Which Apocalyptic Faction are you?

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Quiz Questions

1.
Your ideal Saturday morning:
- A.
  Reading a memoir of someone from the same kind of church you left, just to make sure you were right.
- B.
  Drafting a post that opens “I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but.”
- C.
  Fixing something at church that nobody asked you to fix.
- D.
  Twenty minutes of silence before you touch your phone, which you will later describe as “a practice.”
2.
The apocalypse happened. The world as we knew it has ended. What do you do next?
- A.
  Sit in the dark and wait until you know what you actually feel.
- B.
  Say out loud what just happened, before somebody spins it.
- C.
  Start figuring out where we go from here. There’s always a road out.
- D.
  Call the 3 people who need to know you’re still alive.
3.
We ranked the ten things the God-pods talked about most. Politics got 40% of episodes. Loneliness got 13%. Which topic grabs you first?
- A.
  Deconstruction. 361 episodes — the most popular topic and you’re not done.
- B.
  Loneliness. 143 episodes, and you suspect it’s the real one underneath all the others.
- C.
  Immigration and ICE. 309 episodes, and every one of them should have been louder.
- D.
  Cost of living. Whether people can pay rent got 166 episodes and almost no airtime. Somebody has to bring the casserole.
4.
Deconstruction outran reconstruction 2 to 1 by episode and 5 to 1 by mention. Your feeling about that ratio:
- A.
  Fine. You take things apart slowly. You’re in no hurry to rebuild.
- B.
  Correct. Anyone who says they’re “done deconstructing” is lying or tired.
- C.
  Alarming. Somebody has to build the thing. It’s apparently you.
- D.
  Irrelevant. Deconstruct faster. There’s a fascist in the building.
5.
AI came up in 269 episodes, and the takes weren't positive. The only disagreement was whether it’s dangerous (“the platforms have become the plantation”) or pathetic (“AI slop”). You:
- A.
  Worry less about the machine than about what it’s doing to your attention. Get quiet.
- B.
  Are keeping the paper books and the handwritten notes. Somebody has to.
- C.
  Will try it, hate it, and use it anyway. Consistency was never your thing.
- D.
  Said “plantation” before they did, and you’re going to keep saying it.
6.
Nobody on thirty podcasts defends eternal conscious torment as their own view. Not once. The disagreement was between universalism and annihilationism. You are:
- A.
  "The very idea of hell is blasphemy to a just and loving God.” You’d say it from a pulpit.
- B.
  Not saying. You’ve found it doesn’t help anyone to know your view on hell.
- C.
  Annihilationist, quietly. The tradition has more room than people think.
- D.
  Universalist. Once hell went, a lot went with it, and you kept walking.
7.
Stay in the church or get out? The God-Pods disagreed. You:
- A.
  Stay and make it uncomfortable. Leaving means abandoning the queer kids to it.
- B.
  Left. Didn’t start appreciating scripture until you did.
- C.
  Stay. Somebody has to keep the lights on for the people who can’t leave.
- D.
  Stay. Back row. With a practice nobody knows about.
8.
Could God have stopped it? Forty quotes across ten shows say God’s power is persuasive, not coercive. Nine say God can just act. You:
- A.
  Take “the fellow sufferer who understands” and call it enough.
- B.
  Would like the old prayers to still work, and you say them anyway.
- C.
  “A God who could have prevented X, Y, and Z is not worthy of worship.” You said it out loud.
- D.
  Dropped the omni-doctrines a while ago and haven’t missed them.
9.
Alfred North Whitehead got 861 mentions across 17 shows, a wider reach than the cost of living. A horror podcast used him to explain Saw. To you, Whitehead is:
- A.
  “Sort of the process guy.” You picked him up on the road and he’s still in the car.
- B.
  You’d like someone to define him before we move on. Just once. Signposted.
- C.
  You would absolutely use him to explain a man sawing off his own foot. God suffers with.
- D.
  You’ve read Process and Reality. Parts of it twice. In the dark.
10.
Real lines from real God-pods. Pick your kingdom of God:
- A.
  “The kingdom of God is a freaking party and we’re all invited.”
- B.
