doubt about five or six years ago. I can't say six, seven, or else, you know, people. Five or six years ago, I know I did high schoolers, so let's. So I always fake the numbers. Now, five or six years ago, between five and eight years, he wrote a book called After Doubt, which was really, you know, how do we process the concept of deconstruction? [00:25:04] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:05] Speaker A: And, you know, if you're 40, something like I am, you know, you grew up with Ravi Zacharias, Bill Hybels, D.C. talk, for Pete's sake, you know, and you see this. What's happening now. There's this reckoning, right, that's happening to the Evangelical church, the group that I'm, you know, that's part of my big beard family. And. And I. So what we want to do with slow theology, what we want to do. What do you want to do with After Doubt was say deconstruction is healthy. If you're shedding idolatry, and you're shedding putting your faith in mere mortals. But healthy deconstruction should lead you to deeper faith in the real Jesus. That was kind of his message, which I think is great, because you got two extremes. You got one extreme of certain groups that are shaming, talking about, having doubts. You know, this is the virtue of certainty. And then you have the opposite, which is sort of people think they're smarter than the church, smarter than the Bible, smarter than God, saying, you know, kind of like a sirens call, come out here to the cool kids, and you get dashed on the rocks of X conversion or deconversion or whatever. And AJ wanted a different way. And so what we decided to do with slow theology is part one is processing deconstruction. What does it look like to just accept doubt, doubt in the sense of uncertainty as a part of a healthy part of the Christian life? [00:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:47] Speaker A: But part two, then is, you know, I have three kids. They're 14, 16, 19. So what we want to do with slow theology is say, how can I set them up well for a lifetime of following Jesus, knowing that life has really, really big swings? So think about Jesus teaching on, you know, building your house on the rock versus the sand. What's. What I find really interesting about that story that I just kind of dawned on me as I was working on this book was Jesus just presumes the storm is going to come. He's not like, build your house far away from the beach. He's like, we live. We live on the shore. Yeah. And these hurricanes are just going to pound you. [00:27:39] Speaker B: They're coming. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah, they're coming. He doesn't say, you know, oh, go to one of those safe parts in the middle of nowhere. So, gosh, who taught us it was going to be easy? Who taught us that Christians were going to not do bad things? Who taught us that? Because in the Bible, I was reading Jeremiah for various reasons several months ago, and really long book, first of all, really long book. But it just hits the same theme over and over again. There are a lot of fake people of God doing really, really nasty things, and there's only a small remnant who are really deeply trying to follow the right path. I mean, you know, in the historical books, 600, 600 false prophets versus the one or two that are really seriously trying to turn the tide. And so what we're trying to do in slow theology is, say, life is today, is trying to force you into snap decisions on a constant basis, snap judgments. And Scripture, the scriptural remedy for all the exhaustion, all of the weariness is a long obedience in the same direction, which is what Eugene Peterson said. Resilience, anti fragility. Basically we can do things the wrong way, you know, like fools rushing in, or we could do things the right way. So let me give you an example from the book. We wrote a Christianity article again five or six years ago and yes, a non specific range and I don't want to get into the subject matter, but we were talking about moments in Jesus's earthly life where he had times of uncertainty as sort of a guide for us on how to navigate that. And it came out on Good Friday. We didn't know it was going to come out on Good Friday. And it went viral in a very bad way because certain groups of people thought that we were valorizing doubt, which we weren't. But, but looking back, maybe we should have written a 20 page article versus like a 6 page Christianity Day magazine article because we didn't get a chance to explain. I see like a magazine article more as an art piece which can be provocative and, and that's not how other people take a Christianity article. So, so I accept some fault for how it was received. Anyway, over 48 hours there were so many hot takes from even really high level Christian conservative influencers really like basically saying these people are wolves, these people are not trustworthy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And man, this was really, we got blindsided because we just, you know, we're two people that don't tend to write on controversial subjects, just trying to point people to Jesus. And, and what we, what we noticed in that moment, we both have spiritual director who's kind of like a therapist, but not, not really. But we both have a spiritual director who