Rohadi 0:21 Yes, let it linger a little longer. Faith in a Fresh Vibe podcast. I am Rohadi. That's Drew Brown. Hymns for the ARchitect on the intro and outros for this entire season on deconstruction. Welcome, friends. Thanks so much for being here. And I hope that this season on deconstruction has been one that has given you some hope, giving you some answers, or at least it's affirmed you in the space and place that you're in. In this episode, I invite David Hayward, another fellow Canadian, one of the architects, the father of hashtag deconstruction, well, who knows he won't claim it but will bestow it coming at you from treaty seven lands here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Let's jump into this episode. Welcome, David. I'm so excited to have another Canadian I have a lot of Canadians on on this podcast because I tried to draw in voices that people have never heard of. Whereas your voice, maybe folks across the wide land of ImageNet have not heard your voice. But they've seen your art. So thanks so much to be thanks so much for coming. And joining us on the show. David Hayward 1:50 Yeah, it's my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. Rohadi 1:54 Just a quick introduction. Who are you? And what lands are you currently situated on? David Hayward 2:01 Yeah, so my name is David Hayward. Most people don't know who that is. But some of you might know who the Naked Pastor is. That's my website. Nakedpastor was a blog, cartoonist, artist, writer, whatever. Used to be in the ministry left the ministry do I do Naked Pastor full time now. And so I've moved out from pastoring, a local church to the world as my parish. We're situated on my land here in New Brunswick, this part of New Brunswick anyway. And yeah, so that's I live near St. John in a town called quispamsis, which is a Miqmaw name. So I think it means land of many rivers, and which indeed it is. So that's who I am and where I live. Rohadi 2:56 I want to draw in the origin story of the Naked pastor, and also the story of both why, and also the connection to how this venture gave you life. David Hayward 3:14 Well, um, I started blogging back in 2004. I think it was an I just had the name, David hayward.ca, or something boring like that. But I decided, You know what, there were a lot of Pastor bloggers out there. I was a pastor at the time of a vineyard church, here in near St. John. And I decided to start blogging and just writing about my experiences as a pastor. But I wanted my slant to be, I was going to be super honest and upfront, and raw and real and authentic and vulnerable and transparent about the ministry. I wanted people to see behind the curtain and what really goes on in the ministry. Not just you know, the church growth, but the loss of people not only the wonderful music, but the horrible music, not only great teaching, but people who get angry at you for what you teach. And not only the fellowship, but the conflict and you know, everything I wanted to show them everything. So that's why I chosen a naked pastor basically just means me not adorning what I'm saying with any frills or any icing. It's just going to be the raw, me as a as a pastor, so Nikka pastor, and you know, I've always been a painter draw, I drew ever since I can remember, I grew up my dad was an artist. And so I just thought one day, you know, I was, I've been writing in my blog and thought, you know, What, did I just share some of my art and so I was doing that and then one day, like, I really like a good cartoon. Or I really love the New Yorker cartoons where it's usually one frame right? Uh, let me see if I can try that. I'm going to try that because I can draw. Let me see if I can convey. You know, I've been through a cartoon. And I said, I'll try one a day until I run out of ideas. I thought I'd last maybe a month. And so here it is. 17 years later, and I'm still drawing cartoons. And having a ball. No. Reason why. Yeah, the reason why I do it is because it just works. It works for me, I'm happy and having fun. And it works for others, you know, they get what I'm saying in a split second, rather than having to read 1000 words, and oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I like the power, the effectiveness, the impact that it has out there. So that's why I do it. Rohadi 5:50 How would you describe or what was the catalyst to draw you into, into that posture of vulnerability, to share the behind the scenes, like what was the reason behind doing that? David Hayward 6:06 I've always been a person who appreciates authenticity, honesty, I've always that's, I think that's one of my primary drives, in my own life is to be me. And to feel free to be me, authentically me, love me, or leave me kind of me, that I think was reflected in the way I, I preached and taught and facilitated community in the church. And, you know, so I just encourage people, hey, I want you to accept me as I am, I accept you as you are, we accept ourselves as we are. And let's learn how to do community like that. And to me, that just makes for far more dynamic and healthy, kind of personal life, as well as community life. So that's why I, I strive for authenticity, and try to encourage it in others