Unpacking the mysteries of hell and love with Derek Kubilus on Compass: Finding spirituality in the everyday. Derek takes us on a thought-provoking journey through the complex relationship between a God of love and the concept of eternal torment. Explore his ideas on purgatorial universalism, the evolution of hell in Christian theology, and how these beliefs shape our spiritual lives.
Derek has written a compelling book called "Holy Hell: A Case Against Eternal Damnation". It is aimed at those traumatized by the fear of hell, offering hope and relief to individuals plagued by questions about the eternal fate of loved ones and themselves. We'll explore how traditional views of eternal torment have impacted people's relationships with God and spirituality, and how early Christian interpretations differ significantly from the dominant narrative.
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Episode Notes:
Check out more from Derek at his website: BionicWolfPriest
In this episode:
(00:00) Compass explores spirituality, challenges conventional Christian doctrine.
(06:00) Book resonates with those questioning eternal hell.
(09:41) Exploratory theological journey led to innovative seminars.
(12:13) Convinced of purgatorial universalism, wrote book to help.
(16:43) People's perception of God impacts relationships with others.
(19:39) Ancient Christians interpreted various words for hell.
(23:25) Spread of early Christian views on hell.
(26:09) Pruning: essential for growth and eternal punishment.
(29:17) Lost leg in 2012, endured painful rehab.
(35:32) Union with God, divinization, in human destiny. (39:36) Reinterpret old Christian standards for new generation.
(40:49) United Methodist Church embracing change with generosity.
(44:13) Busy episode, leave a rating, back soon.
Related episodes
- An ongoing history of hell
- Keeping Christianity weird
- Engaging faith and reason
- Quick takes on tough questions of faith
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This episode posted on June 26, 2024
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to compass, finding spirituality in the everyday. And here we go down, down, down into the abyss, down into into the deep bowels of the dark realms to do what? Well, to find something uplifting about God. We're in for an engaging conversation in this episode with reverend Derek Kubelis, author of holy hell, a case against eternal damnation. Derek reveals his theological journey and challenges the conventional Christian doctrine of eternal damnation. So together, Derek and I explore the impact of the concept of hell on faith, the ethical quandaries that eternal conscious torment presents, and how historical interpretations have evolved. It's a big rethink kind of episode as we question some stereotypes regarding the afterlife, salvation in Christian theology, and even some assumptions about the United Methodist Church. Besides being the author of Holy Hell, Derek Kubelis is a pastor in Ohio. He refers to himself as an amateur podcaster, which I think describes about 99% of the podcasting crowd.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:15]:
I don't mean that dismissively. I mean that most of us don't make a living through podcasting. That's all. Anyways, in the past, Derek has taken on topics such as QAnon and Christian nationalism. And now he's turned his critical eye and very, very keen mind towards the topic of hell and theology of salvation. Now there are a couple terms that it might be helpful to define for us as we begin our chat with Derek. 1 is purgatorial universalism. That is a belief that after death, all under all souls undergo a process of purification, and ultimately then everyone will be saved and reconciled to God.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:57]:
Another term that we need to unpack is ionios. That's a Greek word that is often translated as eternal, which has implications for interpreting biblical passages about the duration of punishment and salvation. And then one more term to unpack is divinization. That's an Eastern Christian theological concept where human beings become more like God through grace in participation in the divine nature. Alright. Right. We're ready for this now. Right? Let's talk hell, salvation, and hope with Reverend Derek Kubelis.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:38]:
Well, Derek, thank you so much for joining us on the Compass podcast. Let's just kinda jump in with the weird, awkward question. You've written a book about hell, our understanding of hell. Mhmm. Absolutely. What's your what's your history with hell? When did this come out of?
Derek Kubilus [00:02:56]:
I well, so growing up United Methodist Mhmm. It's not like I was hit over the head with hell. Oh, yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:05]:
I never heard about it.
