RJ the Astronaut

[00:00:00] This choir cast podcast is brought to you by Finally Free, a surrender to authenticity.

[00:00:06] Finally Free is a personal memoir written as a cautionary tale of the dangers of gay conversion therapy.

[00:00:14] It is my hope that my story can serve to uplift individuals within high control religions to break free,

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[00:02:46] If you ever feel like you're on the edge in your marriage with your kids with your finances with your career, you're not alone We'd love to invite you to join us this February as we look at how sometimes we can actually find purpose in the everyday pain

[00:02:53] See that is what religion gives us that that bit of like

[00:02:59] Nothingness that sounds interesting

[00:03:01] Right. It's kind of like it's like a beautiful famed evangelical people and evangelists, evangelists, evangelists, evangelists like... Christian crazy, we've got Titan of Deep Thought and Prophetic Everything, Robin Bullock. So if he's not anointed again, if he wasn't anointed again, when the election comes up, that anointing will leave him.

[00:07:00] Oh no!

[00:07:01] What?

[00:07:02] And he has to be anointed for the next term.

[00:07:04] Ah, that's better.

[00:07:05] Because he's already spent his two terms.

[00:07:07] Oh. Thank you Robin Bullock. Thank you. Now next up we've got Hank Coonam and now what I'm going to warn you ahead of time is kind of buckle up because it's going to get a bit racist. Yes and Hank Coonam and Pastor Prophet Hank Coonam and Hank is doing the thing that God and also make sure God sounds like a racist asshole to cover up for the fact that you're a racist asshole. Check, check, check and God began to talk about one that would arise with black skin,

[00:09:44] but would have dark policies and then God said do you really want Ishmael? people and it only really gets worse from there and on that line just to taste more. Because we get so looking at the race car do we look at the color of skin we ignore what's happening in the spirit so Obama might have been a black-skinned president but he sure had a dark-hearted policy. Oh I see what you did there I see

[00:11:01] what you did there oh wow yeah that was really really gross I'm gonna go ahead But he does have a very limp, dicked, grifter, greasy vision and view of a God that is just as horrible as he is. And that's how he sleeps at night. But that's just Hank. leader can do, but imagine what a good leader could do with nationalism or even Christian nationalism. Oh, there you have it, folks. There you have it. There's nothing wrong with nationalism

[00:13:42] or Christian nationalism. I mean, Hitler was super successful with it and we can kind of gets it, someone that you wouldn't expect. And his name is Jelly Roll. And Jelly Roll, this is a music artist, Jelly Roll, has a lot of truth to say when he gets down and dirty talking about Jesus. And spoiler alert, this is a thing of beauty.

[00:15:02] Jesus and the church is gonna die again

[00:15:05] if they don't find a way to portray him

[00:15:07] the way he was just bad to humankind. Isn't it wonderful that somebody else can say, Oh yeah, Jesus. Yeah, he got stuff and

[00:16:23] we should kind of do more of those stuffs. Welcome, John. I am really looking forward to this because I really enjoyed the book. Well, thank you. I am really happy to be here and looking forward to having a fun, yet funny conversation. Yes, yes. But before we start, I wanna give you,

[00:17:40] tell us a little bit about This Is Not Church,

[00:17:43] podcast you with your brother.

[00:17:45] Okay, so I'll ask you the same thing I ask other people.

[00:17:47] Do you want the long version or the short version? So that's where RJ the astronaut came from in a long, but at the end of that, as the end of that blog, I was like, okay, now what do I do? And I've been listening to a lot of podcasts. I was like, I think I can do this. I think Nat and I could do this. So I reached out to Nat and I think Nat has said, you know, begrudgingly, he's like, he's like, sure, whatever, let's, let's try. And it's not

[00:19:01] that he didn't want to do it. Nat's the kind of the first people who was like, Jason's first, absolutely first. But then so we ended up sending out these emails to people like Brad Gersack and Brian Zahn and Paul Young and those types of people. And got yes after yes after yes.

[00:20:20] And I'm like, oh shit, now we have a scheduling problem.

[00:20:24] I can't just like book in front of me. I think it's Anna or Anna Gasmarian. And she is, she's someone who has challenged her faith and she's, she's bipolar. And like we talked before we started recording, I have just been recently diagnosed bipolar,

[00:21:40] which a lot of people don't know.

[00:21:41] So this is actually going to be the first for a lot of people hearing it here.

[00:21:44] And so I have a feel yeah. It's not biblical because how many times did Jesus heal somebody within the Bible without them even acknowledging what he was doing? Yeah. Right. Now there are some others that I mean, I, you pointed to the ones that say that you were healed because of your faith,

[00:23:03] but they're not all that. So, um, I mean like he's a gorgeous man. He's you know, he's he's a Florida 10 in a retirement community. Maybe I don't know. Awesome. I'm looking forward to that podcast coming out to I think I think a lot of it so many of the conversations, we really give a shit. And this isn't, you know, when we're talking to people, it's not, at that moment, it's not our platform. It's their platform. And that's, that's the important part. And just to, just to have fun. I mean, that's, that's the one thing we've also said is like, we're always going to have fun. We're going to make this light. It's never, we never want people to feel like they have to have all the right answers.