and provide safe space for that to happen. Rohadi 7:09 I want to come back later on to the story of your vineyard connections. And that's partially my story, as well. But before we get there, you started to write, you started to create 2004. That's around the time, and we didn't call it this. A wave of deconstruction, or challenge to the evangelical foundations was starting to emerge with the likes of writers like Brian McLaren. And you probably had the emergence of Rob Bell around that time. Yes, that was the start of what we have today. In the deconstruction I use the term now loosely movement, do you see yourself today, and looking back to 2004, as almost one of the predecessors to x van Jellicle, or deconstruction that we see today? David Hayward 8:10 Well, to be honest, like, like Brian McLaren, and others, of that ilk, we're all a part of what was called at that time, the emergent movement. And then it it blew up itself, imploded. Everybody scattered everywhere. The attempt to organise what people were experiencing as a movement was a mistake, and to try to organise it and provide leadership to it and all that I think was misdirected. Now I started reading Derrida, the French philosopher, who actually invented the word deconstruction as a method of examining reading texts, that everything has to be questioned. Nothing can be trusted enough, there can't be you can't trust a text for objective truth and so on. Because there's so many factors at play. For example, the the writers bias biases, the culture the writers in biases, the transmission, the reception, our own biases, as we read the text, and, and so on and so forth. So when I was reading that, it was about 2008. When I actually first used the word deconstruction, to refer to me, I thought it was a great word for to describe what I was experiencing. And that was me questioning everything. Not just, you know, was it a fisher a whale that knows Jonah was swallowed by but the Bible the inspiration itself up theology all the way down to, you know the existence of God or, you know, everything was being questioned, and Derrida provided a word for me to borrow, called deconstruction, then around that time, the vineyard provided a workshop out here in the Maritimes that I attended. And there were about eight of us that went. And it was on critiquing different hermeneutic approaches to the Bible, and one of them was deconstruction. And the whole point of the workshop was to convince us that this was all wrong, and that there is actually the Bible can be embraced as objectively true. I actually left that workshop. A deconstruction, like I read it really I was, I would convert it to the idea of deconstruction. And that's when I really started using the word all the time. That was in 2009. And people were even calling me a deconstructionist as an insult, I took it as a compliment. And I don't know, I just started using the word all the time. I don't know if I'm the one who actually started it. You know, I'm not gonna fight anybody over it. But that's around the time when we really started talking about it. It was in 2000, I left the ministry in 2010. Then in 2012, I launched an online community for people deconstructing called the last thing supper. And that's what it was about deconstruction, and it's still going to this day, actually. And so yeah, I think it became an idea that people a word that people could use to describe the serious questioning of their beliefs, and everything around it. That I mean, that's what deconstruction means, like I'm constructing right, it's like taking something apart. And I think that's what what a lot of people were experiencing, starting to dismantle their beliefs and faith and spirituality, religion, you know, relationship to the church, everything. Rohadi 12:17 listeners will be thrilled to know that David Hayward, father of deconstruction, creator of the hashtag itself, and I don't know, you David Hayward 12:31 No, I didn't create the #, I'm only saying, I do remember writing. And I've actually went back and looked at my blog to see in 2008, was the first time I used the word 2009, and started using it all the time. To the point of in 2010, I left the ministry, because of all that stuff. And I went to teach in a university for a couple of years, and then I decided to make make it pastor go go full time, which included launching an online community for people who are deconstructing so that that's when everybody was starting to, to talk this way, you know, what I mean? questioning their beliefs, and, and so on, to the point where I even wrote a book called questions are the answer. And I claim it's a healthy way of living. You know, I grew up that that was not the case, I was taught that that was not the case. Questions, weren't the answer questions were the enemy. And so I tried to turn that around for the benefit of people who are experiencing the deconstruction of their beliefs. Rohadi 13:41 I think one of the criticisms of deconstruction in that vein of questioning trues and that's always a matter of whose truth Yes, but questioning truths and and the critique of, of the of Derrida and other postmodern thinkers is you can deconstruct your way all the way to