In this first part of our conversation, we’re joined by Dr. Michelle Keener, author of Comfort in the Ashes: Explorations in the Book of Job to Support Trauma Survivors.
The Book of Job is often cited in conversations about suffering—but just as often, it’s been used to minimize pain, rush people toward answers, or reinforce harmful ideas about God, blame, and endurance. In Comfort in the Ashes, Dr. Keener offers a different approach: one that reads Job through the lens of trauma, care, and lived human experience.
In Part 1, we focus on foundations:
- How the Book of Job has traditionally been taught—and why those interpretations often fail trauma survivors
- The difference between theological explanation and pastoral care
- Why certainty can feel safer than honesty, even when it causes harm
- How questioning inherited beliefs can be an act of survival, not rebellion
This conversation isn’t about solving suffering or defending doctrine.
It’s about slowing down, listening well, and making room for pain without trying to explain it away.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Michelle Keener is a scholar, writer, and educator whose work centers on biblical interpretation, trauma-informed theology, and care for those harmed by religious systems. Her book Comfort in the Ashes explores how the Book of Job can be reclaimed as a companion for trauma survivors rather than a weapon used against them.
https://www.michellekeener.com/
For all things Deconstructionists: www.thedeconstructionsts.org
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheDeconstructionistsPodcast
Special Music Provided By: Forrest Clay from his Recover EP.
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00:00 --> 00:11 [SPEAKER_00]: So the kind of sassy response I would say to that is put your people, put your people above your brand because, and, and again, there are some very egregious cases that you and I have apparently both seen.
00:11 --> 00:14 [SPEAKER_00]: There have been something that have been in the news, right?
00:14 --> 00:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And very well platforms and well-known pastors who would say, don't ever go seek therapy.
00:21 --> 00:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Always handle it in the house of God, or don't ever seek law enforcement.
00:25 --> 00:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Handle it in the house of God, and
00:27 --> 00:30 [SPEAKER_00]: My question is always but why, right?
00:30 --> 00:31 [SPEAKER_00]: What are you protecting?
00:32 --> 00:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And this idea of we need to keep it kind of hush hush here, because again, we don't want the outside world to look at us and have our brand, whether that's a specific church or whether it's just sort of the idea of Christianity in general, we don't want that to be damaged.
00:46 --> 00:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you speak up, you are going to damage the kingdom of God.
00:51 --> 00:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Is the kingdom of God so fragile that it can't withstand truth?
00:54 --> 00:56 [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't seem to make any sense whatsoever.
00:57 --> 01:11 [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so my, again, my kind of short answer to that would be, if you have been called to shepherd God's people, then shepherd his people and not your brand.
01:13 --> 01:22 [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the deconstruction as podcasts on your host John Williamson, and for a lot of people deconstruction doesn't start with disbelief, it starts with curiosity.
01:22 --> 01:27 [SPEAKER_04]: With a moment where the answers we were once given, stop holding the weight they once did.
01:28 --> 01:33 [SPEAKER_04]: On the deconstruction as podcasts, we spent a lot of time talking about what happens when faith gets complicated.
01:33 --> 01:38 [SPEAKER_04]: When certainty cracks, when inherited beliefs collide with lived experience,
01:38 --> 01:42 [SPEAKER_04]: and what asking honest questions feels both necessary and terrifying.
01:42 --> 02:02 [SPEAKER_04]: And today's conversation lives right in that tension, and is first part of our interview we're joined by Dr. Michelle Keener, whose new book comforts in the ashes, explorations in the book of Job to support trauma survivors, takes an ancient and often misused biblical text, and re-examens it through the lens of trauma, suffering, and care.
02:03 --> 02:05 [SPEAKER_04]: Super excited for you guys to hear this first part.
02:05 --> 02:07 [SPEAKER_04]: Part two will be out next week.
02:07 --> 02:11 [SPEAKER_04]: But without further ado, I give you Dr. Michelle Keener.
02:11 --> 02:23 [SPEAKER_04]: All right, thank you so much for spending some time with me today on the deconstructionist podcast.
02:23 --> 02:24 [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.
02:24 --> 02:26 [SPEAKER_04]: I have Dr. Michelle Keener.
02:28 --> 02:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, John.
02:29 --> 02:30 [SPEAKER_00]: It's good to be here.
02:30 --> 02:42 [SPEAKER_04]: So before we dive too deeply, why don't you give folks a little bit about your background and then we'll kind of get into why Job and why you decided to write a book on a particular topic.
02:43 --> 02:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because not many people like to write about Joe, that's for sure.
02:47 --> 02:49 [SPEAKER_00]: So my background is in biblical studies.
02:50 --> 02:57 [SPEAKER_00]: I currently work as an adjunct professor of Christianity at Houston, Christian University where I teach biblical studies, church history and theology classes.
