Carson T. Clark

Carson serves as a writer and podcast host as well as the Editor-in-Chief for both The Sacred Humanists and Subversive Discourse. He attended Baylor University’s Truett Seminary1 and was ordained as an Anglican priest. He now serves as the Theologian-in-Residence at St. Isidore Episcopal Church and the Chaplain of an ecumenical spiritual retreat center in the Houston, TX area. Because faith has seldom come easily, he has a tattoo that in Koine Greek reads, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” Carson majored in history with a strong minor in Bible/Theology, has an equal love for nerd and sports culture, deeply values hospitality and meaningful discussion, and is committed to pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness wherever it is to be found.

Now the “Behind the Music” version:2

My story involves a lot of abuse and neglect by spiritual leaders, so retaining faith was always an uphill battle until that struggle emerged as an integral part of my faith experience. Born and raised in Republican Pentecostalism, I rejected my spiritual upbringing before temporarily finding solace in the historic Neo-Evangelicalism movement—juuuuuust before the rise of the Tea Party when evangelicalism collapsed back into fundamentalism. The resulting disorientation led to the Anglican tradition, but that too has been a rocky road.

At this point, my faith perspective retains a great deal of theological influence from an older generation of solid evangelical Christians. I still respect the wisdom and legacy of men like William Wilberforce, John Wesley, and Billy Graham. Yet that just ain’t home anymore. It seems I question too much, curse too casually, don’t fit the visual profile, and am overall just too moderate to be part of that straight-laced conservative tribe anymore. The final straw for me was the 2016 election when 81% of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. I’m out.

I’ve become a sacred humanist in recent years. Like secular humanists, I believe in the immense human potential to love deeply, think critically, and enjoy the beauty of the natural world. I strive to be an integrated man of character who has deep feelings, nuanced thoughts, a receptive soul, and close relationships. I also believe in the sheer biological delight of sensual pleasures ranging anywhere from a sunset to whiskey, music to sex. Yet I come at all this from a decidedly sacred angle. To my mind, all of this good stuff isn’t meant to be repressed. Instead I believe God created this amazing world for us, as His beloved people, to enjoy because He wants us to flourish by living into our true selves.

Nothing is as simple as I once thought but therein lies the beauty and wonder. As an interdisciplinary mutt, I seek to rediscover the ancient wisdom of the Church while embracing a grittier vision of The Way of Jesus, a more holistic understanding of the Gospel, a subversive view of the Kingdom of God, and an eclectic means of spiritual formation. The spiritual metaphor of a “journey” is cliché at this point, but it remains apt. These days my faith is deeper, stronger, more nuanced, and less constricted than it’s ever been.

As Cornel West once put it, “I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.” After two decades of spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction, I’ve figured some things out. Obviously I don’t have all the answers, but I’m trying my best to openly share what I’m learning along the way. With my spiritual background I’m definitively not a very mystical fellow, and seldom if ever appeal to direct revelation from God, but I do believe there’s a pastoral calling upon my life to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Though not usually a big Martin Luther fan, here only his words will do: “Here I stand. I can do no other, so help me God.”