  “What would the world be like if God sat on Caesar’s throne?”
- C.
  “A vision for the future where peace was created through the presence of justice.”
- D.
  “The kingdom of God wasn’t somewhere else — it was already breaking open within ordinary life.”
11.
John 3:16 is the most-cited verse on across the God-Pods but they had different takes... Deconstruct it, preach it, VBS story ... Your relationship to the first verse you ever memorized:
- A.
  “You taught us the verse, and now you’re fine funding a genocide.”
- B.
  Your mom wrote it on the back of driftwood crosses. It’s staying.
- C.
  You still say it. Slower now. The word “cosmos” does a lot of work.
- D.
  You left evangelicalism. It didn’t leave you. Thanks, VBS.
12.
Hosts said “I don’t know” 8,647 times. That's over 7 times an hour, in 88% of all episodes. Your relationship to that sentence:
- A.
  The sound of somebody still moving. You’ve said it about everything you used to be sure of.
- B.
  Fine, but you’d like it followed by “here’s what we used to say.”
- C.
  The most honest thing anybody says on a podcast.
- D.
  Fine on the small stuff. Not on the things where people are getting hurt.
13.
Dead theologians by episode count: Luther 183, Augustine 134, Bonhoeffer 131, Whitehead 106. The one you actually keep going back to:
- A.
  Luther. Complicated, sure — but he’s in the water you were raised in.
- B.
  Bonhoeffer. 737 mentions, and you notice how few people mention how it ended.
- C.
  Whitehead. Nobody’s finished thinking it through, including you.
- D.
  Augustine. Restless heart, long road, couldn’t stop moving until he died.
14.
Living voices. Whose episode do you click first?
- A.
  Kelly Brown Douglas
- B.
  Richard Rohr
- C.
  John Caputo
- D.
  Diana Butler Bass
15.
Franchise mentions this year: Stranger Things 75, Dune 58, Fallout 40, Mad Max 32, Battlestar 24. Pick your apocalypse:
- A.
  Stranger Things / Fallout. Endure and survive.
- B.
  Mad Max. Witness me.
- C.
  Battlestar. All this has happened before and will happen again.
- D.
  Dune. Fear is the mind-killer.
16.
The God-pods mention alcohol nearly twice as often as everything non-alcoholic combined. Wine alone beats coffee, tea, water, and soda put together. In your TBC glass:
- A.
  The perfect pilsner. Made right, made the old way, by someone who cared.
- B.
  Coffee. Two shows on the roster talk about it more than beer, and you’re with them.
- C.
  The loudest imperial in the building. You did not come here to be moderate.
- D.
  Whatever’s newest on the board. You’ll try eleven and remember four.
17.
Across all the God-Pods, last year “sh!t” was said 1,557 times and “f@cking” 1,204 times. When do you have a potty mouth?
- A.
  Rarely, and it means something when you do.
- B.
  More than you used to. Turns out that rule came from somewhere you left.
- C.
  Some things can’t be described accurately in polite language.
- D.
  Not in the sanctuary. Some rooms are just different.
18.
Trump is in 365 episodes. “Ballot” is in 20. This network talks about governing constantly and elections almost never. One month out, you:
- A.
  Are driving the church van to the polls, like you did last time.
- B.
  Are still figuring out where you’re registered, because you moved again.
- C.
  Have voted, told no one, and gone back to your book.
- D.
  Have said the name 365 times and you’re not stopping in November.
19.
Your closest friend describes you, with love and some exasperation:
- A.
  “You cannot let it go.”
- B.
  "You never settle anywhere.”
- C.
  You disappear sometimes and come back different.”
- D.
  “You keep everything.”
20.
Saturday night in Kansas City, one month before the country decides what kind of country it wants to be. Somebody asks what the kingdom of God looks like when the world feels like this. You say:
- A.
  “Still moving. It looks like a ragtag fleet that hasn’t stopped looking for home.”
- B.
  “Quieter than you’d think. It looks like people who learned how to listen.”
- C.
  Smaller than you’d think. A porch, a garden, and somebody who remembered.”
- D.
  “Louder than you’d think. People who wouldn’t shut up when it cost them.”

Quiz Outcomes

1.