Derek Kubilus [00:03:07]:
No. No. Not not from official kind of corners of the church. Mhmm. I think we are known, let's face it, as the nice denomination. Like, we're just kind of nice, and we, you know, sing our songs and
Ryan Dunn [00:03:27]:
make our conversation on grace. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Is there for everybody. Yeah.
Derek Kubilus [00:03:33]:
And that's what I love about it. Like, I'm not knocking it. I think that's really great, actually. But the deal is is that somehow the message got across to me. I don't remember anyone ever specifically telling me or preaching about it or having any, felt bored Sunday school lessons with orange flames and, you know, bodies crying out in agony. But somehow, I still got the message that Christianity believed that some people, if not most peep, were going to be tormented for all eternity.
Ryan Dunn [00:04:23]:
Mhmm.
Derek Kubilus [00:04:24]:
And that that torment would be excruciating, and there would be no hope of relief forever. Now in that way, I like to talk about how as, the moon. Right? In church, our sun is Jesus Christ, and, it shines with with grace and with mercy and forgiveness. But nevertheless, there is this other thing, that invisibly pulls on sort of the tide of our spirits.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:05]:
Oh, yeah.
Derek Kubilus [00:05:05]:
And that thing for a lot of us is hell. So much so that ever since I wrote the book, I have had the opportunity to talk with so many people who, like me, perhaps were never hit over the head with it, but nevertheless still found themselves to be tormented by the idea that their loved ones were somehow burning forever and that God was responsible for that.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:37]:
Yeah. Have you encountered in some of those conversations that what you propose about how people are really adverse to hearing? Like, they're or opposed to hearing?
Derek Kubilus [00:05:49]:
Oh, well, there are those people. They would never buy the book.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:58]:
Sorry. Off the table. Yeah.
Derek Kubilus [00:06:00]:
And most people that I've spoken to who have actually bought the book are people who, it intrigues them because they have felt the same kind of cognitive dissonance that I felt that led me to research and to write it. This this tension between worshiping a God who is love and also believing that God resigns certain souls to a hell of everlasting torment. Like, something about that, creates a very obvious tension in our spirituality. And there are some people who go through life who never acknowledge it, or for whom they have certain ideas about God that mean that there is no tension there, and then they're going to totally ignore my book. Most of the people who read it are the ones who feel that tension very palpably. And people who have had those kinds of questions, you know, how how can I imagine that the same Jesus that I meet who eats with sinners and who heals on the Sabbath and, who dies on a cross and says, forgive them father for they know not what they do? How can I imagine that that same God also tortures people forever and ever? And if if you've ever had that question in your mind, if you've ever felt that tension, then my book is going to come as a deep relief for you because we are going to unpack that question, and we're gonna look at it from every angle. We're gonna deal with all the scriptures that people have used to support the idea of eternal hell. And hopefully, I think the book shows why that position is neither biblical nor, in my opinion, moral.
Derek Kubilus [00:08:30]:
Mhmm. I think that belief belief in an eternal hell is deeply problematic from an ethical stand, because if how can the same god tell us to love our enemies and then go ahead and torture his own. That would lead to a very confusing foundation of ethics in Christianity, which I think is obvious that it actually has.
Ryan Dunn [00:09:15]:
Well, I wanna dive into that a little bit deeper, but first, I I wanna address your writing and research process. So as you began this whole project, which turned into this book, Holy Hell, were you beginning with, a conclusion in mind, or was it really just kind of an exploratory process where you learned a lot of things along the way?
Derek Kubilus [00:09:41]:
No. It was it was pretty exploratory, and the way it happened was very organic. I, in seminary, already when I was in college and in seminary, I I figured out that I did not believe that God tortured people for all eternity or that God caused people to be tortured for all eternity. And that led me to a totally different view, sometimes called, compatibilism or annihilationism, which is the idea that unrepentant souls are just sort of annihilated. And I believed that, but I didn't, I never declared it is true, and I I didn't feel a 100% comfortable with it. It was always just kind of hanging in my own personal theological beliefs. And so in my church, I have a habit of teaching these 8 week long seminars, 1 in the spring and one in the fall. And I create these seminars from scratch.
