Dr. Rachel Kessler explores pop culture, faith deconstruction, and spiritual curiosity on TikTok and beyond on Compass: Finding Spirituality in the Everyday.
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What do Star Wars, the Muppets, and Farscape have to do with faith? In this episode, Dr. Rachel Kessler—known online as The Nerdy Priest—joins Ryan to explore the surprising intersections between pop culture and spirituality. We dive into how shared stories from books, movies, and fandoms can spark meaningful conversations about faith, belonging, and the journey of spiritual curiosity.
Discover why nerd culture sometimes mirrors church community—for better and for worse—and how online spaces can help break down barriers to faith. Dr. Rachel Kessler wears many hats: Episcopal priest, chaplain, professor, and author of Nerd Faith: 60 Second Sprints of Spiritual Guidance for the Occassionally Uncool. Her unique ministry began when a student set up her TikTok account, propelling her into a digital community hungry for honest engagement about God, deconstruction, and what it really means to be Christian. Whether discussing universal salvation, spiritual skepticism, or gatekeeping in both church and fandom, Dr. Rachel Kessler brings a rare blend of humor, depth, and authenticity.
Episode Notes:
Connect with Dr. Rachel Kessler through her website: www.nerdypriest.com
In this episode:
(00:00) Introduction to Rev Rachel Kessler
(05:08) Birth of The Nerdy Priest
(08:15) Engaging spirituality through pop culture
(11:07) Navigating controversial questions in faith
(14:05) Handling criticism and online engagement
(17:04) Exploring nerd faith and community
(20:02) Lessons from nerd culture for the church
(22:52) Personal journey and mentorship in faith
(25:52) Fictional narratives as faith allegories
(29:00) Final thoughts and connections
Related Episodes:
- Spirituality in the street with Rev. Tyler Sit
- AI, ethics, and the spiritual journey with Nerd Pastor Nate
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Thank you for listening, downloading, and subscribing.
This episode posted on July 8, 2026
Episode Transcript:
Ryan (He/him) (00:00)
What are you watching these days? It might have something to teach you about your spiritual journey. So let's explore that with Reverend Dr. Rachel Kessler here on Compass.
Hey, welcome to Compass Finding Spirituality in the Every Day. We're gonna talk with the nerdy priest, Rachel Kessler. She leads us on an exploration of how pop culture and faith intersect in our lives. Rachel has gained notoriety on TikTok and Instagram, courtesy of a mischievous student, and continuing through her honest reflections on deconstructing faith traditions. Dr. Rachel shares in this episode how she brings authentic
spiritual conversations out of the church walls and into our digital spaces. If episodes like this are valuable to you, then please hit the subscribe button on your podcast listening platform. If you've already done that, then take the next step and rate and review the Compass podcast. It really helps us and helps other people know what kind of conversations we have and how this podcast helps connect our lives to the spiritual. So thanks much for that. Rachel Kessler
AKA, the Nerdy Priest, is the rector of Harcourt Parish Episcopal Church and a campus chaplain at Kenyon College. She's just released the book Nerd Faith: 60-second sprints of spiritual guidance for the occasionally uncool. It's a series of short, easily digestible questions and answers, which aims to provide alternative perspective on big theological questions like.
How many communion wafers make one whole Jesus? And whether the Borg from Star Trek are a good metaphor for the Holy Trinity. Whether you're a lifelong believer, an ex-vangelical or simply spiritually curious, this episode invites you to find meaning and connection through the stories that shape our world. From Star Wars to Farscape, which I just learned about, to the enduring wisdom of the Muppets.
I love episodes like this. Let's get to it.
Ryan (He/him) (02:17)
is it Doctor? Doctor Rachel Kessler. I th I feel like we can use that. I saw the PhD there. yeah. Reverend Doctor. Excellent.
Rachel (02:18)
You
It's true, yes, Reverend Doctor. Some of my students call me
Reverend Doctor Professor Priest Mom.
Ryan (He/him) (02:31)
Okay. all right. I'm gonna have to abridge that a little bit, but yeah. So well, thank you so much for joining us on compass. how goes it with your soul today?
Rachel (02:34)
There you go, yes.
gosh. You know, I mean, I think all right, actually. I'm feeling fairly settled in. And maybe it's the summer. It's the summer. Things are relaxed, and we're getting settled in for a new year. aside from the unsettled reality of the world around us in which we live, I think in my microcosm of life, it's all right.
