this has been my FAVORITE episode so far. i love both of these dudes so much. Evan is my pastor here in San Diego, and Michael has been a huge help in spiritual journey this far. i love to see these two worlds collide. thank you for making it happen 💚🙏

A wonderful conversation. So blessed. Impressed by Evan Wickham. Friendship in action. Christian love. The grace of God. Such patience and compassion. Thank you, Justin, for arranging this. Praying for Michael. 🙏

I love how tolerant and open this channel is - we need more of this in a hateful and polarised world. Michael Gongur is a child of our time who perfectly reflects the sentiments of modern US culture, or so it seems to me. The things Evan Wickham said were totally profound and beautiful, and obviously ages old.

This is a great conversation. Thank you for this. Michael Ginger and I have gone in a similar journey. I’m a GenZ and I’ve gone through a deconstruction. I still believe in God, but I consider myself an Esoteric Christian now instead of an traditional orthodox Christian. It has been a hard journey for and I daily deal with condemnation and guilt that I’m trying to work through.

At the end, Evan thanked Michael for the clarity he provided In The conversation, which made me chuckle. Michael’s perspective is anything but clear and I think that’s part of the point which is really frustrating. It would make me hesitant to have any more conversations with him, not because I think or know he is wrong but because the conversation would be largely fruitless. His perspective seems to be I had this experience that is largely unique to me that I can’t really explain and which can’t be falsified and isn’t necessarily the Truth but it was helpful for me in my journey and hopefully you can have a similarly transformative experience too. There’s nothing wrong with that but im not sure how talking about it really gets us anywhere. Not trying to be negative. Im glad Justin had both of them on I just that aspect of Michael’s perspective annoying.

Privileged white male? Oh brother! As a black woman I wish Evan hadn't said that. EVERY true Christian is privileged to know the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. A pastor should NOT be using that kind of unbiblical language. That is what I found wanting in this conversation - the inspired Word of God. Praying for all of these men.🙏

Two of my very favorite (and I’m a music fin) christian composers. Evan Wickham’s first rwo albums are masterpieces. Gungor’s “Acient Skies” is one if the most profound beautiful things ever! He does seem very “off” but his music til this day is still of high quality!

the best part of this was when Evan asked Michael what he grounded his belief on. And Michael's response was at first evasive, you could see the wheels turning. Eventually he says, "I guess experience". I wish Evan would have pushed more on this.

Loved this! Both these guys are humbly searching for God, willing to submit to Him whatever this may mean for them. Seeking Gods Kingdom while trusting that God is big enough to deal with all our questions and insecurities. Thank you for showing and teaching us how to try do the same

Beautiful, open-hearted sharing from both sides. It's too bad that the title of this video and opening clip tilts the audience with a bias right from the start against Michael's point of view. Would the interviewer have been so bold to have started out this dialogue with "so Gungor, what happened to you?" Although the description of this video says that Michael's turn towards progressive...interpretation of faith has left many Christians confused, from my own experience - it's been the opposite. Michael's courageous exploration, open dialogue and resonant music has been a lifeline for me and countless others. This dialogue was extremely helpful to me, as an example of how someone can share the truth of a life shift that led them from narrow certainty into freedom and union without denigrating an orthodox Christian's experience and practice. Gratitude to all involved!

I love this conversation! I'm grateful for the Unbelievable podcast. I'm grateful also to have gone through my own deconstruction (and continue to allow for deconstruction) and reconstruction (allowing for some answers to stick). I wonder if the difference between someone who believes in Jesus and someone who believes in syncretism is living out, surrendering to, and affirming that Jesus is Lord of all.

Thank you ,guys. Interesting conversation! ...I thank, Jesus, that I am not as bright as any of you. My faith in Jesus is simple and 'child like'. And I know that I m loved perfectly by Jesus. Phil and Michael, your music has not deeped my faith like good old hymns. But I do like listen to them when I drive. Thank you Phil for the mention (brown women from third world)..and dear Micheal keep away from M&Ms...and I hope the good work Lord started in you , He will bring to completion in His time(..inspite of the glitch)..

I’d love to see an interview were Gungor and Frank Turek go head on into tough biblical and philosophical questions.

Matt 15:14 "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

Would have appreciated perspectives of both Evan and Michael being more clearly explained and defined. Hope you continue this. Maybe have N.T. in on it next time.