02:57 --> 03:02 [SPEAKER_00]: I also work as a clinical mental health counselor, specializing in trauma.
03:02 --> 03:06 [SPEAKER_00]: So anytime I get to bridge the Bible in trauma, that is a good place for me.
03:07 --> 03:09 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and that's such a necessary.
03:09 --> 03:11 [SPEAKER_04]: We were talking a little bit before we started recording.
03:11 --> 03:13 [SPEAKER_04]: It's such a necessary field, I think, especially these days.
03:14 --> 03:28 [SPEAKER_04]: I find that a lot of the Christians that I talk to on a regular basis, whether it's shootings and schools or the current political climate, there's a lot of questioning and sort of hand-ringing.
03:28 --> 03:30 [SPEAKER_04]: So it seems like a very,
03:30 --> 03:33 [SPEAKER_04]: Appropriate a section of the Bible to really focus on.
03:33 --> 03:39 [SPEAKER_04]: So what inspired you to really dive into the book of Job of all of all sections of the Bible?
03:40 --> 03:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So actually it was personal experience.
03:42 --> 04:04 [SPEAKER_00]: I was in my PhD program and I was in an Old Testament writing class at the time and honestly my life just kind of fell apart and I ended up in a really difficult challenging time and I reached out to my professor because I was supposed to be writing a paper on the Psalms and I reached out to her and said, hey, you know, life is kind of awful right now.
04:04 --> 04:08 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to spend some time in the book of Job with that be okay.
04:08 --> 04:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And she was very concerned about me meeting the deadline for a research paper and she's like, you can try it.
04:14 --> 04:17 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to grade you any easier, you know, but you can try it.
04:18 --> 04:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And then she just made this off hand comment.
04:20 --> 04:25 [SPEAKER_00]: She said, hey, have you ever considered looking at trauma and the book of Job?
04:25 --> 04:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I have not.
04:27 --> 04:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me look into it.
04:28 --> 04:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me see if it works.
04:30 --> 04:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And that was the first time the book of Job actually began to make sense to me.
04:35 --> 04:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Was when I incorporated this trauma theory hermeneutic, suddenly everything that I had previously kind of hated about the book of Job.
04:45 --> 04:46 [SPEAKER_00]: started to make sense to me.
04:46 --> 04:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And so I did that paper and it went really well.
04:48 --> 04:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And then however long after that, when it was time for me to start on my dissertation, I reached out to the same professor and said, what do you think?
04:55 --> 04:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Can I make this a dissertation?
04:57 --> 04:59 [SPEAKER_00]: She's like, yes, you absolutely can.
04:59 --> 05:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And then she ended up being stuck supervising it.
05:01 --> 05:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And so she kind of changed the direction of both of our lives for a good two years.
05:06 --> 05:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But that's how I ended up in trauma in
05:10 --> 05:11 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's amazing.
05:11 --> 05:23 [SPEAKER_04]: To dig right in, you say it's time for the church to sit in the ashes and I've a feeling I know what you mean, but what are the most common ways the church stays at a, what we'll say is a safe distance instead.
05:24 --> 05:27 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to start right with the hard questions.
05:27 --> 05:33 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, I think we have all probably seen it if not experienced it, right?
05:33 --> 05:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Something goes sideways in our life, right?
05:36 --> 05:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Some kind of pain, some kind of challenge.
05:38 --> 05:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And we turn to our church, or we turn to our good Christian friends and just kind of lay it out, be like this, what do I do with this?
05:45 --> 05:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And what do we hear?
05:47 --> 05:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, God works all things together for good.
05:50 --> 05:53 [SPEAKER_00]: God's gonna turn your test into a testimony, right?
05:53 --> 05:57 [SPEAKER_00]: You have to let go, let God, and then the great winner, right?
05:57 --> 05:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, I'll be praying for you, and then off they go.
06:00 --> 06:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's that distance, right?
06:02 --> 06:12 [SPEAKER_00]: That, oh, this is awful, and gosh, I'm sad for you, but ooh, please don't get your kudis on me, because I actually don't really want to get too deeply involved.
06:12 --> 06:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And so this idea of the church coming
06:17 --> 06:30 [SPEAKER_00]: of this call that the church has to actually meet people in the midst of their pain, in the midst of their suffering, in the midst of the dirt and the grime and the blood and all of that awful stuff, that's where we should be.
06:30 --> 06:35 [SPEAKER_00]: We shouldn't be on the outside holding the towel saying, hey, when you're all cleaned up, we got a place for you.
06:36 --> 06:47 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's so true, and it's funny because, you know, I talked to a lot of people who sort of came out of Marvel, Western will say evangelical sort of fundamentalist background.
06:47 --> 06:50 [SPEAKER_04]: And there doesn't seem to be a lot of place for that in the modern church.