Ryan (He/him) (02:49)
all right. Yeah, huh.
Yeah.
Yes.
The the sphere that you can control and influence is feeling all right. Well good. Well this is one of those weird situations that I I I guess we just kinda have to get used to in this day and age where I I I feel like I
Rachel (03:13)
Yes. Yes.
Ryan (He/him) (03:24)
I've known you for a while because you you've had this presence on the internet and especially through TikTok that I've been following for really, I guess, a couple of years now. and that's the Nerdy Priest channel on TikTok. a lot of people have come to get you get to know you that way. what started you doing that channel? What was your inspiration?
Rachel (03:28)
Yes.
That's awesome. Yes.
I,
by inspiration was my student who stole my phone and made my TikTok account. So, I believe they came up. I can't remember if that was, I used to have a little tiny private Instagram that maybe was the Nerdy Priest. So they might've gotten, which was like 15 followers. So they may have gotten it from there, but they definitely created the Nerdy Priest TikTok account because they really wanted me to be on TikTok.
Ryan (He/him) (03:51)
So did they come up with the nerdy priest then? They they hoisted that on you?
Okay.
Rachel (04:11)
and thought that I should be on TikTok. And I was like, but I'm not a cool priest. The cool priests are on TikTok. And my first video is actually, it was our Shrove Tuesday pancake supper in 2020 of people making pancakes set to the Cantina band song from Star Wars. And then COVID happened as right, like it was right at the time when the students went to spring break and did not come back.
Ryan (He/him) (04:16)
Mm.
Hm, okay. Yeah.
Rachel (04:40)
is how that went down here on our campus. so in the midst of all of that, think looking for some kind of outlet for my own just pandemic era muddled brain to have a creative pastoral outlet, started making some content and videos on TikTok. And I realized actually one of the people
Ryan (He/him) (04:41)
Yeah. Okay.
Rachel (05:08)
was Abraham Piper. I don't know if you followed Abraham Piper. So this is John Piper's son who was posting, and he doesn't really post much anymore, but in that like 2020, 2021 time, he was posting a lot. And that was one of the things that made me realize, oh, I can just like talk. I can just make talky videos and I have things that I could talk about. And he was talking about, you know, faith deconstruction type.
Ryan (He/him) (05:12)
No. Okay. Hmm. Interesting. All right.
Yeah.
Rachel (05:37)
stuff being the son of John Piper, as he was, is. And so I think that really got me just making sort of making videos as an outlet and then realizing that there are a lot of people out there who want to engage with genuine content. And one of the things I started doing was talking about being a former evangelical and things like fear. I think one of my first posts that really gained traction was about fear of the rapture.
Ryan (He/him) (05:40)
Yeah. Hmm.
Mm.
Rachel (06:06)
and being like, this is a thing other people experienced and resonate with. And things kind of came from there.
Ryan (He/him) (06:06)
yeah.
Hm.
Yeah. Well you now you seem to have worked into this niche of relating the spiritual to to pop culture. A lot of times that's the lens.
in in doing those kinds of videos and and in reaching really well beyond what no many of us would consider the the normal parish, you know, you're interacting with any number of people who may come from various spiritual backgrounds. what have you really discovered about people's spiritual curiosities through that space? What kind of questions are they asking?
Rachel (06:32)
Yeah. Yes, absolutely.
People want genuine engagement, right? They want the church to be engaging honestly and critically with questions of faith, spirituality, God. And I think what works is I, you know, I don't have a gimmick per se that is like faith. I'm not approaching that as a gimmick. That is just what I do. Like I like pop culture. I like Jesus.
Ryan (He/him) (07:13)
Mm.
Rachel (07:16)
I am in the church and I used to write my church, the church that I served before I came to my current position. I did a blog that was just a weekly reflections on something and it often was, it just ended up being what I was watching, what I was reading. And so I think it's just like, I engage with a lot of media. I read a lot. I watch a lot of TV. enjoy, I enjoy media and I have, I have a PhD in literature.
Ryan (He/him) (07:16)
Yeah.