21:34 *Michael Gungor* "No me defino en oposición a algo" 31:56 *Michael Gungor* "no creo que Jesús y Buda sean lo mismo pero si tienen algo indescriptible que los une o los hace igual" 46:22 *Michael Gungor* define de manera muy interesante su relación con Dios, como vive la espiritualidad. 51:40 *Evan wickham* le pregunta a michael que pasó en el 2016 que lo hizo replantearse todo. 1:04:56 *Michael Gungor* "me gustaría que el cristianismo empiece a confiar en que Dios es el autor de la salvación y no ellos" tremenda invitación a no juzgar..

I think there's a big difference between God deciding to break in to a non-Christian's trip in order to reach them, like Mikhaila Peterson shared, and an existing Christian choosing to do magic mushrooms and taking what they got from that to counter the Truth of God they already know. It also seems to me that deciding you know better than 2000+ years of Christian teaching requires a lot of ego. It would take A LOT for me to think what I've just realised was right over the established teachings.

I gotta say, I really appreciate the wide breadth of conversations that this channel has. In my spiritual journey, I found myself so insular, and now to be one of the outsiders, I look at who I was with empathy and am finding myself wading in the mud of being ok not having to land, plant a flag of identity. But I know there is a new place for me that I can only vaguely smell. Thanks for putting this stuff out here to expose a wider net to those of us who walked with blinders, either by choice or by how our path has be curated for us.

I think what Michael is pointing at is much more profoundly articulated by DC Schindler in his book “love and the post modern predicament“.

You will know them by their fruit.

Michael causes me sadness, why can't Jesus be the awaited for Messiah, and every book of the Bible leads to Jesus our Savior! But the Word is truth,profound, foundational, freedom! Drugs evil,Satan, deception nontruth! My conclusions , someone said one. Time you find the truth! It is not my conclusions, my truth, my anything, Is graciousness Salvation, Jesus is Salvation!

I would worry that deconstruction with a community would invite bias, peer pressure and group think into the process. If the truth is what you are really after, taking a more private approach seems prudent.

Tell Micheal please read Genesis...the original lie of Satan is his oldest and greatest trick in his arsenal..and he continually rehatches it in new but eerily familiar ways..also Satan can give spiritual experiences and Paul says as much about Satan appearing as an Angel of light and his minions appearing as servants of righteousness...true orthodox and traditional Christian denominations are from from perfect but the essentials of the faith are the Truth as our Creator wills. I pray the Holy spirit will open his eyes and restore him ..his story is like a reverse of my whole spiritual awakening and journey...GOD BLESS!!! JESUS IS THE TRUTH.LIFE.WAY

The bottom line is that, atheists can debate Christians and Christians can debate atheists, and nobody wins. So, all things being equail, Jesus wins out objectively because, if it is all real, the people that do not believe are utterly screwed for all eternity. So, if you want to call it, "fire insurance", I will call it that also, that works for me) I choose to trust in Jesus. It is also sad to me that Christians think that they need to work or do something to obtain salvation. God asks that we ask for forgiveness for our sins and trust in Jesus to provide that forgiveness, and that is all that is required for salvation, it is literally a free gift of eternal life.

Since it seems many in the comments aren’t grasping Michael’s perspective, let me elaborate a little (not as someone who knows him personally, but as someone who has been on the same journey). The stark contrast in beliefs between Michael and Evan begin to get highlighted at 23:00, although many may not recognize it. Both Evan and Michael love Jesus and his teachings, but Evan associates Jesus as someone separate from the individual (“it’s an invitation to find fulfillment in a person… in him [Jesus].”) Here we see the traditional western (evangelical) interpretation of Christianity at play. This idea that another external individual, Jesus Christ, is to be sought and worshipped. The idea, in a nutshell, is that Jesus is another being external to one’s self that must be communicated with. In contrast, Michael has began to understand the nature of Christ dying to become you (“it’s not I who live… it’s Christ living in me.”). When you truly start to grasp the meaning of this verse (and many others like it), you begin to understand that this whole seeking of another individual named Jesus Christ is illusory. Because Jesus Christ is the very deep of your own being. I’ll list a few verses below that further illustrate the interpretational differences between these viewpoints. Hope this helps! “Before Abraham was, I AM!” “I AM the way, the truth, and the life.” (Evangelical interpretation = Jesus, an external being, is making these claims about himself and therefore I worship him.)(Mystical interpretation = Christ, who is living inside me, is making these claims and I must go within to find him. When I say “I am Matthew,” Matthew is the outer garment, but my I AM is Christ, who is the one living in and through me.) The reason Michael can say things like “Buddha is Christ. You are Christ. Etc.” is because he’s now seeing that Christ was constantly declaring his name to be I AM. And I AM is in everyone. Go and tell them that I AM sent you. I AM the alpha and omega. I AM the door. I AM the light of the world. When you have lifted up the son of man, then you will understand that I AM. I AM the Lord, that is my name! “There is one body, one spirit, one faith, one baptism, one hope, one God and father of all who is through all and in all!” That is I AM! I could go so much deeper, but not for a YT comment 🤪

I went to the megachurch in Grandville that Michael led worship at in the early 2000s and also left it due to a break from its conservative dogma.

