On this episode, we talk with our good friend, Tyler Hartford, about faith and deconstruction.
You're listening to the Dudes and Dads podcast, a show dedicated to helping men be better dudes
and dads by building community through meaningful conversation and storytelling.
Now, here are your hosts, Joel DeMond and Andy Layman. Joel DeMond and true Layman.
How are you? Good. I mean, my eagles won.
I'm choosing sides this time. Andy. Andy, these are fighting words for you.
I'm hoping that the chiefs win tonight. I mean, I yeah, again, recording this on Sunday evening.
So, oh boy, we'll find out here shortly. My kids have been out or my kids were at a youth group
event and they were like a skating event and Aaron said he was just going to keep his
his phone running in the game in the background, like in his pocket. So you could just have a
live, you could skate and get a live update. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see what plays out.
So you're really going for the eagles? I am. I mean, I chose that side this year
because I lived in Philadelphia for a year and I wanted to do that. That's fair. That's fair.
I wanted to have Philly connections. That's fair. Here's what I will say.
It just seems that you also are going to be sideways with the with a good portion of your
family. And I hope you've kind of my wife. Yeah. Namely, your wife. Namely, your wife.
Oh gosh. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to the Dudes and Dads podcast. Thanks for tuning into this.
The polyphonic wizardry that you're going to experience. Yeah. You heard that's going on
a shirt, by the way. I've been thinking of catchphrases. That's that's going on there.
Super glad to have our guest along here tonight and we're going to be telling you all about him
in a second. So Andy, let's just, let's just really catch up real quick because I want to know
what's the status of your bathroom. Let's paint the ceiling. We're good. That's it. Yeah.
Are you, are you pleased with where it's at and put some, put some like hooks and things back
up, but I'm very pleased. It's better, better than you were. Yeah. You had to move out of your house
for a little while. Right. You wouldn't, you wouldn't take the easy route. Like I suggested
of just putting a Porta John outside. No, no, you, you just, you, you insisted on having running
water in your bathroom or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. I get it. So, but it's all back together
now. Yeah. We're so happy for you. It is. It is. How about you? Is your bathroom running?
Yeah. Everything. Yes. Everything is operating. I'm currently, we're heading into a week, Andy,
where I am going to be single parenting it as my wife is at a trade show in Las Vegas. So,
hopefully I get my wife back and hopefully shouldn't hit the slots too hard. And that's,
that's my number, my number two request. Honey, if you're listening, go to bed.
No, it's three hours earlier. She's, she's fine. She's fine. So, yeah. Well, hey, Andy,
do we, do we have anybody that we're supposed to say thank you to?
Uh, not particularly. Not particularly. Okay. Well, just, hey, listeners, thank you. Yeah,
thank you for tuning in. Appreciate you all. Glad you're here. Hey, so tonight, Andy, shall I
introduce our guests? Bring them on. Let's just, let's, let's do it. And that's not even apologize
for it. Hey, our guest tonight is a friend of the show, longtime friend of both Andy and I,
our friend, Tyler Hartford. Tyler Hartford, he serves as the director of church leadership
and communications at Yvonne network, a community of churches, educational institutions and mission
organizations gathered around a common evangelical, an abaptist vision. If you're wondering
what in the world is an evangelical, an abaptist, we have to be very careful. People think it's
anti-baptist. Um, it's not, it's not anti-baptist. I mean, might for some people might be, but it's
not. It's an abaptist. What? Something early on, Andy, I got these questions. Like, why are you,
why are you anti-baptist? I don't, I don't know. Uh, Tyler and his wife,
Janessa, been married for 22 years and they have, you got it. Seven kiddos, seven kids.
Tyler's a graduate of Hillsdale college where he studied theater rhetoric and persuasion. I mean,
that's the sexiest degree I've ever heard. Absolutely. He's also a graduate of Wine
Brenner seminary where he received a masters of Divinity degree. Um, he has worked in multiple
nonprofit sectors before coming to his current role, which, uh, included serving as a lead
pastor for over 14 years in a single congregation. So now his role with Ivana, but here's what I,
here's what I love about Tyler. Number one, he is, he is just the dearest of all friends. I am
so grateful to have him in my life, but apart from that, uh, Tyler's, uh, church and faith
experiences as we'll find out, he's, he's covered the gamut all over the place, all kinds of different
experiences. I cannot wait to hear wild and crazy stuff, man. Um, but has served in serving local
congregations, uh, has served at, has had non-ministry roles, has had past role roles now, um, serves a
network of churches, uh, in the kind of greater mid, I guess greater mid-western region. So,
um, so we're just going to have a, we're going to have a talk because when I was thinking about
this conversation, there's been a long-term conversation about people, uh, Andy, you've,
you've intersected with them. I know I have. I am definitely Tyler has, uh, people who grew up
in faith communities, grew up with kind of, uh, kind of a traditional faith, uh, direction.
And then, uh, something shifted significantly in their life, usually later on toward their adult
years, began to question a lot of things. And then they start, we start hearing this kind of term
about their deconstructing faith, going through deconstruction, deconstruction, deconstruction
kind of becomes this buzzword, this thing. And I looked at, I was thinking about Tyler and I
said, you know, if anybody, if anybody has thought about deconstruction, it's him. So
that's why he's on. He's going, we're going to have a talk tonight. I'm really excited about it.
Are you, are you excited? I am very excited. I see that's what I need. Welcome Tyler to the
show. Hi Tyler. Hi Tyler. Yeah. My show having me on. Here's what's super fun is actually our
studio right here. Tyler's actual office is just the next, uh, he's been so close yet so far away
is, uh, we're usually here in the evenings. Tyler's here during the regular part of the day.
And so like, I think last show, we're like, we need to get Tyler on. Yeah. It's like he's been
just right across the, right across the hall. Yeah. So welcome to the show. Hey, great to be here.
