John Pavlovitz is a former megachurch pastor based out of North Carolina, the owner of a blog that reaches millions of people worldwide and the author of two books which offer a message of positivity and hope.

Pavlovitz’s blog discusses Progressive Christianity, which is a movement in Christianity which seeks to question tradition, accepts human diversity and places a strong emphasis on social justice.

“If I were writing those things 10 years ago,” Pavlovitz said on The Aaron Keck Show last week. “I would be sort of in this a small Christian subculture, but now the writing has reached a large audience which really tells me people are asking the same questions. They’re feeling the same prompts really regardless of their religious tradition.”

Pavlovitz said his message is that, at its best, religion is always going to expand the proverbial table.

“I think all faith traditions at their best are always going to try to raise the voices of marginalized people, always try to create equality overall spheres.”

Pavlovitz’s latest book, Hope and Other Superpowers: A Life-Affirming, Love-Defending, Butt-Kicking, World-Saving Manifesto, is described by Pavlovitz as “the book the world needs right now.”

In this day and age of social media, Pavlovitz said, people are living their lives for public consumption. This takes a toll on us, which in turn causes us to forget about the baseline traits of humanity.

“So this book is really just a reminder about who we are and what’s important to us and why we’re here.”

According to Pavlovitz, the core question at the heart of the book is: what kind of person does the world need? However, that answer will be different for every person.

“There is a gap that we can fill in the world,” Pavlovitz said. “And then it’s realizing sort of through our gifts and through our talents and through our circle of influence, we have this sort of really specific way that we can fill those gaps.”

Pavlovitz said that his story was shaped by a gay couple that he met in college while working for a catering company, which in turn set him on a path to becoming a progressive Christian.

“They were my family and they helped me realize that I never should settle for a false story about anyone. And that really sort of began the process of me of being a progressive Christian. So I really owe a debt to them, to their kindness.”

Over the past few years, Pavlovitz has gone from a fired church pastor to a blogger who reaches millions of people across the world. He said that the thing that has stuck out to him about his journey is the multitude of people that he has been able to reach.

“A lot of people believe in what it means to be a person of empathy and compassion and then what you see is people reaching across lines of politics and religion and nation of origin. So that’s been the encouragement for me doing this work.”


Listen to the complete interview with John Pavlovitz on The Aaron Keck Show: