Welcome to hallway transgressions. I'm Chris. I'm Ryan.
We are two private school alumni and this podcast serves to examine the worldviews of Christian pastors and teachers through a postmodern lens.
Hey Ryan, what's your bright spot? Well, for the past couple of weeks,
uh, let me give some context first. So I have been living a pretty sedentary lifestyle since like
junior year of college and
I was like I should probably be more active or else I'm just gonna continue gaining weight.
So I was like lifting three days a week for a while,
like I'd say a couple of months and I thought it would be one of those things where it's like, yeah, this sucks,
but if I do it enough, I'll start to like enjoy it, like how runners say they enjoy running after a while.
I think it's all bullshit. I was lifting thinking it would get better and I just started hating it more and more.
And more. So I was like, what can I do to have fun while being active?
Most of those things would be sports that have to involve other people in coordinating and scheduling, which sounds like a nightmare,
until I found a
climbing gym here that I have joined. So the past couple of weeks I have taken up the activity of
climbing, specifically bouldering, which is
climbing on walls that aren't as high and you don't have harnesses or anything.
And so they have like different routes, like different colored
holds, I guess. I don't know like terms yet,
terminology, but they have like different colored routes and they have them like labeled on how difficult they are.
So I've been trying to get all of like the, there's V1-V2 are the easiest ones.
I've been trying to get all of those and
today I got one of the two remaining ones that I hadn't been able to get.
I also, the bigger point is today I was able to like make a friend, which is
unheard of given my social anxiety.
He was the one that came up to me though, so like I don't take any credit for that.
I usually just don't talk to anyone and just like think about it like wanting to talk to someone and then it just never happens
because social anxiety.
Anyways, met this dude. He's super cool. He's only been climbing for like a month, he said,
but he's already pretty good, way better than me.
So yeah, it's been a lot of fun, way more fun than lifting and it is definitely
more of a workout than you would, like than what I thought it was at least.
Like I go in there and I'm sore for the next like two or three days from like an hour
session of climbing.
Today I went really hard and I'm probably not gonna be able to go on Friday,
which I usually try to do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Probably not gonna be able to make it because if I do I'm just not gonna be able to even climb because I'm gonna be so
sore. I'm already sore from today. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
I think it's actually something that I can stick to to be active considering it's like a solo sport.
A solo sport and you can have friends. And I might be able to talk to people.
I should, I've been thinking about trying to force myself to meet one person every time I go, but that sounds like a lot.
I
know I've met, I've met two people. This guy I met today and the other one is a worker there
so he was forced to talk to me. So.
But he seemed pretty cool. He was giving me tips and whatnot.
That's nice. Is it, is it like a big facility? Yeah, it's actually, it's really cool. So they've got
three different bouldering walls all with their own little names and whatnot.
They've got a mezzanine area on top of one of those walls that has ping pong tables and like hangout areas.
They've got a cafe there with like protein smoothies, coffee, whatever you want with like tables and stuff to just
sit out and work if you really wanted to. And then if you're a member, which I now am, you get
free yoga classes and they have basic, they call it block basics. A place is called Block Haven.
They call these beginner courses block, block basics. And so I'm scheduled to be in one next Wednesday where it teaches
beginner climbing techniques and whatnot. So yeah. Very cool. I'm looking into shoes and stuff because they only include
rentals for the first month. And let me tell you, climbing shoes are expensive. I'm sure. Like decent, just like every hobby.
Decent ones are like 120 to 150. It's crazy. I'm going to try to snag some this weekend. We are recording the weekend
or close to the weekend of Labor Day. So I believe there's probably going to be sales somewhere that I can take advantage of.
So I think I'm going to try to pick up a pair soon. Yeah, that's pretty funny.
How about you? What's your bright spot? My bright spot is in a, it's been a long time coming and I'm finally moving to Chicago.
I've been wanting to leave Indiana for a while now to go to a different state and I'm very excited for a couple of reasons.
So one, I don't have to drive to get anywhere. I can just walk and take mass transit and I'm very excited not to have to touch a car.
If I don't really want to drive, very excited for that. And also just because I'm going to be in Chicago,
and also just all the things that Chicago does and they just, they have all their summer stuff so that they can get people to like leave their buildings in the summer.
Maybe get some sunlight before we all hibernate in the winter. But yeah, I'm very excited to be moving.
Yeah, that's cool. What was keeping you from moving before? Money. Money, which isn't a problem for Chris now. He's stacked.
Less of a problem. Now I have a remote job as well. That helps a lot too. That's true. You don't have to try to find a new one.
Yeah, I mean, I'm moving to where a decent amount of my coworkers live and where some of our biggest clients are.
So I'm not moving for work, but it's going to make doing some testing and stuff a lot easier to be in the city instead of having to do it remote.
Yeah, there's always a lot of things to do around there too. Yeah, go swim in the lake.
Oh god, no. That's freezing. Body of water. I was boarding. Yeah, I was boarding on the lake.
They built like a whole lake shore a couple years ago. It was a while ago. I shouldn't say they just built it, but they just did some renovations and stuff.
They're building a lake and walking trail all along the lake shore around the city now. And it's very cool.
But as I was, I was, I took my board up a couple of months ago and I was just boarding down there and I was walking.
I was down by the lake and it was just amazing how many people at 8 a.m. just had their little floaties attached to their back.
And we're just like swimming out into the lake and back like just like deep water and then going back to the beach.
I was very surprised how many people would swim. I also saw a very disgusting dead fish.
It was very large and it was just floating there, kind of half decomposed.
I was like, I don't know if I want to swim in there, but I'm glad it's an option that I can just walk to a place I can swim if I want to, which won't happen.
But if I want to, I can. And I think that's really cool. Yeah, you can find some cool hammocking spots too if you got hammocks.
