In Part 2 of our conversation with Lillian Daniel, we move deeper into the tensions at the heart of her story—and the bigger questions it raises for the modern church.
If Part 1 explored what happened, this episode asks what it means.
We talk about accountability, institutional systems, and whether the church is actually capable of handling failure in a way that leads to healing rather than harm.
📚 About Lillian Daniel
Lillian Daniel is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and currently serves as a Conference Minister, overseeing churches and clergy across Michigan.
She has taught preaching at institutions including Yale Divinity School and the University of Chicago, and is the author of multiple books on faith, ministry, and the evolving role of the church.
Her latest book, Defrocked: Good News from a Bad Pastor for a Better Church, explores her own experience with discipline, failure, and restoration—and what it reveals about the systems meant to hold leaders accountable.
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00:00 --> 00:11 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think so many of our clergy are so afraid of shrinking numbers and shrinking churches that they do fake vulnerability, you know, and we just we throw around that term all the time.
00:11 --> 00:17 [SPEAKER_03]: Of vulnerability, you think you're being so vulnerable, and you're really vulnerable now.
00:17 --> 00:23 [SPEAKER_03]: Like I love chocolate, and it's like really, you know, because you can
00:23 --> 00:30 [SPEAKER_03]: This person's addicted to pornography, and this one's gambled away the college fun, but you're addicted to chocolate.
00:30 --> 00:32 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I'm gonna come talk to you, pastor.
00:32 --> 00:33 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's...
00:34 --> 00:37 [SPEAKER_03]: It's just nonsense and I think the stakes are too high.
00:37 --> 01:01 [SPEAKER_03]: We've got to be real and this is why churches lose the people who have more of a healthy sense of that or they think they don't belong there and it's just like the dysfunctional committees, you know, the wrong people quit but I think pastors we have a lot to do with that.
01:05 --> 01:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the deconstruction as podcast.
01:07 --> 01:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host John Williamson and we're back with part two, but before we get to that a quick reminder if you Care to support the podcast.
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02:37 --> 02:55 [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so if part 1 was about pulling back the curtain part 2 is about asking what we do next, because once you've seen behind the scenes, once you've wrestled with the gaps between what the church says it is and what it actually becomes, you don't just get to get to go back to business as usual.
02:55 --> 02:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So what does a better church even look like and is it still worth fighting for?
02:59 --> 03:06 [SPEAKER_00]: We're back with Lily and Daniel, continuing our conversation around her book defrapped, good news from a bad pastor for a better church.
03:07 --> 03:18 [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode we go deeper into the idea of failure the myth of the perfect pastor and why embracing imperfection might actually be the most honest and faithful way forward.
03:18 --> 03:26 [SPEAKER_00]: We also talk about what it means to stay, or leave, and how people who've been hurt by the church can begin to reimagine community on their own terms.
03:27 --> 03:32 [SPEAKER_00]: This one gets real, so whether you're still in it on the edge or long gone, there's something here for you.
03:33 --> 03:42 [SPEAKER_02]: So let's jump back in with Lillian Freakin Daniels.
03:45 --> 03:47 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, I've got great love for the Franciscans.
03:47 --> 03:50 [SPEAKER_00]: That's where, uh, Richard Rohr, father, Rohr is from.
03:50 --> 03:51 [SPEAKER_00]: So.
03:52 --> 03:56 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, today I still have Catholic spiritual director.
03:56 --> 03:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's fantastic.
03:58 --> 04:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of goes back to the fact that, you know, there's a lot of times, especially within denominations, we get so rigid in, you know, our, our siloed, I guess, in our denomination.
04:08 --> 04:17 [SPEAKER_00]: We can't go outside our denomination, but there's so much that can be learned from our brothers and sisters and other streams, you know, and that's just a great example.
04:17 --> 04:30 [SPEAKER_03]: But especially when you work in a particularly religious stream, I find it's really edifying to put myself in spaces where I'm not a leader, I'm not known, nobody can.
04:30 --> 04:33 [SPEAKER_03]: What I think, you know, I'm not in charge of it.
04:33 --> 04:35 [SPEAKER_03]: somehow I think that is helpful.
04:35 --> 04:46 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's the kind of thing I didn't do, you know, back before all this happened, I think I thought I was put on earth to save Christianity, which is, you know, the opposite of humility.
04:46 --> 04:48 [SPEAKER_00]: We're all, we're all trying to do that.
04:48 --> 04:48 [SPEAKER_00]: I think in a room way.
04:50 --> 04:52 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not, it's going swimmingly, too, right?
04:52 --> 04:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Right now.
04:54 --> 04:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what?
04:56 --> 04:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Matt, I love it.
04:57 --> 05:09 [SPEAKER_00]: You've already answered some of these questions that I've written down, but like one of the other ones was really something that you've kind of addressed a little bit, but when I ask it anyway, you describe the process at times ironic, Adam just texted me.
05:09 --> 05:10 [SPEAKER_00]: It's cold.
05:10 --> 05:11 [SPEAKER_00]: He must know I'm recording.
05:11 --> 05:16 [SPEAKER_00]: But you describe the process at times as cold and and sort of procedural and even dehumanizing.
05:17 --> 05:26 [SPEAKER_00]: So like out of the things you learn from this experience, like when does accountability cross that line into something that's harmful and
05:27 --> 05:27 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
05:28 --> 05:42 [SPEAKER_03]: So in one of the sort of interesting ironies of my story, when I did come back to ministry, I couldn't obviously go back to my old church, but I went to a new church and I went to Iowa, which was a really different setting.