[00:25:42] Cause we sure as hell don't. Yeah.

[00:25:44] And just make it more like a family conversation around a table than about,

[00:26:46] It is not a typical book about wrestling with faith, but it is in many ways. What was it that led you down this path to be able to talk about the whole wrestling with faith and doubt,

[00:26:55] and deciding to do it in a fictional setting as well too, which does work beautifully in the book?

[00:27:01] Well, I mean, we'll step back to part of that story I told you earlier access, so I had to mess with that a little bit. So the story is, right, that he is with a group of people looking for another planet, our planet's being overpopulated. They're on their way to, they've found another potential planet that we could live on. And in there, there's a major malfunction on the ship.

[00:28:21] And he decides that he's going to send everybody back into the escape pods, and he's going

[00:28:26] to ride the ship along until they can come back. church in Sunday school asking, well, if Adam and Eve are the only two people on the planet, who do their kids have sex with? Yeah. I didn't say it that way because I was eight, right? I said, who, how did they, who, who, who do they marry would probably be what I said. And at eight year old Sunday soul class, they're not prepared for it for that answer. They don't have the answer.

[00:29:40] They go, well, you know, God provided or something like that.

[00:29:43] And I would ask questions know this at the time. I start to meet these people, get to know them and find out that they are homosexual. And as we do this play together at the end of this, I'm like, I've been wrong. I've been told a lie about who these people are. So that, a lot of people it's hell or

[00:31:05] atonement theories, right?

[00:31:06] That really like, I'm growing. You know, I might be growing the way they want me to grow, but I'm definitely growing

[00:32:20] towards a better connection to the divine or God or the cosmos or whatever you want

[00:32:25] to call it. I decided to do because I started it out as a weekly blog and there has been quite a bit of editing from the blog. There's an introduction on each chapter that doesn't exist in the blog. Obviously, there's some pretty heavy editing within the... Because I was writing this, I didn't do much editing when I wrote it as a blog. So I wrote it, I posted it, I would check

[00:33:40] for spelling errors, that kind of stuff.. I don't think it was any major election, but it was, trust me, Trump was giving us plenty to write about, right? And, and so, you know, the questions like, does, does God even give a damn about politics? Yeah. Or, you know, is, is, is United States a Christian nation,

[00:35:00] all these kinds of stuff does pop up. And, you know, unbeknownst, you know, even though the far

[00:35:05] right wants us to believe that we're a Christian nation, we've never been a Christian nation. that's where the flow kind of came from. Oh it's fascinating because it almost felt like it reminded me in many ways about the interchange with RJ and the divine. It reminded me of Job, the book of Job kind of going through it. You know where because there's lots of questions questions like Job has and then God answers answers answers but also answers with more questions. Yes. And if you hold anything with a closed fist, say like a small bird, you're gonna end up killing it. Yeah. So with that with that analogy, if you're open up with either a softer, open holding, or even an

[00:37:42] open hand, you might lose the thing that's in your hand. But faith is now certain certainty for me now is lack of faith. Doubt and questioning is closer to faith for me. The the what's it called it like the infinite unknowing mystery. Knowable sorry, the infinite knowable mystery, right? So it's not that it's not known, but it's always going to ask

[00:39:01] me to take another step and take another step, take another step. So it's it's this infinite

[00:40:04] to see people just hate on people who don't think and believe the way they do.

[00:40:05] And I'm just not there.

[00:40:06] I'm just not there anymore.

[00:40:07] And so I'm just all about searching.

[00:40:13] It's interesting.

[00:40:14] As you're describing all of this, the searching and needing,

[00:40:16] it made me think, I don't even know why,

[00:40:18] but it popped in my head, like back to my old evangelical days

[00:40:21] where we would have like seeker sensitive services,

[00:40:25] which really means we bring those of you with questions And we need to make sure that we call them out when they use these kinds of words. And one of them was, uh, for whatever, I don't know why I remember this, but one of them was they're going to tell you that the reason they know what they say is true is because of the warming of their heart or something like that. I don't remember what it was. And in my head, I'm already going like, isn't that what we do? Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

[00:41:40] I mean, isn't that, isn't that what we, obviously with some of, and again, we talked not a lot about this while we're recording, but before, with my mental illness, you know, recently being diagnosed bipolar,

[00:43:01] I have a really weird love-hate relationship with silence.

