If faith is a moving thing, that implies change. To say you’re on a journey means you’re actively engaged in going somewhere. In the ALSSI community, the word faith often gets paired with the word journey, but also with deconstruction, shift, or transition. None of us are standing still, but it can feel frustrating or even lonely when we’re each moving at our own pace. Fueled by recent conversations with listeners, Episode 276 is a check-in with Cynthia and Susan: an honest look at where we’ve been, where we are, how we’ve gotten here, and where we want to go.
Notes & Quotes:
ALSSI Ep. 82, Holy Discomfort
Here’s what I said yesterday from the pulpit at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, by Nadia Bolz-Weber, The Corners, 9/14/2026
Whatever happened to Rob Bell? The pastor who questioned the gates of hell, by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Religion News Service, 12/2/2014
What We Talk About When We Talk About God, by Rob Bell
Faith As Participation, Center for Action and Contemplation, 12/8/2022
Think Celestial!, by Russell M. Nelson, 10/2023
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, by Rob Bell
“So when we ask Jesus how we can possibly forgive people who have hurt us, I
wonder if the question is actually a much more tender one. Maybe what we are
really asking is Lord, how do we stop feeling the pain.
Because even when we want to move on. Even when we try to move on. Our hurt finds a way to keep tapping at the window [...] and then we let it in and put the kettle on and rehash the whole precious thing again.
How many times Lord, will it take to stop telling the same story the same way, how many times will it take to stop feeling the hurt, for the whole thing to finally be a scar and no longer a wound.
How many times, Lord?
It’s going to take a lot of times, Jesus says, more gently than we would.
Then he adds, It might even feel like 7 times 70.
But the repetitions all count toward the day you don’t hear your hurt self tapping at the window. And even if you do hear it, maybe you no longer open the door. Maybe you compassionately say to the part of you that was wounded: I see you, I see what you endured, thank you for what you taught me, but I don’t have room to make you tea and serve you biscuits anymore.
Until one day, you are free.” —Nadia Bolz-Weber
“I never spent a minute wondering whether I’m in or out.” —Rob Bell
“Or to say it another way, God has made my life better. I don’t mean this in a shallow, trite, then-I-believed-and-now-I’m-happy-all-the-time way, but in a deep, abiding, satisfying way. I move more slowly than I used to because I don’t want to miss anything. I find more and more beauty and meaning in everyday, average moments that I would have missed before. I need fewer answers because I see more.” —Rob Bell, (pp. 125-126)
”God refuses to be known intellectually. God can only be loved and known in the act of love; God can only be experienced in communion. This is why Jesus “commands” us to move toward love and fully abide there. Love is like a living organism, an active force-field upon which we can rely, from which we can draw, and we can allow to pass through us.” —Richard Rohr
“Never take counsel from those who do not believe.” —Pres. Russell M. Nelson
“If the gospel isn’t good news for everybody, then it isn’t good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the ‘un’ and ‘non’, they work against Jesus’ teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, ‘God shows no favoritism.’ So we don’t either.” —Rob Bell