05:42 --> 05:46 [SPEAKER_03]: And I kind of got the
05:46 --> 05:51 [SPEAKER_03]: For ministers, I think we sometimes have a sweetheart church that we always target.
05:52 --> 06:08 [SPEAKER_03]: I got my sweetheart church after, you know, two decades of, I got this amazing church not, but I also felt like, you know, they were willing to kind of get me on a fire sale or something, but I also didn't apply it any other churches, partly because my distrust of my denomination and
06:08 --> 06:10 [SPEAKER_03]: and other people was high.
06:10 --> 06:23 [SPEAKER_03]: And what I had learned in my time in the ditch was that so many of the friendships that I thought I had with other clergy or through the church were really transactional.
06:23 --> 06:26 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, so I go to Iowa.
06:26 --> 06:27 [SPEAKER_03]: I have an amazing ministry.
06:27 --> 06:30 [SPEAKER_03]: There we go through the pandemic together, you know, all the things.
06:30 --> 06:35 [SPEAKER_03]: And during the pandemic and that time of isolation, like a lot of people,
06:35 --> 06:42 [SPEAKER_03]: I started going down memory lane and remembering all the other times I felt.
06:42 --> 07:02 [SPEAKER_03]: isolated, quarantined, diseased, untouchable, you know, all the things, and I kept, and it's like I went right back, like, you know, six years earlier to this experience, and I, and I thought, there's something deep here that I need to, to plumb, like more deeply.
07:02 --> 07:12 [SPEAKER_03]: And so, and so I did, and I came after the pandemic, I came back to that church and stuff, but
07:12 --> 07:15 [SPEAKER_03]: the role of people who work for the denomination.
07:15 --> 07:21 [SPEAKER_03]: And I had never in my life wanted to work for my denomination for any denomination.
07:22 --> 07:23 [SPEAKER_03]: I thought, God bless those people.
07:24 --> 07:25 [SPEAKER_03]: I've had somebody want to do it.
07:26 --> 07:27 [SPEAKER_03]: I wouldn't do it for a million bucks, right?
07:28 --> 07:30 [SPEAKER_03]: And I liked being in the local church.
07:30 --> 07:35 [SPEAKER_03]: But with the pandemic, you know, I had opinions about what I wished
07:35 --> 07:38 [SPEAKER_03]: connection would mean or where it worked or where it didn't work.
07:39 --> 07:47 [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess eventually my friends grew so tired of listening to me that they said, if you think you're so smart, you should do it yourself.
07:48 --> 08:05 [SPEAKER_03]: And so one of them encouraged me to apply to be a conference minister, which is like a bishop, you know, in that you have oversight over churches and clergy and kind of a
08:05 --> 08:14 [SPEAKER_03]: pick me because, you know, first I've been defrapped, but secondly, my ideas are far too brilliant for, you know, the institutional church, right?
08:15 --> 08:16 [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
08:16 --> 08:16 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
08:16 --> 08:16 [SPEAKER_03]: You're right.
08:16 --> 08:35 [SPEAKER_03]: But amazingly, that process unfolded, and I found myself, so today I am a conference minister, Michigan, and so I have the care of 140 churches, re-hundred plus clergy, pastor to pastor, and ironically,
08:35 --> 08:37 [SPEAKER_03]: other clergy and fitness reviews.
08:37 --> 08:53 [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm part of the process that I hope tries to make it more humane for everybody involved, you know, including the people on those committees because what I've what I've since come to understand is that
08:53 --> 09:04 [SPEAKER_03]: whatever suffering I went through, the volunteers on those committees, they're not trained usually, these cases hopefully come up very seldom.
09:04 --> 09:16 [SPEAKER_03]: So you're kind of pulling together this group in an emergency and it's kind of like asking them to learn how to write a bike on the tour to France, you know, and then we get surprised when it doesn't go well.
09:16 --> 09:29 [SPEAKER_03]: So empathy for the system and the people, but also I have some pretty strong questions about whether that whole methodology is a good one.
09:31 --> 09:34 [SPEAKER_00]: That's, look at you, just tean up my next question.
09:34 --> 09:52 [SPEAKER_00]: So that was actually, that was actually going to be my follow question is like, you know, now having gone through this and having been through that, that isolation and sort of being severed from even, you know, because you mentioned that your friend group or a part of ingrained into your church life.
09:52 --> 09:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And so,
09:53 --> 09:55 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you've lost your friends at this point.
09:55 --> 10:01 [SPEAKER_00]: You're isolated from your friends and you're your livelihood and your congregation and your whole world.
10:02 --> 10:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And so you describe it as, you call it, unannethous, nest-de-sized, and do that was gonna be hard to say.
10:09 --> 10:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Ampetations.
10:10 --> 10:13 [SPEAKER_00]: And so what would a healthier model actually look like?
10:13 --> 10:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Now that you're in a position where you can kind of influence that and you've learned from your own experience, like ideally, what would that model look like?
10:22 --> 10:35 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I've sworn that I'm not going to make that my project or job, but I think one certain thing, I'll leave it to others to figure out how to make that happen, but I think it's got to be faster.
10:35 --> 10:41 [SPEAKER_03]: I think you probably do need more influence of people who do it professionally.
10:41 --> 10:51 [SPEAKER_03]: I do love the mix of staff and volunteers, but to leave it entirely to volunteers when it
10:51 --> 11:02 [SPEAKER_03]: And you know how church committees work, they can become dysfunctional and committees on ministry in a lot of our settings are dealing with ordination as well as fitness reviews.
11:03 --> 11:18 [SPEAKER_03]: So one positive thing I think is separating those two things, you know, but also what happens on committees where there's a lot of work is that and when there might be people in the committee who are acting out or
11:18 --> 11:20 [SPEAKER_03]: just not behaving well.