The path to become a mystic, a path which I think Michael aspires to, is not through deconstruction. That’s why I think it will be difficult for Michael to become a true mystic. Mystics always include, fulfill and transcend the tradition, the culture, the law. That’s a different path from deconstruction. This is why I find what Michael says to be somewhat hollow, lacking the depth and sense of grounding that one encounters in the likes of Richard Rohr and James Finley.

Gungor is new age. I suppose the word "deconstruct " aptly conveys what happens when one decides to become a new ager. It's the nature of that religion...it's the delusion of thinking you've peeled back all the man made layers of religiosity to land at a fundamental and true spirituality. BUT I reject this notion that a true Christian looking for true historical orthodoxy is "deconstructing."

You can tell straight off the bat that Evan is an avid John mark comer follower. He sounds just like him 😆

Um... didn't Jesus define what salvation looks like? One other thing. How many times do we have to hear, "I tried on these new pair of glasses of boy did I see things differently." Really? You don't say! Stupendous, just earth shaking. Drugs....yawn!

Evan has nothing useful to come back to Michael with because he's accepted his critical theory/post-colonial presuppositions. These are acids based off of a dialectical mindset, and for all of the talk of unity, these ideologies are divisive-not because the people who resist them can't be humble, but because the ideas themselves are structured to create good guys and bad guys, and say the bad guys (as determined by the good guys, of course) must be humble by never disagreeing with the good guys, lest they be bigoted, which makes them inherently divisive. So long as sweet, genuine, humble guys like Evan don't educate themselves on the history of these ideas, particularly their desire to subvert the Church as a means of putting forward the dogmas of their own religion, they're just going to have people like Michael run circles around them with the postmodern "This is my truth, and I don't want to tell anyone what to do on their journey, except when I want to push values of grace, humility, etc. as I now see them in my truth."

Public service message. Do not do shrooms sprayed with raid.

It always blows my mind how little Michael has actually thought deeply about these things.

"historic orthodox christian stream" as in the Eastern Orthodox Christian church?

I’m sorry but Michael Gungor is making me 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄. Mushrooms, “colonialism” - its very arrogant and preposterous - as if everyone in the world today that comes into contact with the Bible or Jesus or the church is contaminated with “colonialism” 😡🤮. I just can’t

Jesus doesn't care about tradition or 'our' truths OR your skin tone. He IS the truth. And salvation and the spiritual life goes through Him. He has a Kingdom and it is the Kingdom of Heaven and it reigns above the Kingdoms of Earth. The Earth in its time will be brought under his full rule. Only the Body experiences that now. He is the just and good King we all need and want. We are hesitant to accept that truth because we still struggle to rule our own lives and follow the nature of the flesh rather than the spirit. Those who can't accept this want to continue to serve the flesh (and the world)...the sinful nature. You can't serve 2 masters...you will love one and hate the other. That is the reason why the world we know will find a violent end. Because it has rewarded violence and justice will come for it.

“The value of earth…” What the heck?! … An important day in the maturing of a child into an adult is the realization that his or her Dad was right, not wrong.

Soo, Jesus involved in any of this or not really? I didn’t hear his name within the shroom trip.

Is the default position for someone disenfranchised with the Christian culture to fall into secular humanism? He seems to be doing it in reverse than I, with the psychedelics and all. I didn’t find answers in drugs, found it in Christ

Gungor's shirt is distractingly creepy...

I belted Michael’s songs as a Christian, and I still do as an atheist. Give it up, ya’ll! Life is much better lived in the observable light of reality!