helps us with process some of these things. And what we both realized was people felt the need to respond immediately. That was really interesting that, you know, there's a news cycle you have to jump in on. There's a, there's, there's rushing waters that you have to jump into or you miss it. That was number one that we kind of had to kind of reflect on. Number two, these people who, who kind of are high level influencers talked about us but didn't talk to us. So had they tagged us and said, hey Nijay, AJ love your books, love your hearts, but this was way out in left field. Would love a chance to hear your heart talk to you, but even share some difficult things with you. Would you be willing to have the conversation? I tell you What Christian. We would have done it. If they would have approached us with goodwill, we would have done it. And AJ Even kind of is more willing to say, like, we said some things maybe in ways that we shouldn't have, that could be taken as misleading. And I'm kind of like, no, I like to. But. But, you know, I think we would humbly say some of this stuff is worth editing. Some of this stuff is worth saying differently, even though we stand by the core of what we said. So we processed what leads people, people perhaps who have a day job as pastors who maybe should be focusing more on their. On their ministry than on us. But what leads people to feel like, hey, I gotta go attack these people. I gotta do a takedown for my people within 48 hours or else I'm gonna lose that opportunity to get those likes or whatever. You know, I have to be first. [00:32:44] Speaker B: To speak on it. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Now, maybe they had the best of motives, but there is a cultural trend that you gotta. So we ended up talking to some folks about what we should do, and we talked and talked and we thought, do we do a retraction or do we do an edit or we do a. And one of the people that was advising us said, wait a week and do a podcast episode and then do a blog post, sort of accepting maybe some of the limitations of what you said, but then also maybe supplementing. And you know what, Kristen? We did that. Nobody cared. Didn't get likes, didn't get feedback, didn't get more. Because it wasn't controversial. [00:33:25] Speaker B: Right. Because it wasn't a hot take. It wasn't something. [00:33:27] Speaker A: It wasn't. And it waited a whole week, which is like explanation. That's like 20 years in social media time, you know, to wait on that. And, and so we realized there is something really corrosive about feeling like you got to jump in on everything happening all of the time. And, and, and, and so to slow down and say. So let me give you another example. And I don't want to get controversial. So I'll say this really briefly. I did a thing on Charlie Kirk, we don't need to talk about it. But I said, I'm gonna wait a week. [00:34:06] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:06] Speaker A: I'm gonna shut down comments. [00:34:08] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:08] Speaker A: And I'm gonna wait a week and then open up comments. And I did that because, number one, in the moment, we tend to say things that don't reflect our deepest virtues in heart. Number two, if it's not worth waiting a week to say, is it worth saying now? Now, other people don't perspect on that, but I think it's. I think it's wise. So three or four days in of the wait period, and a week is like an eternity, right? Yeah, three or four days. People were privately messaging me saying, you have to open up comments because we need to speak. There are things we need to say. What was interesting about that is I thought, well, then say it in a week. You know, like, like, like, yeah, what. What. What is behind the urgency of the timing? That. That doesn't mean everything should wait. Right. We're in a government shutdown, so waiting isn't always good. There are things that. But. But generally there are many. Our. Our bigger problem is reactionaryism versus acting too slow. I would say. At least. At least that's the call for me at the moment. This idea of, like, that anxiety, you feel like, I can't say this comment that I must say right now, that's, I think, a spiritual issue. And I have experienced that. I'm not just poking at other people. I'm like, this where I'm like, I have to say something. I have to dive in. So the idea of waiting and processing and reflecting and giving it to Jesus and asking people for help. This is why I like writing books, because it's excruciatingly long, both to write a book, but then also the editing period and the edits and the copy edits and the edits and the re edits and waiting for endorsements and waiting for the COVID and waiting for the production and then waiting to get your author copies. It's just all waiting. Yes. Yeah. I think there's something still beautiful about that. [00:36:10] Speaker B: And it is just like, we're editing this again. Okay, here we go. [00:36:15] Speaker A: Okay, great. So it's funny when you get into an interview and, you know, I'm used to this, but now. But when you get an interview and they're like, what were you thinking when you said this? And I'm like, I don't know. That was like four years ago when I read that. I don't remember what I was thinking. It'll be funny. Like the copy editor. I'm doing some copying right now. The copier is like, what. What do you mean by this? I'm like, I actually don't know what I mean by that because I wrote that like five years ago. So slow theology really is. It's not really about being slow with that. That ended up being the title of our podcast because. Because out of that Christian day experience, we thought like, slow food movement. I'M a big foodie, so we might come back to food again. But slow food movement is like. I grew up in the era of TV dinner. I'm going to paint a picture. Christie, you might remember this TV dinner. Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes. Terrible mashed potatoes. Yeah. Like, that are, like, burning hot and frozen at the same time. Peel off with this plastic that rips apart. You're thinking, what the heck? We didn't think anything of it. We just thought, how amazing that we can eat fast in front of the tv. [00:37:19] Speaker B: That was it. There's that little brownie in there that was, like, so cooked that it was just. You got, like, maybe one bite out of the middle. But you were watching Nickelodeon. [00:37:28] Speaker A: Like, yeah, yeah. And. And like, what. What were we thinking? Like, just chemicals and chemicals upon chemicals. And now, like, I did the Whole30 diet. I don't know if it was good or terrible. But one thing that kind of stuck with me, and that was probably five or six years ago, one thing that stuck with me is just eating things that are healthy and fresh. [00:37:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:53] Speaker A: You know, I do far less processed food because it's like, I want to know what's in my food. I want to chop vegetables. I want to use aromatic spices. Like, I feel like a newer generation is looking back and saying it was convenient. It was convenient to have TV dinners, but it wasn't healthy. It's convenient the way you see where I'm going with this. It's convenient the way we live our Christian lives. It's convenient. But is it healthy? And it's probably no coincidence that AJ and I are in our midlife crisis. Years of realizing when you try to do things too fast, when you plan only in the short term, you're gonna set yourself up for failure. One of my favorite parts of the book. I don't know if you read the whole book, but this is, at the end, is something that we discovered called the 3100 mile race. It's an ultra. Ultra. You Heard that correct? 3,100 miles. Yeah. [00:38:58] Speaker B: Insane. [00:38:59] Speaker A: So these people gather in New York and they run around one city block, one city block for two months. Every day for two months. I can't do a 5K. And, and, and, and they're doing this. And it's like, why? Why would you do this? And, you know, they have sort of existential, you know, self challenge reasons. But I think the bigger question is, how do you prepare yourself for that? Yeah. How do you actually prepare yourself for a 3,100 miles? Very different than a sprint. Right. I can sprint. I can't do it well, but I can't. But how do you Prepare yourself for 3,100 miles? You start to think about your shoes, you think about your food, you think about your sleep. And so I want to ask, with our spirituality, with our existence, with our humanity, with our relationships, with our work, are we thinking about a sprint? Are we thinking about a 3,100 mile journey of running around the same block? Because that's kind of what more life is like in this world than it is, you know, just a sprint. So the book really is in. In a world of deconstruction, where people are saying, gosh, I thought Christianity is one thing and it's this other thing. How do we set people up for the 3,100 miles? Yeah. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Well, I'm glad you explained that because when I very first heard of your book and saw that the title was Slow Theology, this is a little insight into my life, my psyche, Nijay. I was like, no, thank you very much, because that's just not my personality type. I've tried to slow down. I understand it's good and all the things. And I was like, this book is not going to be for me. Like, I just, I can't. And so being able to see that it's, you know, Eugene Peterson, we're going long obedience, obedience, a long direction. That's so much better. To understand that you're not asking people to, like, give up their social media and turn off their TV and really, like, you know, live on a commune and things like that. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Well, we're doing a little bit of that, I think, but I think it's like the slow food where it's like, oh, I don't have time, I don't have time to make food. I think the message we get, you know, 30 years after TV dinners is then you're just not gonna be healthy. [00:41:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:20] Speaker A: You know, you're just gonna be sick all the time. You're just gonna feel like crap. And so slow. Slowness. I mean, I, I'm trying to think, like, what do I do with someone that has three young children? They don't have time to not be busy. Like, it was funny when I. People used to preach on Sabbath and we had little kids and we're like, there's no Sabbath. My wife and I used to say, like, hey, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go