Derek Kubilus [00:11:00]:
I try to figure out what the church wants to learn about, and then I put my seminary education to work and and kinda build the lessons from the bottom up. And people really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. It cost me enough money. May as well use it. You know? So, they came to me. I asked them, you know, what kind of things would you want a seminar on? And they came to me and they said, we really want to learn about heaven.
Derek Kubilus [00:11:31]:
And and I said, oh, crap. Because I don't talk that much about heaven and hell, man. As a as a United Methodist clergy person, I don't give many alter calls. My focus is usually not on the traditional kind of saving of souls kind of thing. Yeah. And I was like, man, I really need to do my homework. So, for about 6 months, I really, really dove into the topic. And I read a lot of different books from a lot of different traditions.
Derek Kubilus [00:12:13]:
And at the end of it, I came away, with being completely convinced of this thing that we call purgatorial universalism, or some people call it patristic universalism because it was a very dominant belief during the patristic age of the church that God burns away all of our sin and selfishness until all that's left is good and pure and holy, and that God does that for everyone. And that became the heart of the book. And then when I actually taught the class, I didn't teach that as, like, the gospel, quote, unquote, but I I tried to teach all the different positions. And then in the midst of the class, I heard people's stories about the fear that they had, about the grief that they had over loved ones that had passed away, that they suspected of being in hell, children who had passed away, friends, the anxiety that they carried with them for their kids who were no longer interested in church, you know, and wondering, okay, is my, is my son or daughter, whoever gonna go to hell when they die? Will they be lost for all eternity? And they were carrying a lot of pain and heartache about those things that they never had the opportunity to speak up about in church. Until that point. They never felt like they could talk about that or ask questions about it, so on and so forth. So that's when I decided that I needed to write the book, because I know that there are people who have those fears who actually have been I I don't think it's it's too big of a word to say traumatized, by the idea of hell, and need some kind of relief, and need to be given a hope both for themselves and for their parents and for their children.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:48]:
How did you see this point of view, that there could be an afterlife of eternal torment affecting the way that these people viewed god or even, like, their own relationship with spirituality or how they practiced their faith?
Derek Kubilus [00:15:06]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, think about what that means. Okay? In the way I describe it to people, I use an analogy. Imagine that you had an awesome childhood that your parents loved you, and maybe they did. I'm not saying you didn't. But, that that
Ryan Dunn [00:15:29]:
some people do have to Yeah. Practice imagination on that.
Derek Kubilus [00:15:32]:
Your parents loved you. They supported you. They hung your pictures up on their refrigerator, tucked you into bed at night. You always felt safe and comforted and loved. And then after you grew up and you moved out of the house, you came to find out that that whole time, while they were doting on you and loving you and reading you bedtime stories, that house had a secret basement where they had brothers and sisters of yours that were deemed to be bad boys and girls, and they were chained up in that basement and they were tortured. Wouldn't that change your relationship to your parents just a little bit?
Ryan Dunn [00:16:25]:
Absolutely. And I do need to know because my parents are, like, biggest fans of this podcast that I had the happy, you know, your father.
Derek Kubilus [00:16:33]:
There was No problem.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:35]:
I had the stories and all that. But, yeah, as you offer that analogy about the basement, like, that is really revealing. That has messed up.
Derek Kubilus [00:16:43]:
Yeah. And it and people don't realize that that when when we tell them, when we clergy people tell them about a God that loves omnipotent way. Right? About a God that that whose love is inexhaustible, who has grace and who has mercy. And at the same time, you know and I know that we also have this idea that God is secretly torturing some kids of his in a basement somewhere. That's gonna change our relationship to God, and it's also going to change our relationship to other people. Right? Because in in Methodism, at least, I won't say this for every denomination. In Methodism, we work very hard, and this was a big emphasis of John Wesley, to pattern our own relationships off of our relationship with God. Right? Yeah.
