The Wax Museum: Recent Episodes
BRIDGE LIVWAT
Darrell Epp talks about his poetry book “Permanent Smoke” Darrell’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarrellEpp Darrell’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darrell.epp.5 Darrell’s book, “Permanent Smoke”: https://www.amazon.ca/Permanent-Smoke-Darrell-Epp/dp/1957007257/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3N6PHF8O2Q00N&keywords=permanent+smoke&qid=1685460220&sprefix=permanent+smoke%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1
Growing up, I was taught that sin is when we miss the mark, when we fall short of God’s expectations of us. We all do this, Jesus died to save us from these sins. As my faith has changed, this has become less and less of a useful concept.
My deconstruction began as I thought about how Christians were perceived. I wanted a Christianity with better public relations. I remember Matthew Paul Turner had a podcast called “Jesus Needs new PR”, which promoted looking at Christianity through a more progressive lens. This, along with Relevant Magazine and its take on social justice issues made me believe that Christianity could actually make the world better for the marginalized.
It was “those kind of Christians” that made Christianity look bad. I wanted to rehabilitate the image of Christianity.
Then COVID happened. It was around that time that I realized just how much more accepting and loving secular spaces are. They don’t need to look up things in a book to determine whether they can affirm and love people, it’s merely the human thing to do.
Reading Keith Giles’ book Sola Mysterium, he says that we all as humans have an innate understanding of what love is.
It’s like religion ruins this.
I remember asking my buddy Doug where Christianity went wrong. He said “when we wrote it down.”
I still at some level identify with the Christian tradition, but my faith really centers on God being love and humans being created in the image of love. This means God’s whole essence is love. He cannot be anything but love, whereas for us humans, as Thomas Jay Oord says “we have the capacity for love, but can choose whether to love or not”.
All I care about right now is whether things are actually loving or not. The command to love God and love others is one I take to mean “love Love, and love others.” Those who insist on an unchanging God and believe they should love God and love others seem to tend to love others on their own term, seemingly because their God also loves on his own terms.
So back to sin… this unchanging God has many weird things he has done in the scriptures. Lots of killing, lots of weird commands, he has things he asks people to do that don’t really make sense. This is where we get a list of sins, which are really quite arbitrary. If God doesn’t change and the whole book is inspired and inerrant, sins are arbitrary things a sort of obsessive compulsive God doesn’t like us doing. Some of those things involve hurting others when he says it’s not okay to, but sometimes hurting others is okay because it’s discipline.
My thing is, my God who is love wants us to do what is loving. He’s not hung up on various details of how we live our lives.
So I have been fixated on whether we are bringing harm or not and have realized this really does differentiate me from evangelicals.
When harm happens to someone they will first question whether the harm is real, then they will look at the abuser and tell them they need to get right with God and reiterate that we all screw up and need forgiveness, striving to restore the abuser.
To me, something unloving happened to the victim and I want to make sure they are taken care of, I then want to ensure the abuser is clear on what they did wrong and clear that it cannot happen again and as for restoration, I think it should be up to the person who was violated what that looks like. Why? Because I do not want abusers to be able to continue to bring harm. This matters a lot.
The problem is that the concept of sin does not allow abuse to be looked at differently from anything else that may be forbidden in the Bible.
This flat view of sin is what I theorize creates an evangelical church which is toxic, and that is unfortunate. It really does make it difficult for me to be in evangelical spaces, I know it is quite likely there is abuse in their midst and they are doing nothing about it. When I hear their worship music, I can’t help but hear it: my God knows what’s best, and by extension, I know what’s best for all of those around me, which makes it so hard for victims to be heard ever.
I just wish people could have some humility. Have the humility to listen to those who see the toxicity. Have the humility to hear out those who have experienced the hurt and figure out whether the trajectory you are on is truly worth it. What kind of world are you creating? I, for one, want to create a better one, and it is my prayer that we find that together.
Much love
Kootenaygirl and Bridge talk about feminism, satanic panic and power
Kootenaygirl’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kootenaygirl69
Kootenaygirl’s coaching website: https://lovemaven.ca/
Meghan Crozier and Bridge Livwat talk about why they think people with histories of abusive behavior are put in and kept in the highest levels of leadership.