So Tyler, let's, this is the first kind of the long answer question because I,
you're, you're church experiences and Tyler and I overlap a little bit in this kind of
some of the background that we come from, but tell us about just kind of early faith experience
for you, where your family comes from, what your early faith, you know, community exposures were,
and then, um, like kind of the, the trajectory that that set you on early in life. Okay. Well,
we'll just get into the ugly part first. Why not? Well, actually it, it, it, you can't have the
sacred without the, without the clay, right? There's the holy and, and the earthy. Um,
um, my kids joke that everything happened in my life when I was four. It's a family joke. It's,
oh yeah, that's when, that's when you were four. That's when I got my hearing aid to have profound
hearing loss. And it also, when my parents were separated, um, I think any child that experiences
divorce, um, when a mother and a father step apart, um, you know, a child is half mom, half dad. So
like if mom and dad can't get along, a child remembers that very distinctly. Like, can I even
get along with myself? And so that, that's a kind of a living color time for me. And my mother's
boss and his family took her in and really just ministered to her. Um, so as a four-year-old and,
and with my mother set up in a new apartment, um, we began attending a local Baptist church. My mom
had no faith background. And you're an only child, by the way. I'm an only child. Uh, we grew up in
central Maine, so Bangor, Maine, um, uh, and kind of the last city before you get up into the North
Maine Woods. Um, my mom had no church background. Uh, my, both sets of grandparents were divorced.
And, um, just to make the story short, I mean, we both experienced Jesus in a powerful way. And,
um, as the Baptists like to do, they rope you in early. And, uh, I was baptized at a very young age.
Um, but at the same time, my father really wanted to, uh, kind of see if this marriage could be
rescued. Um, was convicted about some things as well. They, the major part that made their marriage
fall apart was, uh, infertility and lots of trouble trying to have a child. Then they had me and then
there was just a lot of conflict around, uh, that and, and some other things. So my father then
accepted Jesus as his savior, um, in the early eighties and, and, um, at Christmas. Um, and
lots of amazing stories. Maybe sometime, if I come back, I'll share a couple of those, but he,
he and my mom were reunited and, and in this Baptist church. Um, this was the largest church
in New England at the time led by Buddy Franklin, who was a former roommate of Jerry Falwell. He
was so powerful that when Jerry was setting up his moral majority offices, uh, he told Jerry,
don't do one in Maine. I'll just run it. Like my church will be the center point.
And so for context for, uh, for our younger listeners as well, see these names ring a bell
with me when I was a younger kid, but this was a, the moral majority was a big time. It was,
it was distinctly Republican, very, very conservative. Yeah. Moral majority Christian led
cause the whole idea was that in the eighties specifically, that we were going to turn the
country around by getting conservative Christian people elected into office. And so there was
a network of pastors and politicians that were all working in this, in this direction. So this
is kind of the, the political, uh, religious soup that you're, you're in. Yeah, really in the,
kind of in the infancy of it. And Buddy, uh, in the middle of all of this, so I would have gone
to the Christian school, started at kindergarten, repeated kindergarten from public to private.
And then about second grade, um, he was going to run for governor. Um, and it came out in,
in the press that, um, well, uh, he was accused in, in, uh, within the church by the music teacher
that was my music teacher, um, without getting into too many details. I mean, basically you
can imagine overnight, um, the school collapsed into, uh, probably a third the size of it.
So there was a claim of infidelity specifically. Yeah. There was a very credible
plans and, and a real power struggle, like where he fought to keep leadership. It blew the church
apart. Um, we had joined a church plant by one of his associates before this happened.
But this was my life. Like the whole school was, uh, connected to it. And so very early on, uh,
lots of good people hurt and, and the family that led us to Christ, um, walked out the door and,
and as far as I know, never darkened the door of a church again. Um, and I had grown up with their
three boys. I was the same age as the middle one and they were just like family to me. Um,
um, this was such a big deal that, um, People Magazine did a feature article on it. Um, 60
minutes came and interviewed, uh, congregation members and other former congregation members.
And, um, uh, Wallace, uh, yeah, yeah, he came and sat in our kitchen and interviewed my father
and mother. I distinctly remember a strong smell of alcohol and cigarettes and lots of cameras and
lights in our kitchen. And so it's, it's just burned into me by another separation, another divorce.
Then, uh, the school, the church that I went to, so that, that was split number one. Then the church
that I went to, um, the associate pastor, uh, was, was loved and had a real rapport with all the,
the younger families and, um, uh, walked out, uh, left the church, left, took all the young families
and, um, uh, my parents taught me that staying is important. Um, and living through the difficult
times is important, like they tried to do with their own marriage. And so I wound up being the
only teenager in that church, uh, my, my first year of junior high. Um, and that was pretty rough,
but my, my pastor took me under his wing and he mentored me and we did lots of things together.
Um, looking back at it, kind of the beginning of realizing that maybe I had a call to ministry.
In the meantime, the, the pastor that left, um, had an affair with a woman that left with them and,
uh, that particular, uh, church plant, the Baptist, sorry, Baptist at a listening. Um, they, uh,
sometimes plant by splitting rather than intentionally planting. Yeah. Um, my church recovered,
began growing again. Um, and who's the only pastor that didn't have a moral failing. Um,
however, uh, I think he, he modeled a pastor that didn't have any patients. So like you kind of
displayed that lack of grace that you sometimes see, uh, just a real quick, uh, quick temper,
particularly with service workers. Um, then my, uh, college experience plugged into a, uh, Baptist
church out that way and, um, my pastor came out and told the pastor that he, I should fill the
pulpit when he's gone. So here's a freshman in college that would fill the pulpit from time to
time with that church. Um, and they really have a great relationship, but then when I graduated
that, that church also went through a very painful split. And in my home church, my pastor, I grew up
under left. Um, and I know this kind of feels like this long litany, but it's important, I think,
because he left and when they brought in a new candidate, that candidate was voted down by a
whole family block that was led by the woman who led me to Christ. So there's a, so there's,
you see this disconnect of like, here's this person, it was a significant influence in your
life, but you would see them also as creating this division within your faith community.