I find hope for general revelation from God's grace in the beliefs of Zoroastrians (uncreated god, having mind (logos) and being (i am-ness)), possibly worshipped young Yeshua the nazerine with gifts from following a star), Bhuddists (The christ can be seen in some forms Maitreya - which has bearing on Scientology), I don't know enough about Hinduism to comment, Greeks (had a triune dionysus mystery school, and a temple to an unknown god, both with some direction towards our Lord), ancient paleolithics (put the cross in a circle on cave walls), ancient Egyptians (had a cross on a circle resembling a lambs heart, it meant good, and perfect), Islam (calls Yeshua a great prophet), Hebrews (some have seen Yeshua the nazerine is the Messiah, famously), LDS, rastafarian, and Christ-conscious new age. Do I think all they teach is true and pleasing to God? No. I don't even know out of the big 3 Christian sects, which I see the Lord approving of more, (Orthodox, Catholicism, Protistantism) maybe nobody has it best in His view. I have hope for Christ-centered redemption and all calling back of all things that are His to Him. I think there is hell now and later, but that the word eternal is subject to God, not us (something like what David Bently Hart popularized more recently [see aioniōs etc.] though I find myself more carefully hopeful like others who have also written less forcefully, maybe something like Origen). I think we should be moved to stop hell now, by evangelizing the redeeming power of Christ, Yeshua the nazerine, son of the Father who is God, who revealed the Spirit of God, and be moved by His Spirit to save all from punishment of any kind. It may be that every evil pattern, persona, and intelligence that remains against God, remains this way eternally unchanged and separated from Him, bonded to themselves. I am just not sure these things are like the people we know. Rather, they might be like the parts of ourselves that we are led to cast off by the Spirit, away from us forever. I believe Yeshua was the Son of God the best I can (feebly), and was raised from death after His crucifixion for the sins of the world to offer forgiveness. I tend to keep these things to myself, for fear of being wrong. I hope when I do share, the Spirit makes my stumbling useful. I've done LSD, Mushrooms, DMT, and ketamine (trying to heal OCD - which made faith almost impossible) - but my mindset was that they were just chemicals, and they mostly seemed like that. I had anticipated the frame shifting, so I wasnt exactly suprised. They didn't necessarily make me feel more or less confident about God's existence, maybe a touch more some times and a touch less others (but worship services have done both too). I was there for the BDNF and nuerogenisis, and curiosity sometimes. A break from OCD too, I guess (which seemed to start as a child from chronic nightmares and several of going to hell, the sheer terror of forever alone broke me at 8ish). I didn't want to do them anywhere religious at all, too ocd about spirits. Mostly at home, or in nature. The times in nature had a much better track record for theistic confidence impressions. There was once or twice in the city. Once in a parking lot in between a place called the bread store and a bev-mo, where many homeless slept among shattered wine bottle glass, a congragation of the broken guzzling all the grace they could recieve. I realized I was standing among them in the eucharist! and there was a mural on the wall that seemed to know that too, because it looked like heavenly light pouring down on the brokenness. I ran to my apartment that moment and grabbed a work I had done on a canvas given to me by a wine-maker's daughter and left it in the light, I wouldn't say it was finished - I'm never sure that's mine to say. It's why I don't sign those ones, they feel like I'm always painting them, and like I'll never stop chasing those colors around. Regarding Hinduism, I once painted a picture for a friend on an old map of the world when I had wiped it clean. He was into eastern religions. I put a pink elephant in a fractal garden holding a golden olive branch in his trunk. My friend called it Ganesha, but I didn't.

Dude these guys are so full of it and themselves. Gross.

I think the idea of finding fulfillment through another person is not the best approach to being at peace. I think true fulfillment comes through growing as an individual and not looking to someone else to do it for you. Christianity is all about peace through another person. That type of thinking is no longer appealing.

1. We are not called to be “mystics” but Christ followers who die to ourselves and let Christ live through us. We are called to witness to the lost and care for the least of these in humility. 2. Taking psychedelic drugs opens the mind to demonic deception - and the demons have had millennia to craft just the right lies to appeal to our egos and pride 3. If your church doesn’t follow Jesus Christ biblically, find a new one!

Michael is lost.

So you have two guys, with very limited understanding of Christianity, who seem to be incapable of expressing themselves clearly, one of whom is a druggie, & you think it is worthwhile?

Authority? King? No no, these are slave words and not words of love. I had a very similar journey to Gungor. It is beyond words. It just is. I also used magic mushrooms and Ayuasca at one point. They helped provide some perspective. The kingdom is within. The esoteric tradition and Gnostic gnosis align a lot with Gungor’s experience. I think this is reality. The traditions will find this difficult and they are boxed in, but you can’t put this in a box. See the Eleusinian mysteries. More and more are waking up to just this. Nothing can separate you from love. Though culture and tradition try to. Letting my faith go, brought so much more. Burning my boxes, opened everything up.