06:50 --> 07:01 [SPEAKER_04]: It seems to be, as you said, don't get those kind of bad vibe kudis on me, you know, and you even look at the music, and it's all very focused on sort of,
07:01 --> 07:20 [SPEAKER_04]: winning and victory in all these things and there's not you know we talk a kind of joke about a lot but there's not there's no limit music now you know you can find some in the old hymns for sure but there's not a lot in modern worship music especially within the evangelical space and so you know what would you say to folks who maybe have forgotten there's a whole book in there
07:20 --> 07:35 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, again, called Job, where it's this whole exercise of this guy who is arguably God's most devoted servant who's reading his, you know, shaking his fist at the heavens saying God, like, what the heck?
07:35 --> 07:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, and I think that's such a great place to start because for a long time when I would tell people, hey, I'm researching Job, I'm writing about Job.
07:43 --> 07:46 [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people would be like, oh, yeah, I know that book, Job was so patient.
07:46 --> 07:46 [UNKNOWN]: I can
07:48 --> 07:51 [SPEAKER_00]: But if you read the book, he's actually really not.
07:52 --> 07:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Job's got a lot to say.
07:54 --> 08:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And if we were to kind of translate or transpose the content, the words Job is saying towards God and we made that into kind of modern 21st century language and brought that to church, people would be scandalized.
08:10 --> 08:12 [SPEAKER_00]: People would be absolutely shocked.
08:12 --> 08:13 [SPEAKER_00]: You can't say that to God.
08:14 --> 08:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Job did.
08:16 --> 08:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
08:16 --> 08:18 [SPEAKER_00]: A book of lamentations.
08:18 --> 08:21 [SPEAKER_00]: We have an entire book called Lamentations.
08:21 --> 08:30 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not that's not collection of victory songs and God is so good that my whole city has been trashed and I don't know why.
08:30 --> 08:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And so this idea that we can create space for anger and sorrow and hurt and confusion and disappointment in the church, there's a whole section of our modern church culture that would say no we can't do that.
08:47 --> 08:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Keep it in the back until you've got the
08:52 --> 08:57 [SPEAKER_00]: But the book of Job is all about, let's talk about what it's like when you don't know how it's gonna end.
08:58 --> 09:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you don't understand what's happening and there is no happy ending.
09:02 --> 09:03 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, gosh, that's so true.
09:04 --> 09:07 [SPEAKER_04]: Let's talk about trauma a little bit, you know, cause obviously that's a core theme of your book.
09:08 --> 09:12 [SPEAKER_04]: In your framing trauma isn't just quote sadness turned up.
09:12 --> 09:18 [SPEAKER_04]: What is trauma and what do you wish ministry leaders understood about how varied it can look person to person?
09:19 --> 09:20 [SPEAKER_00]: that's a great question.
09:21 --> 09:40 [SPEAKER_00]: So trauma is essentially an event that is so outside, so beyond our ordinary coping capacities that it that it overwhelms us and I go back to this analogy of trauma or a brain being like a filing cabinet and trauma being a file that has no place to go.
09:40 --> 09:43 [SPEAKER_00]: because it's something that we're so unprepared for.
09:43 --> 09:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And we have no contextual frame of reference for it.
09:46 --> 09:50 [SPEAKER_00]: There's no way for our brain to look at it and understand.
09:51 --> 09:52 [SPEAKER_00]: I know where this goes.
09:53 --> 10:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it becomes this sort of outstanding file that sits on our desk and we come back to it over and over and over again, and that's why trauma always feels so present.
10:02 --> 10:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Because it's literally, it's sitting right there.
10:04 --> 10:05 [SPEAKER_00]: It's always here.
10:05 --> 10:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And...
10:06 --> 10:17 [SPEAKER_00]: For church ministry leaders, I think it would be great for us to be able to recognize that trauma looks different for everyone because everyone's brain is different.
10:18 --> 10:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And you can have two people who go through the same experience, maybe two people who experience a car accident, one may have a trauma response and one won't.
10:26 --> 10:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And that doesn't mean that one of them is so mature and has so much more faith than the other.
10:30 --> 10:32 [SPEAKER_00]: It means their brains are just a little bit different.
10:33 --> 10:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And so trauma can look like one thing for this one person and it can look like something completely different for the other person.
10:41 --> 10:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And it requires this investment of time and emotional attunement to be able to see where is this person and what are they actually going through.
10:53 --> 10:54 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's key.
10:54 --> 11:06 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it kind of goes back to sort of what you mentioned earlier, but have it to be patient, you know, someone who has dealt with mild depression my entire life, it seems to run in the family.
11:07 --> 11:18 [SPEAKER_04]: Brain chemistry is such a funny thing, you know, I, you know, speaking from experience when it comes to the medications that work for me did not work for, you know, my brother, for example.