Derek Kubilus [00:17:47]:
Like, you know, the Sermon on the Mount is all about that. Love your enemies. Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Well, if God is capable of holding a grudge like that for all eternity, if God is capable of not forgiving for all eternity, if God is capable of carrying out, something that looks a lot like vengeance and revenge against people who are so much weaker and smaller than God is, then what does that give us license to do? How does that tell us that life is supposed to be if we are supposed to be imitating the God who gave us life, then that doesn't give us a very good model of imitation. Now does it?
Ryan Dunn [00:18:49]:
You've talked about, previous periods. You talked about the patristic era, and it's kinda weird to me that we talk about this idea of an eternal conscious torment as being, quote, unquote, a traditional view of hell when, in fact, if we look back across the historical record, like, there have been other understandings of of what hell is. Can you talk about some of that evolution? Like, as you were in your research and looking for a biblical understanding of what hell was, can you talk about some of what you discovered there? Sure.
Derek Kubilus [00:19:28]:
The way that, I I guess to start, I won't go into the full word studies. But to start, we have to
Ryan Dunn [00:19:37]:
acknowledge for something. Right? Yeah.
Derek Kubilus [00:19:39]:
We have to acknowledge that in the old that in the old and the new Testament, there are several different words that we translate as hell. And you have shale in the old Testament. You have, Gehenna and Hades and Tartarus in the new Testament. Right? So, ancient Christians, from just the 1st several centuries of the church had different approaches as to how to interpret those different words. They didn't have the word hell. They couldn't just paint it over with this broad brush like we do in English because we stole the word hell from the Nordic countries. It was a northern, Germanic type of word that didn't mean any place that was hot or torture or anything like that when the Nordics used it, but that's beyond the point. So they all had these really intricate approaches to how to understand these different words.
Derek Kubilus [00:20:55]:
One of the most popular came from the Christians who were in and around the city of Alexandria, Egypt. It was one of the most populated centers of Christianity in the ancient world, Along with Rome and Antioch and Jerusalem, Alexandria was right up there. And the Alexandrians, by and large, believed that in the end, God would reconcile all creation to God's self. And they took most seriously those scriptures from Paul and the rest of the New Testament that talked about the grace of Jesus Christ being sufficient for the salvation of all things. In the new testament, this comes to us in Paul's use of the word apakatastasis, which is difficult to say. Some people say
Ryan Dunn [00:22:04]:
I was impressed.
Derek Kubilus [00:22:06]:
Some people say apacatostasis. That that's more difficult, I think. I I like apokatastasis. And essentially, that word gets translated as the final reconciliation or the reconciliation of all things. What it essentially means is the end will be like the beginning. In that all things will be in communion with God, and God will be in all and through all. And the idea that there would be souls who were eternally lost, that that at the end, after Jesus comes back, after, you know, everything happens, there is forever this remainder of humanity that God never reaches, that God is never able to woo, that God is never able to transform or to heal. That, that idea offended the Alexandrians and Christians from all over.
Derek Kubilus [00:23:25]:
It wasn't just in Alexandria. But specifically, we're talking about, you know, for those church history folks out there, we're talking about guys like origin of Alexandria, right? He was the big one. And eventually it spread up into Turkey with Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the great, those kind of guys, Maximus the confessor, John Chrysostom even in Constantinople, and different historians say different things, but at least it appears in certain regions, it was the dominant view. Maybe not everywhere, but among certain parts of the church, it was the absolute dominant view. But there were some historical things that got in the way. The first of which being the translation of the Bible into Latin. So you have to know that whenever, the new Testament talks about hell, there is a word, that it uses that we translate as eternal. Right.
Derek Kubilus [00:24:42]:
It's the word. The problem is in Greek, the word aionios never meant etern. It never meant eternal the way we think of eternal, such as, like, in infinity of moments stretching out into the future. Ionia Os did not mean that. What Ionia Os meant was of the age of the age. So every time you read a biblical passage, and it it says something about eternal torment. Okay. What it actually means is the torment of the age.