on vacation. Which means I'm gonna go take a 15 minute shower. Like, that was, you know, that was what? So, so it's, it's not. Yeah. There, you know, there is, you know, definitely privilege in saying, like, I'm gonna say no to everything and I'm gonna, you know, let go of all my commitments. It's really sort of a mentality of how we maintain spiritual, physical, emotional, social health for the whole of life. And let me just say this because I think this may be where it intersects more with kind of people's lifestyles in general. How we avoid cynicism in life, how we avoid giving up on life, is we really gotta be thinking about setting ourselves up for the long haul. Setting, Setting. Setting ourselves up for. For what our faith is going to look like 10, 20, 30 years down the road. [00:42:41] Speaker B: Okay. [00:42:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:42] Speaker B: I was going to ask you. My next question was gonna be like, what? What's at risk if we don't do this? And then you mentioned cynicism. Can you talk a little bit more about that? How does, like, the fast pace in all of this lead to cynical hearts? [00:42:57] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, so much of cynicism is. Is giving up. I think, you know, when we get cynical, we make that snarky comment. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:09] Speaker A: You know, scoffing. We're just saying, like, the ideal isn't going to work. What, what you. What, what. What you're pitching or what you're saying, you know, isn't going to work. Yeah. And I think we're doing that from a place of woundedness, of deep, deep, deep woundedness. And one of the things we're trying to do in the book is say life is going to be two steps forward, one step back. I think one of my problems when I was younger in my faith was trying to push in life to get to a place of ease. Okay. I'm gonna work really hard, make a lot of money so I can. So I can be happy and comfortable. I'm gonna put out as many fires as I can so I don't have fires. And the more I live life, the more I read the Bible, it's like, there's gonna be fires. Yeah. There doesn't even have to be a reason for them. [00:44:09] Speaker B: It's gonna happen. [00:44:10] Speaker A: They're just going to be fires. And so there's just this part of fighting cynicism is acceptance, but it's not acceptance of misery. It's acceptance of a rhythm of two steps forward, one step back. Okay. And, you know, I think about Philippians, Paul's letter. Philippians, remember, he's in jail, he's in prison, in chains. And he says at the end, you know, chapter four, he says, you know, I've learned the secret of contentment. And I think he is baiting them to, like, lean forward in their chair. Oh, what is the secret to contentment? And he just basically yells at them, be content, you dummies. You know, and. [00:44:54] Speaker B: And his point of all the things it's not. [00:44:56] Speaker A: Yeah. He's like, I've known. I've known plenty. Yep. And I've known lack of. Mm. I've known, you know, Paris uo. I've known being on top of the mountain, and I've known having absolutely nothing. [00:45:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:15] Speaker A: And his point in saying that is just know on both ends. It doesn't last long. That's his advice. And to me, that's a. Actually, a really good, honest remedy to cynicism is to say, hey, are in your bitter phase. It's going to get better. Are you in your joy phase? Don't dwell on it. Don't dwell on it. Enjoy it. Don't dwell on it. Don't cling to it, because it's going to change. So your peace has to come from somewhere else. It has to come from somewhere else. So part of what we're doing at slow theology is saying in the same way we approach our physical fitness, like, I don't personally, I don't like working out. I don't like lifting weights. I know it's good for me and I feel good after having done it, but I don't like doing it. Yeah. And in many ways, that's how it is to push for growth in our Christian life. I think someone sent us the message, the wrong message a long time ago. It was all going to be easy and fun. And maybe that's the way we share the gospel with people, is we're like, jesus is going to make your life better. Fine print. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Caveat, fine print. [00:46:45] Speaker A: It's going to be miserable. Because that's how growth works. You know, Think about growing pains. I don't know if you ever. Growing pains. But my wife didn't have them. Physical growing pains. I had them and my daughter had them. They're excruciating. Yeah. Like, this is where your body is physically growing and it's physically painful. [00:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:01] Speaker A: And people that haven't experienced them don't understand it. And the people that have are like, that was like crazy. And no medicine helped. It was like, extremely painful. And for us to be able to say, like, real talk to our kids or real talk to our church or to people in their 40s like me, hey, it was never going to be happy and easy. It was never going to be that way. But this is the way to flourishing, and that's the way to destruction. You can go that way. You can go that way and accept whatever comes with that, or you can go that way and end up where that goes. [00:47:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:36] Speaker A: And I think there's just. There's hard fought wisdom in knowing. Knowing that when we preach the gospel, we're inviting people to a narrow way. I've always wondered, Kristen, like, why does Jesus say, my yoke is easy, my burden is light? And I always took that as it's going to be easy. [00:48:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Because he talked to us. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Yeah. But. But I think now what he was saying is it's gonna be. It's gonna be heavy. But when you look at the two of us yoking together, I'm taking the much heavier side. [00:48:20] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, I'm helping you carry it. [00:48:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm helping you carry it. It's still going to be heavy, but just know my sides. Jesus say my side's way heavier than yours. Yep. Yeah. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Well, I love how you guys ended the book because it can be. Listen, I'm a very. I try to be a very positive person, but, like, in my heart, I'm very prone to cynicism, especially like Kristen, apart from Jesus, that's where I get sucked in. And so I. It can be easy, right, to grow weary and doing good. And so I love the way you added. You ended with this chapter called Don't Ever give up. Those who make it to the end will win. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:57] Speaker B: And so I want to know, was there one of those practicalities in that chapter, Nij, that gives you personally, like, the most hopeful? [00:49:04] Speaker A: Not in that chapter. But I do want to mention my favorite part of the book. And you know, my friend Carmen Imes has written a book on why we need the church now more than ever. I think it's called becoming God's family. And she and I were kind of pulling in the same direction as she was writing her work and I was writing my work. During COVID we all experienced Zoom Church or some form of zoom Church. And I remember, you know, my kids were, you know, quite a bit younger than they are now. And I remember at one point in my pajamas, having just made my coffee, yelling to my kids, get down here so we can watch church. And it struck me at that point how ridiculous that statement is. Now I understand. [00:49:50] Speaker B: So we can hear church. Yes. [00:49:53] Speaker A: This idea. Now I understand. It was. It was, you know, we had no other choice. But this idea that church is something you just sit and watch and you don't participate in and there's no mutuality and there's no relationship, that sort of thing. My favorite part of the book really is the importance of community. And I know it's cliche, so I tried some way in the book to not make it cliche. So, you know, Paul uses the body image, and I feel like we're so used to it, it doesn't strike us how profound is for him to say we're different members of the same body. [00:50:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:29] Speaker A: So my wife actually introduced me to a different image that has really stuck with me and has really energized me on the importance of community. So my wife introduced me to this concept called my corazole fungi. This is really fun. My corazole fungi? Yeah. This is fungi that grows on tree roots under the earth. [00:50:53] Speaker B: Okay, okay. [00:50:55] Speaker A: And in the last probably 30 or 40 years, we have discovered that these fungi exist and they grow really, really long. And what they do is they. They latch onto tree roots and they connect trees across sometimes hundreds of miles. Now, that by and of itself doesn't really tell you a whole lot, but what's really amazing about this mycortisal fungi is its intelligent. What that means is that it actually connects the trees in a forest in a way that allows them to, number one, communicate with each other and number two, share material resources. So, for example, on the sharing material resources, if there's a really strong, healthy kind of queen bee tree, usually there's like a tree in a forest area that is sort of the boss. Okay. And so there's this tree that maybe if it knows that there's like a sapling that is not in a nutrient rich environment, it can communicate to other trees and itself to provide extra resources to that sapling. Now, it doesn't do it out of the kindness of its heart. It does it for the sake of mutual survival. Yeah, right. It's basically saying, I have a little extra, I have some reserves, and that sapling needs a little bit of a boost. So, hey, guys, let's help this one out, because when that one grows big and strong and I'm old and tired, it's going to need to help me. Here's another interesting one. If a tree is on its way to death, I didn't put this in the book because I discovered this later. If a tree is on its way to death and it knows it's going to happen soon, it can divest of its resources to other trees as a kind of inheritance. Wow. It could basically say, I am clocking out and so I'm going to just let go of this stuff and it can actually be bequeath them upon other trees. Here's my. Here's my favorite one. There was a ponderosa pine that had been