I'm going to have to get some hammocks. I think I think it's going to happen. Finally, I'm going to go hammocking.
Just chill and read book. I guess Millennium Park. Yeah, that could be cool.
I didn't really think about that. I'll do that as well. Also, when the water wars happen, I'm by a very big body of fresh water.
So that'll be nice. Yeah, there you go. That good drinking water with decomposing fish in it.
It's surprising how much the Great Lakes water supply or how much the Midwest uses the Great Lakes water supply.
I'm always surprised at how many like how much how much we take out of the Great Lakes.
And yet it still gets replenished mostly well until in a couple of years it won't be. But for now, it's pretty amazing.
I just wanted to bring a couple of things up. So I have learned that Jed has left Lakewood to pursue pursue his education career.
The pot this hallway digressions still seems to be on summer break.
I imagine until the first couple of weeks of school are done, they won't have time to sit down and record.
I am pretty sure Jed won't be a host anymore. So he was a host for just season three when he worked that one year at Lakewood.
I imagine he won't be a host anymore. I just wanted to let everyone know if you enjoyed listening to Jed, he will probably no longer be a host.
And the other announcement kind of thing is we want to have more guests on the show like Becca, our last episode.
So if you want to come on and share your experiences, please reach out to hey at hallway transgressions dot com.
If you're interested in being a guest and kind of chilling and hanging out, if you have interesting stories you want to tell that is H E Y at hallway transgressions.
As in like saying, hey, not like like, hey, like is similar to straw. It's not that one.
Well, today we have an exciting double feature.
We've decided to cover the next two episodes from hallway digressions.
So the two episodes we will be covering today are season three, episode six, which is called to baptize or not to baptize a Romeo and Juliet story.
And also season three, episode seven, does Yahweh equal Allah?
I just I do have to say that the to baptize or not to baptize a Romeo and Juliet story.
Very funny title. It's pretty good considering the context. Yes.
Yes, pretty good. So first off, we're starting with the baptism one.
So we're going to I feel like it's OK for us to skip the introductory dialogue between the men who host this podcast.
They talk about different things. I don't think we need to cover that.
They episode. The real episode starts 16 minutes into the 35 minute episode.
Yes. So Slougher was gone for both of these.
So it was just Nick, Luke and Jed that were discussing these topics.
So the first one they had a student or former student. I'm not sure they had someone message in
asking about one of their friends who is has been dating a girl for I think it was like six to nine months or somewhere in there.
Not under a year. They'd been dating for under a year.
And the issue that he saw or they saw between these two was that she was part of the Church of Christ, which they have.
I think you can call it a doctrine. They have a doctrine in their belief system that baptism is necessary for salvation.
It is something that you need in order to be saved. The guy in that relationship, he did not believe that.
And him and his family, I don't think any of them had really been baptized. They had never seen a need for it.
They didn't believe that you needed to be baptized, but they were still from a Christian background, Christian faith, Christian worldview.
So they were wondering if that would potentially be a deal breaker between these two since she believes baptism is necessary and he does not and he has not been baptized.
The question was really convoluted and it took a while for them to read it out loud.
And it was just kind of odd. Like just to like clarify a little bit more.
The person asking the question to the podcast is not involved in the relationship where this possibly could have been an issue.
It was just a friend of these two who were in a relationship.
And it didn't seem like the conversation had come up before. I don't know.
It seemed unclear. There wasn't any real specifics about whether baptism was a contention point at all or if it was not.
I thought that was kind of weird. And also, yeah.
So she believes supposedly, according to her church, believes that baptism is necessary for salvation.
And the boyfriend did not seem to believe that and also wasn't baptized.
It was a little weird. Yeah, which honestly to me doesn't sound like that big of a deal.
But as you will soon hear, it seems to be a big deal to these guys.
So like it's just it's so weird that this person asking the question didn't seem to be like clarify on how they're even involved.
I don't know. I thought it was kind of a weird question.
So I think this this idea about baptism, I forget what gospel it's in.
But it's Jesus talking to was it Nicodemus? I forget. I was still in that study Bible.
Anyways, it comes from that you must be born again through water and spirit, I think, is how one of the translations puts it in,
which the water referred to in that passage does specifically refer to water on earth like a body of water on earth.
So it's talking about physical water, no like metaphors or anything there.
It's pretty specifically water. So honestly, I don't know why more people don't believe that baptism is necessary.
It's like a small view within Christianity from my point of view and from my upbringing.
But I'm surprised people don't read that more literally, given how literally a lot of people read the scriptures.
Yeah, with a lot of other things, it seems that it's literal.
And that's what I always find weird about baptism is like there's a couple of times where people are like they're saved by an apostle and then they're immediately baptized.
So like that was an early church doctrine, it seemed. And you're right.
It was when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus in John 3, 5. Yeah.
And so honestly, if I was still a believer in the Bible, I mean, that's pretty convincing that baptism seems necessary based on what the Bible has to say.
Anyways, there's a lot of other scriptures that have other words that they use to that they being churches that don't believe in necessary baptism or baptismal regeneration, baptismal regeneration.
That's it. So the conversation gets kicked off with Nick going in and first asking the question like, well, why hasn't he been baptized?
Why haven't you been baptized? Like usually even in a church that doesn't require baptism, they say that's usually the second step after salvation they use after.
So you're saved after giving your life to Christ, professing your belief in Christ, and then you get baptized to profess your belief to the church.
So basically it's like why haven't you been baptized? Which I mean, fair question.
Like if it's going to be a contention, which I don't we don't even know if it is a contention in their relationship.
But if it was, I feel like it would be pretty easy just to get baptized, even if you don't believe it's necessary.
Like what harm could it do? You know, just to ease the mind of the girlfriend.
