Discovering How Loved We Are
Look who came by. Darin Hufford was in the Los Angeles area and stopped by for a visit while Brad is in Jerusalem. Darin is a good friend and the author of The Misunderstood God: The Lies Religion Teaches About God. Wayne recorded some of their conversation to share it with God Journey listeners. This wide-ranging dialog encompasses helping others discover their freedom in Father's love, the difficulty of communicating that message to people who find it threatening, and the place Scripture holds in growing to know him. You can find out more about Darin at his website, The Free Believer's Network.
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Great podcast today, guys! The dialogue was refreshing as always. Darin, I encourage you to continue to wear the banner “The ‘other’ Howard Stern” (Shock jock) with grace and boldness! Your voice is reaching places and hearts that were once deemed “out of reach”. Keep reaching, Howard…errrr….Darin!
Wayne, how moving that you were willing to reach out to Darin in conversation about things you had heard or didn’t quite understand relative to his presentation or podcast! THIS is how it should be between brothers and sisters–a welcome departure from the bad mouthing, knee jerk “reaction” judgements, and assumptions that many in religion have made about each other when they didn’t understand OR have all the facts! Thank you guys for this beautiful example of relationship!
Keep slingin’! Peace!
I agree with Patrick Henry – most people know that he said “give me liberty or give me death” but he also said “the Bible is worth more than all the other books put together”. But we have equated the phrase “the Word of God” to mean “the Bible” and that totally messes it up. It’s not that the Bible is not FROM God or that it is not truth – but calling it “the Word of God” messes things up because the Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word is living and active. Preachers quote that verse from Hebrews and claim that the Bible is describing itself there – ugh.
It was interesting to hear the exchange about the Bible. I have come to the conclusion that many people have reacted to the Bible like Romans 1 says. They have substituted the truth for a lie and have started worshiping the created rather than the creator.
For example, some of the ‘myths’ about the Bible I’ve heard recently are really things that are performed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus or God.
Great conversation! I love Anne Lamott too but I know there are many Christian friends that would not appreciate her…honesty.
Thanks again!
Sue
I wonder if its time to confront our own guilt about misleading (robbing people of hope) people in the journey of our past? I cringe at the years I spent on the relgious performance treadmill and all the people that I encouraged to follow me on that treadmill. Yikes!!! After the yikes comes mercy for me and mercy for my fellow siblings who cling to the treadmill for dear life. And that’s how the love space opens up inside of me. ANd I ask Father to show me how to love people who resist living in His love and delight. I found this quote this morning on the Freebelievers fb.
All that “finding God’s perfect will” is about finding security outside of knowing Father’s love and delight in us. The unspoken assumption is that in finding that perfect will we will have success, validation, something good and admirable …as medication for our internalized-shame.
Which when you peel that onion all the way out it bottoms out at “control”. Which is where I struggle a lot.
Enjoyed the discussion today. I regularly listen to both “The God Journey” and Darin’s “Into the Wild” podcasts, and while they are very different in style and tone, I get good insights from both.
I’ll have to say, the first time I visited the Free Believer’s website I was a bit put off (sermons? egad!) but as I listened to their podcasts I began to get some sense of Darin’s heart – and his bizarre sense of humor. 🙂
Sometimes when I hear the phrase “on this journey”, I’m tempted to see “this” as something very concrete – that a person has to talk “this” way and act “this” way and believe “this” to be on “this” journey. But I didn’t leave one box just to build another one…
Funny, I visited a loacl congregation yesterday just “because” (my wife was working and I was bored …and HOT). The pastor’s message was that anyone not submitting to a church was a ‘wild ass”. Nice to be defined… and to have a wonderful podcast to refresh me in truth.
Pretense has always been my “pet peeve”. But now I realize it is more than that, it is the character of God in me. Wow! Thanks so much for a great podcast.
Your conversation about the bible reminded me of a quote from George MacDonald, another amazingly free believer who was accused of being a universalist. It is from Unspoken Sermons, Series 1 “The Higher Faith”
“The one use of the Bible is to make us look at Jesus, that through him we might know his Father and our Father, his God and our God. Till we thus know Him, let us hold the Bible dear as the moon of our darkness, by which we travel towards the east; not dear as the sun whence her light cometh, and towards which we haste, that, walking in the sun himself, we may no more need the mirror that reflected his absent brightness.”