11:20 --> 11:22 [SPEAKER_03]: The wrong people always quit the committee.
11:22 --> 11:30 [SPEAKER_03]: So in my experience, every time I met with the committee, it was a different cast of characters and the wrong people had left in my opinion.
11:31 --> 11:38 [SPEAKER_03]: And it was often the lay people who had quit because they were traumatized by how some of the clergy were acting.
11:38 --> 11:40 [SPEAKER_03]: And they didn't want to be a part of it.
11:40 --> 11:42 [SPEAKER_03]: And it's not their job.
11:42 --> 11:42 [SPEAKER_03]: They don't have to be.
11:43 --> 11:47 [SPEAKER_03]: But what happens then is, you know, the committee can get really
11:47 --> 11:57 [SPEAKER_03]: dysfunctional and we see the same thing on the board of deacons at a church or the flower committee, you know, when the wrong people quit and then it becomes its own dysfunctional small group.
11:57 --> 12:05 [SPEAKER_03]: So that's one thing and then the other thing I would say is that in our effort to stop predators which is so important, right?
12:05 --> 12:09 [SPEAKER_03]: I worry that in a lot of denominations not just my own,
12:09 --> 12:27 [SPEAKER_03]: I see that these fitness processes are not so much driven by people who have been abused or vulnerable people, but it's often clergy, going after other clergy, and there can be a lot of complicated dynamics going on there.
12:28 --> 12:30 [SPEAKER_03]: And where is the chicken balance in that?
12:31 --> 12:36 [SPEAKER_03]: And so that is where this is very not reform Protestant, you see, see if me.
12:37 --> 12:48 [SPEAKER_03]: But like I do see the role of a strong juticatory presence, bishop called what you like to be on the lookout for bias for personal issues.
12:49 --> 12:55 [SPEAKER_03]: There can't just be a group of volunteers trying to learn how to do a thing.
12:57 --> 13:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was sort of my takeaway from like I said from the other limited series podcast that I did was that we're dealing with very complex issues that are very human, very psychological and a lot of a lot of ways.
13:11 --> 13:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And yet typically like there are no people who are part of the decision making process who have any background in those fields whatsoever like there's no therapist who are.
13:21 --> 13:33 [SPEAKER_00]: who are on these teams, you know, who are saying, like, hey, wait a minute, you know, this is the way we really need to look at this, like it's a bunch of lay people for lack of a better term, making casting judgmentist.
13:34 --> 13:41 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, in a perfect world, though, or even in a so, so world, you could well have a therapist on the committee.
13:41 --> 13:46 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that is the benefit of having the lay people on the committee, because they bring gifts and skills.
13:46 --> 13:48 [SPEAKER_03]: You might have an HR person.
13:48 --> 13:51 [SPEAKER_03]: You might have a school teacher who's dealt with this before.
13:51 --> 13:56 [SPEAKER_03]: You could, that is what we're hoping will be on the committee.
13:57 --> 14:04 [SPEAKER_03]: Unfortunately, a lot of times, those busy people quit.
14:04 --> 14:17 [SPEAKER_03]: by clergy who know their own rules and then more maybe passive people who are filling a spot on a committee and the work is too important to leave it to that and so is ordination work by the way.
14:18 --> 14:31 [SPEAKER_03]: You don't want any of these committees being dysfunctional, you know, so in our in our denomination we have so much autonomy, like so many projects are just in my role, I can
14:31 --> 14:34 [SPEAKER_03]: It's built into the system that independence.
14:34 --> 14:37 [SPEAKER_03]: But boy, we can do more training.
14:37 --> 14:42 [SPEAKER_03]: We can really think hard about who's on those teens.
14:42 --> 14:44 [SPEAKER_03]: We can do bias training.
14:44 --> 14:45 [SPEAKER_03]: We can look at all sorts of things.
14:46 --> 14:50 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, in my case, they were given, and this is a case in love tradition still.
14:51 --> 15:00 [SPEAKER_03]: It's a write-up where it says, like, person A is accused of this by person B, and they leave out gender, for example, an age.
15:00 --> 15:15 [SPEAKER_03]: So there are ways in which somebody reading my case study would probably be reading a story into it that is a familiar story that was in which there are different power dynamics.
15:16 --> 15:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, or filling in the gaps, you know, making assumptions, you know, without knowing.
15:22 --> 15:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I think in some instances, yeah, it's good to take certain factors out of it, but in certain right, in other instances, like it's kind of crucial, you know, to understanding the story.
15:32 --> 15:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And as you said, the power dynamic piece for sure.
15:36 --> 15:59 [SPEAKER_03]: And, and, you know, we have been looking at this, you know, bias and the different ways people get treated in the ordination process, so like queer people will get asked by an ordination committee a lot of times really inappropriate personal questions that would not be asked of like a straight white guy who has a lovely wife and two kids.
15:59 --> 16:03 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and so that's hard work, right?
16:03 --> 16:06 [SPEAKER_03]: And, but I think we have to do that.
16:07 --> 16:07 [SPEAKER_03]: We have to do that.
16:08 --> 16:14 [SPEAKER_03]: And the other thing is that, you know, that, like I said, there's no labor laws in the church.
16:14 --> 16:18 [SPEAKER_03]: And so you have no representative if you're clergy.
16:18 --> 16:27 [SPEAKER_03]: They give you a support person, but that's not, it's, it's a mole.
16:28 --> 16:44 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, who knows what it is, but they're going back to the same powers that be who are running the process to ask all their questions, but what happens is that the clergy person appropriately signs a document saying, I won't.