But so that was our first thing, which like, yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
And then they go on to speculation about what thoughts might be coming up into her mind, what thoughts might be coming up into his mind.
And I don't know if that's OK to do. I'm just repeating what they said.
But they basically start speaking for her, saying that based on that belief, she doesn't think he saved, which yes, if she believes in the necessity of baptism, then she probably doesn't think he saved.
But then they go on to say that by not having been baptized, she would think he's a nonbeliever.
I don't know where that jump comes from. I feel like belief is different from salvation.
I don't know about you, but belief in salvation, different things.
They probably just time together because their whole salvation is based on belief.
But they say that she then would be violating scriptures by dating a nonbeliever.
You know, if that is the case, then she's actually violating the scriptures by dating a nonbeliever.
Right. The irony here. Yeah, right. Right. So that would be that should be a problem for her.
Yeah. If he is not saved, according to her definition of that.
So they are really not for this relationship since he doesn't believe in baptismal regeneration. She does.
Which they the host also don't believe in baptismal regeneration.
So it's just it's kind of this whole bizarre jump into being like, yeah, in her mind, she's violating the scriptures as she believes.
And so they're unequally yoked kind of thing.
And it's like, wait, but you also don't believe that baptism is necessary for salvation.
And then they don't have like any argument against that whole concept in general.
They just kind of go with it for this question. It cracks me up.
And then at one point, Nick even mentions that none of this advice he's giving is really biblically grounded.
It's more from a wisdom standpoint. But that's that's just my my thought.
I don't think I have like a biblical argument for that, but maybe it's just like a an argument from from wisdom principles.
Yeah, that's a good differentiation there.
And then Luke later agrees and basically says the same thing later in the podcast.
It's like, what is even happening? I don't know.
I don't think they were prepared for this one either, but they keep going on about how she's viewing him as an unbeliever.
And I don't we don't know whether that is true. I mean, he's a Christian.
She's a Christian just from different faith nominations.
I think they would both see each other as believers.
She would just be worried about his salvation.
That's really what they they get to is that it's a big deal because the issue involves salvation,
because what is right here and right now doesn't matter.
All that matters is your afterlife.
I'll put words in their mouth if they're going to put them in other people's.
Within that that faith, it makes sense like salvation seems to be a big deal.
It seems to be one of their main focuses actually is whether you're saved or not.
And it's really only focused on afterlife, heaven or hell.
Being saved doesn't seem to have like as much of an impact on the press, at least from what I hear from them.
Salvation has mostly to do with when you die, which I think is a big issue in the church.
Like the whole focus is on that.
That's not what Jesus teachings were saying.
He was really talking about present, bringing heaven to earth, having the earth become heavenly.
Anyways, so they were saying if neither side moves their stance that it would be a deal breaker.
And they go on to talk about how it would cause issues mainly like when it comes to children, like when they have kids.
They have parents that have differing views on such a thing that that would be harmful to the kids and that they need ideological unity,
which that's the gist of what I think I want to get into on this view.
But that's just my thought.
I don't think I have like a biblical argument for that, but maybe it's just like an argument from wisdom principles.
Yeah, that's a good differentiation there.
It might be something that you're able to gloss over for a little while and ignore and sweep under the rug.
It will come back when the pregnancy test comes back positive.
And now all of a sudden, what do we do with the kids?
You know, and this is the same thing that I think at a deeper level and probably a more damaging level happens when a believer marries an unbeliever.
And they say, yeah, no, I'm OK with you going to church and things like that.
And so, you know, he's a decent guy.
Of course, he's a decent guy.
Then all of a sudden you have kids and you're trying to get your kids to love Jesus.
But that over here seems to be doing just fine without.
And it can become a really it will become a really big deal.
And so this is a lesser degree.
But still, I would say a pretty pivotal one, a pretty significant one.
It's not it's not one that, you know, can can be be swept under the rug very easily.
And this idea that in order to have good relationships with people, you have to have ideological unity.
And I don't know if they would necessarily say that.
I think they were saying that more because it is like a romantic relationship.
People that are going to be their lives are going to be intertwined deeper than just like friendships or something like that.
But I would probably say that even then, they probably wouldn't want people fraternizing with the enemy or like having bad influences as friends.
When I was growing up, it was always like, choose your friends wisely.
They really wanted me to have Christian friends because those would be good influences.
And if I was friends with non-Christians, that would be bad because they would rub off on me or something and I would be poorly influenced.
And so I would probably venture to say that they would probably say similar things,
maybe not on something like this issue, but like if we're talking about believers and non-believers,
I think they're against close relationships between the two.
And that's really what I think is a harmful idea to put into kids' heads.
Like, wouldn't it be so good for kids to see their parents have differing views,
but rather than like arguing, getting into heated debates, having good conversations, still having a loving relationship between two people that differ?
That seems like a precedent that needs to be set for kids, not that you need to agree with people in order to be friends with them.
Like they need to agree with you. You need to have ideological unity to be good friends or to have good relationships.
That I think is a harmful idea to be portraying.
It really is divisive. Is that the right word?
It really would divide people because then there's a lot of people that are just going to remain ignorant by not having other perspectives
because they don't want to be in relationships with people that have differing views.
It's a very cyclical thing where it's just you're staying in a bubble.
You are not opening yourself to other ideas so that you can grow as a person.
You are basically meant to stay the same. You need to stay within this, stay the same.
Don't change or leave because that's bad. It's just, it's weird.
Yeah, this episode made me wonder. I was pondering the responses to if this question was framed less as a boyfriend girlfriend relationship
and more of as a concrete, like I wonder if a couple that have been married 20 years and they have like a kid or two,
or maybe even not, if a long term married couple, like one of them deconstructs or changes faith entirely.