Rachel (07:46)
Right? Like I like over analyzing things shockingly enough. And so it just happens to be the lens that I'm going to bring to the media that I'm critiquing is going to be based in my faith and my perspective. Right. That's that's how I view the world. And one of the things that I do is write my 60 second sermons that I do every week, which is based on the actual sermon that I preach to my congregation in purpose.
Ryan (He/him) (07:47)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (08:15)
person on a Sunday morning usually is taking just whatever is the central illustration of my sermon that week and condensing it into a little mini version of that for TikTok or Instagram reels.
Ryan (He/him) (08:16)
Mm.
I get a kick out of seeing the comments where other church leaders or ministers are kind of anticipating what you're gonna say because it's like, I'm gonna bring this into my sermon because no.
Rachel (08:38)
Yes!
I've occasionally
had people ask me if I can post them slightly earlier in the week, but that would involve far more advanced planning on my part. I have to get a week ahead of the lectionary on that. I probably should. Usually I am posting them on Sunday mornings right before, right before I get, it's like my, partially it's how I make sure, cause I don't preach from a manuscript. So part of it is just me articulate, making sure I have the main articulated point of my sermon.
Ryan (He/him) (08:46)
Yeah.
No, okay.
Rachel (09:12)
in my head before I go into my in-person congregation. But to bring it around to the initial question you were asking about what people are seeking, think part of why that resonates is because it's authentic for me. It is authentically how I engage with my faith and authentically how I am engaging with the media that I am consuming. So I think it.
Ryan (He/him) (09:23)
Yeah.
Rachel (09:40)
the people for whom it resonates are because it's, I'm bringing genuine, my own genuine thoughts and reflections about media that is more common or more mainstream. And I think that's the part that is connecting. And I think that's what people are hungry for.
Ryan (He/him) (10:01)
So are there are there consistent questions that you tend to see in in your work, especially on TikTok?
Rachel (10:10)
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the big ones, right, we can we can jump into the controversial, the controversial stuff. One of the things I talk about a lot is belief in universal salvation, right? The idea of universal reconciliation with God. And that one, that one gets people a lot. And when I talk about, know, there is that sense of, you know, but why why bother being a Christian? Why bother believing if you're just going to get saved?
in the end. And I think the very honest sense of like, what about, right? The what about Hitler questions, which are really understandable. What is the line of justice and redemption and reconciliation? And I think the what about, like the why be a Christian question is one that I think for me gives us a really big opportunity to talk about it, right? OK, so what do we understand salvation to be? Like, it's not.
Ryan (He/him) (10:46)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (11:09)
Is salvation a prize, or do we actually understand salvation as being a restored and reconciled way of living into relationship with God and our neighbor? And that framing changes the question a lot. And then I get a lot of questions about why are you still a Christian? Why bother being, how do you reconcile with the fact that Christianity has many?
problematic elements and many problematic expressions, right? And I think that's a very, I think that's a very genuine question and one that we have to be willing to answer honestly and not just fall into the trap of, not all, hashtag not all Christians or they're not the, you know, the no true Scotsman. Well, they're, yeah, but they're not the real Christians. I think you have to sit with, be willing to sit with the honest.
Ryan (He/him) (12:02)
Mm.
Rachel (12:09)
tension of that.
Ryan (He/him) (12:10)
Yeah.
Well, that's what makes your voice so important in a space like that, where it does challenge people to broaden their sense of what a Christian voice sounds like or what a Christian voice says or presents. with that though, you invite
Rachel (12:22)
Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Ryan (He/him) (12:30)
A lot of pushback. And in in my work I find that the most critical voices are from those within the church universal. I don't know if you found that to be the same in in your work or not. how do you find yourself dealing with those critical voices? Is it just the block button?
Rachel (12:32)
Absolutely.
Yes.
mean, I think it,
I am so liberal with the block button. You have no, I make no apologies for blocking people. One of the things, you know, the late of blessed memory, Rachel Held Evans, one of the things I remember that she would talk about is having on her computer, like tell the truth. And that's one of the, like, I don't owe.
Ryan (He/him) (12:53)
Yeah, I got it.
Rachel (13:15)
Any of us, me personally, any of us who are doing this digital online work, right? What we owe audiences is honesty and authenticity and faithfulness. We don't owe anyone access to us just because we have chosen to do work online. And I am pretty firm with not opening myself up to any.