Meghan’s Twitter:
Tweets by thepursuinglifeThe Thereafter Podcast:
https://linktr.ee/thereafterpod
Meghan’s website:
https://www.thepursuinglife.com/
Kevin Millard and Bridge Livwat talk about the Netflix Documentary “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?”, evangelicalism, capitalism and masculinity.
For the documentary: https://www.netflix.com/watch/81476942?trackId=14170289&tctx=2%2C4%2Cfbec814c-18a1-4bcd-93e6-7016de4c95f7-100599487%2CNES_B10389D529716FCF6D22644FDE52CD-994911DC4F528C-22BE74A16A_p_1670560572375%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C81446626
Surviving Death: https://www.netflix.com/title/80998853
Kevin Millard’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kevinmillard
The Man Enough Podcast: https://manenough.com/podcast/
Karl & Laura Forehand talk about their book “Out into the Desert: Thriving Outside of Organized Religion” For their book: Their Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/734685066692244 Their blog: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thedesertsanctuary/ Their website: https://karlforehand.com/
Thomas Jay Oord talks about his book: “Open and Relational Theology”. The Center for Open and Relational Theology Thomas’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thomasjayoord/?hl=en
Thomas Jay Oord talks about his book: “Open and Relational Theology”. The Center for Open and Relational Theology Thomas’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thomasjayoord/?hl=en
Jonathan Foster Talks about his book “Theology of Consent: Mimetic Theory in an open and relational universe.” For the podcast made flesh podcast: https://www.theroadchurch.ca/pmf Jonathan Foster’s podcast: https://pod.link/1479338607 Jonathan’s book:… Continue reading "124: Jonathan Foster – Theology of Consent"
Jonathan Foster Talks about his book “Theology of Consent: Mimetic Theory in an open and relational universe.” For the podcast made flesh podcast: https://www.theroadchurch.ca/pmf Jonathan Foster’s podcast: https://pod.link/1479338607 Jonathan’s book:… Continue reading "124: Jonathan Foster – Theology of Consent"
An archived very long conversation Bridge had with Daniel Kxng about The Oscars, conservative pundits, and art. Daniel’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dankxng/ Ethan X. Rice’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/ethanxrice?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg= For the book: Too Much… Continue reading "123: What if that was Ethan X. Rice? – feat. Daniel Kxng"
An archived very long conversation Bridge had with Daniel Kxng about The Oscars, conservative pundits, and art. Daniel’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dankxng/ Ethan X. Rice’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/ethanxrice?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg= For the book: Too Much… Continue reading "123: What if that was Ethan X. Rice? – feat. Daniel Kxng"
Desimber Rose talks about her book “The Church Can Go to Hell” The Road Church The Church Can go to Hell God Does Not Want Your Bill Money Desimber’s Instagram:… Continue reading "122: Desimber Rose – The Church Can Go to Hell"
Keith Giles talks about his book “Sola Mysterium”. Keith’s book: Keith’s Facebook: Keith’s Twitter: Keith’s Instagram: Keith’s Blog: The Heretic Happy Hour: Second Cup with Keith: The Road Church: Square… Continue reading "121: Keith Giles – Sola Mysterium"
Hayden talks to Bridge about what he thinks Christianity could learn from Mormonism. Hayden’s email address: haydenpcorr@gmail.com For more on the Revolution gathering: https://revolutionchurch.com/ Bear (with) link https://pwna.supercast.com/
Ilia shares the perspective of prochoice Christianity. Ilia’s Tik Tok page https://www.tiktok.com/@deconstructivecriticism?lang=en The book “Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes”: https://books2read.com/u/47YgKj The book “White Too Long” https://books2read.com/u/b5ljeA the book “The Political… Continue reading "119: Ilia from Deconstructive Criticism and the Prochoice Christian"
Lisa Congo tells her story. For more about the Bear(With) Community: https://pwna.supercast.com/?selected_plan_id=2451 Lisa’s blog: https://theomachology.wordpress.com/2015/01/?fbclid=IwAR1mgro4mcs62rg9cxDHfQ1kwmO-WPmypwz1ZzfXdRdAksXg8nzA4FBlLxU Lisa’s Twitter page:
Kootenaygirl comes on the podcast to share her story. Follow Kootenaygirl on Twitter: Bear With Community: The podcast, “Come Here to Me”
s.ugars.oul.s tells Bridge her story: a story of medical trauma, racism and activism. for more on University of Alberta’s FREE course on ingenious studies: s.ugars.oul.s Tik Tok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@s.ugars.oul.s the… Continue reading "116: s.ugars.oul.s"
Kootenaygirl joins Bridge to discuss a few evangelical controversies and work at understanding where thes individuals are coming from.