Like I'd be very curious their opinion on what this relationship would do because they wouldn't, I don't,
I wondered if they would even preach for a divorce or because right there would be a clear ideological difference in this couple now.
And they were always talking about unity and like having the same ideological beliefs.
But like we change a lot, like all of the time really.
And like it's hard to have the same exact beliefs as someone else in like total lack step.
So like what if someone makes a drastic change of becoming more progressive?
Like what, like I'm trying not to think of like baptism, but like another doctrinal issue.
Like, I mean, what if one of them converts to Catholicism and the other one stays like evangelical conservative Christian?
Like that's a clear ideological difference.
And in this episode, they talk about like loving each other isn't enough,
but would that be enough if they've been married for 20 years or would they just like,
I don't like, I don't, I don't, I don't even know what they would say to like a relationship case like that.
Because a lot of stuff is a lot more permanent when, you know,
you've been in a deep intertwined relationship for another person for 20 years.
And then if one of you changes like a pretty deep set belief system, like religion,
like would you just take them to biblical counseling and try to like indoctrinate them to come back to evangelicalism?
Or like, I'd just be curious to hear a response to a more concrete relationship like that.
Yeah, it would be interesting to hear what they would have to say about that.
But yeah, we could also get into the conversation of works based salvation
because they bring up why they disagree with baptism being a necessity.
And it's because it would make it a workspace salvation.
Like you have to do something, you have to get baptized to be saved.
But if I've always had this issue with this idea of works versus like faith based, is faith not considered work?
Like, don't you still have to do something to be saved?
If I didn't have to do anything to be saved,
if it had nothing to do with the works that I did with things that I did,
then wouldn't everyone be saved? Wouldn't that be universalism?
I've always had that contention with it because it's like,
oh, you're not saved because you don't believe in Christ.
But it's like, but they don't understand.
I just, they try to get people to believe in Christ so they can be saved.
And then they get angry if people don't believe.
But they kind of put it in a framework that like belief is a choice.
And if it's a choice, then that's doing some sort of work that is choosing to believe that's an action.
Yeah, I've always heard it as like, if you, yeah, because I mean, I have the same issues, right?
Of like, if you take it to the most basic, right?
Someone gets saved. What does that mean?
Like traditionally it means they say a prayer of like the Romans road kind of like five step walk through salvation and being saved.
Like I'm a sinner, Jesus saves me kind of thing. Like the sinner's prayer.
But then wouldn't like making the choice of saving, getting saved through the sinner's prayer be a work?
And then on top of that, the argument, not argument,
but the discussion I've always heard around it is like in sermons is like once you are saved, the Holy Spirit enters your heart.
Or, you know, if that's literal or not, I'm still unclear about it because their mystical language gets confusing sometimes.
But and then begins the process of like redemption and sanctification that takes forever, like as a lifetime thing.
And so like you're slowly getting better, but still having mistakes.
And the thing that makes you different is that you admit your mistakes and ask for forgiveness.
And then the redemption part is that you turn away from your mistakes, ask for forgiveness and then keep walking forward.
And they use the King David as like an example of someone slowly getting better, which I disagree with, but that's fine.
Yeah, we a lot of the Old Testament saying, yeah, that's a discussion for another time.
I feel like I say that I feel like I say that all the time. It's like the discussion for another time.
It's not for now. The last thing I think I want to bring up about what they said is that like,
so they talked about why hasn't he been baptized, that he should be baptized because that's the second step.
But they give this idea that but don't get baptized for her.
That motivation, basically, they're basically saying that motivation isn't good enough.
You shouldn't get baptized just for the sake of making her feel better.
Like that's that shouldn't be your motivation for getting baptized.
So they're making it really difficult on these two over what I think is just a silly, just a silly like I can't think of the word, just a belief that they don't share.
Yeah, well, because they make a joke about like, I don't see if you love her.
Why don't you just get baptized and like solves the whole problem?
Like first off, we don't even know if this is even a problem. This is a friend talking about their friends relationship.
And then second, then you just backtrack and say it's like a joke.
And I was like, well, now you just made the situation really weird because if these two people hear this, they're going to be like and then like he's like, I'm going to get baptized.
Like there's always going to be that self doubt forever now that he just got baptized for her.
Like, yeah, it was super weird. It's like over complicating something that I think all it takes is just discussion, like talking about it.
I don't know. Like, yeah, like spouses are going to have differing beliefs.
I don't think you can have ideological unity your entire life.
And if you do, one of you is just giving into the other one because they don't want to get into an argument.
That's my belief. I mean, yeah, but maybe that is how they think relationships should be.
Right. Like maybe they just don't want to say the word like patriarchal relationship out loud.
But maybe that is really what they're thinking that should happen with like ideological unity.
I was like, one of you submits to the other and I don't think I have to say which gender role does which and traditional one's the Christian marriages head of the family.
So, yeah, well, all of this, all of this language to mean like one thing of like oppressing women into the quote unquote right.
Ideological beliefs. Yeah. And basically, I didn't really consider that till just now.
And now I'm just really thinking about that. That's interesting.
Anyway, yeah, well, I'm here to tell everyone that you can have differing ideological views and still love each other.
Either way, Amarok love you. And one thing that really comes through is also likeasy or
probably cut it off. There's always going to be problems. You're going to be single for life,
which is not an issue, but like if you're basing whether you should be with someone based on whether
you're going to disagree on something, I just think it's silly. It's just something to work
through. Like I'm sure the beliefs that those two hold now, I'm assuming they're young people,
that's an assumption. Their beliefs are going to most likely change in some way or another as they
grow up and you're going to have to work through those types of things. And that's what it's about.