16:44 --> 16:50 [SPEAKER_03]: harass or the whistleblower, or I won't be trying to drum up support and stuff.
16:50 --> 16:53 [SPEAKER_03]: But what doesn't happen is that anybody else can say anything they want.
16:54 --> 17:14 [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, this was when I had always been this huge proponent of wanting our services online and, you know, huge video presence and all that, which I came to regret during this period because it allowed me to
17:14 --> 17:42 [SPEAKER_03]: And you know, when you don't provide clear information to people, they worry and so the way a lot of our processes work is they go to the ordination code and you know that you promised to like take care of your family and this and that and you know all these things and they list that if you are guilty, here's all the things in the code you would have broken it's a long list right and the way it worked was that that people.
17:42 --> 17:45 [SPEAKER_03]: People really couldn't figure out what I would have done wrong.
17:45 --> 17:56 [SPEAKER_03]: So then they had to imagine people thought I had a drug problem, or that I had stolen money, or, you know, there was people who thought I had hurt children.
17:57 --> 17:58 [SPEAKER_03]: And
17:58 --> 18:05 [SPEAKER_03]: And the people running the process could sort of say things like trust us, it's very, very serious.
18:05 --> 18:06 [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot you don't know.
18:06 --> 18:09 [SPEAKER_03]: And then that's where people's minds go.
18:10 --> 18:12 [SPEAKER_03]: But heaven forbid, I would say something.
18:13 --> 18:13 [SPEAKER_03]: So how long?
18:13 --> 18:16 [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, tell the congregation what I did.
18:17 --> 18:19 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, let's just be healthy about it.
18:19 --> 18:20 [SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of always a thing.
18:20 --> 18:22 [SPEAKER_03]: And so one of the things I think
18:24 --> 18:35 [SPEAKER_03]: we could do better is, honestly, I think every reformation is led by laypeople, laypeople are going to save the church, you know, clergy, we're weird.
18:35 --> 18:51 [SPEAKER_03]: But the laypeople are still, you know, have comments, that's honestly, I think in my case, had the governing board or even the whole body been able to talk about what I done wrong, we all would have been healthier.
18:51 --> 19:05 [SPEAKER_03]: I might have had to leave, I would have respected that, but it was the not knowing and not being told, and then anybody who had experienced any religious trauma themselves, heaven forbid they were abused.
19:05 --> 19:06 [SPEAKER_03]: went there.
19:07 --> 19:20 [SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, you're watching these meetings like, and you're reading the reports of them, and people are saying things like, just trust me, there's something deeply wrong down here with her.
19:20 --> 19:21 [SPEAKER_03]: What the hell does that mean?
19:21 --> 19:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
19:22 --> 19:30 [SPEAKER_03]: So, I think, you know, for the very serious offenses, you've got to go full on with all of that and you do have to honor.
19:31 --> 19:49 [SPEAKER_03]: But I think a lot of times, because we're in institutional decline in the church and clergy are so stressed out that it's easier to go after
19:51 --> 20:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, and that leads really into my next question, which is, you know, what point did you realize that, you know, you didn't have control of your own narrative and you needed to really start to reclaim it.
20:05 --> 20:20 [SPEAKER_03]: from the first week and also because they say well obviously you have a few friends in the church but count them on one hand but like anybody is the process dragged on and it seemed unfair and I would hear these things being said about me.
20:20 --> 20:35 [SPEAKER_03]: I'd like want to email the church counsel and say like you know hey that's not that's not what I said or whatever but then you
20:35 --> 20:42 [SPEAKER_03]: I wish I had just gone away, you know, I wish I had just gone to my family and South Carolina and hid in the woods.
20:43 --> 20:52 [SPEAKER_03]: But I didn't want to act like I was on vacation, you know, and going to see my family, you know, I was like waiting there, you know, to be a part of this.
20:53 --> 21:02 [SPEAKER_03]: But I learned I had no control over my story, and I was forbidden to speak, and this is very weird in the process that, um,
21:02 --> 21:18 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I also wrote books and spoke and it was a source of income not much, you know, nobody makes me money on books and stuff, but to lose your job, but then also be told you can't do these other things and I couldn't.
21:18 --> 21:20 [SPEAKER_03]: do anything that related to religion?
21:20 --> 21:21 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's my field.
21:22 --> 21:24 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, but I couldn't even like teach a class or something.
21:24 --> 21:25 [SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't write an op-ed.
21:26 --> 21:28 [SPEAKER_03]: I was getting dinged for those things, you know?
21:29 --> 21:32 [SPEAKER_03]: So when I got re-frought, right?
21:32 --> 21:35 [SPEAKER_03]: So in the book, you know, I say more about the journey, right?
21:35 --> 21:39 [SPEAKER_03]: There are many times I just wanted to quit, because I think the process drives you to quit.
21:39 --> 21:43 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's often what we want, again, institutional decline.
21:43 --> 21:52 [SPEAKER_03]: We want to play it safe, legalistic culture, you know, all the things, but, but there are various things that have along the way that made me want to finish it.
21:52 --> 22:02 [SPEAKER_03]: And, but I wasn't even sure if I finished it if I would go back back to ministry and the piece about the story, I think even when I returned to the ministry,
22:02 --> 22:04 [SPEAKER_03]: I felt a little bit like whack-a-mole.
22:04 --> 22:10 [SPEAKER_03]: Like if I popped my head up, somebody from the church was gonna come down on my head with a hammer.
22:10 --> 22:13 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think there's a cruelty to that, right?
22:14 --> 22:21 [SPEAKER_03]: But then there was a point at which I had to take responsibility and say, that's now the story I'm telling myself.
