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My Religion

2025-06-17 · Q&A · John · 7:13 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning · mode: Q&A & conversation

Answering the questions he is most often asked about religion, John says he is an Episcopalian Christian who believes in God without needing to settle God's independent reality, centres his faith on forgiveness, radical hope and work for the marginalized, reads the Bible through an interpretive lens, struggles with the problem of evil, and does not worry about atheist Hank's soul because they are called by the same voice.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — A subreddit question about John's faith; his Christianity among diverse traditions

  • ★ After someone on the Nerdfighters subreddit asked whether John ever talks about his religious faith, he answers the questions about religion he gets most often. — 00:00:00 · Reddit, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ John considers himself a Christian, but Christianity, like Islam or Buddhism, is tremendously diverse; his may be unorthodox or heretical to some, though it fits his Episcopalian denomination. (hedged) — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Belief in God and constructed realness; the afterlife

  • ★★★ John believes in God: he cannot know whether God is really real or a human-constructed idea, but he feels God's love and presence. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John is not much concerned with whether God exists independently of human consciousness, since human-constructed ideas such as human rights become real through shared belief. — 00:00:29 · social construction
  • ★★ John sometimes believes in an afterlife but does not spend much time thinking about it; borrowing a line from Harper Lee, its problem is that it makes people spend this life preparing for the next. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — The work of faith for the marginalized; forgiveness and radical hope; John's failings

  • ★★★ John thinks there is much work to do in this world: in his tradition God became a person to tell us about that work and ask us to do it together. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ For John that work is that the last shall be first, the meek inherit the earth, and wherever we see the oppressed or marginalized we see God. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John believes it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John believes in feeding the hungry, curing the sick and offering preferential options to the poorest and most vulnerable. — 00:01:56

  • ★★★ Forgiveness available to all people at all times, even beyond death, is radical hope, John's ground of being and the backbone of his theology: hope is not always rewarded but always justified. — 00:01:56 · hope

    “radical hope is like my ground of being”

  • ★★ John says he constantly misses the mark, hoarding wealth though he knows it is a sin and not treating neighbours as he would wish, so he constantly needs forgiveness. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Reading the Bible through interpretive lenses; evolution

  • ★★★ Asked whether the Bible is God's literal word, John says no text can be read literally because text is inherently figurative, and the Bible's historical context requires interpretation. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ Applying interpretive lenses lets John remain opposed to slavery even where the Bible justifies it. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ John says the Bible holds contradictions that should not be reconciled: across the four Gospels Jesus has three different sets of last words. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ John still finds reading the Bible helpful and turns to it for personal orientation, while finding other sacred texts full of wisdom too. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ John does not believe his divorced friends are separated from God's love by divorce, even though Jesus says otherwise. — 00:03:53
  • ★★★ John says everyone reads through an interpretive lens; the only question is whether one is conscious of doing so. — 00:03:53
  • ★★ John believes in evolution, and also in a heliocentric solar system and a round Earth. (playful) — 00:03:53

00:04:22 — Trans rights and marriage equality; the problem of evil

  • ★★★ John supports trans rights and marriage equality: being the person God made you to be cannot separate you from God's love. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ John says LGBTQ people are marginalized and oppressed, disproportionately victims of violence, discrimination and diseases of injustice, so his faith sees God in them. — 00:04:22
  • ★★★ John does not know why evil exists, and it bugs him. (unsure) — 00:04:22
  • ★★ On evil John lines up with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: God is weak and powerless in the world, the only way God can be with us and help us. — 00:04:52 · first in: 2019-09-03, Death, Love, and John's Religion: The Big Questions Take Over Question Tuesday
  • ★★★ Theodicy is a big problem for John and for theistic religion: the universe is either indifferent to our needs or behaves exactly as if it were. — 00:04:52
  • ★★★ Everything-happens-for-a-reason worldviews are insufficient for John: he has seen too many things that definitely did not happen for a reason. — 00:05:21
  • ★★ John is sometimes angry with God, but mostly with humans, who fail to heed the inner voice saying no one should be homeless, hungry or victimized. — 00:05:21

00:05:50 — Christianity among religions, worship and prayer, Hank's soul; sign-off

  • ★★★ John does not think Christianity is a better religious tradition than others, or that those who reject religion are wrong. — 00:05:50
  • ★★ John says religion has caused tremendous suffering, misery and injustice in human history. — 00:05:50
  • ★★ John calls himself a worshipful creature who will always worship, so he wants to be constructive about what and how he worships. — 00:06:19
  • ★★ John really likes prayer, which for him is an exercise of his empathy muscles. — 00:06:19 · empathy

  • ★★★ John's most-asked question is whether he worries about atheist Hank's soul; he does not, because in almost every way they are called by the same voice. — 00:06:19 · Hank Green

    “we are called by the same voice”

  • ★★★ John and Hank disagree on where the voice comes from but agree it calls humans to a more equitable, less hierarchical, less unjust world; fighting over its source wastes time. — 00:06:49 · Hank Green

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Bible · Christianity · existence of God · forgiveness · God · hope · problem of evil

Also: People: Dietrich Bonhoeffer · Harper Lee

Organizations: Episcopal Church · Reddit

Concepts: absurdism · afterlife · atheism · Buddhism · divorce · empathy · evolution · golden rule · heliocentrism · hermeneutics · homelessness · Human rights · Islam · last words · LGBTQ rights · prayer · religion · same-sex marriage · slavery · social construction · transgender

Myths: Jesus

Also centred on Bible: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA Inaugurated: Some Historical Background

Also centred on Christianity: On Religion (Redux)

Also centred on existence of God: On Religion · Do You Believe in God?

Also centred on God: If Hank and John Were God for 15 Minutes

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