And yeah, when you have kids, that's a good precedent to set. Like I said, like to be able
to have differing views and show your kids that that doesn't have to be a deal breaker. Doesn't
mean you have to cut off a relationship. That's probably a good thing to portray to kids.
But what about when the pregnancy test comes back positive? Then what do we do about the kids?
About whether getting them baptized or not? You know what? That's up to those two. That's up for
them to discuss and talk about. Just because that might be hard to come to a decision on, doesn't
mean you should break off the relationship because who knows how long down the road you may have a
kid and that may cause tension. God. And also, if you truly believe that baptism is the second step,
then I'm pretty sure the kid has agency and if they want to be baptized or not.
So Luke, this doesn't seem like that big of an issue. And I don't know why you said that.
Yeah, the parents aren't the ones to decide whether their kids are going to get baptized.
I guess based on some churches it is like there's infant baptisms and whatnot.
I was baptized as an infant technically in the Catholic Church and double saved.
I don't know if there's any kids that are like, man, I'm so upset that my parents had me baptized
as an infant. I feel like most people are just like, oh yeah, I don't even remember that. It
doesn't really matter that much. Yeah. Also, I would argue that the baby dedication stuff is
basically the same thing as baptism without water. So it's kind of like the same thing that's
happening, but that's fine. Yeah. I don't know. Baptism is weird to me. I mean, I definitely was
peer pressured into getting baptized in sixth grade. I don't know. I don't really... If you
want to get baptized, get baptized. If you have some reason not to get baptized, don't. I don't
know. I'm not you. I'm not here to tell you what to believe. Right. And as much as the church wants
to say that once you get married, you two are one, you're like one being... You're allowed to be
independent people when you're married. You're allowed to have your own ideas and thoughts and
actions. You're just going to be considering the other person too.
You're still two separate individuals. There's a saying that I seem to hear more around the
church than outside the church of like that marriage is hard and marriage is difficult.
I was like, yeah, I mean, relationships can be difficult, but you know what helps a lot?
Being able to like clearly communicate with your partner and like have conversations like this,
like difficult conversations about ideological things and come to conclusions. And like maybe
you conclude that it doesn't really matter or maybe it's a deal breaker for one of you. But most of
the time it turns out that like you can have deep conversations and still disagree about things and
things can still be fine. Like it's not that difficult all of the time unless you don't
communicate, I guess. Right. Yeah. That saying is like my pet peeve. Like I hear it all of the time.
Like people always tell like newlyweds like, oh, the first year is the hardest because marriage is
difficult. It's like, what are you telling? What are you saying? What do you mean? Like I think
they'll be fine as long as they can like communicate and talk. I don't think it's like the marriage
that's hard is like there can be difficult stuff. And like for me and Natalie, like we can have
difficult situations, but it's not like, oh, if this is too difficult, I'm just gonna leave.
Yeah. Like it's not like the marriage is in danger because of the difficult situations.
Yeah. And it's not like it's marriage specifically that does that. Like you can be in a relationship
that's difficult to, that's not marriage. Like, I don't like, can you be dating and like that can
have difficult circumstances? Like it's not that you like you sign a marriage certificate with the
state of Indiana and all of a sudden your like your relationship gets a lot more difficult. Like
that's not really how it works. Yeah. Nope. It isn't. Also, you don't have to be married. It's
not a requirement unless you want to be. Instead of just saying something's hard or relationships
are hard, just say relationships take work. Just expect to put work into a relationship and not
just do nothing for the relationship and hope it goes well. As long as you put in the work,
if you care about the relationship and you put in the work to make it a good relationship,
you'll be fine. Coming from someone who's only been married for four years, but hey,
that's my perspective. That's where it is now. I'm not saying that's the correct one,
but that's where I'm at right now. We'll see where it is later. All right. So that was the first
episode talking about baptism. I think we got our ideas across. We don't think it's a deal breaker
for those two. And also I kind of feel bad that their relationship is now in two different podcasts
without, I don't think it was with their consent. Who knows if that student asked like, hey, can I
ask a question about your relationship on a podcast? I doubt that happened. So now their
relationship has been talked on about on two different podcasts on whether their relationship
is valid or not. So sorry about that, but it is what it is. Your relationship is valid. You don't
need us to say it's valid for it to be valid. It's all, it's your guy's relationship. Anyways.
If you want us to take it down, just email me please and I will.
If you don't want your relationship talked about on another podcast, let us know. We'll
re-edit and just include the next episode. Oh no, I didn't even think about that.
So the second episode that we're discussing, or the second of hallway digressions episodes that
we're talking about in this episode was called does Yahweh equal Allah? In which an alum, I believe
asked whether- Their favorite alum.
Yeah, their favorite alum, which isn't me. Like what? Anyways.
I was like, I didn't ask this question. Yeah. I don't remember asking this question. I don't know
what they're talking about. Me asking whether Allah and God are the same. Anyways, the question
was basically is Allah equivalent to, I would say like the God of the Old Testament? And the
reason they give is they were talking to some other person. They mentioned the roots of Islam
somewhat being based in Ishmael in the Bible, who was not part of the covenant was kind of just,
doesn't even come up after that story. Like he's just gone. So if Islam was kind of based out of
Ishmael's view of God, Ishmael would have a more violent view of God. Like we always see the God
of the Old Testament as the like mean God who destroys things and the God of the New Testament
is the God of love, which we'll get to that point. Not yet. So that was the question. Do
are Allah and God the same or I would say even are the God of Islam and the God of Christianity
based on the same God? I think that's a better way of putting it. And instead of answering this
question, these three decide to answer a different question of whether the God of Christianity is the
same as the God of Islam as described in both of those religions, which obviously they are not.