22:21 --> 22:23 [SPEAKER_03]: And yes, they're haters out there.
22:23 --> 22:28 [SPEAKER_03]: And so I would in drips and drives like write a little something, right?
22:28 --> 22:32 [SPEAKER_03]: I actually wrote a book like in those early years after that.
22:32 --> 22:37 [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't about any of this, but if you read it, knowing this, you'll say, uh,
22:37 --> 22:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I see one thing, but I was terrified and there were people who would go online and say cruel things when I was nominated for the position of conference minister, we are elected in by the body and you have all these Zoom meetings and stuff.
22:54 --> 23:05 [SPEAKER_03]: And I know that there were people who knew about this and, you know, knew some version of whatever the story was because again, the story was never told,
23:05 --> 23:21 [SPEAKER_03]: But I figured I had figured out after a couple of years that I had to owe my own story and it wasn't ready to be told yet because I was still, you know, I was operating, you know, out of my wounds and not my scars.
23:22 --> 23:24 [SPEAKER_03]: But it wouldn't let me go.
23:24 --> 23:28 [SPEAKER_03]: So I wrote another book and I talked about the thing that did everything but like it just haunted me.
23:28 --> 23:30 [SPEAKER_03]: And my, it's interesting.
23:30 --> 23:33 [SPEAKER_03]: My clergy friends think I'm nuts.
23:34 --> 23:46 [SPEAKER_03]: because they're like, Lilian, you know, you land it on your feet, you got through it, your conference minister, like, why would you wanna drag this poop out, you know, and show it?
23:46 --> 23:55 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's what I mean, where I say at the beginning, you're getting the raw version, and then in the second half of the book, you get me reflecting more.
23:55 --> 23:59 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think telling a story that has had time to cook.
23:59 --> 24:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, and that kind of leads to my next question, which is, you raise this question about confession and, you know, when it's healing and when it becomes something coerced for the sake of an institution and in a way it seems like writing was sort of your, your way of working your way through this and so how did your understanding of confession change?
24:21 --> 24:32 [SPEAKER_03]: I think I've always loved confession, and I have always loved a form of confession like where you have something you say together.
24:32 --> 24:36 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I've sinned against your in-bought word and d, you know, whatever it is.
24:36 --> 24:41 [SPEAKER_03]: But then there's also silence because I'm enough of a Protestant,
24:41 --> 24:48 [SPEAKER_03]: to say, that's your time when you actually think about what you did, you know, and then there is the assurance of pardon that comes from God.
24:48 --> 24:50 [SPEAKER_03]: It only comes from the minister.
24:51 --> 24:53 [SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, that was always deep for me.
24:54 --> 25:03 [SPEAKER_03]: What I'm very cynical about is, I think, a sort of hyper-protestant
25:03 --> 25:07 [SPEAKER_03]: that, you know, when you say those words and ask people, who do you think of?
25:07 --> 25:17 [SPEAKER_03]: They think of Jimmy Swagger or, you know, somebody who's been caught in some glaring hypocrisy, and it feels fake, right?
25:17 --> 25:22 [SPEAKER_03]: But, or if these feels fake to me, but other people seem to love it, and it seems to work for them.
25:22 --> 25:30 [SPEAKER_03]: And I just have such a deep distaste for that
25:30 --> 25:36 [SPEAKER_03]: They wanted that for me, they wanted tears, they wanted me, you know, they wanted
25:37 --> 25:53 [SPEAKER_03]: They wanted some shame and groveling, and there was, there were parts of me that said, I will talk about the thing that I did professionally, but you don't get to excavate my marriage, what kind of parent I am.
25:53 --> 25:57 [SPEAKER_03]: The state I'm in while I'm going through this.
25:57 --> 26:01 [SPEAKER_03]: Like, at some level, like, I'm not going to give you that.
26:02 --> 26:06 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that made my process worse.
26:06 --> 26:15 [SPEAKER_03]: If I were advising someone today, I would say, be humble or at least pretend to be, but I also think it's unhealthy.
26:16 --> 26:23 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, in our miracles we do with politicians, we are cruel to them, but then we lap it up when they do something theatrical.
26:24 --> 26:32 [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, if you're gonna send somebody to a spiritual director, you can probably assume confession's gonna be a part of it.
26:33 --> 26:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
26:34 --> 26:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
26:34 --> 26:51 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's kind of it reminds me of like public apologies, you know, when a celebrity does something, you know, awful in the public where it's like you know it's coming and you know it's going to be this well crafted statement, you know, like I'm literally written by somebody else.
26:51 --> 27:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And it always ends up in rehab, you know, or they're like, ah, they blame it on something like the alcohol, you know, and it's always just formulaic and just completely contrived.
27:01 --> 27:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, ah, I don't know how much I buy this.
27:03 --> 27:10 [SPEAKER_03]: like if I had said, you know, I did all this because of an addiction or something, you know, that's the cultural ethos.
27:10 --> 27:16 [SPEAKER_03]: There are people we let off for things and stuff, but I wasn't willing to do that.
27:16 --> 27:17 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'd mean it wasn't true, right?
27:18 --> 27:20 [SPEAKER_03]: And so I just screwed up.
27:20 --> 27:24 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's, and I think the church doesn't really know what to do.
27:24 --> 27:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's like it's it's almost becomes it's sad when it becomes easier to blame it on a substance, you know, like, well, I wasn't in my right frame of mind because I was, you know, like hammered, you know, like that's almost it's sad that that's almost easier that we're more willing to give a quick
27:41 --> 27:57 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're forgiven when somebody comes out and uses that as an excuse versus someone who has a very human moment who maybe has felt alone in their marriage for I'm not saying this is your situation, my teammates, but I'm just using this as an example.