Correct. And, uh, my father at the time was, had elder in the church and had been told that,
that he needed to find a pastor. He helped bring that candidate in. And so then with the elder
board in, in private saying they had support in public, um, it was very divided. It came out that
way. Um, again, I was aware, so I didn't know all the details, but I do know that there was high
fiving going on in the sanctuary while the candidate was still in the sanctuary. Um,
and so that candidate then, um, started a church in the area with the, the families that voted for
him. Um, it's not funny, but it, it is. I mean, it's sad. Yeah. And, and, and the thing is,
is this is where my own family was involved in that, um, kind of feeling like, no, the Lord has
called this person to ministry, but because it was a situation where they couldn't afford him
full time anymore because it was a split, uh, he had to work in the local school and guess what
happened when he was working in the local school? Oh no. He had an emotional affair with another
woman that was working in the school. Um, at the same time, the pastor, the other church,
my home church brought in, uh, within just a few years, uh, managed to get the parsonage in his name.
And on Christmas Eve, they discovered he had absconded with a bunch of their cast
and was living in the parsonage next to the church in his name. And, uh, as far as I know,
he may still be living here today. Wow. Wow. Um, so basically, basically stole, stole from the church.
Yeah. Yeah. And so in my 20s, uh, here, like I'm landing in Toledo, Ohio and, uh, working
for the Toledo Symphony at the time and just running into all these really beautiful people,
you know, the artistic world and, um, you know, all kinds of crazy things I never expected. You
know, 20 plus years ago, my supervisor was, uh, was a transgender who was going through a sex
change operation, like, like stuff, a boy from Central Maine, just like never expected. Right.
But, you know, beautiful people. Yeah. And I was just done. And we were at a Baptist church there.
And, uh, when, when the guy told me that I needed to tell my wife to get baptized, the, the real way,
instead of being poured on, you just tell her what to do. Uh, I said, so what part of personal
choice have in all of this? But which, by the way, Baptist, I mean, this is the, this is the whole
thing about, right? Our, our general Baptist, Anabaptist theology is that it is a believer's
bat. Look, it is the high value of a personal choice. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Methods may
be debated, you know, dunk three times in the name of the Trinity or whatever. But we're just done.
I was just done. Yeah. Absolutely done. Absolutely done. Um, and maybe as a note to it, I was just
really thankful that we did, um, after a number of months, um, bound myself in a,
in a little man, a Mennonite church in Toledo and experienced grace. And they kind of just
loved me through my questions. Yeah. Um, and, um, around the same time, I saw my father dying, my
father in law dying of cancer and got to witness, um, a pastor ministering to him in a way that I'd
never seen before. And I was married to a woman who had not experienced kind of that level of
dysfunction within the church. Yeah. So, um, I just, I just, uh, I think what I might do is just
leave it to you to ask the next question. I tried to count up how many splits and, and I feel each
one of them very deeply. And, and, and I, I don't say it lightly that I have no rose colored glasses
about the bride of Christ is the bride of Christ. Yeah. Well, you know,
Luther, uh, that classic line, you know, the, you know, the church is my mother, but she's also a
whore and, you know, right? Yeah. There is no plan B. Yeah. And as our friend, Timothy David Miller
says, the bride of Christ grows more beautiful every day in spite of our, in spite of our,
and I want to, and I absolutely want to believe that. And I think that to be true if you have a
global perspective on the church. That's exactly right. That's probably the important thing to
say. So, you know, Tyler, you hear this story again and again, like for you growing up in your
formative years, because all of us, Andy, you know, you, myself, we, we know as we're raising our kids,
all these things are happening during your formative years where, where most kids are,
you know, young people are forming the very foundation of their faith. And most of that's
happening through the relationships they're having in faith community and all these relationships
that you're having are, they're together and they're broken, broken, broken, broken, split, split,
split, split, right. And eventually, aren't you just tempted to say, I think this whole Christianity
thing for, for everything that's been promised to me and proclaimed to me and, you know, this,
that and the other, are you tempted to say, I don't think these people believe this at all. And
maybe even worse, maybe this whole thing is just a joke. Like maybe there's just, this is just sort
of a, kind of a, you know, for lack of a better term, just another organization that is wielding
power and influence for its own purposes. And do they even really believe what they say they
believe? I mean, are those thoughts that go through your, through your mind?
I've learned, you know, humans, human institutions will just always fail you.
You lean on them, sometimes they break and those points just go right into your side.
And we know Jesus, but that was his experience, right? He, he prayed the word of the psalmist that
says, you know, behold, my friend who broke bread with me has now lifted up his heel against me.
Right. I was in this weird dynamic tension, right? There's all this conflict, but then
since my family wasn't from a robust Christian environment, my father did have Catholic background.
I would come home from the Christian school every day and like tell them what I learned.
So in my household, the roles were almost reversed.
Interesting.
They would say, what did you learn? And I would share from chapel or Bible.
The other thing that happened is in that brokenness, we saw amazing things happen too.
A local Pentecostal school shut down and all these students in one year
landed in a cessationist school that didn't believe that the Holy Spirit spoke and made
people speak in tongues and suddenly had kids in chapel.
Acting a little bit out of order, a little bit out of the norm.
We had these like out of ashes beauty.
Yeah. Yeah. I think another thing that the fundamentalist perspective did give to me
that I've never given up is that there is this sense that the word is trustworthy and true.
I've abandoned the word like inerrant because in reality, that's only built on the King James
argument. If people really want to use it, they'll say inerrant and autographs, original autographs,
and then they'll say the King James is the God inspired version, which I would always say,
well, they might do the Spanish speaking and German speaking and other people use,
but anyway, I digress. There's such a high value on the word, which actually I found I could use
in context against them as well. I was the one that was kind of annoying in Sunday school class
because I'd be like, well, the Bible actually says this. Even though it's a very deeply human
document with whole sections where they say the original meaning is not certain. That actually
makes me trust it more. It's very, it just been handled for 2000, 4000 years, you know.
