Come & See: Radical Devotional

What this episode covers

Fr. Shannon has a new book coming out soon, “Come and See: An Invitation to a Radical Encounter with Jesus,” which is a devotional aimed at youth and young adults. We talk about the role of traditional devotionals in shaping young people’s faith, especially how our experiences with devotionals have impacted us. We get into the limitations of these devotionals and their practices, and the importance of understanding how limiting they can be- especially since they often leave out the Bible’s context. Shannon shares his motivations for writing the book, emphasizing accessibility, justice, and the need for young people to engage with scripture meaningfully. This book is aimed for a younger audience, but anyone can engage with this as a means for deepening a personal understanding of scripture and faith. Takeaways Devotionals are often seen as a proxy for faith. Many youth devotionals lack depth and context. Understanding the Bible requires recognizing its complexity. Devotionals can reinforce harmful theology if not critically engaged. There are various ways to engage with spirituality beyond devotionals. Shannon’s book aims to provide tools for understanding scripture. The book encourages readers to ask questions and wrestle with faith. ‘Come and See’ is designed to be accessible for young people. The book includes journaling prompts for reflection and discussion. Engaging with the Bible can be a communal experience. Chapters (00:53) Devotionals: A Personal Journey (10:36) Alternatives to Traditional Devotionals (14:05) Introducing ‘Come and See’ Devotional (17:41) Understanding the Bible: Context Matters (21:09) Target Audience for ‘Come and See’ Resources: Pre-order “Come And See: An Invitation to a Radical Encounter With Jesus” by Fr. Shannon TL Kearns Check out books about faith and the Bible that we recommend Rituals for Resistance and Resilience Join our online community at Sanctuary Collective Community If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions. (9s): Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome back today. I’m so excited because we are talking about Shannon’s new book and See An Invitation to a Radical Encounter With Jesus. This is a Devotional, specifically intended for youth and young adults. And along the way, I think we’re gonna talk about some of our own experiences with Devotionals, maybe some of the highlights and some of the horror stories in our growing up era and how we approach Devotional and other sort of contemplative practices around scripture and faith. (1m 4s): So that’s, that’s where we are today. Shannon, like Devotionals, gimme your sort of history with Devotionals and, and youth, youth Devotionals in particular, I suppose. Oh man. I feel like Devotionals were such a popular thing when I was in elementary and high school. Yeah. And I feel like, especially in high school, right? I feel like we came of age, and I’m a little bit older than you, but I, so I really came of age in the moment when contemporary Christian pop culture was really, really, really hitting its sth, right? Like yeah, there were, you know, the stadium tours and the merch and the branded everythings, and, and, and like, there were huge Christian bookstores like all around, even in the kind of small town that I gre