Like, and that's all they argue in this episode. All they argue is like, well, Christianity says
God is this and Islam says God is this. So they can't be the same. See how they contradict each
other. That wasn't the question. And I mean, you can see they first start off by being dismissive
and calling this whole idea of Ishmael being a part of Islam as being a fairy tale, like without
even really knowing, like Dee was questioning it and he was still okay with saying like, why are we
basing this on like a fairy tale? Even so, even if we were to say like, yeah, that was wrong.
Like, I'm not super sure. I'm not a Islam expert. But if hypothetically, let's say he's right,
Ishmael is not part of the Islamic faith. Like he has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.
Why not just answer the hypothetical? Why dismiss that whole part of the question and not try to
answer it? It's like they're just not willing to answer it based on the information given because
they know it's right. They know that like, oh, that's wrong to base on. So it's not even worth
us answering that if it was. I've always come from a viewpoint of like, let's answer all the questions,
even if like one of them maybe like even if there's assumptions for from the question,
let's answer it still. Let's try to answer it to the best of our ability. So like even if Ishmael
is a part of it, they could give their explanation as to why God wouldn't be. That's just me. But
they seem they I say it's really Nick is the one that is very dismissive of the question because
he thinks they are not knowledgeable about the question they are asking. And it's like,
why do you need to have all of the knowledge before you ask a question?
I don't like to nitpick, but Nick was being really like, I don't know, dismissive of Islam. And like,
I don't know, it just felt like he was being really oppressive with his knowledge he had in his head.
But he said that Ishmael isn't considered a prophet in Islam, which isn't true. Ishmael is
considered a prophet. And it took me three seconds to Google that. And like, so that was kind of
annoying to me. It was like he was, you know, just really beating down on Islam and he couldn't even
like, say it correctly. It's kind of annoying. I do slightly want to get into what Nick was
frustrated about. One of the things he seems to be frustrated about is people saying that the God
of the Old Testament seems different than the God of the New Testament. Like the God of the Old
Testament is mean and the God of the New Testament is all lovey-dovey and whatnot. And he has an
issue with that. And I understand that being, it seems like he's a systematic theologian,
or wants to be a systematic theologian. So he wants, for those that don't know, systematic theology
is a type of theology that wants to tie the entire Bible together. So it's a type of theology where
like, there's other theologies that look at specific parts of the Bible and just focus on
those and just the context within those. Systematic theology tries to take in everything from the
entire Bible to make a discernment for a theological claim. And so since he is more systematic,
and I believe one of our textbooks was called systematic theology. So I understand being
systematic that that can be frustrating because that's actually something that happened in church
history was a belief that was deemed heretical in church history, where it was this idea that like,
the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament. So they threw out the
Old Testament and only lived based on the New Testament. Oh, really? Yeah, that was like a whole
thing. They deemed that whole, they gave it a name. I don't think it was Manichaeism,
but they gave it a name and were like, this is Heresy and it was deemed heretical. And so it
wasn't a part of the faith that we see today. Huh, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, that was a whole
thing that happened in church history. And so it's funny that it's still an idea that gets brought
up, even though it was rebuked and like thrown out, it's still a belief that people have and
there's a reason for that. But- Yes, there is a reason for that.
I think it's funny because Nick's defense was that like, yeah, like the God of the Old Testament
seems mean, but he was also mean in the New Testament. This argument from the Old Testament
just drives me crazy because, you know, God's a mean God in the Old Testament and then the New
Testament also, and then he's loving, right? So this is a very narrow view of the scriptures,
like read the whole Bible for goodness sake, like read, first of all, you think God is a God of love
in the Old and the New Testament. Look to see what he does to Jesus on the cross. For goodness sake,
what is Jesus? Jesus goes through hell on the cross. So you want to say that God is a God of love in
the New Testament. Now you may say, yeah, but that was for us. Also, how many times does Jesus talk
about hell in the gospels? So, you know, there's, there's definitely, right, there are punishments
for people who have sinned and there is vengeance, you know, in fact, right, one of the often quoted
verses, right, is from Romans, right? Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will rebuke. So.
Like this whole argument is like, God was still violent and like vengeance and like,
do you see what he did to Jesus and all this different stuff, which is just funny to think
about. It's like, okay, so you're still seeing God as this like vengeful God out to punish people.
Why do you want to serve that God? Like, I don't, I like the God of love better, but he would say
that's picking and choosing. I get it. He's trying to take the whole Bible in and it makes sense if
he believes that God is vengeful, that is given in the Bible. And here's the thing, I love that,
like Luke pipes in saying that there's a lot of stuff that God does in the New Testament that
seems unloving. Like, yeah, there's a lot of stuff in the Old Testament that seems like God was
unloving, but he also seems unloving in the New Testament. And then Nick goes on to say,
and that's a necessity of love. Like you need that as part of love.
And quote unquote, unloving stuff in the New Testament, if we're honest with it. And so, yeah,
I agree with that. And so, go on. I was just going to say, which is a necessity. I mean,
to love means that God is also in this holiness, also means he deals with sin, right? I am glad.
God's love in my life is that he doesn't let me get away with stuff.
And I was like, how can being unloving be a necessity of loving? Like, did you hear that
part of the episode? Yeah.
You're saying it's necessity for love is those unloving things. I guess that's the tough love
movement that we went through. Yeah, I didn't know what to like, do with that.
There's nothing to do with that. Yeah. I was like, I didn't know, I didn't have a response
to it. I didn't even really write any notes down about it. Cause I was like, what? What just
happened? Yeah. It doesn't really make sense. You know, I don't think love is having eternal
punishment for finite actions. That's just, that's just, I don't think that's justice. Justice,
I think is giving someone what they deserve, right? Like we always think of justice as like
punishment, right? But justice can be positive too. Like if someone's deserving of praise,
it's justice to give them that praise. It's just giving someone something they deserve.