11:18 --> 11:47 [SPEAKER_04]: And so we're on two very different medications and it's one of those things that sort of trial and error and takes time to kind of figure out which kind of happy I call it my happiness cocktail or for me on top of talk therapy you know and so it is one of those things where it is very different from person to person if trauma is often about a shattered world view what are the shattered assumptions you see most often in faith context about God safety justice control you know etc.
11:48 --> 11:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's a big question.
11:50 --> 11:56 [SPEAKER_00]: I would say something I have seen in churches is the, why did God let this happen?
11:57 --> 11:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Question.
11:59 --> 12:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Especially in church cultures that emphasize, again, like we just talked about, the victory of God and the power of God for healing and how every story is supposed to be this beautiful story of redemption or protection or restoration.
12:17 --> 12:27 [SPEAKER_00]: We become so accustomed to this idea that if I do everything right and I do all the things I'm supposed to do, then God is supposed to protect me.
12:27 --> 12:35 [SPEAKER_00]: And then when life happens and something doesn't go as planned, then it becomes a question of, well, but why?
12:35 --> 12:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
12:36 --> 12:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And we can have that idea of, but God, you owed me.
12:39 --> 12:40 [SPEAKER_00]: I went to church every Sunday.
12:40 --> 12:41 [SPEAKER_00]: I read my Bible.
12:41 --> 12:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I did all these things.
12:42 --> 12:44 [SPEAKER_00]: You were supposed to protect me.
12:44 --> 12:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Or we internalize it and get to that point of, this is my fault.
12:49 --> 12:49 [SPEAKER_00]: What did I do?
12:49 --> 12:50 [SPEAKER_00]: I failed.
12:51 --> 12:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Somehow, I brought this on myself.
12:53 --> 13:08 [SPEAKER_00]: and then if we have church ministry leaders who are not trauma equipped and who kind of adopt that same worldview, then it becomes, well, if you would just pray more, then you'd get over this.
13:08 --> 13:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
13:08 --> 13:14 [SPEAKER_00]: If you would just trust God more, then you wouldn't be anxious or you wouldn't be depressed.
13:14 --> 13:16 [SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't have to be had these PTSD symptoms.
13:17 --> 13:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
13:17 --> 13:19 [SPEAKER_00]: If you would just
13:19 --> 13:22 [SPEAKER_00]: And then dot dot dot fill it in right if you would just forgive and move on.
13:22 --> 13:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we see this challenge to kind of the the the church culture world view that a lot of us have become saturated.
13:33 --> 13:50 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's it's shockingly common of the amount of times I've come across, you know, stories of individuals who said that very thing where they were dealing with something very real and very normal and their church community, whether it was leaders or folks, you know, around them who are supposed to be there to support them.
13:50 --> 14:02 [SPEAKER_04]: who are just like, I, you just need to pray harder, or it's, it's because of your doubts or some nonsense, you know, so in addition to these empty platitudes, they're also being fed this narrative that, well, it's something that you did wrong.
14:02 --> 14:04 [SPEAKER_04]: That's why these bad things happened.
14:05 --> 14:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:05 --> 14:15 [SPEAKER_00]: And and it also another aspect of that that I've seen is it creates this idea for the the church community church leaders or pastors that will I've done my job.
14:16 --> 14:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I told you that you need to pray more I told you you need to ask for forgiveness or offer forgiveness.
14:22 --> 14:24 [SPEAKER_00]: I've given you a list of Bible verses.
14:25 --> 14:27 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you are still not healed.
14:27 --> 14:52 [SPEAKER_00]: that's kind of on you because I did my job and that is really not helpful and I would suggest really not biblical, you know, take that for what it's worth but it's this idea again of that I don't want to get too dirty in your suffering and so I'm going to kind of throw like you said those platitudes I'm going to kind of throw them at you and when you're good then come back.
14:53 --> 15:01 [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're not moving on, if you're not healing, and I've told you what to do, that's now kind of on you, and I don't really have any more responsibility here.
15:02 --> 15:05 [SPEAKER_04]: Ah, yeah, it's absolutely something I've seen happen.
15:05 --> 15:13 [SPEAKER_04]: What would you say is the difference between pain and trauma in the way you approach Job and why does that difference matter for pastoral care?
15:14 --> 15:15 [SPEAKER_00]: interesting.
15:15 --> 15:20 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, pain is that very broad sort of umbrella term, right?
15:20 --> 15:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And pain can be anything from stepping on a Lego to catastrophic injury, right?
15:26 --> 15:34 [SPEAKER_00]: What makes trauma unique is that overwhelming nature of it and the lack of explanation, right?
15:34 --> 15:41 [SPEAKER_00]: So much of trauma involves not
15:41 --> 15:42 [SPEAKER_00]: or what it means for my life.
15:42 --> 15:46 [SPEAKER_00]: We step on a Lego, the explanation is fairly apparent, right?
15:46 --> 15:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Mike, my son didn't put his Legos away and I'm paying the price for that.
15:49 --> 16:00 [SPEAKER_00]: We end up with a catastrophic injury or an unexpected job loss that throws us into terrible financial straits, the explanation is not quite as readily apparent.
16:00 --> 16:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And we see that in the book of Job, when Job is asking these questions
16:08 --> 16:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Right, and his friends are coming at him going, well, it's because you've sinned, right?
16:12 --> 16:13 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not feeding orphans.
16:13 --> 16:14 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not doing these things.
16:14 --> 16:18 [SPEAKER_00]: You did all these terrible things, and so now God is punishing you, and jokes like, I know that's not true.
16:18 --> 16:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that's not what happened, and so I don't understand.
16:22 --> 16:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And it challenges his entire understanding of how the universe is ordered.
16:27 --> 16:35 [SPEAKER_00]: And that adds this extra element of complexity of not only am I suffering, I don't even understand if the universe makes sense anymore.
16:36 --> 16:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't even understand who God is anymore.
16:38 --> 16:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And so for pastoral care, we need to be able to sit with people and say, what are your questions?
16:47 --> 16:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
16:48 --> 16:50 [SPEAKER_00]: What kind of doubt has this created for you?
16:50 --> 16:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Where are you stuck?
16:52 --> 17:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And then allow people to process their story, the way that they need to share it, which means we might hear it five, six, seven, a hundred times over as they're trying to make sense of something that might really be insensible.
17:09 --> 17:09 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
17:10 --> 17:15 [SPEAKER_04]: I want to talk a little bit about to talk a little bit more rather that was a great segue into Job's friends.
17:16 --> 17:22 [SPEAKER_04]: And the most what we'll call the most relatable villains in the Bible, you point out that Job's friends start well.
17:22 --> 17:23 [SPEAKER_04]: They're showing up.
17:23 --> 17:24 [SPEAKER_04]: They're sitting silently.
17:25 --> 17:26 [SPEAKER_04]: Then they become sort of harmful.
17:26 --> 17:27 [SPEAKER_04]: They're not so helpful after a while.
17:28 --> 17:29 [SPEAKER_04]: Where is the turn?
17:29 --> 17:32 [SPEAKER_04]: And why is that turn so common in churches?
17:32 --> 17:33 [SPEAKER_04]: And I know you've kind of covered that a little bit.
17:34 --> 17:39 [SPEAKER_04]: But I think that's a huge thing, especially in today's environment, not really knowing what to do.
17:39 --> 17:41 [SPEAKER_04]: when our friends really just need us to sit there and shut up.
17:42 --> 17:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's totally fair, right?
17:44 --> 17:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that the most relatable villains in the Bible.
17:46 --> 17:47 [SPEAKER_00]: That's fabulous.
17:47 --> 17:53 [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, so Job goes through these two kind of layers, these two cycles of trials, right?
17:54 --> 17:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And his friends hear about it.
17:57 --> 18:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And to their credit, they're like, we're going to go see Job.
18:00 --> 18:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't know how far they travel, but the Bible said, you know, they travel.
18:04 --> 18:06 [SPEAKER_00]: So they're not like next door.
18:06 --> 18:10 [SPEAKER_00]: They have to make this intentional trip, and when they see Job, they don't even recognize him.
18:11 --> 18:25 [SPEAKER_00]: They're so shocked by what's happened to him, and so they tear their clothes, and they throw dust and ashes on their heads, and they sit with him for seven days in this ash sheet, which is essentially the town garbage dump, and they sit with him.
18:25 --> 18:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And the text says, nobody said a word to him, right?
18:29 --> 18:34 [SPEAKER_00]: They were just there to be with him, and to make sure he wasn't alone.
18:35 --> 18:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And then chapter three starts, and Job starts speaking and he has this incredible monologue in Job chapter three, where he is just calling for essentially the decryation of the universe.
18:49 --> 18:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
18:50 --> 18:57 [SPEAKER_00]: His worldview is so shattered, he would rather see the whole universe come apart.
18:57 --> 19:00 [SPEAKER_00]: than except living in this type of world.
19:00 --> 19:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's this beautiful, you know, he curses the day of his birth, and he wishes he had never been born in.
19:06 --> 19:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's this incredible evocative, powerful poetry, and the image I get is his friends just sit there and they're like, dude.
19:14 --> 19:16 [SPEAKER_00]: you can't stay that.
19:16 --> 19:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Job just unleashes this torrent of emotion and anger and disappointment and confusion and his friends are like, no, dude, you can't talk about God like that, right?
19:25 --> 19:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And you can just picture them kind of looking up like, are they're lightning coming?
19:28 --> 19:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what's going to happen?
19:29 --> 19:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And so his friends then in an attempt to sort of get Joe back on track, they start theologizing his problem.