Ryan (He/him) (13:28)
Mm.
Rachel (13:44)
engagement that is not respectful of me, my personhood, my time. And I'm pretty clear on that. And there have been times that I've blocked people and they have followed me to another platform and like demanded to know why or looked up my email and antagonized me. like, you are not making the case for why I should not have blocked you. You're like, yeah.
Ryan (He/him) (13:57)
Mm. Wow.
Hmm. Right. Yeah. This is not a healthy healthy expression
of a of a dialogue. Yeah.
Rachel (14:12)
Absolutely. So I think I think for there
there are I'm pretty I'm pretty liberal with blocking people because I think like I I mean the work that I do online I do on top of my actual jobs and my multiple jobs and I'm very grateful like I think my parish leadership understands online like the the work of online ministry and and is happy for me to do it but I'm also mindful of of my time.
Ryan (He/him) (14:36)
Mm, mm-hmm.
Rachel (14:41)
and that this is something I'm doing on top of a lot of other things. And so I just have, in terms of stewardship, I can't necessarily give time to every critique. If there is something that I feel like is an honest question, if someone is approaching with an honest question of like, how do you make sense of this? I genuinely don't understand how you cannot believe in hell, like a hell of eternal conscious torment.
Ryan (He/him) (15:05)
Yeah.
Rachel (15:10)
Given that, right, I'll engage, right? Because I do think that question and answers and being in conversation is really important and is a gift of online platforms. But there's a line between that and just trolling. And I also think that progressive Christians don't need to play defense.
in this regard, right? Like there is a sense of, and this is something I had to kind of get over in my own head, in my own journey, like kind of coming out of a much more conservative evangelical background is like that, that conservative, you know, from certain conservatives, whether it's conservative evangelicals, or I got a lot of Catholics, the Catholics love, love getting at me, calling me back to the one true church. Like I'm not, I'm not accountable to them.
Ryan (He/him) (15:40)
Hm.
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (16:07)
Like, I'm not accountable to them for my reading of scripture or my understanding of the faith. So again, I will have honest engagement and question, but I'm not going to defend myself to someone who is putting me in a position to need to defend myself and isn't looking for honest, mutual understanding. Right? And I do, I know some clergy women online who have muted Timothy.
Like they just have the word Timothy muted in their filters because like so many people that will just drop, just is it, I don't even know off the top of my head if it's first or second, they'll just drop scripture references. It's the people who just drop scripture references in the comments. And you're like, I'm rethinking my entire vocation because of you. Good job. Yeah.
Ryan (He/him) (16:39)
hm. For that kind of clobber passage of yeah.
Yeah. And your and your passing com that that yeah.
Yeah. That you trolled around just looking for somebody who is yeah, you can throw it at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk about something a little bit more fun. How about that? let's get into some nerd faith in the the book that you've released, which actually it's called nerd faith. And it you've put together these short, accessible
Rachel (17:04)
Yeah.
Yay.
Woohoo! Yeah. It is, yes.
Ryan (He/him) (17:21)
Reflections. It sounds like maybe they were based out of your 60 second sermons. And why do you think that in they're really concentrated around the pop culture stories that we share? So things from TV or books or other fandom areas. And why do you think that these these stories, these narratives,
Rachel (17:25)
Yeah.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Ryan (He/him) (17:43)
Provides such a good platform for leading into conversations about faith.
Rachel (17:51)
they're like they are both like they're very universal for the most part whether you're talking about like the Lord of the Rings or something like Ted Lasso like these are things people know and are familiar with but may have not ever thought about in a way as pointing to something bigger and so I think it gives people an opportunity to go like that actually there's a I never thought that there could be a connection between like the church stuff over there.
in the building and these stories that are out here. And so I think it invites people to make connections between something like faith that can feel like a very rarefied thing that exists in this very set box with what feels like much more accessible stories or parts of culture.
Ryan (He/him) (18:22)
Mm.
Well for you it sounds like it's a way of of tying together your own spiritual experience with some of of your lived experience. and and it
Rachel (18:52)
Absolutely. Yeah, for sure.
Ryan (He/him) (18:56)
It's funny that you put that as a, you know, kind of coming out in a nerdy way. I have a friend Nathan who says that everybody's a nerd for something, right? We all have our nerdy areas. Like right now, a lot of people are nerdy for soccer and some people are nerdy for music, other people are nerdy for anime. And and and with that, maybe comes the feeling that, well, occasionally we are i uncool because we're set in this space where our our interest sets us apart from other people.