[00:43:05] Yeah. around me. But on the on the inverse of that, there are times where being alone in solitude is refreshing. But I, I also find myself needing to do something, right? So it's hard to find myself in that place where I just sit in silence. Henry now

[00:44:20] and Merton are people that I have gone to in these times,

[00:45:25] They view the world the way they they view the divine the way they view our connection to it

[00:45:28] So yeah, it's kind of a love-hate for me. But uh

[00:45:34] So and in writing the book, I think I was I was I was admitting that about myself right that there are times where

[00:45:42] This solitude is exactly what I need and then there's times of the solitude is exactly what I don't need

[00:45:45] Someone asked me a question recently and learning to be okay in those places. What are, and you cover a lot of questions and answers in this book. Well, I was just- It's not daunting though, okay? No, I know, I make it sound like that, but I do. I find it just this beautiful journey that you go on through this. But like, what are some questions

[00:47:03] that you're wrestling through right now?

[00:47:06] Probably the biggest question is, yeah, I love you, but there's still some things you need to work on. And so it took me a while to get to the point where I was like, no, it's absolutely not a sin period at all. So I've just realized that I've been saying this a lot lately that, you know, on a good day, I'm an agnostic on a bad damn atheist. And it really put and then again, I'm putting these putting my friends who are atheists, including my wife, into side of

[00:48:22] a box. And says, as soon as you figure yourself nihilistic game That it's kind of like well if we can force This to happen if we can if we can make stuff just so shitty somehow God will come back Same thing with like like Middle East right every time there's a war in the Middle East. We're like we're like, yeah

[00:49:43] This is what we need Jesus is coming back. I mean to the point where we are like

[00:50:42] of weather, right? We're on this 20 year cycle, this 15 year cycle,

[00:50:45] this 50 year cycle, whatever the hell you wanna call it.

[00:50:48] I'm tired of it.

[00:50:49] I just sat through the worst winter

[00:50:51] that my house has ever had in over 50 years.

[00:50:54] The worst winter.

[00:50:56] I have people who have lived up here for 50 years.

[00:50:57] They're like, we've never seen it like this.

[00:50:59] This is ridiculous.

[00:51:01] And then to go from that to the hottest summer

[00:51:04] we've ever had, like multiple 100 degree days a sequel to this book at all or? You're, so my editor was the first to ask. She was about three fourths of the way down and she's like, so when's the sequel gonna be written? And I'm like, well, can you finish it first before you decide if I need a sequel? And she still thinks there should be one. I've had a couple of different people ask me,

[00:52:22] honestly, I don't know where I would take it.

[00:52:23] And that's the biggest quote.

[00:52:24] I have another book in mind

[00:52:26] that's not connected am, I'm a universalist. That means Judas is wherever we are going to go. You know, be it part of the cosmos again, be it some form of heaven or whatever

[00:53:42] the hell it's going to be, Judas has to be there, service, seeing crappy hymns forever. And as a kid, I was like, Oh no, this is horrible. But wait, if God knows that I'm thinking this, does God know that I'm thinking heaven is terrible and bad and it just evolves into things. But yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, we're going to be, we're going to be sitting around. We're just going to, it's going to be constant praise of the heavenly father. I'm like, first of all,

[00:56:03] school is for it's just keeping all of existence here.

[00:56:05] I love it.

[00:56:15] Well, I have I'm just going to tell you I really really enjoyed going through it. Like just reading and experiencing your journey in this book.

[00:56:18] I think there's so many there's a lot of richness to unpack like we talked earlier before the show.

[00:56:24] You know, it may not it's like you'd said it's not really meant to be read all through in one setting. No. But he's pretty staunchly conservative and that's fine. I have friends that are conservative who I... friends, people who I know are conservative who we just don't talk. Then I have friends that are on the conservative side, but they're willing to have conversations with me, right? We will disagree, but we're still friends.

[00:57:40] Those are fewer and fewer, unfortunately.

[00:57:42] But yeah, I you may be the first book of fiction we've had on the show because usually when people like I've got a great novel about this, this, this, I was like, ah, it doesn't really fit. Yeah. And but this I declare it firmly fit within what we were doing on the show, too.

[00:59:03] It is a it is way to get it. But as opposed to that, we're on Instagram, we are on TikTok, we are on YouTube, we are on Facebook.

[01:00:23] You can find us on ThisIsNotChurch

[01:00:25] or Nat and I both have author the overhead compartment. I'll take it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah for sure. I mean once we're once we're weightless It won't matter anyway, right? Well John, thank you so much for your time today And absolutely and I really appreciated the book too. Thank you. All right. Thank you Well, that's all I've got Today in the show for you guys much. Thanks to John

[01:01:41] You should check out his book and before I send you off just a reminder to share the show subscribe and give snarky-faith a review

[01:02:56] This choir cast podcast is proudly brought to you by RJ the astronaut by John Turney published by choir and available now join RJ on his out of this world journey filled

[01:03:01] with loving conversations, drama and thought provoking questions available now on amazon.com