the abbess and it can leave people facing nothingness so you you give it all away or your work yourself out completely. Versus you rebuild into something new. Now I've made a leap there but what do you do because you have a Can I use the term parish online but last supper Would you consider that the your parish David Hayward 14:41 I'd call the last thing supper might small group a small group okay, I call it I call the world my parish because I'm online and I'm you know, it's just everywhere around the world. Nick, my naked pastor cartoons are being translated. I give people permission every week in some country, around the world. Did us have the freedom to translate my cartoons? And it's, it's wonderful to see so well, Rohadi 15:06 let's talk about that. Yeah, David Hayward 15:09 I often use the story of Jonah, when he was being thrown overboard. We know how the story turns out. So it's hard to put yourself in Jonah's shoes, or sandals, or whatever the case may be, to realise that this was the end, that it was over. And I think it's a really apt illustration to, to use to talk about how there are times in our life lives, when we really are facing the abyss, there does not seem to be a way through that it's a total total darkness. It's the end, I, I claim to that, I think that's would be a really good way to view the death of Jesus, that it really was that it's over this, we're finished, you know, it's done. And I think when we are entering into this kind of very mature phase of our spiritual growth, you have to experience that. That's, that's a part of the journey. Now, it's kind of like we know the how the story of Jonah worked out, we know how the story of Jesus worked out in the writing and the stories that stuff we know how it all turns out. But put yourself in their place. You don't know for Jonah, it's over. He's being thrown overboard. For Jesus, it's over. He's dying on the cross. It's done. It's finished. And and I think, like I was about to say, the really mature wise, part of our spiritual journey is we need to experience that I'm finished is I'm done. It's over. It's completely dark. I can see no way through this. St. John of the Cross, he wrote a whole poem on it the dark night of the soul, right? And it has to be that dark, hopeless feeling, I think. So. That's why I encourage so many people who are deconstructing questioning their belief saying, Please tell me I can, I'm still going to have God when this is over, I'm still gonna have my friend Jesus or whatever. I'm sorry, I can't help you. I can't help you with that. Like, I don't know. And neither do you. And it's very, very scary. But I assure you, if you stick to it, you know, unless a seed dies, right, and it literally has to die. And and so that's, that's what I feel my, one of my major part is in, in helping people through deconstructing is to have that courage to stick to it, even when it gets that dark and scary. Rohadi 18:23 I think scary is the operative word there. It is scary. When you face the abyss that that's scary. There's grief, there's loss. There all these things? Yes. Yes, knowing that there's no formula to this, there's no answer. How would you describe both your experience and maybe in those of others, catalysts unto the new thing? What are those even look like? How do we give that name or substance? Again, I'm making an assumption here that there are possibilities for anything. I mean, some people just need to go and leave it all behind. But in your experience, and in your ministry, and through the stories and pieces that you see, what are some of those catalysts onto the new thing if we were to give it name and substance for those who are in that space of fear, or loneliness or despair? What might a glimmer, a shard of light look like? A David Hayward 19:34 lot of people say okay, you talk a lot about deconstructing but But what about reconstructing, I want to reconstruct there needs to be a reconstruction. I'm like, No, I don't talk about reconstruction. For me, why build another set of beliefs that you're going to only going to have to deconstruct later like I said, deconstruction, nothing is shown mercy every thing is question that it has to be the way it is. So that I do see it though. I'm not judging people for doing it. I've seen it happen with friends of mine who get to a point in the deconstruction of their beliefs, everything's going great. And then they freak out. Because it is terribly scary and dark and lonely. And it feels very foreign, you don't know what to expect, there is a lot of grief, there's a lot of loss. And they revert back to a previous, even pre previous state of belief, where they're in no danger of questioning their beliefs anymore. Safe. Yeah, so I encourage people just to stick. I'm an open concept kind of guy. When we bought this house, it was chopped up into a whole bunch of little rooms. And I came in and I saw all the rooms taken out, I saw it in my mind. And all the walls taken out in a big open concept place. And because I love space, I love openness. And I don't like things divided up and chopped up. And that's the way I think a healthy way to approach deconstruction is you're tearing things away, tearing things down. And