SAND WALKERS — “The Have You Tried Silence Orientation”
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Dune. The desert bloom.Welcome to the Sand Walkers, where we’re not being quiet at you, we’re just being quiet. Our members have read the desert mothers and Frank Herbert and can no longer tell the difference, own at least one book by Richard Rohr they haven’t finished because they keep stopping to sit with it, and will describe any twenty-minute stretch of doing nothing as “a practice.”We’re the orientation that answers “how are you?” with a long pause and means it. Our common room has one lamp, no music, and a sign that says fear is the mind-killer which somebody thought was about Dune and somebody else thought was about Instagram. We know water is sacred — which is exactly why we’re going to drink five IPAs and write somebody a poem about thirst.Your question: What does prayer actually do when the world is on fire?Your gift: Depth. When the rest of us are shouting, you’re the one who remembers how to listen.Your warning: A Sand Walker without a Witness is just a monk with a sourdough starter. Go find one.Your corpus stat: Loneliness got 143 episodes this year and never trended. You noticed anyway.
2.
THE FLEET — “The We’re Not Done Yet Orientation”
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Battlestar Galactica. So say we all.Welcome to the Fleet, where certainty went to die and we packed the body into the trunk and kept driving. Our members have left at least one denomination, one certainty, and one entire tradition, own books from all of them, and are not getting rid of any of it. We’ve been quoting Admiral Adama for a decade. We heard “all this has happened before” in a sermon and did not flinch.We’re the orientation that says “I’m not sure yet” and means yet. Our common room is a moving vehicle. Deconstruction beat reconstruction 5-to-1 on the God-pods this year and honestly that felt low.Your question: Is there a truth or a church worth joining on the other side of all this?Your gift: Direction. When the rest of us are stuck, you remind us we’re still pilgrims.Your warning: The Fleet without the Sand Walkers is Battlestar Galactica Season Three. With all love to Ron Moore. Go find one.Your corpus stat: Battlestar got 24 mentions all year — last of the five franchises. Outnumbered, still flying.
3.
THE REMNANT — “The Somebody Has to Keep This Orientation”
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Stranger Things. Fallout. Endure and survive.Welcome to the Remnant, where we’re grieving and we’re right to. Our members know the hymns their grandmother knew, the saints nobody teaches anymore, and the exact year the church stopped doing the thing that mattered. We’re vault dwellers — not the Vault-Tec kind. A little archivist. A little garden. A little reading group. A porch where neighbors can actually sit.We’re the orientation that stayed in the church so the people who couldn’t leave wouldn’t be alone in it. Our common room is the one with the good chairs, because we kept them. We were annihilationist before it was cool, quietly, like the Lutheran on episode 17. We would like someone to define process theology, out loud, once.Your question: What is worth preserving, and who is going to do the preserving?Your gift: Memory. When the rest of us are building something new, you make sure we know what not to leave behind.Your warning: The Remnant without the Fleet is basically a museum. Go find one.Your corpus stat: Martin Luther turned up in 183 episodes. Five hundred years dead, still the most-mentioned theologian on the roster. Somebody kept that alive.
4.
THE WITNESSES — “The Say It Louder Orientation”
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Mad Max. Fury Road.Welcome to the Witnesses, where we cannot be quiet and we’ve stopped apologizing for it. Our members have been called divisive, uncivil, un-winsome, too online, and too angry. We were right. We saw Fury Road in theaters and we got it. We know what Valhalla means — not the heaven part, the costly part.We’re the orientation that stayed in the church specifically to make it uncomfortable. Our common room has no chairs because we’re standing. The God-pods said “sh!t” 1,557 times this year and we contributed. We will die historic on the Fury Road before we’ll be polite about injustice.(The Greek is martys. It means witness. The church only started translating it “martyr” after it kept costing people everything.)Your question: What does it cost to tell the truth in public right now, and is the church willing to pay?Your gift: Courage. When the rest of us are hedging, you’re the one who names it out loud.Your warning: A Witness without a Remnant is a War Boy with no Valhalla. Go find one.Your corpus stat: Bonhoeffer, 737 mentions. Almost nobody who quotes him mentions how it ended.