27:57 --> 28:04 [SPEAKER_00]: We're like maybe they feel very alone in their marriage and there was a moment where somebody actually paid attention to them.
28:04 --> 28:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And in that moment, there was some sort of very human connection.
28:08 --> 28:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:08 --> 28:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Like somehow that is harder to forgive than somebody who's just like, yeah, I got drunk and you know, and that's why.
28:17 --> 28:17 [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
28:17 --> 28:39 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I remember when I was like a younger minister, but, you know, they had this sort of meeting for the tall steeple pastors and so, you know, you were like one of like five women, a group of like 60 guys, right, you know, and they would all sit around or talk and in they said, you know, if you're going to get a divorce.
28:39 --> 28:46 [SPEAKER_03]: you have to make yourself the victim, kind of thing, like or you won't survive it in the church, right?
28:46 --> 28:50 [SPEAKER_03]: You have to, and it can't seem that you wanted a divorce, right?
28:50 --> 29:04 [SPEAKER_03]: And so, I remember hearing that, I just thought, there's something so wrong about that, and also, I mean, I have nothing bad to say about my former husband, and I'm not going to talk about
29:04 --> 29:34 [SPEAKER_03]: our marriage, that's personal, you know, but obviously it didn't work, but because I wasn't willing to do that or and I tell you, I mean, it's almost like a drinking game when you listen to pastors on TV and talking about divorce, like how long does it take them to say their spouse was bipolar alcoholic, this or that or the other, it's always like, I had no choice or they
29:34 --> 29:41 [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, you know what, it's none of your business and I don't, I'm not going to feed you that on a platter.
29:41 --> 29:52 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think we need to recover a sense of confession that is public and confession that is private and the difference between the personal and the public, you know?
29:53 --> 29:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
29:54 --> 29:56 [SPEAKER_00]: That's, there's the quote for the beginning of the episode.
29:56 --> 29:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
29:57 --> 29:58 [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, you're absolutely right.
29:59 --> 30:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as someone who went through divorce myself, I felt like very judge coming out of it.
30:04 --> 30:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And I wasn't even a position, I wasn't at the front of a church, you know, leading a church body.
30:10 --> 30:16 [SPEAKER_00]: But even in my small role, like I felt like people were asking me to explain myself.
30:16 --> 30:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I don't need to, I don't owe you anything.
30:19 --> 30:20 [SPEAKER_00]: You have no idea.
30:21 --> 30:24 [SPEAKER_03]: a million polite versions of who's fault was it?
30:25 --> 30:28 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, they'll say, like, so was there a reason, do you see it coming?
30:29 --> 30:30 [SPEAKER_03]: What they want to know is who's fault was it?
30:31 --> 30:47 [SPEAKER_03]: But also, this is the spiritual wisdom I got from being in the ditch and having people walk by me and stuff was, you know, I was mad about it and felt sorry for myself for a while, but then I thought, oh my gosh, how many times have I walked by people?
30:47 --> 30:54 [SPEAKER_03]: and because it's contagious, and you know, divorce really does feel that way in communities.
30:54 --> 30:58 [SPEAKER_03]: Like other couples are like, if it could happen to you, it could happen to us.
30:59 --> 31:08 [SPEAKER_03]: So please tell me something like that the person, you know, had this and that set of problems so that I can rest assured it won't happen to me.
31:08 --> 31:11 [SPEAKER_03]: And sorry, but like life will happen.
31:12 --> 31:16 [SPEAKER_03]: And you know, in the, I play a lot with the metaphor of being in the ditch.
31:16 --> 31:18 [SPEAKER_03]: And so one thing is like ditch happens.
31:18 --> 31:22 [SPEAKER_03]: Ditch happens was all, you know, bumper sticker right there.
31:22 --> 31:23 [SPEAKER_00]: You should be marketing this.
31:25 --> 31:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
31:26 --> 31:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps we write though.
31:27 --> 31:36 [SPEAKER_00]: So what, what does it look like now to live a life that's honest, not polished, but something that you can actually shine a light on.
31:37 --> 31:52 [SPEAKER_03]: Right, so that, you know, before the fitness review has started and, you know, I got through divorce and the work I had done on myself with my therapist who was also a minister, which was, so it was like kind of a two-fer, you know, because I was all about efficiency.
31:52 --> 31:55 [SPEAKER_03]: But I remember, you know, she said, what's your, where do you wanna be?
31:55 --> 31:57 [SPEAKER_03]: And I said, I wanna light that I can shine a light on, you know?
31:58 --> 31:59 [SPEAKER_03]: And,
31:59 --> 32:04 [SPEAKER_03]: But that does not mean that everybody else gets to shine a light on it, you know.
32:04 --> 32:15 [SPEAKER_03]: So I think one of the things that came to me in that time was there was a moment where the process all of a sudden having said, don't say anything or write anything.
32:16 --> 32:23 [SPEAKER_03]: All of a sudden they wanted me to write a letter to my congregation resigning and that would be edited and would be out there.
32:24 --> 32:25 [SPEAKER_03]: And I wouldn't do it.
32:27 --> 32:29 [SPEAKER_03]: So I wrote something.
32:29 --> 32:30 [SPEAKER_03]: I was called into a minute.
32:30 --> 32:31 [SPEAKER_03]: I hadn't been allowed to be in the book.
32:31 --> 32:34 [SPEAKER_03]: I called and I read my thing out loud.
32:34 --> 32:37 [SPEAKER_03]: And a couple of people said, don't hand over the piece of paper.