How can eternal punishment be a deserving punishment for someone who committed finite actions?
Yeah. Finite punishment would be justice.
I'm tempted to follow this thread, but I know it's going to take like two hours if I do.
Yeah, this is a topic we could go on for a while.
Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm just going to leave it there. Cause I was like ranting in the
car the other day about a similar topic. Justice. Yeah, we should have it. That's
what we should. Yeah. We should do an episode on like justice or something. That could be interesting.
I've got some good stuff for justice, but yeah. So, I mean, even when I was a Christian,
I like didn't really believe in the church's belief in hell. Like I was still able to be a Christian
without hell being a part of it. And they probably wouldn't think I was a Christian
since they hate progressive Christianity. And that is part of the progressive Christianity movement,
not all like sex of it, but there's a lot of Christians out there that don't believe in
eternal damnation. And I don't think you would know it. And you know, they probably seem to be
more loving people. At least they were to me. The people that believe that stuff, like professors
and whatnot. I think it was funny. One of my professors that I had a one-on-one class with,
which was really cool to have. He literally just brought it up in one of our sessions, I guess.
I don't know if I even want to call him class. We didn't even meet in the classroom. We met in like
a coffee shop basically, had coffee and did Greek. But he brought up hell and how he came to his
idea of hell. And I was like, huh, and that's what got me started on studying more about hell
and the origins of that idea of hell, which I wrote a paper on. We should attach it to this episode.
We can. I think that'd be cool. We should start attaching so I'll write papers. That'd be funny.
Anyways, so there's that whole thing where they're talking about trying to rectify this difference in
gods between the Old Testament and the New. I think that's all I really want to say about
their discussion. It doesn't get any better than those points. I think I just want to get into,
if I was like a progressive Christian standpoint on this idea of Allah and Yahweh, would that be
fun? Would you like to do that? Cool. So to give a different perspective on this question, I would
probably say that the gods of both Islam and Christianity are based on the same being. That's
not saying that the Christian view of God and the Islamic view of God are the same. It's not saying
that. It's saying that their beliefs stemmed from the same idea of this being of God. And why would
I say that? Because the Old Testament is not part of Islam's holy texts or anything, but the Quran
does refer to a lot of Old Testament characters and stories. They're pulling from the Old Testament
as part of their religion. They're pulling stories of the god of the Old Testament as portraying,
as speaking to the god of Islam, as speaking to Allah. And that's why I would say it's not a bad
thing to say that both of these gods are based on the same idea. They're just different interpretations.
I agree with you. I think I want to step into the host shoes a little bit. And because, so some
context is that I took a, in college, I took a Who Wrote the Bible class, which in retrospect now,
I am very happy I took that class. But taking that class as like a budding conservative Christian,
or as someone budding from leaving conservative Christianity, it was a difficult class to take
because it was purely viewing the Bible through a linguistic and storytelling perspective and
nothing about it being a holy text or anything like that. Oh, you mean like a scientific approach?
Yeah. And my professor was amazing. I wouldn't have said that at the time. Some other friends
I took the class with dropped it by like the fourth week, but I trucked on through and I'm really
happy that I did. But it was surprising to me to learn a lot more of the cultural history of how
the, like not the fairy tale kind of storytelling that the church gives you about the New, or the
Old Testament, but like the nitty gritty of like, there was a couple different authors, this is how
they wrote differently. They, like a lot of the stories can be found in like other Assyrian texts,
like the Epic of Gilgamesh's creation story, weirdly similar. Like all of this stuff grew in
the same kind of area and it was born out of all this kind of stuff. And like, it's, it's okay to
say that, like what you were saying is like, it's fine that that happened, like, but I think that
they can't give that ground up because it starts to get more into the aspect of they have to start
taking, what's the literal interpretation called? The authenticity and where everything was
inerrant, where the authenticity and inerrancy of the Bible has to be questioned. And I don't think
that they like those questions because it, like, it's, it goes against normal tradition of how the
Bible is seen in Christianity. And I think that that would be kind of the pushback they would give
of like, it can't be that the gods were born in the same place because ours is true and we can't
give grounds to saying that the other religions are quote unquote true as well. Yeah, there's a lot of
that makes sense at all. Looking at like, did you know that people study literature and
linguistics and can tell if something is written by the same person or not? It's crazy. But yeah,
looking into that stuff about the Bible, who wrote it and also seeing that like, like through
study and whatnot, you can tell some of the earlier books were written by polytheists.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Another thing, if you're like, if you're like more like fundamentalist kind
of view of the Bible, I would very much implore you to like, read the flood story, like, because
I was a story that I hadn't ever like, I'd heard it and like had people like read it to me. But
like, go into your Bible and just like read the story of the flood and just like, notice how much
it repeats itself. I think that was the big eye opener thing for me in that class was like, we had
to sit down and like, read the Bible. Like, it wasn't just like a Lakewood, we did like the
daily Bible reading and had to like, write a little journal thing and like, nobody was really
reading the verses, they were just kind of summarizing kind of thing. Like, I like, I sat
down and like, was writing papers about this stuff. So I was reading the passages and like,
it surprised me how much the flood story was like, so obviously written by more than one person,
it was like clobbered together over the years, like many years. But like, stuff like that where
you actually like, read and realize like, the Bible repeats itself a lot and there's a reason
for that was very eye opening to me.
Yeah, you ever read first and second Kings and first and second Chronicles?
I have now, yes, I can say that now.
I had a whole portion of one of my Old Testament classes where we compared the two together to
see like, what was the same, what was different and all this different stuff. It was pretty fun.
Each student had to present on some story that was given in both and see how it differed.