Derek Kubilus [00:25:25]:
Yeah. Referring to the next age, the afterlife, the torment of the afterlife. Mhmm. But back then, they didn't believe that there was just this age and the next stage, but that there were ages, right? This is where you get the term unto the ages of ages. So there is nothing in the New Testament that says that any kind of punishment in the afterlife or any kind and even the word punishment isn't there. Mhmm. The word for punishment is the Greek word, which literally means pruning. It's the pruning of the age.
Derek Kubilus [00:26:09]:
It was a horticultural term. Pruning isn't torture. Pruning is a cutting away of something so that fruit may grow. So anyway, back when St. Jerome is in Jerusalem and he is translating the Bible into Latin for the very first time, he comes across this word, ionios. And there is no Latin word that matches this idea of the age, quote, unquote. So he uses the Latin word aeternum, which meant eternal. And ever since then, particularly in the west, it became the dominant view that God punishes the lost for all eternity without any hope of, relief or rehabilitation.
Derek Kubilus [00:27:19]:
This kind of purgatorial universalism that I'm arguing for in holy hell has always been with the church. It's always been an undercurrent, but since then, it has never been the dominant view.
Ryan Dunn [00:27:34]:
So do people who live monstrous lives, go through some form of of judgment? I mean, we talked about you you mentioned, there are some ideas that that may seem a little scandalous to us or, offensive to us. Yeah. You know, that that what we what we traditionally, again, quote, unquote, traditionally would have been a little bit offensive to the Alexandrians, but this idea that, some people,
Derek Kubilus [00:28:06]:
like, quote, unquote again, get away with it Offends us
Ryan Dunn [00:28:12]:
in some ways. Absolutely. Is there some kind of rehabilitation that happens?
Derek Kubilus [00:28:17]:
Or Yeah. I I I call this the Hitler question. Yeah. Right? Like, everyone was saying that.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:22]:
Name names, but there
Derek Kubilus [00:28:23]:
it is. Are are you telling me that Hitler is gonna be saved? Are you telling me that, I'm gonna be walking around in heaven, and I'm gonna bump up against Mount Seydung or Ceausescu or Right. Jeffrey Dahmer.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:38]:
Sound like heaven. Right?
Derek Kubilus [00:28:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing. What I'm saying, hell is is a purgation. That is it is a purging of all that is evil inside of us. I refer to it as kind of a holy rehabilitation. Now if if you've ever been through, like, an injury or had a devastating operation, you had to go rehab center for a while, you know that that is a painful experience.
Derek Kubilus [00:29:17]:
Right? I, myself, lost my leg in 2,012. I had to have my right leg amputated. It's a long story. But, after that, right after the surgery, I had to go to rehab for 3 weeks. And 3 times a day, I had to do either physical therapy or occupational therapy, and nothing has ever hurt so bad in my life. But so there was pain, but that pain was for my good. Right? That was pain that I had to go through in order to lead a healthy, happy life. In the same way, there is pain for each one of us that we have to go through.
Derek Kubilus [00:30:18]:
It is the pain of, in Wesleyan terms, sanctification of being made holy. We can go through that pain here on Earth Mhmm. Or, if we don't, it's gotta be taken care of on the other side of the grave. Some of us have more that we need to rehabilitate than others do.
Ryan Dunn [00:30:44]:
Mhmm.
Derek Kubilus [00:30:45]:
Some of us have more to burn away. We have more that needs to be healed than others do. Some of us may have a whole lot. Some of us may have so much sin and gunk and selfishness just covering our spirits that for the rest of us, we can't even see the good, child of God underneath it all. Oh, okay. But it's still there. The difference is is that it's just covered over with all of the spiritual gunk. And what my view says is that eventually, god will chip it all away.
Derek Kubilus [00:31:36]:
God will prune it all down. God will burn it all away. However you wanna put that until all that's left is that beautiful core of divinity. Now that core will be completely unrecognizable to those of us who knew that person here on earth. Right? So we will, in my belief, see Hitler, but Hitler won't be the same Hitler that we saw on television. Mhmm. It won't be the same Hitler who condemned all those Jews to die. It won't be the same Hitler that died, you know, in a ditch covered with gasoline.