32:38 --> 32:43 [SPEAKER_03]: But I said, I'm not going to give you this because it's not ready.
32:43 --> 32:50 [SPEAKER_03]: I can talk to you in this room about it, but this is not ready to be out there.
32:50 --> 33:01 [SPEAKER_03]: And it was really an essay about why you shouldn't force people to write fake things, you know, or whatever, they can be, and I had the sense to like not do it.
33:01 --> 33:16 [SPEAKER_03]: And so the truth is like my resignation was forced, you know, I mean someone called fiery, but it was, and I wasn't allowed to say that, but I kept thinking about the church and thinking, they've stuck by me through all these months and then they're going to hear,
33:16 --> 33:25 [SPEAKER_03]: I've moved on, you know, to explore my life doing yoga and pottery, and there'd be like, what the hell, you know, we'd die you.
33:25 --> 33:37 [SPEAKER_03]: So I thought, you know, better to be silent than to let someone else edit or redact your story, and I felt like I was being held ransom, you know, they were like,
33:37 --> 33:49 [SPEAKER_03]: We will, you know, we will let you have some severance if you write this letter and both, you know, and it was like, no, our stories are not ransom, their gifts and when they're ready, we give them to who we want to.
33:49 --> 34:01 [SPEAKER_03]: And I really wrestled with, was this the right time to tell this story, but for better or worse, it's mine and I'm not being forced to write it.
34:02 --> 34:03 [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
34:04 --> 34:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, real is we're getting low on time here, so I'll skip down to the last couple questions which I think are very important.
34:09 --> 34:22 [SPEAKER_00]: At the end, you reframe the Good Samaritan story, which we've, you know, you've kind of brought about a numerous times here and I think it's a great analogy, but not asking us to see ourselves as the rescue or per se, but as the one in the ditch.
34:22 --> 34:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And why is that shift so important?
34:26 --> 34:34 [SPEAKER_03]: I think we were all taught, well, okay, I was taught the Good Samaritan story all wrong, which was the moral of the story is you should be a good Samaritan, great.
34:35 --> 34:41 [SPEAKER_03]: I want to be a good Samaritan, and of course, who want to be a good Samaritan in the story,
34:41 --> 34:42 [SPEAKER_03]: He's a cool guy.
34:42 --> 34:43 [SPEAKER_03]: He has money.
34:43 --> 34:44 [SPEAKER_03]: He has points at the end.
34:44 --> 34:46 [SPEAKER_03]: He can drop the person off and pay for it.
34:47 --> 34:48 [SPEAKER_03]: He's culturally sensitive.
34:48 --> 34:51 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, he knows that their enemies, I'd like him.
34:51 --> 34:53 [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, yeah, I want to do that.
34:53 --> 35:00 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think, especially Western culture, we're all like, yeah, let me earn this much money and become a partner to law firm.
35:00 --> 35:03 [SPEAKER_03]: And then I'll be a really good Samaritan.
35:03 --> 35:04 [SPEAKER_03]: but it's a power position.
35:05 --> 35:17 [SPEAKER_03]: And we always assume that the choices for us are the two power roles, we're either the helper or the person who walks by and is busy going to the meeting, the priests, the, you know, the other in the story.
35:18 --> 35:19 [SPEAKER_03]: Because we don't want to think about being in a ditch.
35:19 --> 35:25 [SPEAKER_03]: And so when I was in the ditch, I said, oh man, this is about the ditch.
35:25 --> 35:32 [SPEAKER_03]: There were people who came and found me in the ditch eventually and they weren't necessarily people I thought would be there.
35:33 --> 35:42 [SPEAKER_03]: But to a one, they were people who kind of crawled in the ditch and said, we see you and you're going to get out and this can do two things to you.
35:43 --> 35:49 [SPEAKER_03]: It can make you angry and bitter or it can make you wiser and more compassionate.
35:49 --> 35:59 [SPEAKER_03]: And I said, I would like to choose all four because anger and bitterness is feeling good right and they're like, no, don't work that way.
35:59 --> 36:01 [SPEAKER_03]: And eventually say, how do you know these things?
36:01 --> 36:04 [SPEAKER_03]: And these were people I thought were sort of perfecty perfect.
36:04 --> 36:08 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and of course, they had their story of being in the ditch.
36:08 --> 36:13 [SPEAKER_03]: and they told me, and I couldn't believe it, you know, I'd be like not you, not you.
36:13 --> 36:21 [SPEAKER_03]: So I took it really seriously, and I thought, well, there's a reason I admired that person and thought they were perfect, but it wasn't because they were perfect.
36:22 --> 36:32 [SPEAKER_03]: It was because they were wise and they graduated from Ditch University, like I was going to one day, you know, and they sort of like use this and own it, you know,
36:32 --> 36:34 [SPEAKER_03]: We'll see people differently.
36:34 --> 36:41 [SPEAKER_03]: And so now, like I think I watched by people in the ditch, sometimes I was just being a jerk, but a lot of times I just didn't see it.
36:42 --> 36:45 [SPEAKER_03]: And now it's like I have a spidey sense.
36:46 --> 36:58 [SPEAKER_03]: And I can just like, I can read a church newsletter and think, ooh, or I can see a look and it's like, and I feel like two that,
36:59 --> 37:03 [SPEAKER_03]: There's a way people can approach you when they know you've gone through something.
37:04 --> 37:12 [SPEAKER_03]: And I think so many of our clergy are so afraid of shrinking numbers and shrinking churches that they do fake vulnerability.
37:12 --> 37:16 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and we throw around that term all the time.
37:16 --> 37:20 [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, vulnerability, thank you piece of vulnerability, my memory, as generally fake.