I think one of our fun exercises was we, he told us to take four different colored highlighters
and like, photocopy our Bibles that we were reading from and then like, highlight the
different passages of what author we think wrote, what passages in like Genesis and then one of the
classes he went through and presented of like, what the research and like, literary experts were
saying at the time and like, so he had his own highlighted and we got to see like, how close we
were. That was difficult because I didn't believe that it was written by four different authors at
the time, but that was a pretty cool exercise. Now looking back on it.
Yeah, but you know, education is of the devil. It leads kids away from Christ. So probably bad
that you had formal education. Yeah, my advice before going to college was
don't get led astray. Yeah, be careful. Don't get led astray.
Yep. But I feel like I'm a better person because of it.
Me too. I have no complaints about my education. The only complaint I have is that I'm not
educated. The only complaint I have is more about just careers in the workforce and capitalism.
Yeah, those are all my complaints. I don't, I didn't find any of my formal education related
to my career helpful. All of the stuff I found helpful in my life has been like,
personal development from gen ed classes and like, I loved my history classes and I took a class that
was like the history of the mafia. That was a great class. But like a lot of stuff in my life got
formed from the classes that weren't mandatory for me to take. I just picked them because they
sounded interesting. And also I did have to admit I dropped out after two years from my computer
science because I wasn't finding it very useful. But that's beside the point. I think formal
education is very useful. Maybe not so much in the workforce and careers and all that stuff,
but I think it's nice to have an ability to be free thinking and like talking to actual,
like a lot of my professors were actual experts in the subjects they were talking about. And I
think that was really nice to learn from in that time of my life. Yeah. So to conclude this
discussion on this episode, Muslims and Christians might be worshiping the same God. Who knows?
It's just, I just want to say that people can look at the same thing and come away with two
completely different interpretations of that thing. Those interpretations may be different,
but they were still looking at the same thing. That's all. If you want to look more into this
kind of concept of like possibly everyone worshiping the same God or not, I'm sure there's
tons of books about it. The one I connected the most with was Barbara Brown Taylor's Always a
Guest, Speaking of Faith Far From Home. She was teaching a religion 101 class when she wrote this
book and was talking about her experiences of like visiting other religious institutions and
like being invited to practice other faiths for a moment and finding the beauty and that people
are worshiping their own interpretations of possibly the same creator God figure. And I
think it was really beautiful to read the way she described the respectfulness that she had of other
religions that weren't her own. I believe she's more universalist than the host are, but I don't
think that should matter. I'm just bringing it up because I thought it was a really cool view of
like someone who's open and accepting of other faiths and religions of how they view religions
instead of attacking and being more close-minded about other practitioners. Yeah. Read every
thing by Barbara Brown Taylor. She's amazing. Also, read everything from Nadia Bolzweber.
Read those two. Oh, that's so true.
Read those two people. Read their books. See what you think. Don't try, if you're going to read
them, don't go into it just trying to argue with the ideas in there. Just read them and think about
them. Don't just get defensive and so like protective of your beliefs right now. Like why do
you have to just constantly defend your so-called beliefs? Growth requires change. If you want to
grow, your beliefs are going to change or else you're going to be stagnant. Believing the same
things is the same thing as being stagnant. Yeah. I think that about sums it up. Yeah. Cool.
You got anything else? I don't think so. Stagnant, that's such a fun word.
Yeah. I feel like stagnant was used a lot with like our growth in Christ and faith and whatnot.
Like I feel like that- Yeah, not be lukewarm too.
Yeah, I feel like that word was used a lot to say like don't just sit on like grow in Christ.
Like learn new things about Christ, but don't learn new things about anything else.
You can learn new things about everything. Just take in other people's perspectives.
Their perspectives aren't the thing that's like going to change you. It's you being able to
think critically. Yeah. Like they always say like, I always say they and I always feel like it's an
us versus them thing, but I'm trying not to like be specific with like certain, like I'm trying
not to name drop like specific pastor quotes that I still remember and stuff. So I just use like a
general day concept. I'm not trying to be tribalistic. I just, I feel like I get self-conscious
about that sometimes because I really try not to be tribalistic, but like I'm just trying to be
vague enough. I like not name dropping anyone who's not like directly involved, but like a
lot of pastors will always say, you know, don't believe everything you hear, like be critical
during sermons. And then like you try to take those skills outside of like direct, like evangelical
approved content. And it's like, no, don't do that. Like stay in the lane, like learn more about what
we think is true, but don't like go try to base us against anything else. Yeah. Learn more about
what we say. It's okay to believe, learn more about that. Don't learn anything about stuff that we say
is not okay to believe. Yeah. It's a problem. It's okay to be inquisitive. It's okay to ask
questions. It's okay to, this is going to be controversial in a conservative world. It's okay
to doubt. Doubt is fine. And it makes sense. If they make you feel small for having doubts,
that's called manipulation. Yeah. Having doubts is a good thing because it means you can learn
and grow. It gives you something to look into. Just look in a variety of areas. Don't look in
the same spot. There's some amazing experts that aren't in the Christian sphere that are amazing
and helpful and can just have explained so many things in such clear terms. And like, like it's
not, I feel like it's just been an always ingrained that like the universal truth is that Christianity
is right. And like, it's so, I feel like it's like such a hard topic to step away from, but once you
do, I just, it's like such a, like a breath of fresh air kind of thing where it's like, oh, other
things can exist in this sphere and it's okay. Like it's fine. And with that, thanks for listening.
If you have any ideas, requests or anything of the sort, again, email us at hey,
H-E-Y at hallwaytransgressions.com. Yeah. Bye. Love you. Love you. Hail Satan. I stole that from
another podcast. We can't use that. No, you're not. That's, I stole it though. That wasn't original.
It's at the end of, yeah, there's a podcast I listen to where they say that at the end
of every episode. Hail Satan.