5 Questions for… Roger Wolsey

Roger Wolsey is a pastor, author, and certified dork from Boulder, Colorado, and the author of Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don't like christianity.

Ed. note: this is the first in an occasional series of short interviews I plan with a number of pastors, authors, bloggers, and other people I find interesting or compelling. They may write about spirituality for men, or they may not–but you can trust that around here the topic will come back around to that in some way. I’m glad to have had the pleasure of interviewing pastor and author Roger Wolsey for this first 5 Questions post.

1. First, give us a little background about yourself. What is a significant life event that put you on the path to becoming a pastor, author, and, as your Facebook profile tells it, dork?

The primary life event that put me on such a path was my experience of “being called” by God two years after I graduated from college. After college, I was employed as the ethics and legal fee arbitration administrator for the Hennepin County Bar Association. I volunteered as a community mediator and counselor, and I seemed to have developed an ability to connect with all sorts of people from different backgrounds, even upon meeting them for the first time.

One night, during Lent in 1992, I went up to the room I was renting in a shared house. At about 2:00 am, I sensed a presence in the room with me. I then felt myself being held, slightly gripped even, and the whole thing sort of spooked me. So I left the room and lay on the floor of another room at the top of the steps. Again, I sensed a presence in the room with me. I felt myself being held, yet this time it was softer, more like being lovingly cradled. As I surrendered to it, I heard a voice. Whether it was external or internal, I couldn’t say. If there had been a tape recorder there I have no idea if it could have recorded it, but I heard it nonetheless. Neither male nor female, it was strangely familiar. The voice asked me: “Do you know who I am?” Without having to open my mouth to speak, I said, “You are God.”

There was a brief pause during which I found myself wondering just what on earth I had for supper that night that could be causing such a weird experience to be happening to me — bad sausage on my pizza? Did someone spike my milk? I couldn’t think of anything out of the ordinary. I sensed a profound “I Am,” and then the voice continued with two messages to convey. The first was that God was pleased that I was coming to realize that my “abilities” in conflict resolution, crisis counseling, and interacting with diverse people weren’t because of achievements on my part, but are instead were gifts from God. God was celebrating this awareness. Yet God also was urging me to notice that in almost all of my interactions, I was doing everything but bringing my faith into things. I had been leaving God out of the loop. God was inviting and challenging me to be more intentional about sharing my faith with others.

That wondrously mystical experience was a pivotal moment in my life. God wasn’t explicitly saying “Roger, my son, go ye and become an ordained United Methodist minister!” But when I shared this experience with my pastor and congregation, they encouraged me to interpret it as a call from God to enter the ministry. Because of that profound experience, I can no longer say that I “believe” in God – I know God. It’s no longer a matter of yearning to believe in various doctrinal assertions about some strange, potentially fictitious, deity — I’ve met (or at least had an encounter with) Him/Her!

Yet, as true as that is, I’ve since experienced numerous periods where I’ve doubted what happened back then and I’m now back to a place of feeling like a regular person of faith again. I’ve experienced seasons of doubt and I no longer walk in the robust certainty I had in the days immediately following that unique encounter. I intentionally have to choose to be a person of faith — to believe the story each new day. For this, I am grateful. I’d rather bumble along humbly in faith than to strut around with an arrogant air of elitist specialness, as if I were any holier than anyone else. I, and plenty of others, can assure you I’m not!

As for “what led me to be a dork” — I come from a long line of dorks and we have a long and proud heritage of dorkitude.

2. What is the Boulder International Fringe Festival, and how did you come to be involved with it?

The first fringe festival took place in Edinburgh, Scotland after WWII. It got its name from the fact that the theatre-goers were raving about the many non-traditional actors who were performing out on the streets, on the “fringes” of the official theatres. The BIFF is one of some 15 fringe festivals in the U.S. and is in its 15th year. There are some differing approaches for how they are run, but basically, a Fringe Fest is a 2 week period where 10-12 venues of various sizes are rented out for live performers to perform. Every year is different, but the shows tend to be of the “off-Broadway” variety.

I moved to Boulder 6 years ago and got divorced soon afterward. I found myself seeking solace and comfort in the many powerful one person performances where various actors poured their hearts out and told their truths in ways that spoke to me and helped me to feel and heal. I realized that these performers were in fact providing a needed public service and that it is in fact ministry. I started inviting acting troupes to perform in the chapel where I work and the next thing I knew, I was on the board of directors for the BIFF and since this past January, I’ve been serving as the president. Guess this makes me a fringe dork.

3. You describe yourself as a “Progressive Christian.” What do you mean by that?

Well, I could argue that I’m actually a conservative Christian. I seek to emphasize and live the core teachings and examples Jesus modeled. Those drew from the Prophets where values such as hesed (“loving-kindness”), compassion, hospitality, inclusion, justice, and giving a damn about how the poorest and most oppressed people are doing.

Jesus emphasized compassion, mercy, unconditional love, reconciliation, social justice, being non-judgmental, placing our trust and reliance upon God instead of upon worldly powers and empires, and reminding us that persons we don’t think of as Godly oftentimes “get” Kingdom-living better than those who claim that they do. I am intentional about conserving those values and teachings!