So is there, because you touch on this and this is, I come from a background. So my dad was
saved into a King James only church. He became a believer in his earlier 20s, KJV only, and
he didn't, that really got, it's when he went to seminary actually, where that all got messed
out for him, right? In a Baptist, evangelical Baptist seminary, but at the same time got
really messed up for him. My mom grew up in an independent fundamental Bible church,
where again, to your point, high value of scripture, high value of the word, but there's
something else in the midst of that. There's a posture of heart in a, and this is what I wonder,
when we're talking about deconstruction, there is a concrete certainty with which everything
is stated and within kind of the fundamentalist ideal, right?
Right. There's an uncomfortableness with ambiguity. There are things where if you pull
one plank out, if that is negotiable, then the whole platform you're standing on can be quick
sand, right? Like, we all want certainty and it's just so much easier to have just a simple belief,
this simple truth, and just know that God said it, I believe it, it's done. But that's really
not how scripture is written in most cases, right? It's poetry, it's narrative work, it's all these.
But I think that we need to come to terms with the ability to say, you know, life is messy,
faith is messy. And this certainty is in some ways a lack of intellectual and faithful rigor.
I think coming to the faith out of a non-Christian or not very foreign background,
I had to wrestle with it even at a young age to own it. But then a lot of people have been born
into it. It's what they've known, it's the faith of their fathers and mothers. And so,
all of us at some point, to borrow the famous words of the great theologians, tears for fear,
it's break it down again, right? Like, at some point, every one of us is going to have a crisis
of faith, a dark night of the soul, and cheap, simple platitudes will just never caught it.
But I think one of the things that always fascinated me is when I heard the story about
Mother Teresa's diaries being read after she died, where she's like, I haven't seen or heard from
the Lord in decades, right? And people like, see, you know, what a hypocrite, what a...
But St. John of the Cross is at the dark night of the soul, right? Like, that's when we look deep
into the heart of man and realize our brokenness and we'll cry out for a savior. We've got to
be okay with that. And I just think of people who are near and dear to me who lived, you know,
maybe their younger years or lived up to a certain point in life, with what seemed to me like this
rock, solid, unshakable faith. Like, just this consistent, like, man, of all people,
you know, I know I can always look to them and say, like, man, they're always, they're always
going to be holding, holding fast. And then something happens. Something happens. And I wonder,
Tyler, you know, from your experience, because I look to your experience and I go, I go, man,
if anybody had the opportunity to, again, just to say, I really question the validity
of this whole Christianity thing. I mean, you were offered multiple opportunities, I think,
think to go there. But you, you chose by, by God's grace and by a number of other things
to go a different direction. What was different? What's been different for you?
I think Bill, too, to go back to, you know, what you were saying is not only have we seen
lots of people that we know personally have to kind of this, whatever, but we've seen
lately a lot of people that we grew up with in the faith, you know, musicians and speakers and
leaders who have turned and said, you know, I don't believe anything that I used to believe.
And it's even harder because they were so public, right? They were so public.
And now we see them saying, I don't believe anything that I believe to believe.
Well, you know, again, this is a big topic because we don't know what all factors are at
play. Are we dealing with internal factors where someone's wrestling with their sexuality?
Are we dealing with external factors where there's been spiritual abuse or physical or
sexual abuse, financial misconduct? I mean, there's any number of things that can happen
to somebody that make them say, I'm done with the church, right? I said this at a retreat this
weekend. And I got a lot of laughs. And I didn't really realize that people thought that I didn't
like, I wasn't trying to be funny. Even my wife, maybe it was just a little embarrassed,
but I guess I'm going to try it out on you guys. This is where this is where
someone said, well, you know, I don't know if I want to sign a covenant, right? Because that means,
you know, it's kind of they've got, you know, it's a legalistic, you know, black and white.
Got you. And someone said, well, I only said my vows to my wife once. And like,
I don't have to repeat them every year. You don't have to re-up my covenant to my wife every year.
And I looked at them and said, well, I renew my vows every day.
Come on now. Well, I mean, that's the relationship with the church, right? Like the
bride of Christ, members of the church at some point have to come to the point where they say,
you know, I wake up every day and I choose to follow Jesus. And I'm on a journey with other
people and other people are messy. I am not saying stay connected to an environment that
shields sex offenders. I am not saying gloss over financial misconduct. But what I am saying is,
for us to just go at it alone and say that we don't need community anymore and say that maybe
we do believe at least in God or Jesus, like there's a come to a point where you have to just say,
there is no plan B, I'm going to go this direction. And trust me, now that I'm over
like multiple churches in different settings, it's, you want to say, oh, here's this God's
eye view that kind of gives you like a great picture of everything being so hunky dory.
But no, what gets to me, what comes to me is usually just what makes me want to walk away
at times, right? The ways that people treat pastors. We see so much in this culture of the
big pastors that fail. But you know, 90% of pastors are out there slogging away.
Doing the hard work.
And the things that people are saying and doing to them are just not right. You would never do
that in a place of business. Right. They're treated even, yeah, they're as a dedicated
professional, they are treated in a way that would never be permissible in the other sector.
And they're expected to do it for last, for the last benefit because they're missionaries.
And just to take it.
Anyways, we digress. I think we all need those colored glasses. I don't need those colored
glasses. Let's lean into the deconstruction thing. Like, you know, does it resonate with me?
Well, yeah, I think so. At some point, if there's been this big and from our background,
evangelicalism, but fundamentalist evangelicalism, there's this big,
big superstructure that exists of all these doctrinal points and all these things that build
on like, like I'm, you know, for instance, and I'm not a reformed Christian, but like if you're
if you're in a reform Baptist or which is many of the case, you know, it's one layer built upon
another. It's this whole structure built on another of theological presupposition after
one after another, right? And because you mentioned it's kind of, it is kind of this
House of Cards thing that happens. And if you question one thing, all the other stuff can
feel like it's like it's teetering and it's going to collapse. And then if it does collapse,
what do you do? What's left? The answer for many has been, I'm going to start all over again.