constructing, dismantling, eroding all those things so that you can enjoy the space and the openness. It's like planting. It's like planting a tomato plant, you plant a seed, you you, you know, soften up the soil, you add compost, manure fertiliser, you remove rocks and sticks, you continue to weed, you provide water, you provide sun, you never touched the seed itself. You just give it the conditions and the space. And tomatoes will grow. You don't have to go out to that plant and pull on the little blossoms, or squeeze the plant to squeeze out the tomatoes. It'll happen. It just happens when it's given the space. And that's what I found with people who are deconstructing, just give them the space, don't try to direct them. Don't try to correct them. Don't try to you know, provide false hope, or securities provided the conditions in the space, they will come to a place of fruitfulness and joy even I know I have. And I've seen it in so many other people too. But you have to have to kind of embrace that mysterious way of life of questioning everything, and being able to live comfortably in the mystery. Rohadi 22:48 I like that word dwell in the mystery sit in the mystery. What are the inputs to use to stick with the tomatoes? To stick with the tomato metaphors? What would be some of the inputs? Because there are still some pieces that you're contributing here and cultivating? What do those look like in a process of deconstruction, knowing every everyone's story is unique? Or their themes? David Hayward 23:13 Well, everybody Yeah, like everybody's journey is unique. I appreciate when I'm reading or listening to something or experiencing something when something resonates what's what I feel is true. I haven't read theology in a long time. Although I am reading a new biography of Carl Bart right now, which is very interesting, because it's been, it's been published since some private letters of his were released, revealing that he had a full on affair with his personal assistant. So I'm reading that, which is profoundly interesting. He's my favourite theologian, and I think he always will be because I really think he was onto something profound. But where I find a lot of resignation is in reading mystical theologians or writers, Meister Eckhart, for example. The Cloud of Unknowing St. Teresa of Avila, you know, someone, the Desert Fathers, but also philosophy, like including a living philosopher slavery Shishak and sort of from Slovenia, and Hegel and others, and then quantum physics. Carlo Rovelli, a living quantum physicist who is writing some incredible work. So, you know, when you read when I'm reading in those groups like the mystics or the physicists or the philosophers or you know If that's where our artists for example, I, I feel something resonating with what is true. And so that's where I'm finding my kind of nourishment and food right now. And sunlight and water and everything. Continue with a tomato metaphor that just helps me just encourages me, you know, Rohadi 25:27 diverse set of, of writers thinkers. Yet it strikes me as there's something they share in common. David Hayward 25:40 Yeah, well they start sounding like they're, they're, they're speaking the same language. Of course. You know, my cigarette cards German parable. Ravelli is Italian. David Bohm is American. Krishna Murthy is from India. You know, Slavoj ejack is from Eastern Europe, and, you know, so on and so forth. But they're speaking the same kind of language of that seems to be very close to what is true. And I include in that artists and musicians and salt poets. Yeah. Rohadi 26:19 Last question on the deconstruction pieces to go back into your metaphor on the house. Yeah. The house as you strip away its rooms and envision a wider open space still retains its foundation? Is that it can to deconstruction, is there a hidden or a foundation to retain? Within the process? David Hayward 26:48 Maybe sometimes. Like for me, I know I'm an anomaly wrapped inside an enigma for many people. But like, I resist labels. When somebody presses me and says, Are you a Christian, what I usually say is something like I'm My home is in Christianity, but I have cottages everywhere. My Christianity is definitely in my DNA. It's my family of origin for sure. I've left home in some sense, but I, I still consider it home. There's a lot of things in Christianity and the church and the Bible, and theology and so on that I love. And the church is my spiritual mother, for sure. I wouldn't be where I am. Now, unless I was where I was, then. It's made me it's been a part of my, you know, chemistry growing up and becoming who I am, it's all been a part of the compost, which is half soil and half shit, you know, but it all gets blended together. And I out of that I, that's who I become right? It's half good, half bad, but it's, it's all a part of my story. So yeah, the there's traces of foundation there. I'm sure people can pick apart my ideas and say, yeah, there's Christianity there. But he's really changed what the house looks like. And on top of that foundation, and I feel free to do that. And I think other people are starting to feel free to do that. Rohadi 28:31 Yeah. When freedom being the operative word, and that sense is that it is it is the the chase of just that of liberation of the taste of freedom from all that seeks to make you less whole. David Hayward 28:45 Yeah, yeah, freedom is a huge word for me. Rohadi 28:57 When it comes to your illustrations, your panels, I detect the central a central theme, and correct me if I'm picking up the wrong theme here, but you deeply interrogate contemporary Christianity specifically around the inclusion of the LGBTQ community. Yes. So by design, what is David Hayward 29:30 Hap? salutely? Yeah, I mean, like, if I didn't care about the church, I wouldn't be drawing about it all the time. I even drew up the church today, like, I do care. I have been a part of communities that have been inclusive and diverse, functional, and it's beautiful. It can't be beat, nothing like it. And so I'm all for the church and Christian community. But I just wish it be done in a healthy manner. More and more, you know. So that's why I, I talk about it all the time. And yes, the LGBTQ community for me is I have friends and family who are that number and I care about their inclusion, I find it interesting that the church is willing to die on this hill, it seems. But we've seen this before. I mean, I, I was in the Pentecostal church, in Canada, when way back when you couldn't be in any kind of leadership, if you were divorced, and you couldn't be a pastor, if you were divorced, well, they changed the rules when, you know, they were losing some good pastors because of that, crazy, Rohadi 30:49 they had a vote 50% plus one. David Hayward 30:53 Same with, even though Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in, you know, in America, you know, now, blacks and whites can worship together, and other colour, people of colour and so on. Used to be women could not be ordained. Now we're seeing more and more women being ordained. And it's just going to be the same with the LGBTQIA community. One day, people are going to realise, holy crap, we're living a whole losing a whole bunch of members and money because people aren't putting up with our discrimination anymore. Let's loosen the rules a little bit. And, you know, we'll let them in and they can participate, and so on. And, you know, I think necessity is going to demand change eventually. That's my hope. Unless the church is willing to really die, literally on that hill. Some will. Some will, Rohadi 31:58 it said to me that money will be the catalyst to that. David Hayward 32:01 I think you're right. Yep. Yep. They won't say it's money. They'll say it's people. But, you know, we're losing people. I mean, I don't want to be that cynical. But, you know, I really do hope that we're seeing we're seeing more and more churches trying to understand, more and more theologians and writers are writing about it. Challenging the biblical texts that have been used in 1946, that movie, that documentary that just came out about challenging the verses that are often the clobber verses that are often used against the LGBTQIA community, undermining all that. So you know, I hope that very, very soon, more and more churches will be totally equal. And democratic, when it comes to that. Rohadi 33:00 Was this the callus of why you left the vineyard to turn this full circle into no shared story that we have was your chase for equity and equality, the one that eventually pushed you out? David Hayward 33:28 It was one of the issues and indirectly, the whole issue. I'm a, you know, straight white cisgender man, but I know what it means to be afraid to be myself spiritually. However, in the vineyard, I found a home. I was actually, I've already said I was in the Pentecostal church. I was in the Baptist church. I was in the United Church. I had a Roman Catholic spiritual directors and I was baptised Anglican. I was ordained Presbyterian. And things now I'm wheel knocking medical movement and ended up in the vineyard church and I felt really at home there. I loved it. Lisa and I loved it. My wife and I loved it from 95 on what was just wonderful. We really really felt at home and I felt like found find finding found a place where I could just totally be me, my authentic self and grow at my own pace and be who I wanted to be. But around 2008 or nine when I was going through some kind of profound personal spiritual transformation. I talked about that already with the deconstruction on that conference and then you know, the workshop on deconstruction and hermeneutics and then me having a profound epiphany kind of a thing in 2009 And that led up to me, leaving the ministry in 2010, because we had a meeting with members of the church and I realised, I found the edge of the box. And I knew I was no longer free, that people are wanting me to pull back, fall back in line. Some people thought that I'd lost my anointing that God had lifted his hand off of me of blessing that I might call or my ministry was gone, you know, all this kind of thing. And I just knew, you know, what, if I want this church to survive, and if I want to survive, it's best for both of us if we go our separate ways. So that's what happened. And but a part of that whole thing was me knowing, like, there were same sex couples coming