19:36 --> 19:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And they start trying to convince him to kind of come back
19:44 --> 19:49 [SPEAKER_00]: which is, if you do good things, you get good things, if you do bad things, you get bad things.
19:49 --> 19:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And Job, since you have bad things, you clearly did bad things.
19:53 --> 19:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And his friends are trying to convince him of this, and Job is just not having it.
19:57 --> 20:00 [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, no, I refuse to accept it.
20:00 --> 20:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And the more he refuses to accept it, the more his friends are like, you got to get on board with this, right?
20:06 --> 20:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And do we see that in searches?
20:09 --> 20:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, right?
20:11 --> 20:29 [SPEAKER_00]: this idea of I am going to theologize your situation, and I am going to convince you that my explanation is the correct one, whether it resonates with you or not, you've got to get on board with our and then fill in the blank with our doctrine with our culture.
20:29 --> 20:37 [SPEAKER_00]: with our belief system, whatever we want to insert there, but it's this idea of you need to get you need to get back with us.
20:37 --> 20:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And so hurry up and get back to normal as we put in our little scare quotes.
20:42 --> 20:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Hurry up and get back to normal because you can't exist this far outside of our accepted norms.
20:52 --> 21:05 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I feel like the friends in the story of Job are almost more important than the story of Job himself because it's the way in which we react to suffering and things we don't understand around us and it feels like there's almost two things happening here.
21:05 --> 21:16 [SPEAKER_04]: One being that, you know, we want to put things into an explainable box and when things are outside of our control and horrible things happen, despite the fact that we feel like we've been our best behavior,
21:16 --> 21:23 [SPEAKER_04]: It sort of puts some chaos into a world where we feel, you know, there should be order, and it doesn't really make sense.
21:23 --> 21:30 [SPEAKER_04]: And it starts the line of questioning, like, well, why would God allow this to happen to good people, you know, the age-old question?
21:30 --> 21:37 [SPEAKER_04]: And then the other piece of it is really, I feel like has something to do with our level of comfort.
21:37 --> 21:38 [SPEAKER_04]: It makes us uncomfortable.
21:38 --> 21:43 [SPEAKER_04]: Truly, when somebody, we talk about this all the time, when you run into somebody on the street, you know, you say, hey, how's it going?
21:43 --> 21:44 [SPEAKER_04]: What do you say?
21:44 --> 21:47 [SPEAKER_04]: You never say, my life is falling apart.
21:47 --> 21:48 [SPEAKER_04]: You say, oh, I'm great.
21:48 --> 21:53 [SPEAKER_04]: Even if that could be further from the truth, we don't like to sit in that discomfort, do we?
21:54 --> 21:58 [SPEAKER_04]: And part of us really just wants to, to solve it quickly and move on.
21:58 --> 22:04 [SPEAKER_04]: And so it feels like there's really two, those two things sort of happening there from the outsider perspective.
22:05 --> 22:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
22:06 --> 22:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's such a great way to put it right trauma is scary.
22:10 --> 22:11 [SPEAKER_00]: It's scary for the person going through it.
22:12 --> 22:22 [SPEAKER_00]: It's also scary for the people who are witnessing it because it brings up that question of if them then could it be me someday?
22:22 --> 22:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes when we see, especially in evangelical Christian culture, some of these explanations that sound a lot like, if not victim blaming victim burdening.
22:38 --> 22:52 [SPEAKER_00]: that maybe a lot of that is if I can blame some aspect of this person's life character practice for what they're enduring, then that means I'm safe because I would certainly never do that, right?
22:52 --> 22:55 [SPEAKER_00]: I would never dress that way or walk that way.
22:55 --> 22:57 [SPEAKER_00]: I would never go to that place.
22:57 --> 23:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And it provides this very false level of control and protection that we want to hold onto to make sure
23:08 --> 23:09 [SPEAKER_00]: and that the world is orderly.
23:10 --> 23:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Because if we are to accept that random bad stuff happens, that means it might happen to me.
23:17 --> 23:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And that can make trauma very scary.
23:20 --> 23:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And it can induce us to I just need again a little bit more distance because I don't want that.
23:28 --> 23:29 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't me.
23:30 --> 23:58 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and there also seems to be this sort of, and you mentioned this, the sort of line drawn in the sand where once you cross that line, it's like you've gone too far as if to say, God can't handle or God might, you know, arguably worse, God might be really angry at you and punish you for, for being honest and truthful and authentic, which I think says more to do
23:58 --> 24:02 [SPEAKER_04]: how you view God through your lens versus how God truly is.
24:02 --> 24:04 [SPEAKER_04]: If that makes sense.
24:04 --> 24:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a great way to put it, right?
24:07 --> 24:12 [SPEAKER_00]: How small would our God have to be if he was afraid of our anger, right?