Rachel (19:01)
Mm-hmm.
You should be, yes.
yes. Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Ryan (He/him) (19:26)
and a lot of people bring that sense of of apartness into the feeling of of church connection and spiritual community where they feel like their interests or the things that they have questions about maybe set them apart from the the faith community in general.
Rachel (19:35)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Ryan (He/him) (19:47)
And
I'm wondering if you have a perspective of what nerd culture might be able to teach us about community and belonging. For those who maybe feel like, I don't know, I I have these questions and I just don't think like a church is a place for me to connect and process those.
Rachel (20:02)
Hmm.
I mean, I think like I think fandom culture creates belonging, right? And it gives space for belonging and shared language. I actually want to turn the conversation a little bit because you asked me this question before when I was thinking about it. I actually think there are there's cautionary tales from nerd culture and fandom that the church can be aware of.
Ryan (He/him) (20:19)
Cool. Okay.
Mm, okay.
Rachel (20:30)
Because one of the things
that fandom culture can be not great about is gatekeeping. Right? Like, are you a real fan? you like Star Wars? List three characters that don't occur in the original trilogy. you know, we're constant. There is this sense of, especially when we have not felt like we belong, finding belonging in a fandom.
Ryan (He/him) (20:36)
Mm. Yeah.
Rachel (20:59)
Suddenly that sense of belonging can be threatened if it starts feeling like others are coming in. And we want to protect the purity of this thing we love that has given us a sense of belonging. so we put a bunch of, there can be a tendency to put barriers around it. The Star Wars fandom is particularly, like maybe the worst of all of them about this. Don't get me started.
Ryan (He/him) (21:19)
Mm.
Rachel (21:28)
And so I think what the church can be, I think the cautionary tale from fandom there is for the church to be wary of gatekeeping and be wary of the sense that you have to prove yourself or pass some litmus test in order to have that belonging. And that it's it's really the curi, you know, someone is drawn to the church, the church or a faith community of any kind out of
Ryan (He/him) (21:38)
Hm.
Rachel (21:58)
a sense of curiosity or openness to embrace that rather than immediately want to put more walls and barriers of entry.
So that's my little flip of that question, perhaps.
Ryan (He/him) (22:15)
So, do you see your book or your TikTok presence as being a way of of breaking down that barrier a little bit?
Rachel (22:23)
I hope so, right? And I think what we all do, I think the idea for many of us who are clergy who have online presences, right? I'm sure you feel this way as well. It is a way to get outside of the walls of the church into the world. And I mean, it's one of the things I love about being a chaplain is that I do get to have conversations with people who are not part of the church.
Ryan (He/him) (22:42)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (22:52)
per se quite often. I think that that idea of wanting to bring the values and the belief and the faith and the hope that I have that's formed in my religious identity as a Christian and as a pastor to the world, not for the sake of proselytizing and conversion.
her say, but for the sake of meeting people where they are and being able to have conversations with people outside of what can feel like a really heavy barrier to the, like, church capital C.
Ryan (He/him) (23:31)
wondering how much what we're talking about reflects your own experience. So you mentioned that y you grew up in kind of a a conservative expression of church and now
Rachel (23:36)
Mmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Ryan (He/him) (23:44)
serve in a role that is or i in a tradition that's probably considered more progressive. Was was there a voice or a mentor or somebody who played the role of Rachel Kessler for the real Rachel Kessler in in your own faith development?
Rachel (23:50)
Yes.
Hahaha
gosh.
I mean, so many people, it's hard to point to one. I mean, one of the weird things about my life is that I currently pastor the church that I attended in undergrad, which is strange. like, you're not, it's not really, you're not supposed to go back and serve as a pastor at a church that you once attended. And mine is, yeah, right? Like, yeah.
Ryan (He/him) (24:04)
Yeah. Come?
Hmm. Yeah?
Right, yeah. Especially as a young person because there's probably that trapping
of people who remember the
Rachel (24:27)
Yes. And I think it's
being an alum and coming back that there's a weirdness to the position that I serve in. And I think because so many people have come back who were alums have come back to work in various capacities at my college. One of the things I love about the community here is they're particularly good at accepting you back as an adult and not seeing you as the person you were at 19.