to our church. Gay men, lesbians coming to our church, one Sunday, a couple of women held hands. I mean, oh, no, here we go. It's one thing to say I'm okay with it. But it's another thing to see it for a lot of people. And it just became, you know, became an issue. People, like a lesbian friend came, I don't care if I come to your church, I'm absolutely love you too. But there were rumblings going on and things were happening. And I knew the vineyard was starting to wrestle with it knew it had to wrestle with it. And then, you know, I left the ministry in 2010. And then a few years ago, she how many years ago now, three or four years ago now. They actually voted to not be affirming. And it broke my heart broke my heart. It's like, Wow, talk about a step backward. While and I was like, Yeah, I could see it coming. And I'm glad I wasn't there anymore. To be a part of that. Rohadi 37:07 Yeah, I think it was three years. Three years managed pre COVID was just before. Wow, biggest news. That's right, it was 2020. So the decision perhaps was at the end of 2019. Because the biggest news at that time in my life was supposed to be m for the other ministry, colleagues of mine was was that we were in protest and going to give up our licences, which we did over this and that was it. And they of course, COVID hit by the end of 2019. Through a process that lasted the official, quote, unquote, process lasted eight months, six months through 2019. Yeah, travelling across the country. Yeah, to pull the electorate as it were. But, you know, there were theological issues. Sure. But just as we consider the this movement and what it might become across the contemporary church. Yeah, a lot of me wonders if this was a money issue to who were the biggest money churches. David Hayward 38:15 I mean, I know people who were inside or were inside. And you know, it was a political decision based on the economics and the demographics and so on. And this is my personal opinion. And I stick to it is that organisations and people pick the theologies that best suit, their biases, vineyard pastors, and the vineyard church as a whole, in my opinion, is discriminatory and chosen discriminatory. hermeneutic, you know, in theology to justify their decision, Rohadi 39:02 because it's a justification of for the preservation of power. And then strike struck me as as, as a power move. Yep. David Hayward 39:12 So I wasn't on the inside, although I knew people on the inside. And to me, it was very sad because I the vineyards always had a very special place in my heart. It gave me a home for 15 years, and I made a lot of friends there and grew a lot. And I just felt it. It's very unfortunate. You were in your in the vineyard ministry at that time. Rohadi 39:40 Yeah, I was. I held a my pastoral credentials. Were there for a little while. And that was by relationship. I knew folks on the periphery. I didn't know. You know, it wasn't big enough to be in the middle of it, but the vineyard in Canada is quite small. And so once I did connect into it Are the national leaders and some of the more regional leaders and was a little more intentional with that. One of the things that struck me was I forgot how white contemporary evangelicalism is. Because I just been operating outside in my own little multi ethnic piece, you know, this tiny thing and to come back into it's just it was a little overwhelming. And that was part of the catalyst of not only are you going to marginalise and pull people out, and push them out, but that that was an indicator that they wouldn't be able to handle. And it came to head right away. But the movement wouldn't have been able to handle bigger questions surrounding white supremacy. And of course, that's going to put me on the outside, always, always. Yes. So it was an easy choice. For me, I was more performative. Because I didn't have so many relationships to lose there. There wasn't a lot of history for me, that I was going to give up. But it was also very sad because I think one of the luring or attractive pieces in the vineyard movement was this notion. They all hang on to it by they, I mean, the old timers hang on to the notion of everyone gets to play and then suddenly put they put a barrier to that. Yeah, that was that's an indicative of how you will treat everyone on the margins. I was out. Here hey, I want to thank you very much for for this episode. I really value your your work. I love a lot of your so you have your cartoons, but the way that you use negative space in some of your paintings, okay? It's just very powerful. I'm always careful of pigeonholing artists into like, Man, I see this as as your thing, but you may not have a thing. But those are the things that I'm still no I David Hayward 42:02 mean that it is a thing. I love space, right? We've already talked about it, my, my watercolour paintings, I call that my contemplative expression, my spirituality, my cartoons are my contentious, challenging side of my spirituality, but my watercolours really do reflect, I think, my spiritual kind of leaning and that is space, openness, solitude, you know, quiet night, you know, things like that. So, it they are they do mean that So, you do see that you're correct.