Derek Kubilus [00:32:30]:
Mhmm. It will be a remade, re constituted, rehabilitated man made in the image of God, redeemed by Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And we probably won't even know who it is. Mhmm. Does that make sense?
Ryan Dunn [00:32:54]:
Yes.
Derek Kubilus [00:32:55]:
Now It does. Yeah. Would I would I, go up to a Jew and yell that in their face? No. Would I, talk to a victim of sexual violence and find it necessary to remind them that their abuser will one day be with them in heaven? Absolutely not. These things are contextual and it would cruel to make people who are still vulnerable and hurt, try to imagine, the salvation of their abuser. However, that doesn't mean that I have to deny it. I would just say, well, there are certain contexts where I just don't talk about it, which makes absolute sense.
Ryan Dunn [00:34:02]:
Yeah. There's also a deep question here about just exactly what our true identity is, especially as we start talking about an eternal life. You know, when I'm defined in the here and now as, you know, Ryan Dunn and, president of Tennessee and blah blah blah blah. However, there's this idea that that runs underneath our idea of eternity that says, well, that is not actually the definition of of me. And and who knows, like, whether in the in the whole scheme of the grander universe, you know, whether there even is, sort of a set apart Ryan. Right?
Derek Kubilus [00:34:44]:
Well, you know, so these guys, from Alexandria and from Eastern Christianity, which by the way, John Wesley was deeply, deeply influenced by. Methodist theology is more influenced by Eastern theology than any other Protestant faith. And in the Eastern church, they have this idea of theosis. If you've ever heard of that, or some people call call it divinization. And the idea is, is that salvation isn't just going to a place called heaven, where there are golden streets and everyone just kind of hangs out
Ryan Dunn [00:35:32]:
Yeah.
Derek Kubilus [00:35:32]:
Like you're at a resort all the time. The idea behind divinization is that you are united to God in the most profound way possible. Such as Saint Athanasius, you know, the guy that defended orthodoxy at Nicaea, for church history buffs out there, Athanasius said, in Christ, god became a human that humans might become god. Right? That it's about marrying, that in Jesus, you have the divine and the human fused together. And that that is the fate of all humanity. That we will one day be united with God in the most profound way possible. Now, what does that mean On a very specific kind of granular level, I have no idea. What is that gonna feel like? What is that gonna sound like? I don't know.
Derek Kubilus [00:36:47]:
But I do know that it does say something about how the the things that make me me and God God and you you, those lines that I imagine are there in my head are a little more fuzzy than I thought. And in a certain sense, at the end of all things, the line between us and God, and therefore, between us and one another, will be erased completely.
Ryan Dunn [00:37:23]:
So it sounds like as part of this whole process, we're we're not only rethinking our ideas of hell, but also maybe kind of rethinking our ideas of heaven or afterlife, or even, like, salvation and what that, practically, quote unquote, looks like as we encounter it. Are there I
Derek Kubilus [00:37:48]:
mean, so
Ryan Dunn [00:37:49]:
Are there other topics of Christian theology that you imagine taking the same sort of reexamination process to you in the future? Oh, absolutely.
Derek Kubilus [00:38:03]:
I'm working on something now. I I've kind of fallen off of it the last several months, but I want my next book to be about how Christians approach the political world.
Ryan Dunn [00:38:17]:
Mhmm.
Derek Kubilus [00:38:18]:
And Another fun one, Derek. Yeah. Yeah. I know how to think.
Ryan Dunn [00:38:22]:
Breezy topics. Yeah. Summer reading.
Derek Kubilus [00:38:23]:
You know, beach beach books. That's what I write. Yeah. So we're
Ryan Dunn [00:38:28]:
gonna go from hell to politics.