Like, I'm just, I'm going to, I'm going to take everything off the table.
And we have an issue like in Western Christianity, where you almost have this
Baskin Robbins kind of approach to like evangelicalism. Am I reacting to reformed,
like total depravity Christianity? That's, that's the Calvinist approach where,
where maybe they're even okay with going out for a beer and a cigar and that's,
and then you're over at the other end where extreme charismatic where like you're not a believer
unless you've been poured out on by the spirit and speaking tongue. So, look again, evangelicalism
as a monolith. Really, when you get down into the ranks, if you react to one, I'm watching,
I'm watching a dear young man that has had a profound influence on my children's lives.
He, he's, he's left behind an apostolic Pentecostal stream. They had a high
value on ways of dressing and behaving. And, and, and I'm watching him play out that
deconstruction in reaction to that experience. And what you're saying, and I would agree,
is a lot of people then kind of react against the whole stream of evangelicalism. And they move
into either a kind of a general deism, a belief in God, or maybe an agnosticism,
or maybe they'll move into an extreme form of progressivism that sometimes even looks more
like universalist, right? Because God is pure love and there's no, there's no eternal punishment,
that kind of stuff. So, so there's a, there's a couple of things that have helped me with this.
And one is having the opportunity to sit at the feet of global Christians where, where when you
have persecution from the outside and this kind of refining that happens, you may have different
denominations, but they work really closely together. And, and you really have no social
advantage to being a Christian. There's nothing to be gained in the Indian culture, or, or other
cultures that I've been in, Mongolian, there's just different places where, like, you gain nothing
by being a Christfather, except that, that you have a savior and you have a group in a community
that you can go through suffering together, right? I also think that in Western Christianity,
we are reacting again in a way that says, I believe that God and Satan get blamed for a
heck of a lot of things that human beings do, right? So, so like, like, are we really reacting
against God and faith? Or are we reacting against kind of a broken model of Christianity in the
Western world? Yeah. Right. So it's, it's, it's, it's, I'm tying the narrow down, we're heading
a direction here, but what are they actually reacting against? And so when you have a Christian
artist, right, or a top leader that is failing, are they reacting to a true faith, or they're
reacting to some kind of construct that's been created in Western? Well, then you have to look
to the people who were, who looked up to those people growing up and are now questioning their
faith because, you know, the leader I looked up to can't believe. So maybe I can't either. So you
have those people on that end that you're, you know, you're looking up to the people. It wasn't
necessarily, you know, that God failed them, right? But somebody that they were looking up to had
failed, had failed, right? And, and chose to walk away. But what you find out is, and this is,
this is a thing I fear quite honestly, you begin to find out that actually your faith and your
trust was actually in a per, like was in a human, was an human being, right? And by the way,
all the structures that you were surrounded with did nothing but to A okay that, like to, to,
to reinforce that or to give that a positive thing as opposed to saying, you know, and hopefully,
you know, Tyler, the, well, and Andy as well, like the community that the communities that we're in,
and allegedly, allegedly, we, we say that we value mutual accountability amongst all of us,
that no one is greater than another. It's just that we have different gifts that we're all,
we're ministering, we're co-ministering together in community, right? But it's like, hey, your title
of senior pastor doesn't, doesn't identify you as some sort of spiritual superhero, right over and
against the person sitting in the pew. And one thing working in that favor is there actually
isn't even an advantage for me now to say that I'm a pastor. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like I saw a stream
just the other day, someone said, so what do you think the hottest part of hell is reserved for?
And someone said a mega church pastor. And then then the dog piling becomes like there's no,
like there is, in some respect, our culture, a kind of a devaluing of authority to begin with.
Well, and I even wondered myself recently, you know, when I was applying for a, a, a
secular non-for-profit job, which, which I'm in now, you know, my resume had pastor just
emblazoned all over it. That's what I've done for the last 17 years. And it was the first time,
I mean, I had this interesting feeling of the first time where it's like,
like this, this history, this role, what I have done doesn't carry with it an inherent value
outside of the context that I, that I've been in. Like that's kind of a hum, I mean,
number one humbling thing, but I think it's actually, it's much more, it's much more the
posture in which we should walk. And, and, and I think maybe the pendulum is swinging a little
bit there in that direction. The other thing that you said, Tyler, though, I want to point out
our second and third world Christians deconstructing faith.
I don't know enough about that. I just, I just wonder, and I'm kind of, it's a little,
the people that I know, Tyler, the people that I know that are, are primarily white,
evangelicals, middle upper and middle upper class. But I'm wondering too, Joel, if that's
because I think as church in America, we have less reliance necessarily on God. And by that,
I mean, like, yeah, we're, you know, we're not necessarily relying on him for our job. We don't
see, we're not, we're not seeing a lot of times, whereas these everyday little things are faith,
like, you know, where, you know, the church and, you know, different places outside of the US,
they're relying, I think, more on God and, and praying to God to first survival where we're
not necessarily doing that. And so maybe that's where they're not necessarily deconstructing.
The growing church in America is actually taking place within African American and Latino groups.
I mean, I don't remember if it was Pew or Gallup, but one of the things that people aren't talking
much about is actually one of the fastest sections of the evangelical church to grow
is in the black African American community. Now, again, that is a different definition
of evangelicalism. One of the things that bothers me is that evangelicalism from a global
perspective is a beautiful thing, like it's at Bevington's Quadrilateral, right? There's this
idea that there's a high value on the cross and there's this, this expectation actually the fourth
point of Bevington's Quadrilateral is that you will act in social justice, which is an inflammatory
word for American evangelicals. But the reality is being also needs to be connected to doing.