Ryan (He/him) (24:53)
Mm.
Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Rachel (24:57)
per se,
and I think that's a real gift. But I think there were a number of people that I can point to along the way who started just breaking down kind of the really strict boxes that I had, right? Like my academic mentor, who was also a member of the church, who is now tragically passed on, but like he was just a
He was relatively foul-mouthed and told vaguely inappropriate jokes in class, but was also deeply devout and very joyous and a bit ridiculous. And I think there was something I saw some different way of being in relationship to Christianity through him. I mean, I have the...
Ryan (He/him) (25:28)
Okay? huh. Hmm.
Rachel (25:52)
the pastoral mentor who worked with me when I started attending an Anglican church in Toronto where I was ordained, was just very good at poking the little questions at me. Like, okay, but if we're only saved through faith and if we're saved by our faith, how does our faith not then become the work by which we are saved? And I feel like I sat with that one.
Ryan (He/him) (26:08)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (26:22)
for ages and
just mauled on it for a long time. And it started eroding certain foundations of the Protestant Reformation. you know, I mean, there are so many people, but like one of the, I've already mentioned Rachel Held Evans. I think I was coming to that place of questioning my background and, you know, doing the deconstructing before it was cool.
And I think Rachel Held Evans was really one of the only voices doing this type of work online. And I think we can make, I don't want to make too much of her, but she was the one person who was really prominently and publicly asking a lot of those questions as a deconstructing evangelical and not in a way.
Ryan (He/him) (27:00)
Mm, mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Rachel (27:19)
that was outside of the faith, but someone who was still wrestling with her identity inside the faith. I mean, so I definitely don't mean to suggest I have any kind of the platform that Rachel Held Evans had during her life. But I certainly think about the importance of that work and feeling less alone because of what she was doing was really important.
Ryan (He/him) (27:47)
Well, I think what Rachel Held Evans offered and what I believe I see you offering as well is a a a sense of echo, or healthy echo or identification or empathy, I guess really i is is what it is for for people who are in the spiritually curious space but are are wondering what that that looks like. You know, to be a person of of faith with those
Rachel (27:59)
Mmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Ryan (He/him) (28:15)
with those questions. i so it I suppose you do this all the time. and maybe this is a rudimentary question, but it's challenging for me. Like if you're talking to somebody who's in that space right now, what would you want them to know?
Rachel (28:31)
I mean, that there isn't one specific way to be a Christian, right? And I think that there is space for different perspectives and beliefs and questioning. And I sometime, because I am coming from a quote unquote exvangelical perspective, which I have complicated feelings about that term, but for what it is, coming from that perspective.
Ryan (He/him) (28:55)
Mm.
Rachel (29:01)
I sometimes get asked, right? Another question that I will often get asked is, why do you hate evangelicals so much? Why do you have it out for evangelicals? And I'm like, hey, it's it's my background. I'm not gonna make an anti-Catholic TikTok screed because I didn't come from the Catholic. I have thoughts about the Catholic Church, both positive and negative, but that's not my story to tell and that's not my story to negotiate.
Ryan (He/him) (29:08)
Mm.
Rachel (29:29)
what I have is my experience coming out of the evangelical world with a lot of family who's still in the evangelical world. And I can speak to that. And I can particularly speak to being brought up in a framework that was if you're not a white American evangelical Christian, you're not a Christian, right? That that is the default Christian and anyone else is.
Ryan (He/him) (29:35)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel (29:55)
Other and has to explain how they are truly a Christian to the standard of white American evangelicals and so to the extent that I have an agenda. It is to show that there is another way to be a Christian to not to say these people can't be Christians or they are heretics. We have some opinions about certain manifestations of Christianity at the moment. But to.
Ryan (He/him) (30:16)
Mm.
Yeah. For sure.
Rachel (30:24)
to say they don't get to define what it is to be a Christian. They don't get the last word. don't, you I'm not accountable to, I'm accountable to God. I'm not accountable to them. And so that is what I hope to show in what I do online.
Ryan (He/him) (30:43)
Hmm. Okay. So for that person who is curious, we're gonna get back to the the nerdy faith sense of things here. and and you wanna point towards a story, a book series, a Star Wars trilogy, each one separately on their own, not the whole the arc altogether. is there one that you feel like is just this is such a a great allegory?