Derek Kubilus [00:38:32]:
But, yeah, I hope it does. I I I you know, there is this sense in which there are some Christians that have their idea of Christianity, And they just want to hear that idea fed back at them all the time. Right? They just want to hear it parroted back to them. I remember a dude who came into my church, years ago who he was a real gruff looking dude, sat toward the back. And after the church, I I went up and greeted him, and he had his arms crossed and he said, tell me something. Y'all preach hell in here, or do y'all just preach that feel good gospel? And imagine that. So this dude is in a church
Ryan Dunn [00:39:22]:
Mhmm.
Derek Kubilus [00:39:23]:
But he wants to hear about hell. Right? Even though, I have to think that he doesn't think he's going there. Nevertheless, he wants to hear about that.
Ryan Dunn [00:39:35]:
Anyway
Derek Kubilus [00:39:36]:
He wants to hear, what are to him the old standards of Christian. I believe that it is the church's responsibility in every age to play jazz, to reinterpret the old standards again for a new generation. Mean. That doesn't mean that we change doctrine. It doesn't mean that we change, you know, the apostle's creed or what the church has believed for 2000 years. But it does mean that we apply those teachings in new ways, and that we do what we have to do to plumb the depths of those very ancient ideas and mind the meaning that we need in order to make sense out of the world that we're in today. The church is I I I really believe the church, the Methodist church is gonna start that process again. Now certain events have taken place over the last few years.
Derek Kubilus [00:40:49]:
And of course, just recently that I think have opened up the horizon of the United Methodist Church to say, okay. Let's let's look at this world that we're in. Let's look at this bible that we have, and let's ask ourselves how these two things are fitting together. And let's ask ourselves, what are the mistakes that we've been making? Let's ask ourselves, what do what kinds of ideas, what what, kinds of practices, what kind of goal are we going to rally around as we step forward into an uncertain future. And we don't have to do that with fear. We don't have to do that, as if we're hanging on to the past with white knuckles, not letting it slip away. Right? That does not have to be our approach. Our approach can be generous.
Derek Kubilus [00:41:58]:
It can be loving. It can be about healing and wholeness. It doesn't have to be about judgment and vengeance and power and control. So I'm I'm very hopeful right now. And I do think we're gonna start asking much tougher questions in United Methodism in the coming years.
Ryan Dunn [00:42:26]:
Well, Derek, this has been very intellectual, but also very uplifting. Yeah. I feel like there's there's so much hope communicated through what, what you've shared with us. Where, is a good place for our listener to maybe follow-up on what you're doing and see what's coming next?
Derek Kubilus [00:42:44]:
Well, you can get holy hell, a case against eternal damnation wherever books are sold. If you just Google holy hell, it should be one of the first things to pop up. And you can, follow me and subscribe to get very rare, very occasional email updates about my own work and my own writing at, bionic wolf priest.com. Bionic wolf priest. And if you go if you go there and you sign up, then I'll send you the story of where that that name
Ryan Dunn [00:43:26]:
came from.
Derek Kubilus [00:43:28]:
Okay. I feel like that
Ryan Dunn [00:43:29]:
whole another episode. We're gonna give you that. Yeah.
Derek Kubilus [00:43:34]:
But, I really appreciate you having me on here today. Thank you. And, you're doing really good work, and I appreciate it.
Ryan Dunn [00:43:44]:
I appreciate you as well. Thanks, Derek. I told you it would be uplifting and hopeful. You ready for more? A good kind of primer for this episode would be a solo episode that I did called an ongoing history of hell. And that was compass episode number 95. If you need something just a little bit different, then check out keeping Christianity weird with doctor Richard Beck. That was compass episode 131. Holy smokes.
Ryan Dunn [00:44:13]:
I feel like I just did that hell episode number 95. These episodes are really, really flying by. Hey, if you're listening or as you're listening, or even right now, you can just leave a rating and or review. Those reviews really help us connect with future guests. So it's an important part of us being able to deliver meaningful stories and content for you here on compass. This compass podcast is brought to you by United Methodist Communications, and that's it for this week. I'm gonna be back again with a new episode in 2 weeks time. So I will chat at you then in the meantime, peace.