So in the global world, what I've experienced is an extreme reliance on the Lord for daily
provisions, for protection, and for strength and suffering. And so maybe some of this too that
we're dealing with. And again, please hear me. If you are a survivor of spiritual abuse, sexual
abuse, infidelity of any kind from leadership, like you have the right to be upset and to not
be able to trust well. And you've used the term spiritual abuse. I just think for our listeners
because that can mean a lot of different things to people. What comes to your mind? Like, how would
you define that experience? Well, I think the simplest way is to simply say, like, I think that
it's a power over. Well, you kind of get this sense that like, we all know that we do things that are
wrong, right? We all do things wrong. But it's when somebody who is in power over you then comes
and shames you, trying to get you back into the kingdom or to behave a certain way through shame
instead of love. And sometimes leveraging like eternal consequence for that, right? Like when
there's like, I think that's a that's a scary power to have, right? When you're when you're
saying do this or or you're going to be you're going to burn, right?
Yeah, one of my friends in high school, and it's, you know, he his girlfriend got
pregnant out of red lock and someone slid the birth announcement under the door of the
administration and that didn't go well. You know, and I always thought to myself, you know,
I think the Christian response to that should have been, what can we do to position this couple
for the greatest success? Right.
Is that a shame, shame guilt and kind of a power play?
So these experiences for me have given me a real high sense of justice. Like I
I have no tolerance for like sexual abuse within the church. Like that's
that's something that like 90% of the time, any kind of victim that comes forward, there's nothing
to be gained by coming forward. And we just know it's probably true to some degree.
So it's interesting to me that that that Baptist side of me that's very black and
white kind of rears its head in those moments. Yeah.
But the other side of it, though, is just to come open handed and recognize that the Lord
is the judge, not me. And that means I can still recognize evil, I can stalker nice wrongdoing.
But but it's not really up to me to kind of bring that home.
So I want to talk about, and this is a thing I think all of us with with kiddos. I mean,
let me see, Tyler, your eldest is a freshman in college. The twins are 10, 10, 9, about 10.
So yeah, two girls, three boys and two girls. So you've got the whole, you've got a whole
wide range. Andy and I, you know, kind of similar, similar areas. Andy's oldest is
just passes driving test, by the way, that a boy.
If you want to watch a fun time, but let the Hartford kids get together with the layman.
Oh, boy. In our church gathering, the big gathering, we call them like the roving
feral herd kid. They're like feral animals. That's right.
Yeah. Tyler, as you think about your kids and their faith formation,
moving forward as a father and as a leader, knowing that, you know, and just for the viewers,
the listeners reference, Tyler is all this daughter cadence. I mean, she's, she's,
she's in college today to be a nurse right now at Bethlehem University and already,
like Tyler and Janessa have raised thinkers. They've raised, and it's very clear to me,
like critical thinkers, which, which can be, can be dain, it can feel dangerous, right?
It can feel dangerous because they ask all the hard questions.
Well, cadence, cadence actually just told us that she told her, her nursing dean that she was
bored and chemistry class and like, don't do that. They don't mince words.
Yeah. And so, but like, as you think about your kids and you think about like,
the day that they might need to, like the feel like they need to deconstruct or whatever it is,
or have a, what would be your hope in terms of how they would go about that?
Maybe the questions that they would ask or the general posture that they would take in that,
in that process. Because as we said, we're not demonizing, like I've heard plenty of conservative
evangelicals, like, like deconstruction is this like, is this like four letter word?
I think everybody needs to deconstruct. At some level, you have to, at some point,
own the faith for yourself. Right. I think, yeah. I mean, if you dig in and try to figure out why
you believe what you believe, because I think a lot of us were raised in, you know, not, not
everyone, I can't speak for them, but like, you know, us, at least, we're, you know, raising the
church. And I think at some point, you have to make that faith your own, not your parents,
because if you don't, I think that's when you're going to lose it and go, I don't really believe
in anything because it's not really my own faith. And when you sit and make that your own faith,
I think that's, that's where, yeah, it strengthens it. So, so I guess I needed to make a point earlier
that I dropped. I am so thankful that I went through my wrestling. So like, I remember accepting
Christ, you know, as a young child, when I was 12, I spent many nights crying, kind of this deep
existential despair, you know, that every teenager goes through at some level. And then in my 20s.
But, you know, social media didn't exist at that time. And that's a point I wanted to make. You
guys talk about technology and its role on people's brains and relationship. You know, there is
something to be said about, and please hear me, if you're deconstructing right now and you're
posting your journey online, just be aware that there's a dopamine hit that comes from getting
a like on that post. And in a large number of people saying, yes, that's where I'm at. And you
feel like you've built a community. But in the long run, a lot of times that community is not
concerned about your end goal and where you're going, you're saying, I'm there with you. And I
am thankful that I don't have this like, like these markers where I put down a stake on social
media that I believe this certain way and these people are all bleeps. And then like, I have no
way to take it back, right? Right. To some extent, I think deconstruction at a healthy level,
need to take place within a group of caring, understanding friends who may not be where
you're at, or maybe already walked away from the faith. But when you're when you're doing that on
social media and publicly, you know, maybe I'll end it with, in seminary, they teach you that
human sexuality is the same side, it's a different side of the same coin as intimacy with the Lord.
And so I don't go around explaining all the intimate moments that I go through with my wife.
Thank you. Good, bad, and ugly. Sinister is going, praise be to God. Although she wouldn't put it
past me in some cases. But then the other side is like, so, but your intimacy with the Lord,
like there are things that the Holy Spirit says to me that I'm not going to share with just anybody.