Daniel Edgar comes on the podcast to discuss how leadership breaks peoples’ brains. For the book Jesus Feminist: https://www.amazon.ca/Jesus-Feminist-Radical-Notion-People-ebook/dp/B01AV0CO70/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1642265772&sr=8-1 Jesus & John Wayne: https://www.amazon.ca/Jesus-John-Wayne-Evangelicals-Corrupted-ebook/dp/B07ZTSVLX3/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1642265827&sr=8-1 The Making of Biblical Womanhood: https://www.amazon.ca/Making-Biblical-Womanhood-Subjugation-Became-ebook/dp/B08CJHYGRN/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1642265996&sr=8-1… Continue reading "114: Daniel Edgar – Leaders with Broken Brains"
dAnarchist83 explains to Bridge why he doesn’t think words hurt people, his view on government and the importance of empathy.
What is the fallout of your convictions? This is a question I have been stuck on for a couple of weeks. It all started with a conversation with a family… Continue reading "112: The Fallout of Our Convictions"
Matt Oxley, an ex-christian antifascist small business owner tells his story and gives some very intriguing insights on where he believes Christianity has failed to live up to the teachings… Continue reading "111: Matt Oxley"
James Prescott is the host of Poema Podcast and an author. His story is a story of loss, grief and transformation. James’ website: https://jamesprescott.co.uk/ Poema Podcast: https://pods.link/ca/i/1044862627 James Prescott Twitter:… Continue reading "110: James Prescott"
Paul Edgar talks to Bridge about minimalism: why he practices it and how he practices it. Netflix’s documentary on minimalism: https://bit.ly/3F2o1PS Shane Claiborne’s srtricle on Christian Nationalism’s delta variant: https://bit.ly/3ulje70… Continue reading "109: Paul Edgar – Minimalism"
John talks about the death and rebirth of BRIDGE LIVWAT.
Full monologue:
Hello all, sorry it’s been so long since I’ve done an episode. A lot going on. Work has had me travelling a lot and I’ve been really focusing on my family when home.
Through all this time of focusing on my real life, I reached a sort of mental health crisis. I was never in any real danger, but I did fall into a deep depression, plagued in self-doubt and I felt like no one was in my corner. It was rough and it was exhausting.
For much of my life I have either believed I was deeply flawed or immensely gifted, with very little in between. I think too deeply, I feel too deeply, I’m constantly daydreaming. I really thought I had the answer when my psychologist told me that I am gifted and that is the reason no one understands me completely, in addition to that I found out I’m an enneagram 4, emotionally driven to develop an empathic understanding of everything, also: I was told by an insightful loved one that I have this unique gift and desire to work at understanding different perspectives.
I was quite happy with my delusions of grandeur that resulted from this. My gosh though, if someone didn’t take what I was doing seriously, it was frustrating at times and I would cope by sort of looking down on those who did not understand. “Those poor things, they cannot see the brilliance of what I am doing.”
I understood different perspectives on everything. I was open to discussion about anything and everything. They say that cognitive dissonance legitimately creates a physical pain for people. I craved that pain. It was like a sort of working out from an emotional perspective. I wanted to see how much I could stretch it.
But then COVID happened.
I couldn’t really understand what was happening, but it became so difficult for me to play both sides of the issue. The best I could figure out was that my job is health related and I am working hard to understand disease and disease prevention in hopes of getting my designation as a certified industrial hygienist so I have to buy into the science it is based on.
Any sort of rejection of public health measures is an attitude of “let’s just let everyone get the disease”, which is the opposite of what I am trying to do in my occupation. I couldn’t entertain that.
Initially, my freedom loving anti-lockdown friends would share all kinds of stuff on natural immunity and law, conspiracy theories about the great reset and I would try to pay attention, but at some point I just couldn’t tolerate it.