24:12 --> 24:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And so this idea when someone is expressing like, Joe, God has slashed open my torso and torn out my kidneys, right?
24:20 --> 24:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Where do we see that in our churches right now?
24:23 --> 24:24 [SPEAKER_00]: We don't.
24:24 --> 24:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Because the idea is, no, you can't bring that to God.
24:27 --> 24:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's, that's a little too much.
24:30 --> 24:31 [SPEAKER_00]: right?
24:31 --> 24:34 [SPEAKER_00]: As if there's anything that's too much for God.
24:34 --> 24:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, I mean, I like your analogy of sort of this line in the sand.
24:39 --> 24:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, you can come to church and you can cry and ask God to help you, but you can't come to church and tell God you're mad at him.
24:46 --> 24:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's too far.
24:47 --> 24:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And how important it is is we kind of go back to this idea of lament, right?
24:51 --> 24:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Look at the lament
24:58 --> 25:07 [SPEAKER_00]: to cry out in pain and anger and confusion and doubt, and God put them there for a reason.
25:07 --> 25:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And why would we want to shut out that entire kind of realm of experiences and tell people know the churches for when you're happy?
25:17 --> 25:20 [SPEAKER_00]: or the church is for only when things are going good.
25:20 --> 25:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't we want the church to be a place where when my life falls apart, I want to know that I can go to the church and that will be a safe place and I'm going to be loved and I'm going to be welcomed and I'm going to meet God there.
25:32 --> 25:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't we want to create that kind of community?
25:34 --> 25:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Or are we so concerned with looking good to the outside?
25:39 --> 25:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So we can bring more people in.
25:42 --> 25:50 [SPEAKER_00]: that we're going to tell people, no, you got to look perfect because we want everybody to think that once you come into the church, your life's going to be great.
25:50 --> 25:52 [SPEAKER_00]: So put a smile on your face so people want to come in.
25:52 --> 25:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, talk about a bait and switch, right?
25:56 --> 25:58 [SPEAKER_04]: Some ears just perked up when you said that.
25:58 --> 26:18 [SPEAKER_04]: I think, I'm just sharing a separate podcast, a limited edition investigative file podcast on literally on a traumatic church event that occurred where literally there are multitude of instances where people were sort of shoved out and it pushed out of church because
26:18 --> 26:37 [SPEAKER_04]: you know they had something going on and it was just too messy and i'm like i've never heard of such a thing i'm like churches where you know if we're being honest like we're we're saying this is where you come bring everything bring it all you know we we can handle it god can handle it and this is the community that that exists for that purpose and yet
26:37 --> 27:03 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I've heard way too many stories of the opposite, you know, where as you said, you put a pretty spot on where it's like, well, that's not part of our marketing plan, you know, and it doesn't help us draw people in and put butts and seats like so leave your mess, take your mess elsewhere, you know, I literally saw a had an instance where a woman said to me, yeah, my pastor literally told me that maybe it's best you find a different church.
27:03 --> 27:09 [SPEAKER_04]: And I said, that's probably the best advice you probably gave you if we're being honest, you know, yeah.
27:09 --> 27:11 [SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, many helpers feel pressure.
27:11 --> 27:15 [SPEAKER_04]: And I know there's a lot of helpers style folks out there.
27:15 --> 27:18 [SPEAKER_04]: And and they feel pressure to say something useful.
27:18 --> 27:27 [SPEAKER_04]: I know that that urge in that moment to say something like, I have to, I have to tell them something, you know, to help get them through this trial.
27:27 --> 27:32 [SPEAKER_04]: What do you tell leaders who equates silence with failure?
27:34 --> 27:36 [SPEAKER_00]: I think you're absolutely right, right?
27:36 --> 27:40 [SPEAKER_00]: It's this pressure, especially in a position of leadership.
27:40 --> 27:44 [SPEAKER_00]: In this case, let's say church leadership, that pressure to have the answers.
27:44 --> 27:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And in all fairness, there are a lot of times when congregation members, church members, they do look to their pastors and leaders for answers.
27:51 --> 27:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And so there is this pressure of, I need to be able to say something.
27:56 --> 27:59 [SPEAKER_00]: I need to be able to provide something here.
27:59 --> 28:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And the idea of silence equating to failure.
28:03 --> 28:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, because I'm a Job scholar, my first thing would be, hey, look at Job's friends, right?
28:08 --> 28:11 [SPEAKER_00]: That's where they did the best was in their silence, right?
28:11 --> 28:13 [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't start messing up till they started talking.
28:14 --> 28:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe silence is the first best course of action.
28:17 --> 28:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I would also say, and then, and I tell a lot of people this, like, I don't know is a great answer.
28:23 --> 28:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
28:24 --> 28:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Why is this happening?
28:25 --> 28:27 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why it's happening.
28:27 --> 28:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to sit with you while we figure it out.
