Heretic Hereafter Podcast

How do you feel about these “secular saints” candles? Are they a funny joke? A cringe Millennial trend? The desperate grasping of a culture that has lost its way?I’ll admit, I’ve owned a few of these (Harriet Tubman, RBG.) My husband received a Jeff Bezos one as a gag gift that I keep threatening to smash. This is one of the problems with living heroes—they keep revealing problematic behavior. It’s why every Tesla bumper in Seattle now looks like this:Maybe this is why Roman Catholics require at least 5 years pass before canonization can begin, time for all the skeletons to emerge from a potential saint’s closet.And yet, the recent revelations about labor organizer Cesar Chavez have shown that it can take a long time (33 years in this case) for the dark truth about a “hero” to come out. For years we’ve been having a conversation about how to deal with heroes who have done monstrous things. Is it still okay to listen to Michael Jackson? Watch Roman Polanski movies? Ought we still have statues of great American statesmen who also enslaved African Americans or slaughtered Indigenous Peoples?Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Many conservatives seem intent to put their fingers in their ears and stress that it was a different time, that Thomas Jefferson, for instance, couldn’t possibly have known that it was wrong to father children with his teenaged slave, Sally Hemings, then enslave those children until their early adulthood.(To be sure, many white American men at that time had no problems with this arrangement, which was common enough to have the moniker “shadow family.” Nevertheless, abolition has always been part of American political thought. The truth is always out there, if you know who to listen to.) On the other hand, liberals have been anxious to be seen tearing down our national mythology without anything to replace them with. Remember when the San Francisco Board of Education spent the pandemic debating school names instead of, you know, focusing on reopening schools?It’s important to be able to grapple honestly with our history and culture. At the same time, I wonder: what does it mean to be American without The American Dream? Without glazing George Washington and his ilk? Where are the stories that a multicultural, multiracial, religiously plural society can unite around? The more polarized we become, the harder it is to find common ground.It seems to me there’s a hunger for mythology and heroes, whether it’s the eight billion movies in The Avengers franchise or the enduring popularity of Greek mythology. And I do think we need common stories. Whereas lectures and laws dictate, stories invite us in. They have a way of sneaking past our defenses and engaging us at an emotional level—we empathize with the characters and find ourselves weighing moral questions we would never otherwise consider.Stories are also not black-and-white. As any English teacher worth their salt would tell you, stories ask us to bring our lived experience and external knowledge to our interpretations. In discussing stories together, we learn to question our preconceived notions and see through others’ eyes.I mean, it’s no coincidence that beloved religious teachers like Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad taught in parables and analogies. But the problem with idolizing living folks is the “man in the hole” problem. I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut who said there are basically two story structures: man falls into a hole, and man climbs out of a hole. In either case, you need a change in status—the lowly are elevated, the lofty are brought low. Maybe human beings simply aren’t fit for life on the pedestal. If Martin Luther is right, we are each sinners and each saints. This duality, or “and-ness” as I like to call it, can’t be ignored for long. Saints will disappoint and sinners will surprise. Maybe we need gods and mythologies. At any rate, if the Left is going to win the culture war against Christian Nationalism, we need a grander illustration of moral imagination. What do you think? Do we have common stories/heroes anymore? Who would be on your personal Mount Rushmore of great Americans?As always, I love to hear your thoughts, ramblings, pushback, and recommendations in the comments or via email/DM.Thanks for reading Heretic Hereafter! If you enjoyed this post, why not share it? This helps others find the Substack.BONUS MATERIALS:* Ugh the Cesar Chavez revelations…still, this article provides some interesting context* ICYMI, this podcast is a reliable hit with the kiddosHeretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Heretic Hereafter at heretichereafter.substack.com/subscribe

It’s Holy Week for many of the world’s 2.6 billion Christians (for Eastern Orthodox, it’s next week.) Easter marks the most important holiday in the Christian calendar—the date of Jesus’ alleged resurrection. But what if you don’t believe? Or if you have major questions about it? Does Easter still matter? Can this holiday still be meaningful if you’re not sure about the whole bodily resurrection thing?Fifteen years ago, I would’ve said, absolutely not. If you don’t believe in the resurrection, there’s no point and you’re not in the club!!!For those of us who were raised to read the Bible literally, questioning the resurrection is dangerous territory. In these traditions, miracles are proof of God’s existence, the very cornerstone of faith—if you don’t believe in them, everything else falls apart. In this black-and-white worldview, any speck of doubt can put you on the path to Hell.Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.I spent years trying to convince myself to believe Bible stories were factually true, even as scientific evidence and my own lived experience contradicted this interpretation. I was the red-faced teen who tried to argue her high school biology teacher out of teaching evolution. Luckily, I lost. During this era, I felt constantly at war with myself. How could I silence my doubts while still living in integrity? Answer: I couldn’t. It was a losing battle. And so I went to the opposite extreme: scientific materialism. My family quit church. I stopped believe in God or anything else that couldn’t be historically or scientifically verified.But that didn’t satisfy me either. Science is a wonderful tool, but it doesn’t provide a moral framework or answer big life questions about meaning and purpose. I had torn down my old belief structure that was no longer serving me, but I didn’t have anything to replace it with.The 3+ years of this Substack has been me finding my way to something new—a new way to think about ethics and morality (and how to teach those things to my kids) and to feed the spiritual hunger that’s always been a part of me. And one of the conclusions I’ve been circling is this: belief is not the most important thing. It might not even be top 10! Basing an entire theory of salvation on belief seems hopeless, because beliefs fluctuate. They evolve. Any system that encourages people to stay frozen at the moment of conversion is, frankly, ridiculous.Imagine, for example, a marriage where the wedding ceremony was the most important part. Every day that you loved your spouse as much as you did on your wedding day counted as success. But every time you fought with them or checked out a stranger at the gym or envied a single friend meant failure. People under this situation would likely grit their teeth and try to avoid changing (which is impossible) or just give up and get divorced.In marriage, we recognize that feelings fluctuate. Staying married is arguably more about what you do than what you feel or believe at a given moment. You honor your promises, sometimes joyfully and sometimes sulkily. The point is: you show up. I think the church (and, TBH, society as a whole) would be a lot healthier if we stopped prioritizing litmus tests and instead focused on showing up. Sure, you might say, showing up is important, but what about the resurrection? Isn’t belief in the resurrection kind of a dealbreaker for being a Christian?Eh, I don’t think so? And I’d argue there’s good evidence on my side. In her latest book, Miracles and Wonder, religion scholar Elaine Pagels argues that the authors of the gospel, the apostle Paul, and many of the early church patriarchs disagreed on what actually happened at the resurrection and what it all meant. Pagels reminds us that the gospels were constructed with the intent to persuade particular audiences, as well as to refute disparaging remarks that were circulating about Jesus in the years after his death.In the hands of these gospel writers, the most shameful marks against Jesus (his out-of-wedlock birth and his execution by the Roman government) were transformed into holy and miraculous stories that highlighted his divinity.Keen readers will recognize that this theme of reversal is present in many beats of the gospel stories: the formula is typically “Society/religion/the government values ___, but what’s really valuable is the opposite.” The story of Jesus is, again and again, about the foolishness of those in authority and the wisdom of the poor and marginalized.Pagels offers up plausible alternate theories about Jesus’ birth and death, but never rules out the miraculous, telling us that’s not her lane as a historian. And I like that approach. I think it’s okay to say we don’t know how these events unfolded. Even if we don’t believe they literally happened, we can appreciate the value these stories have held for people throughout history and for us, today.And