37:21 --> 37:23 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's like, I need me really vulnerable now.
37:23 --> 37:24 [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I ain't,
37:24 --> 37:36 [SPEAKER_03]: I love chocolate and it's like really you know because you could that this person's addicted to pornography and this one's gamble the way the college fun But you're addicted to chocolate.
37:36 --> 37:36 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
37:36 --> 37:38 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna come talk to you pastor.
37:38 --> 37:39 [SPEAKER_03]: You know it's
37:40 --> 37:43 [SPEAKER_03]: it's just nonsense and I think the stakes are too high.
37:43 --> 37:45 [SPEAKER_03]: We've, we've got to be real.
37:45 --> 37:52 [SPEAKER_03]: And this is why the churches lose the people who have more of a healthy sense of that or they think they don't belong there.
37:52 --> 37:56 [SPEAKER_03]: And it's just like the dysfunctional committees, you know, the wrong people quit.
37:57 --> 38:01 [SPEAKER_03]: But I think pastors, we have a lot to do with that.
38:03 --> 38:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
38:04 --> 38:13 [SPEAKER_00]: So for someone listening who feels like they're in that ditch right now, whether it's church or identity or something entirely different, what would you want them to hear?
38:15 --> 38:20 [SPEAKER_03]: I would say the good Samaritan is not any human being.
38:21 --> 38:25 [SPEAKER_03]: So let go that, I mean, I honestly, I think the good Samaritan the story is God in Jesus.
38:25 --> 38:28 [SPEAKER_03]: That's my ex-Jesus of it, having been there.
38:29 --> 38:39 [SPEAKER_03]: And if you, when you are miserable, you know, and going through shame or whatever, you're gonna talk to God more, but listen also.
38:39 --> 38:49 [SPEAKER_03]: And there were ways in which the silence and isolation I went through were dehumanizing and life threatening to be honest for me.
38:49 --> 38:52 [SPEAKER_03]: But the blessing of it was I had to shut up.
38:53 --> 39:17 [SPEAKER_03]: and I didn't have a lot of people to talk to, and I think sometimes when we're going through a crisis, we're just expressing and venting and talking because it's painful and we're talking talky culture, but I think silent prayers, silent confession, spending time thinking where you're not just able to jump to the next thing,
39:19 --> 39:30 [SPEAKER_03]: It's brutal, but it's also empowering, and you know, you realize the thing that I was always terrified if I lost this, I would be nothing.
39:31 --> 39:39 [SPEAKER_03]: You lose it, and you're still something, and God loves you, and who does Jesus hang out with?
39:40 --> 39:41 [SPEAKER_03]: It's the people in the ditch.
39:43 --> 39:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:44 --> 39:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely great great way to great note to end on.
39:47 --> 39:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I think and the book again is called Defroct good news from a bad pastor for a better church.
39:53 --> 39:57 [SPEAKER_00]: I would argue with one part of that you're not a bad pastor and awesome pastor.
39:57 --> 39:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you so much for coming on.
40:00 --> 40:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Where can people go to stay up on top of everything you're up to get a copy of the book and all that good stuff?
40:06 --> 40:09 [SPEAKER_03]: Gosh, there, there's a discount code.
40:09 --> 40:12 [SPEAKER_03]: I think right now on the Presbyterian website, W.J.
40:12 --> 40:19 [SPEAKER_03]: Gayed Books, if you type in like, de-frogged 40, I think for the pre-order, you can get it cheap.
40:19 --> 40:20 [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.
40:20 --> 40:22 [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I am some free country.
40:22 --> 40:23 [SPEAKER_00]: It's my story.
40:23 --> 40:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Just not go for a reason, you know?
40:25 --> 40:26 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, go to W.J.
40:26 --> 40:27 [SPEAKER_03]: Gayed Books.
40:27 --> 40:34 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I have a presence on Facebook and Instagram, and all that, but just read the book.
40:34 --> 40:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we'll put a link to it in the show notes as always.
40:37 --> 40:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And again, Benty Log, but thank you so much for coming back on.
40:41 --> 40:42 [SPEAKER_00]: This is great.
40:42 --> 40:43 [SPEAKER_03]: Always a pleasure.
40:43 --> 40:45 [SPEAKER_03]: Appreciate you, John.
40:45 --> 40:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
40:46 --> 40:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Out blessed.
41:05 --> 41:34 [SPEAKER_02]: He's gone, even here, but as she carried it, I don't, as she carried it, I feel something tells me God will survive.
41:41 --> 41:58 [SPEAKER_01]: If God has a face, His face must look like yours.
42:08 --> 42:12 [SPEAKER_02]: Did God kill his kid?
42:13 --> 42:18 [SPEAKER_02]: Did he have to have blood before he would forget?
42:19 --> 42:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we
42:35 --> 42:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Is the aching my soldiers confined to my brain, even so?
42:52 --> 42:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Does that mean it's not real?
42:52 --> 43:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So take a breath of breathing, the mystery that...
43:05 --> 43:23 [SPEAKER_01]: If God has a face, her face must look like you're in love with me.
43:33 --> 43:55 [SPEAKER_02]: Your face like a teenager, and I'm at a meal dreaded A rock sent his husband, got sent their children Vays like a Kim, a Ted or Tyrone A little sea born with an extra croissant
43:55 --> 44:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Pablo with legs, he can't move by himself A girl born a Daniel, who now is then well A pillaging Eve, and white guy's name tie If you have a heartbeat, you are the first
44:24 --> 44:50 [SPEAKER_01]: To take a breath, breathe, a mystery that is there.
44:53 --> 45:23 [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, if God has a face, the face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face must look, if God has a face