28:31 --> 28:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
28:32 --> 28:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, why did God let this happen?
28:34 --> 28:35 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
28:36 --> 28:38 [SPEAKER_00]: But here is what I do know about God.
28:38 --> 28:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And until we get you to a place of healing, I'm going to walk with you and I will be with you in this.
28:46 --> 28:49 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that's such an important piece that people often forget.
28:49 --> 28:56 [SPEAKER_04]: It reminds me of one of our really good friends of the podcast is a philosopher, Peter Rallens.
28:57 --> 28:58 [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if he still does.
28:58 --> 29:01 [SPEAKER_04]: He used to do this really cool thing called Pinds and Parables.
29:01 --> 29:10 [SPEAKER_04]: And he would do this three part sort of story arc of parables that were some that you know that you've heard within the Christian circles before.
29:11 --> 29:13 [SPEAKER_04]: Some he's pulled from other religions like Buddhism.
29:13 --> 29:14 [SPEAKER_04]: Some he's written himself.
29:14 --> 29:25 [SPEAKER_04]: And there's one that I remember just profoundly impacted people in the audience and it was this story of this woman who lost a child and she's obviously in deep deep mourning.
29:25 --> 29:46 [SPEAKER_04]: and someone tells her there's this mystical man who lives on the mountain top who perhaps can help you and so she goes up and she she wanders many days and nights and finds this man and the man says you know here are the things i need you to gather for me and she says okay so she's wandering around the village for the extended period time and i'm not i'm not i realize i'm not doing the story justice but but the point is
29:46 --> 29:56 [SPEAKER_04]: That in the end of the story, she comes back and this mystical, you know, this man, this, this healer says, you know, I can't bring your child back.
29:56 --> 30:06 [SPEAKER_04]: But throughout the gathering of these materials that he asked her to find, ultimately, she comes across other people who had lost loved ones as well.
30:07 --> 30:16 [SPEAKER_04]: And there is healing that occurred in that because, you know, again, community and being with someone who, you know, maybe has gone through that that experience before.
30:16 --> 30:22 [SPEAKER_04]: Again, not necessarily giving her what she wanted, not necessarily even telling her
30:22 --> 30:30 [SPEAKER_04]: what to do or what to think or what to believe, but just being side by side with someone who maybe understands what that's like.
30:30 --> 30:36 [SPEAKER_04]: And that was just such a profound, you know, to the story that, wow, I mean, it stayed with me.
30:36 --> 30:43 [SPEAKER_04]: I heard that parable years ago, you know, probably 8 or 9 years ago, and it's still stuck with me to this day.
30:46 --> 30:49 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that is a beautiful story, right?
30:49 --> 30:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's this beautiful idea that healing so often comes in community.
30:56 --> 31:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And trauma is very isolating and it feels like I am the only person who has ever been through this and nobody gets what I'm going through.
31:06 --> 31:15 [SPEAKER_00]: And so to have that community, what a powerful and beautiful and healing gift that we can
31:16 --> 31:21 [SPEAKER_02]: Does God have a face?
31:22 --> 31:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Does He have a body or even a name?
31:27 --> 31:38 [SPEAKER_02]: If He does, does He know that I'm alive?
31:38 --> 31:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Is God...
31:43 --> 32:07 [SPEAKER_02]: But she carried out down to she carried out the fear Something tells me God, we'll survive So take a breath, breathe in The mystery
32:14 --> 32:32 [SPEAKER_02]: If God has a face, His face must look like yours.
32:41 --> 32:45 [SPEAKER_02]: Did God kill his kid?
32:46 --> 32:51 [SPEAKER_02]: Did he have to have blood before he would forget?
32:52 --> 33:08 [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we
33:08 --> 33:25 [SPEAKER_02]: Is the aching my soldiers confined to my brain, even so does that new?
33:25 --> 33:25 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not real.
33:25 --> 33:33 [SPEAKER_01]: So take a breath of breathing, The mystery that...
33:38 --> 33:56 [SPEAKER_01]: If God has a face, her face must look like you're in love with me.
34:06 --> 34:12 [SPEAKER_02]: Your face like a teenager, and I'm at a milled red.
34:12 --> 34:17 [SPEAKER_02]: A rock sent his husband, got sent their children.
34:18 --> 34:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Vays like a Kim, a TED or Tyrone, a Lucy born with an extra croissant.
34:29 --> 34:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Pablo with legs, he can't move by himself A girl born a Daniel, who now is then now A pillaging Eve, and white guy's name tag If you have a heartbeat, you are the first
34:57 --> 35:24 [SPEAKER_01]: To take a breath, breathe, a mystery that is there.
35:26 --> 35:56 [SPEAKER_02]: If God has a face, the face must look, if God has a face, the face must look, if God has a face, the face must look, if God has a face, the face must look, if God has a face, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must look, the face must