Sure. You know, there's an intimacy in that relationship. And that's kind of how we tried,
you know, you know, model with the kids. I talked to my wife before I came in and said,
now, honey, you know, do we have any secret sauce or anything with raising the kids? Like seven kids,
you know, it just managed chaos. Let's just admit it, right? Like, it's herding cats half the time
a week ago by and you're like, hey, you know what, everyone's clothed and fed. We didn't go to the
ER. Hey, that's a win. We are winning. Yeah. So there are two foundational verses that have really
hit me as a believer. And this is what I've tried to do with my kids. And in Mark 924,
you got the story of the father whose son keeps throwing himself in the fire. Like,
we have parents that may listen to have children that may be physical disabilities,
mental disabilities, relational disabilities. I mean, there's just stuff that they just need
healing for. Some parents are just scrambling for help. And you know, I don't know. I just
prayed so much. Like, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. That's just a cornerstone of my faith
and my kids kind of know it. Like, there are areas we believe and areas we don't believe. And we're
really working hard for the Lord to give us some answers. The other one is from John 6, 28-29,
where the disciples say, what do we do to do the work that the Lord requires? And Jesus responds,
the work of God is this, believe in the one whom He's sent. And it feels like when we kind of like
put that block in place, a lot of other things fall into place. You know, belief leads to doing
and doing leads to belief. And we just keep building on that. So I'm just really thankful
that I didn't have social media kind of like marking the moment that I, you know, ranted and
raved against the things that were very real. As far as other things with my kids, I just actually
said something online tonight to a friend. I said, I'm actually kind of glad I made underparent than
overparent. Like, I know what underparent looks like. And those are the ones that are running
around like making snow angels and blower on the aisle of the grocery store. Or one child,
I remember seeing of another family that climbed into the yogurt section of the cooler,
shut the door and started eating yogurt. But you know, what I mean is like, I don't ever want to be
that attack helicopter parent who also then behaves the same way towards their children,
where they're not allowed to ask a question. Granted, you know, in my home, there are times
when you kind of have to be a military commander with seven kids, like you can't just let everybody
do their thing. But I've really tried to kind of be a little more open handed, allow them to
ask questions. I was in an environment, didn't allow a lot of questions. I've tried to shield them
from the details of bad things in the church. But I've always been very open about what we're
going through. Cadence, my oldest is studying to be a nurse, but wants to be a medical mission,
and my next daughter wants to be in full-time ministry. And to me, I've not hidden the good,
bad, and the ugly from them. You know, I've been very open about my doubts, my fears,
and my frustrations, and still tied the love people through them. My last pastoral assignment
was absolutely amazing, wonderful people, still love my peeps at pleasant view. But you know,
people say stupid things and do really hurtful things to you. And they never, they don't even
realize it. Or if they can't get to you, they'll do it to your kids. And yet, overall, I've heard
way worse horror stories. Maybe another concrete example would be, I love the arts, my background
is theater and art, and I love music. And I remember when I was in the Christian school,
they showed these movies called Hell's Bells. And if you listened to Rock and Roll and Hell,
and everything played backward, just saying we're sort of going to hell.
And everybody dies young, you know? Yeah, right.
Just tell that to the Rolling Stones. But I remember sitting there with my friends going,
holy cow, what is this? Like, how can I listen to more of it? You know, like, it's like,
it's like Adam and Eve, right? Like, like you fence off the tree and suddenly like,
I want that tree, all the fruit around me, but I want it from that tree. So we just,
we just listened to a lot of different styles of music. And we talk about it. I enjoy the
creativity. Let's be honest. Some non-believing musicians and songwriters actually may be better
theologians than some of the current praise music we listen to. Maybe one more story.
Sure, absolutely. We always ask all kinds of like crazy questions about the Bible. Like,
you know, the Bible is pretty R rated. Right. I remember when my grade school daughter,
the oldest one, was reading through the Bible. And we said, oh my goodness, you're reading through
the Bible. And she goes, yeah, I'm already to like halfway through the Old Testament. And we're
like, oh my gosh, like, I have an illustrated Genesis. And it says it's like rated R, right?
Every verse is illustrated. Right. And my daughter and I, Kate, and just goes out to you, we're
going to write a book about all the really weird stories of the Bible. But if you ever want to
read it, somebody's already written in his name is Luke Harrington. And it's called Murder Bears,
Moonshine and Mayhem. And I just a great book about the Bible. That's awesome.
Yeah, I think there's a, and I have seen this, I've seen this in your guys's family, Tyler, and
and I really think having open, honest conversations, the dainty deconstruction goes
wrong when things are kept in the dark, when things are too risky to talk about when it was,
or when, or when mom and dad are too, where they haven't worked through their own stuff
and they're too uncomfortable to discuss. So, so today, Julie,
gave us a sermon here at Clinton frame, and it was on intergenerational relationships. And I
think that that goes, speaks to this too, because I think that can really help if you're having
an inter intergenerational relationship, because not only are you able to speak to people that
are younger than you, but then you can have people who have had way more life experience
speak into your life too. And especially if they're willing to be open and honest being like,
yo, I had a really terrible time in, you know, my faith, and I had to step back and
stuff. And you can talk with them about that. And before you're experiencing it yourself,
I think that's yeah, I think of Andy, I think of people here at this, at this church here at
Clinton frame who, who are, who've been walking with Jesus a lot longer than I have, and who have
gone through an immense amount of suffering and pain and things like that. And they're still
following after. And I'll be, there is nothing like talking with them about their, about their faith
when you are having a little bit of, you're feeling a little bit sideways spiritually,
you know, because you're like the, the, that, the perspective that it, that it brings. And
that's why you just, I, I don't want to say it for anybody who's struggling with faith right now
or struggling with what they believe. That is not a battle for you to fight alone. Like that
isn't, that is not something for you to, yeah, to, that's something to work out. And by the way,
I would, I would say, talk to somebody, because here's the thing, when I, I know what I'm going
to, when I've ended a bad place spiritually and I am like about ready to write, write the church
off or whatever it has been or whatever, there are certain people that I know that if I talk to them,
they are, they are going to lovingly like slap me upside the head and they're going to say,
okay, let's get, okay, let's take, let's take an honest, unbiased look at this whole thing,
right? And then there are other people that I know I could go to who will just cheer me on in
the direction that I'm, that I'm heading, right? So a little bit that has to do with some intellectual
honesty on our, on our part about who is it, who is it that we're surrounding ourselves with or
what direction are we actually wanting to go? If you want to be an honest deconstructionist
and just go where the, go where the facts leader or whatever, let me, let me invite you to that.
