6. Derek Webb

The Sacred Slope

Holding Complexity, Finding Solidarity with Derek Webb
🕊️ Music as Resistance | Queer Solidarity | Faith After Certainty

This episode is for anyone who's ever tried to sort through the rubble of their faith and wondered if anything worth keeping could survive. It’s for the ones who still ache for Jesus but can’t return to the version they were handed—and for those learning to stand with the marginalized, even when the cost is high.

It’s also a challenge to churches everywhere: to stop confusing safety with silence—and to make space for complicated people to belong.

💡 Key Takeaways
• A faith audit is not a crisis—it’s a spiritual practice
• Certainty often leads to control, not connection
• Marginalized people show us where Jesus would be
• You don’t have to simplify yourself to be worthy of love

🙏 For Listeners Questioning, Dismantling, and Rebuilding
Derek reminds us that doubt isn’t dangerous—refusing to engage is.

“The practice of spirituality is to never stop trying to kill all the gods you identify… until you find one you can’t.”

A regular audit of your beliefs—especially about invisible and unknowable things—is not just helpful; it’s necessary.

He also shares the story behind his newest project, Survival Songs — an album written in honor of and in deep solidarity with members of the LGBTQ+ community. Inspired by the voices of queer and trans friends and family, this record is both a soundtrack for survival and a love letter to those who’ve been told they don’t belong in the church or in their own skin.

⛪ About Our Guest
Derek Webb @derekwebb is a veteran singer-songwriter whose work spans decades of spiritual searching, cultural critique, and artistic evolution. A founding member of Caedmon’s Call and longtime solo artist, Derek’s albums (Fingers Crossed, The Jesus Hypothesis, Survival Songs) interrogate faith, justice, empire, and identity. Survival Songs is his most personal and community-centered record yet—made for and with LGBTQ+ friends navigating faith, identity, and survival in 2025.

📚 Resources Mentioned
• Survival Songs by Derek Webb
• Church Clarity — https://churchclarity.org @churchclarity
• The Sin of Certainty by Pete Enns — https://peteenns.com/the-sin-of-certainty @peteenns
• The Bible for Normal People podcast — https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com @thebiblefornormalpeople
• 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture — https://1946 themovie.com @1946themovie
• Jennifer Knapp — https://jenniferknapp.com @jenniferknappmusic

🕊️🌿 Community Guidelines 🌿🕊️
If we claim to follow Jesus, we should be known by our love — not by what we say, wear, or perform, but by the fruit of the Spirit:
❤️ love, 💫 joy, ☮️ peace, 🕊 patience, 💝 kindness, 🌿 goodness, 🙏 faithfulness, 🤲 gentleness, and 💪 self-control.

#Christianity, #ProgressiveChristianity, #Exvangelical, #Reconstruction, #Deconstruction, #FaithAfterEvangelicalism, #DerekWebb, #SurvivalSongs, #Jesus, #LGBTQChristians, #QueerTheology, #OpenAndAffirming, #TheSacredSlope, #LGBTQ, #PrideMonth

Music on this episode from Derek Webb: Survival Songs

Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender—raised in or rooted in Christianity, exploring its many expressions.

🔗 Explore episodes & community: linktr.ee/TheSacredSlope
🎙️ Hosted by Alexis Rice
🎵 Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin & Sean Spence
📬 Nominate a guest: [email protected]