However, conservative Christianity is generally understood as being an approach to the faith that tends to justify and endorse the status quo and the powers that be; it tends to read the Bible literally and focus on the letter of the law instead of the spirit of it; it tends to be judgmental and exclusivist; and it tends to care more about getting people into heaven after they die than helping them know abundant/eternal life here and now. So, the term progressive Christianity is used to describe the approach that is the opposite of that.

In some ways, it’s similar to liberal Christianity. However, liberal Christianity (and Fundamentalism) is a product of the modern era and we are now in a time that has been greatly influenced by postmodernism. Progressive Christianity seeks to robustly promote a certain way of thinking, living, loving, and being – without denying that God is at work in other religions.

4. Tell us about your book, Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity. What motivated you to write it, and how has the writing, publishing, and promoting process affected who you are?

It’s a comprehensive introduction to progressive Christianity. It could be described as a “postmodern systematic theology.” I compare and contrast conservative and progressive emphases concerning God, salvation, other religions, the Bible, and so on. The book also includes a section devoted to how all this matters in the real world, such as practical ways to help us become more loving and just.

The book sprang from a worksheet I created for teenagers in a confirmation class that I taught in Littleton, CO in 2003. Several of the kids expressed concerns about officially declaring that they are “Christians” because of concerns about Christianity (that Christians are pushy, judgmental, and so on). I created a chart that pointed out differences between the two ways of approaching the faith.

When I divorced, a few years later, I realized that I was going to have to start dating again and I noticed that most of the women I was meeting identified as “spiritual but not religious” instead of as Christian. I had a hunch that there was something profound going on so I tested this by conducting an informal poll along the Pearl St. Mall in Boulder. I asked them two questions: “Have you heard of conservative Christianity?” and “Have you heard of progressive Christianity?” Almost everyone had heard of the former; only 2 the latter.

So, since many young adults are avoiding Christianity in part because they’re only aware of one form of it, I felt a need to let people know there is another way to be Christian!

Writing the book has helped me be more intentional about what I say and how I say it. It has helped me set the vision for how I seek to live as a follower of Jesus. I’m trying hard to keep the focus on the message I hope will help stir the pot and add something for people both in and out of the Church.

5. What do you envision when you think about a healthy male spirituality, and how can we as a church go about encouraging it?

I think I’ll start by saying that healthy male spirituality helps men realize that it’s okay for us to ask for directions! These are challenging, confusing, and anxious times and there are so many options out there in the spiritual marketplace. It’s okay to ask for some help when we walk into Home Depot and it’s okay to seek out advice and guidance from brothers and sisters in the faith who’ve journeyed on the Way of Christ a bit longer than we have.

This asking for help implies that healthy male spirituality is comfortable with being relational – a concept that women may tend to be more familiar with. Now we don’t have to all get up from the table and walk into the bathroom together, but we do need to grow toward appreciating each other’s stories and perspectives. We need to learn how to hear each other’s hurts and struggles and how to be there for each other.

Men tend to avoid doing certain things because we feel a lack of competence and confidence. Sure, not everyone has gone to seminary or written a book, but when it comes to theology, we’re all in this together and one can never be an “expert” about the things of God. If we can instead shift to more of a “Christianity is one beggar telling other beggars where he found bread” approach, we can begin to dare to speak our truths and tell our stories.

There is a current trend toward hyper-masculine, uber macho rhetoric and showmanship within certain ministries that are seeking to reach young men by appealing to ego, testosterone, and latent sexism. I’m not a fan of that approach. Helping men feel more spiritually empowered by putting women down is failing to truly get the good news of the Gospel.

Healthy, mature male spirituality also embraces something that our larger society typically doesn’t: being vulnerable. We’ve been taught to stuff our feelings and to be as independent as possible but that only leads to stress, insomnia, ulcers, and heart attacks.

Jesus called us to live life abundantly and we simply can’t do that if we’re repressed and trying to go it alone. Even though it feels a bit intimidating, and even though it seems as if it’s counter-intuitive and might cause people to reject us, sharing about our struggles and fears actually draws people toward us!

Instead of pushing people away from us, owning up to the times when we weren’t at our best tends to endear us to them. There isn’t any guarantee that it will, but Jesus’ primary ministry was that of reconciliation and genuine reconciliation can’t happen without being vulnerable. Besides, Jesus knew full well that his vulnerability involved a degree of risk. He knew what it means to be vulnerable and rejected and he showed us that even if we are, God will transform and redeem it. Being rejected isn’t fun, but being open to the possibility of it is what it means to be faithful.

Finally, a healthy men’s spirituality helps men to not think that their particular way of connecting to the Divine is “the one, true one.” It holds things loosely and grants other people the right and space to be who they are and to approach God in their own way. I’m still working on this.

Roger is an ordained United Methodist pastor who serves as the director of the Wesley Foundation campus ministry at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity. For more on the book, see http://progressivechristianitybook.com.

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