attacked by insects and it wasn't prepared to fight off this insect horde, so it sent a message to a nearby. Sorry. It was a Douglas fir. It sent a message to a nearby ponderosa pine explaining to it how to create a defense mechanism against the horde that was going to go next to that tree. It is wild. There was a study done in 2018 in the midst of a heat wave in Europe about forest survival. And what they discovered in this study in the aftermath of that heat wave was networked trees survived and un. Networked trees did not survive. This is really interesting because we live in an era today of a lot of solo Christianity. Yeah. And I'm not, I'm not picking on other people because I have struggled with engaging in meaningful community in my church over the last. We've moved a lot. We've had difficult life stages with children and sports and all that. We've had struggle finding people that are like minded or people that, you know, we feel like we can kind of do life with. We're trying to do better now. We've made some newer commitments to that. But that story about the forest just stuck with me because one of the news articles kind of said if we don't learn to live together, we'll die alone. [00:54:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:41] Speaker A: And gosh, it's amazing with a combination of social media and its impact and the pandemic and its impact, the amount of isolation we experience, even if we work around people or live around people, the amount of isolation we experience as Christians and that we're not connected to people, the next generation, and we're not. And we're not connected to older folks and we're not connected to. So this is a real challenge to me, Kristen, of one of the things that God has given us to make it in the long haul, to persevere to the end of the win, is people. And it just requires a lot of intentionality to say, you know what, I may not like your opinions on X, Y and Z, but unless I form a bond with you, I might not survive this thing because I'm going to need the resources you have. And vice versa. Like, that's been a real challenge to me about how we actually make it. [00:55:43] Speaker B: And that's such a. That's such a beautiful. I've never heard of trees. [00:55:46] Speaker A: My core is all fungi. [00:55:50] Speaker B: So thank you for enlightening us. Now I've got these, like, forest, you know, pictures in my mind. [00:55:54] Speaker A: It's beautiful. [00:55:55] Speaker B: Well, last question for you, Nijay, because the podcast is called Becoming Church. How can the listeners become the church to the people around them? [00:56:03] Speaker A: Yeah, my, my. My hero in the faith is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And I've been reading a lot of Bonhoeffer lately, especially his letters and papers from prison. And the impact that he's really left on me in terms of becoming the church is he was really disappointed that the church of his time basically closed their doors to the world and shut themselves up in their churches and said, we'll pray for you, but we're not willing to go out there and do anything for you. He helped start the Confessing Church or at least get them going. He was really disappointed in the Confessing Church that they kind of hid in their enclaves and didn't go out and be Jesus. And what I want to encourage believers who are listening with is the church is God's agent for becoming a force for good in the world. You can read the scriptures and figure out what that looks like, but that's the mandate. The mandate is we are God pours his spirit on. On us. He's the head of the body so that we will be a force for good in the world. How can we be a force for good? Yeah. [00:57:21] Speaker B: And then. And then taking. Not only like thinking of that and going, oh, this would be a good idea, but actually living it out, actually. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Doing it, going out there and loving and serving the people around us. [00:57:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Gupta. I've got your book here. We'll link it up. We'll link up your other books and your substack and all the things as well. Not the book that we cannot name yet. [00:57:42] Speaker A: Yeah, no, not linked to tbd. [00:57:46] Speaker B: This has been so great. Thank you so much. [00:57:48] Speaker A: Yeah, enjoyed it. Thanks, Kristen. [00:57:54] Speaker B: Okay, well, whether you're a non author listening to two authors and bemoan the editing experience, or you're a younger listener who still doesn't know what a TV dinner is, we all have opportunities to understand, understand someone else's lived experience every single day. It's curiosity that leads to empathy and empathy that transforms our hearts. So my prayer is that you'll find ways to slow down and not miss all that God is saying to you this week. Please remember to rate Becoming Church on Apple podcasts, even if you're not an Apple person or that's not the platform you choose to listen on. The fact of the matter is it's the only platform that allows you to write a review with your words and it really does to help get these conversations in the ears of the people who need to hear them. Until next time, thanks so much for listening and keep becoming the church to the people around you.