E051 Rev Jessica Purple Rodela Atheism and Being Good For Its Own Sake
Let’s Be Well Together Podcast - Episode 51
Date: January 17, 2023
Participants: John Webster, Sammy Damaren, Cameron Earnshaw and Sheila Webster
Guest: Rev. Jessica Purple Rodela (interview) and Al Tordjman (Move That Body).
Start times and Segment Segments:
[0:00:38] What’s On Your Mind: Sammy and Sheila get much out of choreography. It’s a facet activity that enhances different areas of wellness.
[0:09:22] Expanding Minds Interview: [Spiritual Wellness] We interview Rev. Jessica Purple Rodela, an atheist and a Minister in the Unitarian Congregation. She had an experience in her youth that was similar to a story from the 19th century about Josea Ballou, who has been called a father of American Universalism. A conservative colleague was insulted by the Universalist belief that there is no hell or damnation. The conservative said, “If I was a Universalist and I didn’t fear fire and hell, then I could just hit you over the head and I could steal your horse and saddle and ride away and I would still go to heaven.” Josea Ballou retorted, “Well, if you were a Universalist that idea would never occur to you”. In Rev. Jessica’s view, the idea is that we can be good for goodness sake, as we like to say at Christmas. We’re ingrained with a moral compass. We can aim slightly differently, but there are some things that as empathetic human beings we can agree on. When we call people into a conversation about personal experience, rather than argue about scripture or philosophy, then we’re talking about a commonality. We’re establishing commonality. We’re bound to find out that we agree on many things. We may disagree about the priorities, but our foundational values are probably pretty similar as humans.
[0:22:55] Adventures of the Starving Artist: Cameron doesn’t love the “business” side of the music business, but it’s something every professional musician must address. He gives some examples.
[0:27:43] Move That Body: Al Tordjman talks about limiting sugar intake. What we put into our bodies is a very important consideration to physical health.
[0:33:03] Running Popup: John was struck by a very good feeling while walking to work. He stopped to savour the moment.
[0:35:18] Flipside of the Coin: We chat about a practice that’s helping John sleep better: leaving his phone in another room, not beside his bed.
Quotes and Take-Aways:
Rev. Jessica – In the 19th Century, Universalism was considered a great heresy, because Universalists came to believe that there was no such thing as hell and damnation. They’re quite assured that everyone is worthy of heaven. If God is benevolent, then he would never damn his creatures, humans, to hell. The general public and the mainstream religion was very outraged by this idea that religion wouldn’t somehow leverage the threat of God’s punishment. The conversation revolved around, “why would people bother to be good if they weren’t threatened?”.
Rev. Jessica – When was in high school in Texas, a friend who was a devout Catholic was astonished to find out that I don’t believe in God. She asked, “but do you believe in the Bible?”. I said, “Well, awesome book; great stories; great wisdom. Believe in it, I’m not sure what that means. It’s not a foundation of truth for me”. She said, “but if you don’t believe in the Bible, then what keeps you from killing me?”. I thought, “oh my gosh, I’m really worried if only something written in an ancient text is preventing you from harming me”.
Rev. Jessica – This idea that we would be good for goodness sake, as we like to say at Christmas. Of course we would. We’re ingrained with a moral compass. We can aim slightly differently, but there are some things that as empathetic human beings we can agree on.
Rev. Jessica – The story is told that Josea Ballou was in an argument with one of his more conservative colleague, who was so insulted that he said to Ballou, “If I was a Universalist and I didn’t fear fire and hell, then I could just hit you over the head and I could steal your horse and saddle and ride away and I would still go to heaven.” Josea Ballou retorted, “Well, if you were a Universalist that idea would never occur to you”.
Rev. Jessica – It’s a weird idea that somehow we would have to believe in God or a particular scription in order to regulate our behaviour.
Rev. Jessica – I got in trouble in theology class when I told my professor that I find the question of whether or not I believe in God to be irrelevant and not a very interesting question at the end of the day. We are accustomed to thinking of that as such a big dividing point: the either or about God. You could have a whole conversation about defining your terms of what you mean by God. My professor, who was a Unitarian Universalist theologian, was quite offended at that thought. She does think it’s relevant. She taught that for Unitarian Universalists, and most atheists of other stripes could probably relate to this, we don’t use any particular scripture as foundational. This is where we get into really tricky conversations with people from different faiths. If you are talking about a foundational document, which someone defines as the truth, then you are not going to make headway in an interesting conversation – a productive conversation with one another – because your very foundations of what you are calling truth is different. I’m not going to be successful in trying to convince somebody who believes that a scripture of any sort is the truth. We ask people to call themselves back to talk about personal lived experience. This is what is foundational for Unitarian Universalists. Revelation is not sealed. There is not a single scripture that we look to as the capital “T” truth. It’s our lived personal experience that builds the foundation of what we believe.
Rev. Jessica - When we call people into a conversation about personal experience, rather than argue about scripture or philosophy, then we’re talking about a commonality. We’re establishing commonality. We’re bound to find out that we agree on many things. We may disagree about the priorities, but our foundational values are probably pretty similar as humans.
John – That is the unabashed objective of what I’m doing. I want to interview people of all these different beliefs. Instead of saying, “why do you believe what you believe?”; instead of saying “prove that you’re right”, because I’m not going to ask someone who believes in God to prove it. They believe it. Instead of asking those questions I’m going to ask, “what would you like to achieve?”, “what do you hope we can do together as a people?”; and “what do you try to do for your own family and in your own life?”. What I believe and hope is that we will find out that we’re all trying the same thing. We’re all trying to achieve and be good and hopefully find that commonality. We don’t need to have the discussion about what each of us believe in at the base level, but instead how we can work together.
Rev. Jessica – It’s a challenging idea for people to de-prioritize belief. These are categories of division. It can be an interesting conversation about belief, but that becomes theoretical and it’s really secondary in our lives when we really want to talk about personal experience.
Rev. Jessica – When you ask someone who has a challenging idea, if you can extend curiosity and compassion, “how is it in your life you come to believe this?”. Now you’ve got a really interesting conversation, because you’re going to find out what built towards that belief. What are the underlying values? What are the experiences that led to this as a conclusion? Once you can get to that, then you can start seeing that as long as we’re alive and we’re learning and we’re having experiences, then we’re continuing to learn and grow and change our minds and evolve our beliefs and enrich our values.
Bulletin Board Quote brought to you by Rev. Jessica: I love that smack talk was alive and well in the 19th century.
Guest Information: Rev. Jessica Purple Rodela grew up in Panama, during the tumultuous sovereignty negotiations of the 1970's. Her family returned to Texas in 1979. She lived in various U.S. states. Before entering the ministry, she worked as a high school English teacher, a freelance writer, and a logistics analyst. She graduated in 2008 from Meadville Lombard Theological School, a Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago where she co-founded the anti-racism forum The Kaleidoscope Initiative. She gave an Award-winning sermon “Can't We All Get Along? Loving Your (Political) Opponent” She wrote “The Prayer of the War Atheist”, which was published. She moved to Canada in 2008 and serves Grand River Unitarian Congregation. Rev. Jessica is a mentor to ministerial candidates and chaplaincy students.
Canadian Unitarian Council website: https://cuc.ca/
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(-(-_(-_-)_-)-) Your wellness check-in team
John, Sammy, Cameron, Sheila and Julie