Let me invite you to that because I, I firmly, I stand here firmly to say, listen, truth needs no
pillars. You know, you shall know the truth and it will set, and it will set you free. And I think
that's ultimately, we're, you know, we've had a big conversation here. I don't think we've actually
overtly said it. We're looking to a person, not a religion. We're looking to a person that, that
was, he just saves religion kill. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, and, and that's the thing that I
think has been so frequently lost in all of this. I have no, as a pastor, as a, just as a believer,
I have, I have zero conviction of calling, you know, that I want to call people to a religion.
Like, like that's, that's not, that's not where I'm starting. I want to call them to the,
to the person that has changed my life, that's changed all of our lives, that's made a
significant, that's made a significant difference and then walk it out from there.
And, and I just, I wish that, I mean, I think that's probably where my biggest,
biggest burden on my heart is I wish that was people. I wish that was the more common experience.
I wish that's where, where it all started. And that's, you know, it's so interesting,
like my parents, when they came out of, when they came out of fundamentalism, what they were left
with was just Jesus. Like that, that was, that was it. And so that's how they always, that's
how they raised my brother and I. It was like, here's the non-negotiable, Christ. That, that's
the, that's non-negotiable. What, what he has done in space, in time, who he, and who he is,
all the other stuff, have, go crazy, have fun, you know, like, explore all you want. So I just think,
you know, Tyler, that's so much of, that's so much of your story that you were, and honestly,
that you, you've found the, I think the freedom and you've modeled the freedom and doing that.
Man, I'm glad you, I'm glad you shared with us. Thanks for hanging out. That's good.
We have one more thing. Oh, yes, we do. Now it's time for the dudes and dads pop quiz.
All right. So if you've never joined us, the pop quiz is the time where we just pepper,
and I'm literally pepper, Tyler with questions. Nothing. I have a whole
right. I have a whole deck of cards here that I'm asking from Joel. I don't know what you're
asking from, but I'm, yeah, I got you. I'm pulling my list up. I'll go ahead and start.
Thank you. All right. Tyler, who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Yeah, see, yeah, I can't prepare.
Fiction Boko movie. It just doesn't matter. So either one.
I love Jason Bourne. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. I've often said that Tyler really is,
Tyler is kind of my pastoral Jason Bourne. And that's, I don't, most people don't hear that
often enough. I have amnesia all the time. Oh, that's awesome. And I have some killer kung fu
moves. Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh. Better stretch first. Tyler, let me ask you, what is your favorite
outdoor activity? Oh, I know this is maybe cheating a little bit, but I love the barbecue.
Like I love the hook actually over an open fire. I have a stack of a cherry wood
out behind my barn. And I love to do so different kinds of meat over the cherry wood.
So when are we getting together for barbecue? 100%
get it out. Let's get it on the calendar. Low and slow.
All right, Tyler, if you could send a message to the entire world, what would you say in 30 seconds?
Oh, the saddest thing I ever did see was a woodpecker pecking at a plastic tree.
Friend, he said, as he turned to me, things ain't as sweet as they used to be.
But they actually are pretty sweet. I didn't see that coming. Oh, wow.
It's all Silverstein's. Man, such a renaissance, man. Tyler, speaking of food, we'll do this.
What is the weirdest food that you've ever eaten? And because you've been places,
so I'm just assuming you've been just some stuff.
So I was eating this amazing soup in Northern Italy,
and it had some of the best noodles I've ever had. And towards the end as the soup started
getting cold, it had kind of a funky barnyard taste to it. And this guy sitting next to me goes,
so are you loving this pigskin soup? And it was this shredded pigskin that looked like noodles.
And it was something. Best of survival and clearly, best of survival.
There was also the meal where the main dish was donkey. Oh.
And so my wife's 82-year-old grandfather, firm believer in Jesus,
when he heard the story, he turned to me, so what you're telling me is you've eaten,
this is a family show. It was very awkward. I'm sure.
Oh, man. All right. My last question is, what would be your best day ever?
Janice, if you're listening. Oh, here it comes.
I just, we just, we just did it today. We went to Castanadas. Oh, yeah.
Because the local Gaussian Mexican eatery where they make homemade gorditas from scratch,
and they made tortillas from scratch. So if you're listening from Castanadas,
go out on the town, have some of that. And then what's the Mexican ice cream place down over?
Oh, Tropicana. Mm-hmm. The Tropicana. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to say then a movie or something,
but you know, they just really aren't hitting very many good movies lately. Okay.
Tyler, what is, can you name for us a contest that you've won in your lifetime?
Oh, have you ever won a contest? Yeah. I won the best. Gaussian had a competition for salsa
downtown and made some homemade salsa for that. Yeah. And it won. Nice. I was pretty excited
about that. As around these parts, that's a big swing. Right. It's a big swing. You know, white
male from central Maine in a town that has some of the best Mexican restaurant.
Hey, that's a nice flex. I'll take it. Awesome. Tyler, thanks buddy. Oh man, it's been an honor.
You successfully passed the Dude's and Dad's Pop quiz way to go. Nice job. Nice job. Thanks for
being on. We appreciate you coming on and being willing to be open and share with us just a
little bit more about your face and where you've been. Great to be here. Guys, hey, as always,
you can send over your comments, thoughts for other shows, all the good stuff over at
dudesanddanspodcast at gmail.com. It's a nice song you got there. Thank you.
Dudesanddanspodcast.com. It's got the show notes, all the good stuff over everything and we'd love
to have you send us a voicemail 574-213-8702. As always, it won't wake us up. We will listen to
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