After a while I would get very frustrated with how I would get attacked on every post I made about COVID. The problem was that if I defended any public health measures, I would be expected to do all the homework to defend it against every challenge these movements made against it. I began removing people from my feed, I began blocking and unfriending people.
It felt so good to have those people out of my life. I tried to reduce the controversy of my posts.
My posts on Facebook were once a great place for discussion, but I now had to be very selective of my topics, and even then there were people who would attack my character. “John is a troublemaker”. That really bothered me. My intention is to be a bridge builder. I did not want to have to defend my character. If my character does not speak for itself, maybe my feed is not for you.
There was a good time period where I removed Facebook from my phone altogether. That was nice. It helped for a period.
But then came a very stressful day in which I had a very long in-person discussion about COVID-19, systemic racism, socialism, and gun control with an individual who differed from me completely on those issues and some of the things that came out of that person’s mouth were so absurd to me, I legit had a grin on my face and was not respectful. I could not affirm an antivaxx stance and I made that very clear and this person could not understand why no matter how much I explained. I came off as a total A-hole.
This person was the one who was wrong though, right? They were not thinking of the marginalized and were more concerned with being called selfish than the fact that they might be selfish themselves.
Multiple times I had conversations with people close to me and they would say “you’re just and opinionated person” and one individual even said to me “you are not happy unless everyone agrees with you”. That caused me to lose it. My character was being attacked again.
My self-esteem is not tied to being right. My heart is to understand, my heart is to love, my heart is to build bridges.
This was why I created the public persona BRIDGE LIVWAT in the first place: i want my public persona to be a bridge to living water for all people.
I felt like there was this huge attack on everything that BRIDGE LIVWAT was.
After days of contemplating this and not being able to let go of so much of this, it dawned upon me: I need to kill BRIDGE LIVWAT.
He believes he is the bridge to living water. He believes that he has a fresh understanding to share, which may actually be rendering everything anyone else says meaningless to him.
Whether his heart was all wrong on this or not, clearly his heart was not communicated properly because there was this overwhelming sense that he was seen as a trouble-making, opinionated egomaniac and you know what? That’s on me.
I remember hearing an interview with my favorite author Malcolm Gladwell, in which someone asked him if he is annoyed with all the people who misunderstood his 10,000 hour rule. A rule many have taken to mean anyone can become proficient at anything if they practice it for 10,000 hours. His answer was “no, if they misunderstood it, maybe I miscommunicated it.”
Maybe I had communicated my heart incorrectly. So I decided to kill Bridge Livwat.
I had no idea how long I was going to do this for, but I shut it down. I stayed off social media. I stopped paying attention to the news. I stopped trying to understand all of these big issues and after a couple of days I was feeling way better.
I began to become more interested in actual people than the grandiose ideas that were supposed to save them.
Gradually I returned to social media, but with a new rule: I am not going to go too deeply into understanding contentious issues. My emotional understanding will be reserved for actual individuals, not groups of people as monoliths.
I’m still figuring out what my boundaries are and it’s difficult to articulate, but for sure I am not reading news articles and I am certainly not reading the comments sections.
My emotional energy is now saved for those in my life.
Through this, I’ve realized that my job is not to save the world. My job is to save my world.
Bridge Livwat is back, but his mission is more about understanding people than ideas and this Bridge will be way more healthy for me and for those I influence.
What about you? Do you need to lose your life and find it again? Do you need to unplug and reevaluate what plugging back in looks like?
I hope that somehow I can be an example of a journey toward personal betterment for the sake of service to my sphere of influence, to make positive change in my world and those whom my world touches.
Thanks for listening. Much love, everyone.
Paul Edgar is essentially a real-life Forest Gump… there should be a movie about his life. Aside from being shot 13 times and surviving, he also worked as a professional musician, worked in the film industry with some major stars, and is currently a stand-up comic. Like seriously, this is nuts. It was delightful. Enjoy.
Bridge talks about one of the most inspirational books he’s every read: The Road to Character by David L. Brooks.
Link to purchase the book: https://www.amazon.ca/Road-Character-David-Brooks-ebook/dp/B00LYXV61Y/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1623344713&sr=8-1