Rachel (30:51)
Yes.
Mmm.
Yeah
Yes
Ryan (He/him) (31:12)
For a person wrestling with faith.
Rachel (31:15)
Okay, this is where I get to talk about Farscape, right? Is this where I can talk about Farscape? Are you familiar with Farscape at all? Have you ever heard of it? Okay.
Ryan (He/him) (31:19)
I just di I teed it up. Yep. Take us home.
No. I mean, outside
of the fact that I've seen this nerdy priest person talk about Farscape a few times. Yeah.
Rachel (31:30)
Yes. OK,
so Sci-Fi Channel original series from the 90s. Astronaut American Astronaut goes through. It's a portal fantasy. Space opera portal fantasy goes through a wormhole into the far side of the universe. And it is reckoning with like it is absolutely about from my standpoint, I resonate deeply from the standpoint of faith deconstruction.
because it is a whole, like the whole first series season, he has to come to terms with like, he is the alpha American male and is like forced to radically come to terms with his inability to be the alpha male in this universe. And my favorite character is the female lead who is a like former space Nazi, space, you know, your generic space fascist sci-fi.
Ryan (He/him) (32:27)
Okay, yeah, right.
Rachel (32:29)
character who gets stuck with these people, gets stuck with them, and is deemed then impure by her fascistic space government. So is forced to be with this motley crew of alien criminals. And it's like she is coming to terms with having her worldview and what she understood broken down consistently.
Ryan (He/him) (32:41)
Mm.
Rachel (32:57)
through the series. And one of the bits that I talk about in the book is when she's reconfronted with her commander, the commander who kicked her out, who offers her a chance to go back. And she's like, I don't want to go back to your world, which I find so powerful. And there is another scene where she's confronted with her former best friend.
Ryan (He/him) (33:11)
Mm.
Rachel (33:21)
who calls her a traitor and she's like I'm not a like all of the beliefs and all of the values that the peacekeepers gave me I still hold. I've just learned a different way to live into them and like I mean that that is that is the story of the deconstructed evangelical right.
Ryan (He/him) (33:42)
Yeah. Well
look, you could even argue that that is the story of Jesus, right? That inherited this yeah, inherited this religious system that says, but there's another way of looking at this. Yeah.
Rachel (33:48)
Yeah, right? Right? Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.
So there's many things. And again, the whole idea of like the idea of wonder and the idea of expansiveness and the idea of exploring things that are bigger than the limited reality that you were born into. Also Muppets, you know, the Muppets, the butt, right?
Ryan (He/him) (34:16)
Just throw that
in there.
Rachel (34:18)
Just throw that in. Well, no, like,
so Farscape is made by the Jim Henson company. So all of the aliens are, it's Muppets in space. All of the aliens are Jim Henson workshop Muppets, like Brian Henson was the executive producer of it, but also Muppets. is there a better, is there a better illustration of the body of Christ than the Muppets?
Ryan (He/him) (34:23)
okay. there's Muppets in in Far Escape. Got it.
I don't know, we're gonna need another half hour, Rachel. but so maybe instead of that we can do a we can do a part two or people can can find your channel and you're gonna present this stuff there. I'm gonna be looking for the video about like Muppets as an allegory for the community of faith. W where would you recommend people do do connect with you? Is the the TikTok channel the best way? How's it?
Rachel (34:48)
Sorry, sorry.
Excellent. Fantastic.
TikTok,
and threads. I like threads. So the nerdy, nerdy priest on all of those places.
Ryan (He/him) (35:13)
Do ya? Yeah. Yeah.
Excellent. Yep. Congratulations on winning that handle. That's a good one. And and yeah, thanks so much for joining us and sharing your experience with us.
Rachel (35:18)
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
Ryan (He/him) (35:26)
Once again, thanks for joining us for this nerdy, geeky, fun dive into faith on compass, finding spirituality in the everyday. If you'd like to dig deeper, then head on over to our website umc.org slash compass, where you'll find episode notes and more episodes to explore. We have episodes on Star Wars, Star Trek, more nerd faith, gaming, and a whole lot more. A big thank you to the team at United Methodist Communications for making this podcast possible.
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